001Yes. Good evening. >> Good evening. Welcome to the November 24th, 2025 regular session of the board of education. This is Joe Silio, president of the board of education speaking. Thank you for attending in person or through Zoom. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. of the United States of America to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Due notice of today's meeting has been provided to the public and each member of the board of education as required by law. Tina, will you please take attendance? >> Present. Excuse. >> Yes. >> Present. >> Dr. >> President. Attorneyney. Present >> present. >> Thank you, Tina. At this time, I would like to ask for a moment of silence for Mr. Willis de la Cruz. Mr. Dea
002Cruz started here as a substitute cleaner in 2022 and became a cleaner here at the Garden City Schools in 2023. Mr. Dr. Dea Cruz will be remembered for his dedication to his job and Garden City Schools. Our condolences go out to his family, especially his wife and children. >> Thank you. At this time, I may have a motion to accept the agenda for November 24th, 2025 regular session as presented. >> Second. >> All in favor? I Mrs. Dicapia, will you please provide the treasures report? >> Certainly. Thank you. Uh, this is the treasures report for September 2025. We had a cash balance at the beginning of the month of 55,92,700. We had receipts in September of 3,385,04. We had dispersements of 13,544,555 leaving us with a closing balance of $45,833,649. Thank you. >> So now
003we do the superintendent report. >> Sure. Uh what I'll do first is have um Kayla give her student report. >> All right. So a lot has happened in the last month at all the schools in the district. So, I'm going to start off with marching band. Um, they >> Let's see. Oh, wait. I'm going here. There we go. Wait, wait, wait. Hold on. >> Yeah, I went the other way. Okay. >> All right. I'll start with athletics. Yeah, there you go. >> So, to start off, uh, girls field hockey were the Long Island Champions. Boys soccer were the New York State Champions for the second year in a row. Girls varsity volleyball won the Long Island Championship for the first time in Garden City history and reached the New York State Finals for the first
004time. Varsity football is Nassau County Conference Champions and they will have the Long Island Championship game at noon in Stonybrook on Saturday. And we had two swimming state qualifiers, Maline Gart for the 500 meter freestyle and Katherine Coher the 100 meter butterfly 500 meter freestyle and the 200 meter freestyle. and then to go on to marching band. They placed second at the US band's division 2A national championships. They also earned best color guard, best percussion, and best visuals. And they competed at nationals in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and placed six overall and best earned best music. And this is all under Mr. Delam Monica's leadership. Then we had the high school fall production of Pride and Prejudice. The show was beautifully performed and really really incredible to watch them up there. And then we had Kurtmen at
005the high school which is just kind of a Latinbased competition that a few students go to Yale and there's another school that they go to. >> Yeah, we're trying to get the clicker maybe because of the where where Oh, there we go. >> There we go. Um at Yale, the advanced team placed eighth in prelims and tied for second and the intermediate team placed fifth. And at Heritton, the advanced team actually ended up winning in the finals. That was done by Olivia Olsbrook, Shenicho, Gabriela Tromba, and Nikki Gger. >> So then we have November, which is just trying to be an initiative basically to limit our time on social media here in the high school. I think it's gone really well. We all met up during the gym classes with Mr. Cohen and we kind
006of put goals down. So if you walk in the high school and you walk past the cafeteria, we all have the papers up of different grades and what our different goals are to limit our time on social media. And then we have the cast. >> Wait, can I ask you one quick thing about the no so November. Were you guys as students surprised to see because I know Mr. Stein Grouper was saying that you guys all had to take out you're not allowed to use your cell phone but take out your phone to see how how much time you spend on I I guess on social media. Yeah. >> Or screen time rather. say definitely. A lot of people were like, "Wow, I didn't realize I had a lot of screen time." Um, I read
007on my phone. So, that was what that was from. Um, but a lot of people don't realize what happens in the background. So, if you like leave Spotify open, it can say you were on Spotify for 6 hours. But other than that, like a lot of people were like, "Wow, I didn't realize I was on TikTok for 4 hours. I didn't realize on Instagram for three hours." So, a lot of the goals that you see up there are like, "I would like to limit my time on social media by half. I would like to put a time limit on Tik Tok for 30 minutes a day, which Tik Tok actually is a really great feature that you can do that and set a time limit for yourself with a password. Um, but I've actually heard
008a lot of people talking about it because they it was kind of a shock in the gym when we went across that. So that was >> and this was uh I think the uh the digital citizenship um from that committee or the PTA help helped with this event. >> Yeah, >> you can do it on all your kids phones. I do it on any device my app so it turns off. >> Yes, you can. Um, and then we had the cast club. So that's students in the high school are part of a club, a science club and they go to Stuart and they also normally go to Straford and you just do interactive activities with the kids. You teach them science fair projects. Last year I went on the trip. We made lava lamps with
009them and that was really awesome. So they did that and then we had Veterans Day celebrations all across the schools. So we had veterans come to the schools. We also had flags put up at the high school and it was just a really great activity to really honor our veterans. The last thing I would like to highlight is that we have a lot of performances happening at the both international level we'll say from high school members. So Ava Nat was on the voice and she bought through and I believe playoffs will begin December 1st. That's the fourth round of The Voice. She's on team Nile if anybody watches. I'm a big fan. >> Um and I think it's the live shows. So everyone should join in next week to watch her live. That should be
010incredible. And then just for our primary schools, we had Thanksgiving celebrations happening this week. So everyone's very excited for Thanksgiving. >> All right. Thank you, Kayla. And uh for my report um this is it's really nice because Kayla sends out really uh communication to all our principles and really guess the highlights from the different buildings. So lots of wonderful things happening in our district. Um and I don't know if um how many of you saw the our uh production of Pride and Prejudice. It was unbelievable. >> And students spoke in the British accent throughout the whole It was unbelievable. It was >> that you have a Long Island accent, you know, like they sustained very well. >> I mean, honestly, it was college level. You forgot that you were at a watching high school students
011and the set was just uh unbelievable. So, really want to thank our teachers, Miss McLaclin, uh our new uh English teacher, Miss Lella. Am I saying her name correctly? Ariet Lachella and the Miss Galore. Unbelievable. They were uh really great. Um the other thing I wanted to mention off of what Kayla said, I had the opportunity to visit Stratford today and um you know the our students from the cast, the high school group, they were working with our our um at at Stratford. They Stuart was last week, Stratford was this week. And I have to tell you, it was unbelievable to see our high school students. I mean, they were unbelievable with our children and what they was on electricity. And so, they were really helping them make these cards um Thanksgiving cards. But what
012was more um beautiful was it was in Miss Lang's class. Uh she was one of the teachers, I don't know if you know, from Stratford. So she was so excited to see her high school students who are now and she remembers I mean that is she remembers all of her students and then she showed her uh pictures class pictures from each year with all the students name and that excitement I think that what I want to highlight is the connections that our teachers do make with our students. It lasts forever. It was it was beautiful. The other thing from Stratford that I also wanted to share with you is this um these coffee sleeves that if we could pass this to there you go some coffee sleeves there. This is the second year Miss Penso
013who's a fourth grade teacher. She works with um you know the um the French connection right? Am I Yeah. That's what I meant. French workshop. Sorry about that. It is unbelievable. These these were created by our students. these coffee sleeves and um and you guys can keep one if you'd like. There are student artwork on there. So, this week if you go to the French workshop, you will see uh you'll get if you order coffee or tea, you'll get one of these sleeves that are made from our students. Okay, one other item that I wanted to mention is um uh Kayla also talked about our athletics. We It's been an unbelievable season. So I was at the football game on Saturday and one of our alums was there and I think Mr. Silia you may
014remember was a couple Sawyer Sawyer do you remember him when we had the student group come in our high school student. So he was there and he um and his uh brother who's a senior um here who's a football player. So was asking him how are you doing and he goes to John Hopkins and he was really talking about how well prepared he was for college. He spoke specifically about physics that he learned so much here in our high school that uh when he went to college he still relied on the materials that we um and it's really Dr. Slater, he was there also. And then of course I ask about the other areas. Writing is one of them. And he he was like, "No, very well prepared for college." So that's always nice to
015hear from our alums. All right. Some of the teacher accolades. So we have um um Elizabeth Dukeman. She's a teacher at Locust and she was awarded the Long Island School Hero Award. And again, this is another and this is a coalition against bullying. Um she was featured in News Day. We also uh had her in um one of our press releases and just really uh this is a wonderful uh recognition for Miss Dukeman. Okay. And we also have coach uh Fenel. Congratulations to him. He was inducted into the National Intercolastic Lacrosse Coaches Hall of Fame, which is pretty incredible. And that was on October 18th. So he has guided the Trojan to 304 victories, 14 Nassau County Championships, 10 Long Island Championships, and six New York State Championships. So congratulations to Coach Fenel. We also
016had our um commitment day. We had 34 students um in our um for the uh college commitment ceremony. So we had a quick video that Mr. Ramirez created for you to see. Go ahead, Tina. Heat. Hey, hey, hey. I think this is the most we've had. Uh 34 students, >> 20 girls, 14 boys. >> Yeah. Um anyway, congratulations to our to our students. Uh we also had the elementary literacy and math family night uh event last week. It was very well attended. uh Miss Kaufman and Miss Cardella along with our teachers really coordinated at this event for our parents and children to learn together and followed that same evening we had the a book fair after a long long time I think it's been several years um that we had hosted a book fair and
017it was again a wonderful event what was best for myself and know Dr. Bowman was there as well is to see the the children at the book fair purchasing books and our parents really talking about how it brought them back to their days when they were in school with the book fair. So it was again another wonderful event. We also have um workshops through uh our pupil personnel services that Miss Vavona has really worked toward coordinating. I think how many do you have there? Six workshops. One one was just last week again. well attended and there those top the topics are wonderful topics for all parents to really these are virtual sessions. Uh we'll put them up on the website so parents can um attend any of these workshops. Okay. Um let's see and then
018just some some events that are just uh um really special in our district. the toys for tots kickoff that was at um our students Steuart students were involved with this and they go to uh to the mall each year to start the toys for tots. Uh what's nice about it is is uh Miss Brenda McCarthy and um Donna Welch from uh Homestead, they really coordinate this effort and it's a it's wonderful. I don't think the kids ever forget this u this event at the um at the mall. And then some other things that we have, we also had the CSEA, they did a holiday food drive. Another wonderful event, this was throughout the district, I think. Um, last few years it's been just the transportation department, but this year it was the entire CSEA group
019and at the transportation department, they're also doing a coat drive. So again, these are just good, wonderful things within our community. And then here's some construction update. Um just you can see the for the addition the foundation how that's being built. Lots and lots of work happening and I think we're still on schedule. Am I right Mr. Capua with the our construction project? You attend every single one of those meetings. >> Um maybe >> we're getting there. >> I think they're um they're moving along. They're they're trying to make up some time of um things that have come up with the foundation, but what you're looking at there is the walls, the cement pill blocks that will make up the new hallway that'll go that'll be connecting the two schools. So, um this was very
020important work to do um before the winter came in and that is going beautifully. >> And this is the irrigation. This is also in is has this been completed or still in progress? >> Um the irrigation is mostly finished. Uh they are still needing to do uh the um the sad, the seating and just the final connections of the electrical on this but the inst you know the uh the heads and the w the piping and all that stuff. >> Good. Thank you. And then um you know we we have the last time when we met we had shared that the district-wide safety plan um that's been on on the website just to get a 30-day comment period. Again this is around the new requirement for a cardiac emergency response plan and and training for
021our staff and students. So that's on our homepage on the website. Um and and we will be adopting it at our December regular meeting. Okay. and we have the early dismissal uh and uh that is uh tomorrow Tuesday and then we're schools are closed on Wednesday and then again for Thanksgiving. So um we have that and then just a couple of other quick things that I wanted to mention and then I'll talk about Mr. Mueller in a minute is um Mr. Curran um for hemlock. He has already started with the transition. So he's been in in uh in the district. He was here last week. He was here again this week. And um just in terms of come December 1st, he'll he'll be at hemlock for hemlock. Hemllock. Yes. And we will make sure with
022our um you know that there I'll uh send a note home to our parents to come stop by to bit to see him and to meet with him. And um there was um yeah I also want to mention Tuesday November 18th we celebrated the school related professionals day and we really want to thank you know we we we don't talk enough about all the other folks within our school system that really make make our district what it is which is our par profofessional our teaching assistants our nurses lunch monitors cafeteria staff hall monitors security personnel IT staff our transportation staff buildings and grounds and our clerical staff. Their contributions really make our district and our schools function and run the way it ought to be. So, we thank them. Um and um just a couple
023of other items on the agenda. Um and I think you'll speak to the the section 8 letter just and then just a couple of other things. We have uh um Mr. McCran who teaches music here at the high school. He'll be retiring. He's he's been here for 31 years and if you have ever gone to his concert, he really takes you on a musical journey. It is incredible watching our students and him on the stage. So that's uh you know we wish him well and his last date here is um February 23rd. Um we wish him well but we will celebrate and honor him at the end of the year when we uh honor all of our retirees. We also have policies on the agenda. Uh there are some for the second reading which we've
024already discussed, some that are for first reading and they're really no major changes. They're really updating the language and there are also some policies were uh eliminating or abolishing because they're no longer they're subsumed under other policies or they're no longer needed. So you have that on the we have the budget calendar that's also on the agenda. We have some transportation contracts. We also have uh donations. So, we'd like to thank uh Mr. Tyler Kak of the New York Knicks for his generous donation of 25 pairs of Puma sneakers for the varsity basketball team. So, we really thank him for um his generosity. We have the scope programs. There are several scope programs on the agenda. Uh we're happy to continue this partnership with scope and uh Mr. Dan's side. He really um takes um
025leads that work in our district working with Miss McLaclin. And so I wanted to end on Mr. Ed Mueller. So he is um you know we Kayla talked about Veterans Day. So that's a huge celebration and we do uh variety of learning experiences for our kids but we bring our veterans in our schools. Mr. Ed Mueller was a teach he's a he's a he's was a veteran but he's also was also a teacher here in our district. So he comes every single year for the celebration when I joined Garden City. Uh he actually had written to me, believe it or not, and with an article that I I have in my office. I was trying to look for it so I could share it with you, but it was so he's going to be turning
026100 next year. Incredible, isn't it? and he comes every year and it is probably the one of the best part of of the celebration for all of us at Stuart school. He taught at Stuart's school and let me see from what year from 1955 to pretty incredible and he is in um he if you were if you come to any of those events it is uh pure joy and the students I don't think they ever forget the celebration we do for our veterans day and then finally December 9th is our work session our focus is going going to be on primary and elementary updates that there our principles are really planning a wonderful session for for our board and our for our community. We're going to have our students here as well for that day.
027And then finally, behalf of our all of us here, we want to wish everyone a wonderful happy Thanksgiving. >> Thank you. Um just to follow up on what Dr. I was saying the board um will be sending a letter to the New York State PHAA appeals committee regarding the suspension of of our coach and student um who I think most are familiar with. But uh we think that um both involved um showed transparency and integrity when when the issue uh was raised. And I think the one thing that the board felt strongly about was is the the young student was particularly uh penalized uh what we think excessively. Um and and we we will be sending a letter signed by the board to the uh and New York State PH SSA committee appeals committee um
028just to to voice uh support for our our student and coach and hopefully you know this issue doesn't pop up in the future but if it does that um they get treated or anybody gets treated fairly because we uh I think we felt that that was not uh handled appropriately. Um, so that's uh that's all I had from my perspective. Do you have anything else from the board? >> Um, so I just wanted to um update on something that um we've been working together as a board. One of our goals is really to increase um transparency with the um community organizations like outside of the board of education. So, we've been making um efforts to attend meetings um at the uh POA meetings this week. Last week, um Aaron and I attended a joint meeting
029with um the Eastern property owners association and the central properties owner property owners association. And then on Wednesday evening, we also attended um a meeting for um the estates property owners association. And and when we are coming to those meetings, we are providing those um community organizations with updates and information about the work of the district. Most recently, we brought um information about the student achievement report. So, um looking forward to having more of those um more of those meetings so that we can hear from all of our community. um we can answer questions and address, you know, concerns and get some of their feedback and thoughts um on on the school district as well. >> And if there was anything else you wanted to add to that. >> Um yes. Well, just in to
030kind of go along with that. Um it was a really nice way to sit down and just talk to people um about the school district. I know um everyone here, you get props for being here. Thank you. Um, but we also know that it's very difficult sometimes to get to board of education meeting. So meeting with people where they are is very important. Um to hear what people have to say, the questions people have and um just in a very general general way um I had I spoke with a couple of people but for future as I'm still learning um questions were asked about um the eighth graders. they're part of that bubble. Um, and what it looks like in terms of preparing for them come to the high school next year. So, just in
031a general sense for answers like that, maybe someone can direct me so I can help answer that question or or obviously I would tell them to come to our ven meeting. Um, but there are questions like that out there and and people just want information and having a conversation I can see is obviously a great way to connect and get people the answers that they're looking for. Um, should I continue? >> Yeah, go ahead. >> Okay. So, um, again, as Deborah and I are new, uh, we've learned about NISBA, which is the New York State School Boards Association, and they are involved in the training of schoolboard members. There's mandated training. So, this summer, Deborah and I attended uh, governance training. >> Yes. It was it was a good time. And financial training. Um, and
032it just gives you a really thorough overview of what your role is. And then there's been other trainings. Um, I was able to attend the NISBA convention uh, virtually, which was a really nice way to be able to do it. And then, um, the NISBA annual business meeting and then there's modules and things like that where board members can go on and learn more about being a board member. Um, it's a really nice resource and it's something that what was that other train? Um, oh, we we did one on governance. >> Yes, we did that was like a lunchtime. >> Yes, a lunchtime webinar >> about how to connect with your local government >> and the importance of how school boards in general are really the most local form of government that you have. Um,
033and it was it was very interesting um and just gave me a broader appreciation. Um, we were able to tour back in it was on election day. Um, we did a tour of the construction site. So, thank you Dana and Dr. Singhoff for taking us around. And we got to see the new baseball and softball fields. Um, the new dugouts, the the the new areas over there. For anyone who's ever been to a baseball game, there's a path now, and there's a fence to protect you so you're not hit by the baseballs. It's great. Um, we got to see the foundations and things being backfilled, and they were working on the irrigation that day. Um, we got to see, you know, where the art classroom's going to be and the physics room and where the
034business the Bloomberg room will be. Um, and see the new boilers. It was a very exciting day. Um, but it was nice to be able to see um, up close on all these projects. So, we appreciated your time for showing us around and and explaining everything. Um, and then just another shout out to the GC Thespians. They were wonderful. The cast and the crew, the teachers in charge, they should be very proud. Um, it was great. Uh, it was great to to see them. >> It's an awesome performance. >> Yeah. >> Back to the signing ceremony, the commitment ceremony. Um, they do quite a thing. Uh, you saw the slideshow. there's cake and um uh but the amount of students that were committed was the largest amount we've ever had. It was 13% of the
035class got signed and there's another signing ceremony in the spring. So that Ed Ramirez is something special and the uh uh forgot his name. He made the slides and he made the kids feel like superstars. >> Mr. Cohen >> Mr. cone. He made them feel like superstars and and all that the families were there and it was just such a warm lovely environment that they created and it's very celebratory. I just have to com commend them for that. Thank you. >> Thank you. Questions. This time is designated for citizens questions or comments. Please step up to the mic, give your name, address, please list all of your questions um for the board and for the administration. Thank you. >> Hi, my name is Sarah Hogan. I live on Kenwood Road and I have two children
036at the middle school. Um Erin must have read my mind because my one of my concerns is that um the current eighth graders have a huge class and I just want to put it on our radar now so that when they show up in ninth grade next year it's not a surprise as it was when they showed up in seventh grade. Um, so I just wanted to make sure that we've thought about that at earlier in the school year like now instead of in September when it happens. Um, also I have I spoke started speaking with uh Mr. Samuelson when my daughter was in sixth grade about seeing if the children could go outside during their home base or recess time in middle school and I was told you know we don't have a fence
037but we're ordering a fence so it'll happen next year. So then the following year I followed up with him and then the fence was on back order. Seems that the fence is there. So um I was on the middle school site base committee. I brought it up and I was basically given a list of like six reasons why this can't happen. But I also work in a school and it does happen in a lot of schools. In fact, I think we're on one of the only middle schools where kids are not outside during recess. I mean, you're taking 11-year-old children. They should be able to go outside. They only have gym every other day. I feel really strongly that there's this is like a researchbased decision that should happen. Um, as a teacher, I read
038a book over the summer called Teach Like Finland. And the efficiency of their time spent in the classroom is higher when they get to go out and play and do things and experience fresh air. And um there are so many reasons why this can't happen, but I think we need to start rethinking this and be in the solution. Every time that I speak to somebody in the administration, I'm sort of told like, well, yes, yes, yes. Well, now my daughter's in eighth grade and she's still not allowed to go outside. So, even if they just had the option, they have the option to go to maker space, why can't it be something similar to that? I mean, as a secondary teacher, I can think of five ways to make this work, but I've only been
039told all the reasons why it can't work. Thank you so much for letting me speak. >> Hi, uh, Tina Marshall, 171 Garden Street. I have two, uh, two questions. One is last year's eighth grade class. How many of the students went to other schools versus coming to the Garden City High School? Oh, you have that. Great. Thank you. And I'm curious how that trends from prior years like if it's the same, similar, more we had a big bump last year with 50. Um it's it goes anywhere between between 20 and 50 kids. However, there's another important statistics. They bounce they bounce back after one year. I don't know that number. But >> I'm curious. My son's in ninth now. So I was just curious how much smaller because I know his classes are smaller in
040nth grade, like the number of students, which is marvelous. But I was just wondering how many. So, it's 50 students from last year's eighth grade that went to other schools. Yeah. Okay. >> All right, ma'am. That's >> okay. Thank you. My other question is, and I'm sure this has been brought up before and it hasn't happened, is is there any option of a late bus? I mean, the high school offers so many amazing afterchool activities. I'm getting a little tired of one day pick me up at 3:30, one day at 5:00. I work full-time. My husband works full-time. I know other parents do too. I know there's a lot of bus costs, you know, busing kids to other schools and whatnot. So, I was curious if there was any reconsideration of a late bus, or
041as an alternative, could there be crossing guards for a longer period of time at both the middle school and the high school, like those major intersections to allow for students to maybe go to the library or or into town as needed? So, that was my other question. Okay. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. >> Here we go. 87 Brook Street. I was here a week and a half ago, whatever it was, uh, discussing dyslexia and my frustration with our programs here. I had a number of questions, uh, multiple potential solutions. Um, I addressed the BOE. I sent a follow-up email with my questions, so nothing got missed. In addition to a couple of more questions, I wanted to know where the BOE stands and what proactively you guys have been doing to address all the
042items that I presented the other day. What have you guys done? >> Last week's meeting. >> Yeah, because I know I had a meeting with Mr. Escobar on Friday. I sent out two emails. I have another meeting scheduled on December 12th with Miss Vivona, Mr. Escobar, and Dr. Singha. So, I as a parent have been able to move forward. I've done a multiple research dis um regarding legislature that has been almost passed, the New York State PTA that passed um solutioning for dyslexia. So, I wanted to know what has the BOE done since my conversation and my emails. >> Lastly, >> yeah, >> you work with the administration. We don't execute on stuff like >> I understand. Have you engaged with the administration? Has there been discussions? Have been meetings planned? >> Engaged but obviously
043they're the vessel to execute and handle the situation. So you need to work through the board. >> I have >> I mean a week time is not sufficient. >> I I'm not looking for a solution. I'm just asking what have been the next steps. I've been taking next steps as a parent. So I wanted to know what the next steps have been taken by the BOE and then I know what I've been doing. So I've been moving along, trucking along, you know, step by step and these issues need to be addressed because now it is the end of November and the school year is going to be coming to an end sooner than later after the holidays and then nothing will get done. So how do we work together? One of the main points that
044I made is that there should be administration. There should be some sort of collaboration between administration, parents, the BOE, teachers collectively to do something. So you can't just punt, right? It can't be like they're the administration, we also have a BOE, right? So I I would appreciate if we can all work together and not just say the administration decides because then my when I was addressing Miss Vavona and Dr. SHA at the last PTA uh BOE meeting I was told to address the BOE so I did right so somebody has to come back and respond if I can't address the administration during a BOE meeting so it's unfortunate right >> we will get back to you >> okay uh Doug Bernstein 121 Whiteall Boulevard in uh Garden City obviously Uh, I'm sorry. What's your name?
045>> I'm here because of Nancy Rigo. I saw in the Garden City News that dyslexia was brought up and that we were going to be discussing it today, that there would be an opportunity that these concerns would be raised and addressed. I would just like to say that this is a pressing matter in terms of dyslexia. Dr. Sinhot, you know my son very well. You met him last year. Um, every day that these kids go to school, they are going and being put in an environment that is extraordinarily difficult and challenging. There is a significant lack of teacher education and awareness. My child is often left to do independent work where the teacher will say, "Well, you could just read, you could just write." And the reality is that he cannot just read and write
046as simply as all the other children that can. When he sits there and he struggles, they make snide remarks that are demeaning and upsetting and he comes home deeply upset. I'm sure my child, like other children in the school, are struggling with this and it's a very very difficult and unfortunate situation. It's pressing. I agree with Miss the other um woman who has who's brought this to our attention. I think is something that we should try to address as expediently as we can. And I know it's difficult. I know it's not easy, but it is. We're putting our kids day in day out. We're putting them into a situation that is deeply difficult for them. And I definitely appreciate um your treating this the way a parent would treat it because every day we're dealing
047with it and it is of the utmost importance for us as a parent and we would love to see that be reflected. So I thank you very much for your time and consideration. >> What grade is your son? >> Yeah, son. Even sixth grades. There's no further questions. At this time, the board authorizes the use of a consent agenda as part of the meeting agenda. Consent agenda will allow for one motion to approve multiple items and and such items are identified on the agenda. President of the board will ask for a motion to approve the consent agenda and we'll ask for the board members if they wish to have a discussion or clarification on any specific item. The board will then vote on the consent agenda motion. In addition, a board member may request to
048have an item removed from the consent agenda and voted on separately. At this time, may I have a motion to approve the consent agenda, which includes business of the board items H1 through H12, personnel matters I1 through I12, business matter items J1 through J27, and special education matters K1 through K3. >> Second. >> All in favor? I. >> Assuming there's no further business, Uh Dr. Sad already shared this, but the next meeting will be Tuesday, December 9th. So work session 7 p.m. here at the Garden City High School and then the regular session will be December 16th at 7:30 at the Garden City High School. At this time, may I have a motion that there being no further business to come before the board that the meeting be adjourned. >> Second. >> All in favor?