Highland CSD Board of Education Meeting 12-12-23

001okay good evening everyone can we please stand for the pledge pledge alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for stands Nation God indivisible and jusice for all thank you um we'll open the meeting up to public comment have any public comments this evening okay we'll close public comment and tonight we have our very special presentation leaders of we ask the elementary school lead it off all right so uh Tani's not here this evening so I'm going to take her place tonight umone come up to talk about you for a little bit of time I'm embarrass you for a all right here we go I'm thrilled to stand before you today to celebrate and recognize an exceptional student who truly embodies the spirit of leadership and excellent at our

002school it is with great pleasure that I present to you fny Perez Cortez a remarkable young individual who has been selected as the recipient of this month's prestigious leader of the pack award um um super is here supporting you our teacher um so I'm going to read a few quick things uh from across the building from different people Jody Miss mcaffrey Fanny is such a wonderful student in music she is always prepared in course and select course and often tells me music facts about composers which I truly love Fanny is a huge asset not to only our music department but to the Highland District way to go fan right coach Helmer Banny is a respectful and responsible student in PE bny is always prepared for class and is very attentive to instructive instruction bny is

003also willing to help her classmates during group games activities on a daily basis and Miss super Henry Fanny is a hardworking student throughout the school day she is polite to both peers and adults during group work fanny can work with any student when speaking to her past teachers they quickly smile and have a share a comment of how it was a pleasure to have Fanny in their classrooms Fanny also excels in the Arts she is participating in both band and ches she also has been accepted into both select band ches she is fluent in both English and Spanish and both her her and her brother took part in the Spanish and English announcements earlier this year Manny demonstrates B A RK bark being safe acting responsibly showing respect and is kind she deserved to be

004recognized as leader of the [Applause] pack [Applause] congratulations SCH so as a relatively new member to the Highland School family I had the opportunity to meet Liam very recently um he joined me waiting for L lend and I got to know a little bit about him and the things he likes to do after school um and so I'm excited to be able to share some of the things that makes Liam the leader of the pack for Middle School um one that really stood out to me is one from Mr Hogan and Mr Hogan said that Liam is a fantastic student with great enthusiasm for learning he lifts the mood of the students around him with his positive energy and always does the best to make others feel included Liam is the first to raise his

005hand the first to help out when someone when something needs doing and the first to encourage the class to do their best as a member of the choir and Jazz Band I also get to see his ability to create he attended All County Chorus this year and represented our district with pride in the jazz band he shows amazing improvisational potential I can tell that he listens to those around him and shapes his part to respond to the ideas of others this skill in improvisation is mirrored in his ability to communicate with those around him in the classroom Liam is a fantastic student and I'm proud to support him as the leader of the pack so another one that stood out to me was one from Mr O and he said Liam is a kind and

006caring kid Liam is a thoughtful leader who looks to help out classmates throughout his day he comes to class prepared and ready to learn he has a great sense of humor and is always smiling he always provides detail to his work and makes sure it's submitted on time and with great accuracy Liam is an absolute joy to have in his class and the last one I'm going to share is from Miss manto Liam is responsible respectful and a very hardworking student he has incredible math skills and as a result is doing very well in advanced math this year he participates during lessons and is willing to help others when necessary Liam is an absolute pleasure to have in class you [Applause] than good evening everyone this is Emily Martin she is our leader of the

007pack at the high school for the month of December I'm going to try to encapsulate um a very well-deserving honor for this student and for me personally and probably Mr Murphy is probably one of the more deserving um leaders of the pack that we will uh have presented since my time being here um I have some blurs from many different teachers um but on a personal note I know that Emily um continues to to make education uh a priority in her life despite uh circumstances in life um so she's a hard worker and uh we look forward to seeing uh how she progresses the rest of the school year so I'll start off with Mr Sergeant who is our school security officer here at the high school and he shares I've Had The Good Fortune

008to watch Emily hit her stride over the past 11 school years I have watched hundreds of kids enter and graduate from Highland High School Emily will be one of those students that I remember Emily has changed so much over the past three years maturing and gaining so much Focus Emily's driven to school on many occasions and usually comes to the front door we get to greet each other and she always puts a smile on my face every day I think Emily is on track to do something amazing in her future not sure what it will be at this time but I'm quite sure she will give it her all Miss Schmid who is our attendant secretary at the high school when I first met Emily she was a nth grade student she didn't she didn't

009seem to care about school much Emily would come in late get her pass and move on Emily has become a different person as time has passed she is Pleasant courteous and a very serious student now I rarely see Emily in the office anymore because she's on time and she's not in trouble however at times in passing I see her and she always has a smile on her face Emily is welld deserving of this recognition I know whatever path she chooses to pursue she will succeed Mr Geller who is a physical education teacher here at the high school I have loved getting to know Emily she has really matured into a Dependable responsible and one of my favorite students she is is always encouraging to others and is someone that is determined to be successful in

010whatever she does congratulations Coach G Miss Wiston for math Emily is always smiling willing to go further in any and every topic always asking deeper questions and challenging herself to find Solutions using different methods it is thrilling to see Emily's face light up when she can make a connection between the content and real life and Mr Tatum for social studies Emily ma maturation since her freshman year has been nothing short of incredible she has persevered through some incredibly difficult circumstances in order to become the student and young woman that she wants to be she has a genuine intellectual curiosity and brings so much enthusiasm to the classroom she may not meet every deadline or get every perfect score on every assignment but she wants to learn she wants to improve it always doesn't come easy

011for her but she is never afraid to try excellent choice for this month's leader of the pack and then the last teacher that I want to finish off with um for me when I was reading this it was it was pretty moving uh was from Mr calino um you don't you don't have him this year correct no last year so he was a teacher that Emily had from um last year who's a science teacher at the high school he says I'm not sure I can put words into how deserving Emily is of this without sounding cliche or hyperbolic but here it goes I've had many of the leaders of the pack recently and all were deserving but Emily Martin is the first name that I've seen that made me literally shout at my computer yes

012and any of us who had Emily in class last year witnessed her turn into a whole new student in my experience I have never seen a student so much in a single school year as Emily did between 2022 of September and June 23 improve by the end of the year she was one of the most one of my most capable Dependable hardworking students in college physics even though she was only in 10th Grade and that was a class full of Juniors and seniors I keep checking in with her teachers this year to make sure she's keeping up the great work but she does not need me to look after her she just keeps succeeding I really hope she comes to me for a college recommendation next year so I can say more Emily deserves so

013much credit for what she has become and I am so glad that she is being recognized for leader of the pack this month so [Applause] congratulations com [Applause] congratulations on behalf of the entire Board of Education we want to congratulate each and every one of our leaders of the pack job well done guys thank you [Applause] want to leave you have school work to do or want to get some rest free to leave congratulations congratulations hi guys congrats Christmas present in the making sure your son's pants like that like mine are up to my knees I'm not wearing shorts either okay let's move on with our exciting board meeting tonight uh consent agenda we're going to do our consent agenda from e.1 to D5 point two if anyone wants to pull any piece of it

014out we can have a discussion we can hold it as a separate motion and vote on it separately if you have any questions or comments uh on our consent agenda now is the time to shout it out I just had some questions on the direct energy contract I talked with um lindsy earlier she's going to give me some additional information just more so in monitoring the contract as we go through it um so I'm okay to move forward with it but just as we go through it just want some additional information anyone else okay I have a motion to move uh our consent agenda forward motion by Camille second by Heather any further discussion all those in favor I opposed any extensions so car Z okay uh curriculum and instruction are principal monthly report anyone

015have any oh I'm sorry that's directed principle rep you're up first all right um one thing that uh didn't make it to my report um was from last night last night's concert was uh we had fifth grade concert uh and I was really kind of amazed like the amount of people that were in there was like packed to the guilds it was really awesome to see and um you know I think I did a really phenomenal job in my uh first part um y I didn't trip over anything on my way up to the stage for my my short part um so that was really kind of cool that the kids got included me you know now they're all thinking what was your part and they want you to replicate them I mean we need

016a course here we need to the whole song the whole no elephant no elepant I'm not we're not thinking I'm not no one will be happy um and then the only other thing I really just wanted to and it doesn't really necessarily have to deal anything with the the school um you know it over this past month we've it's been really great to see the amount of parents and community members coming in and um doing guest reading uh throughout the building not just like the little guys which is you know what you see but throughout the entire school which is really kind of awesome because I was like why are we having a party today like you know and there's you know we normally see a good amount of people especially around this time but

017it's been like uh um throughout this entire month so it's kind of cool and you know Ra's like no they're going to read with with the third grade class or no they're talking about this and in science in the fourth grade classroom or whatever it was um so there's been a lot of that which is kind of cool um like I said there's always like weird depressive moments that come so um I think that's it I think questions questions good this one all right folks uh thanks have me um in true middle school fashion I have a hand out um so this is the one thing I did not add to my um report uh we are doing a fundraiser for the hmss BTA it is a blanket fundraiser so if any wants to buy

018a blanket I'm going to pass these out um sport PTA um so please feel free to take a look at that or not but um that and uh it's on it's on the agenda but tomorrow night is the Middle School winter concert so hopefully you can tend see those are the only updates I have anybody have any questions just a just a comment so the uh spirit week yes I just um like the intent behind the activities and just looking into the different um cultural celebrations that happen so I appreciate seeing that it's very thank you anyone else than [Applause] you Mr Murphy hi all um I have no updates for anyone uh Lily and I kind of um split all of our our notes and everything accordingly and uh everything that I've included in

019the board report um is on my end and Lily's G goingon to uh when she gets to her report uh take care of the rest so I have no updates for any one our additions any questions at all it's a success how's that progressing great we have a a new company that comes in every month um last week we had we just had Gordon Fire Equipment in okay last Thursday and prior the prior month we had a studio blue Dental in um as well we're also gonna be having in oler County Emergency Services um Eric or Everett Ericson coming down um to present to the kids um possibly Frozen kose Dwayne's um Auto um Bell bait Goods so we're trying to get a mix of many different things that's gooders right here in in the

020conference room um a lot of the organizations are coming up and doing presentations on the board uh they provide lunch for the students um the students do ask some pretty intriguing questions especially about um pensions and whether or not they pay for college and um care careers um afterwards so they do ask some engaging questions it's it's nice to see that we don't have to poke and PR and pull teeth for them to ask those questions uh Mr Opitz um kind of heads that up and has done a great job uh communicating with all the companies um and setting up the logistical you know who what where when and all that um and we have on average about 25 to 30 students that attend uh each session so every month it's it's proving to be

021very successful thank you okay El report I know we have some of our directors here this evening so if you have anything you want to shout out to them right ahead I have a question I I guess I don't see Pete so maybe this is for you rich the phones I know a little while back there was an issue with the phones and that was all resolved is there still an issue with the phones because I recently have had an I personally had an issue in like about I'm going to say average 16-minute call the call dropped four times um and when I was speaking to the individual at the high school they said that this is something that is happening often so I just didn't know what is happening and are we addressing that

022and how we're going to try and resolve that so uh we have been getting reports um it's not I wouldn't say it's widespread but there are uh pockets of of some issues with the phones that been ongoing and we've been working with the uh service provider that we get our phone uh service from um in fact they're going to be on site day after tomorrow to help us work through some of the some of the Kinks that we're still experiencing some of it it's it's it's not always the same issue um in some cases it's you know old building wiring that we're we're kind of contending with in other cases it's it's some software related things so it's it's a variety um we're aware of them we're working through them uh the most important thing

023is that we get uh that they're reported to us when it happens cuz because we don't always know when it's happening and then we can't fix it so that's so um I appreciate hearing when it happen so that we can start to work towards this resolution it was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving it was like when conferences were going on um I had called the school and was talking to a staff member here and I thought it was me I was like um and they're like no this has been happening so I was like okay so I just wanted to check in to see what like make sure a you were aware of it and B that we had kind of a plan to make sure that we're getting that resolved okay rich is that issue

024has been narrowed down to internal or external um it's it's internal um you know the we're we're trying to to do some relatively unique things with the new phone system and so the the the um the phone company the company that provides the phones um through the process of us implementing this new system they've also discovered some bugs on their end and so they they've actually put out some some patches and some fix to to resolve some of the issues that we've kind of discovered here um but when you say external it's not like it's not like an issue on anyone else's end in terms of what the person calling the school it's it's it is on our end on but at that point within the building within the hardware and or software in the

025building okay do it Lear at just to the high school or is it all three buildings uh it's it's all three buildings anyone else okay thank you guys for your uh director's report appreciate it actually I just want Kathy um reading your report uh I was very impressed with the U the information you had on the trips uh all the extracurricular activities and uh the costs associated on on your end with that thank you very much that was thank you nice to see you it took some time too that yes thank you thank you okay Lily your student refe Court great okay starting with the Elementary School Miss Weaver's third grade class and Miss Burger's fourth grade class actively participated in the Martin Luther King Jr Student Art and Essay exhibit this online exhibit scheduled

026to be live from January 15th to February 29th of 2024 provides a platform for students to Showcase their artistic talents and reflect on the principles of Dr King throughout this project the students have not only demonstrated their creativity but have also engaged in a meaningful exploration of Dr King's six principles and the six steps the six steps of nonviolence um with the Middle School modified winter sports are underway and the students are excited to get started with their games and their competitions Highland Middle School has students competing in wrestling basketball track and bowling the Highland Middle School December Spirit month is off to a great start students and staff alike are really embracing school spirit and earning points for their selected PBIS houses the PBIS will host a winter Extravaganza on December 21st which will

027include different games and activities for the students to enjoy throughout the day students will have the chance to earn house points by competing in the various games and activities for the high school um Junior Lena Tran recently performed with the Allstate concert band at the acclaimed Eastman Theater in Rochester New York the Allstate concert band is the most prestigious student band in the New York State School Music Association she was selected as the first chair lus and had a solo on overturn to candid we are so proud of Lena's hard work and we're glad she was rewarded with such an amazing musical opportunity I also want to add this is the same Lena TR that performed at Carnegie Hall last year so she is doing great um on Monday our two week Spirit festivities began

028Monday was pajama day today was dressed like a candy cane day um then we have winter wonderland days festive Thursday flannel Friday and many more zoom Monday I'm excited for that like business on top casual on the bottom um Zoom Monday seniors from our writing and rhetoric and voice and identity and Society classes recently visited the hustle museum of art at Bard College to see the exhibit Indian theater native performance art and self-determination thanks to donations from Highland PTSA students were able to enjoy a lunch at the Campus Dining Hall followed by a walk around to experience the campus's architecture the freshman class did the annual walkway over the Hudson trip to obser the sjora truth monument and participate in the scavenger hunt we also just held our very successful financial aid night for the

029senior families director Christopher changen presented on the updated FASA the free app for federal student aid and where to go from here four of our seniors were nominated for the All-Star senior game that is hosted by section 9 every year mark kapi Conor gel James gidel and Craig Elliot and Mark kully was the only one that able that was able to attend but it was a great athletic opportunity for football and for him and those are all of my notes any questions thank Youk okay Dr boy all right uh so over the last couple of months uh one of the things I've been mentioning was um one of the state performance plans what were um uh kind of audited and reviewed on was our transition services for students 15 and older it's a section of

030the IEP uh so we just got our results back um so they look at our IEPs for students 15 and older for our IND District students uh we had 100% uh compliance rate uh for our ad of District students we did have um four IEPs that they identified uh with very minor changes to them that uh they ask for updates and they look at very specific language um in the IEP that it follows uh the exact language and it was looking at goals for students uh when they uh finish their High School career so um it was a it was really good feedback from our regional associate um on the IEPs that we're writing which is good to hear we're always looking to improve though um so you know we can talk through ways that

031we can do that um but it was just a couple of Minor Adjustments that we'll need to make on those uh so we can be in full compliance with that uh we are at the beginning stages of planning annual reviews uh for the spring uh typically those meetings will start in February and March uh but the planning starts much earlier um just to thank you to uh the PPS staff and the building level staff um for their help and support uh as we schedule these meetings uh to make them accessible for parents and to make them a productive use of time for our families as well I attended last week uh Senator Jill brand had a school mental health and youth violence grants work shop and it was uh presented as a way to look

032at funding for schools um specific for school violence and for uh mental health a lot of the grants unfortunately um don't apply to us uh we don't meet certain criteria uh and some of the grants that they were putting out were uh some of the money that we're already receiving from like a title four standpoint that they look at school safety and well-rounded education um and improve technology so it wasn't as uh fruitful as I had kind of hoped of what we were looking at um in potentially getting some more funding to help support uh our mental health staff uh and to look at the supports we put in for our students um but there was a number of individuals all the way up from US Department of Justice Education Health uh folks from State

033Ed office of mental health a lot of people there um but uh not as uh fruitful as I kind of hoped but uh and lastly uh we last week we submitted all of our data for our audit on the American Rescue plan grants uh we will hear back around January 19th and then we have a a halfday virtual um meeting with uh folks from the state as they look at those and they'll uh give us feedback and then determine if they need any more information from us that's it for me anything for Dr boy thank you Mr Zimmer good evening everyone uh as we all know fostering continuous Community engagement is remains a top priority for our district and so I'm excited to announce that annual Panorama survey is now live the opinions of all

034our stakeholders are invaluable to us helping to guide the decisions that shape the future of our educational community so parents should have received an email invitation to participate in the survey last week additionally both students and faculty will be taking the survey before winter break a postcard will be mailed home serving as a friendly reminder to take part in the survey the postcard includes a QR code which is easily scannable with your phone's camera and provides convenient access to the survey all stakeholder insights matter to us so parents are strongly encouraged to take a few moments to share their thoughts and experiences the survey is set to close on January 5th next students in grades 3 through 8 will participate in a computer-based testing simulation on January 23rd and 24th this simulation serves a dual

035purpose firstly it helps to assess our network network capabilities and secondly it provides students with an opportunity to become familiar with the test format this simulation is purely for practice and no student data will be recorded or evaluated our primarily our primary goal is to ensure a seamless testing experience for our students when the actual assessments take place in early January a letter from our elementary and middle school principles will be sent home explaining the importance of each students's participation in the simulation and each uh trustee has a copy of that letter in front of them as well as a copy of it doesn't look like a postcard but it is postcard size when it goes home this is just the um the uh the sample that we have that's for the Panorama survey and

036uh lastly the district direct committee let met last Tuesday December 5th representatives from each building level committee shared out emerging goals and initiatives in the elementary middle and high schools for this school year the full committee discussed how our food programming could engage in culturally responsive education with a number of very powerful and practical suggestions that will be shared with our food service director and other collaborating partners the committee also scor for the excellent submissions for our Equity graphic design contest and the results of that contest will be announced soon not everybody has had a chance to vote yet so we don't have the full tallies yet but there was some pretty some pretty cool artwork there that was submitted in other Equity news each building faculty has been updated on the passage of uh

037the board policy 3430 during recent faculty meetings and they were given the opportunity to read the full policy and ask any questions of our diversity equity and inclusion of the A on Harriet Meyer I'd like to point out that the next direct committee meeting is scheduled for 6 pm on Tuesday February 20th on Zoom for those who are interested in attending please reach out to me or Harriet Meer at the high school for the link that's all I have for you this evening any questions for Mr Zimmer right thank you superintendent okay so uh some of the building principles already alluded to this is concert week uh last night was the Elementary concert tomorrow night is the Middle School uh band and coral concert and Thursday night is the high school so please come out

038and support them if you're able to um at the last board meeting we discussed uh doing a celf cell phone survey of the staffs at both the high school and middle school so I would like to thank the administration for getting that together the board should have received um that data from in my Friday update for you to review in uh anticipation of tonight's conversation about um cell phones tomor not tomorrow Thursday I will be hosting the Mid Hudson Catskill Council of school superintendents here uh in Highland uh there'll be two superintendents from oler County two from Duchess two from Sullivan and two from Orange who will come together and uh we meet pretty much uh once every two months to talk about things things that uh you know we would like to have advocated

039for us in this region um so I look forward to meeting with them on Thursday and uh I'll give an update in my Friday update on that actually Middletown will be joining me I hope so um last call for any board members who would like to participate in the rotary raffle um I have those tickets in my office so if you're interested please stop by and see me on your way out uh I will collect venmo or c or check for the rotary and just a a plug for the rotary thank them very much for all the work that they do on behalf of our students and uh especially the Junior Achievement program at the elementary school uh it is a Herculean task that they undertake every year getting volunteers to come in and run

040those sessions for our our youngest students so that's uh that's that's to be looked looking forward to that in the spring uh reminder to the board of ed please uh I I gave you uh information from bosies in my Friday update um that is all still uh confidential information but please review that so that you're prepared uh with any questions that you might have uh for the presentation that they will be here Dr Shanker and his team will be at the next board meeting on January 16th at 7M um if you have any particular questions that you'd like to get to me beforehand I will make sure that he he gets them and gets them into his presentation we are the third uh presentation that he will give so I'm hoping that questions will be

041asked at the first two and he'll incorporate them into the the third one but we are pretty early on in the series so um if there's something that's Weighing on your mind please let me know and I can get it to him and he can incorporate that into the presentation uh Support Services met this past week and uh I gave a a brief update in my update this past week but all parts of our project as of today have been accepted or approved by state except we're still waiting for the approval from the high school we did get Architectural Review complete but we did not get the final um approval and building permit yet so we're hoping that's any day now so hopefully they get that done before they close up for the winter holiday

042and then just uh the winter holiday does begin on uh Friday December 22nd we will not have students in attend attendance and the district will be closed that day and we will be uh close through January 1st um and school will reopen on January 2nd so I wish everyone a happy holiday and uh look forward to 2024 any questions for the superintendant okay thank you y under Board of Education new business uh special education service provider agreement be resolve the Board of Education upon the recommendation of superintendent approve the following service agreement between Highland Central School District the district and milestones for munchkins principal places business located at 534 route 6 mayopac New York the contract are effective December 13th 2023 to June 30th 2024 as presented to the board of this meeting can I

043have a motion please motion by Tom second by Janine discussion all those in favor all right oppos anyone abstaining so carried I apologize that probably should have been under the consent agenda because it's standard and uh Dr boy just pointed it out that we probably should have put it under consent so apologize for that not a problem under old business overnight trip varsity baseball be resolved the Board of Education upon a recommendation of the superintendent approves the following overnight high school student trip as follows Varsity Baseball spring training to Orlando Florida it's going to be at the wild wild Wide World of Sports in Disney March 23rd 2024 to March 28th 2024 approximately 16 to 18 players six chaperons ongoing fundraiser via the Highland baseball booster club John magello Varsity head coach and the chaperon

044right now our head coach John Magano assistant coach Rob Bell athletic director assistant Coach Frank Alonso and trainer John Kenny can I have a motion please motion by Camille second by Heather discussion all those in favor I opposed any extensions so carried by Z I'm going to just move I believe we have our representatives from our uh design and management team I'm going Tove move the capital project going to have a capital project update uh ahead of the cell phone use discussion so Scott and believe Dion's out there Dion's out there you guys just give us a quick uh update and look all right St in from the back um thank you everybody again uh I'm Scott Butler with the plumo group construction manager Deion Miller with CSR project architect um give a quick little

045update on current phase one status uh s statuses and projected um phase two scope work a little bit of schedule so a little bit about where we are if you guys remember on September 26 we awarded the following contracts for the phase one scope of work um we go I've got a a location by location breakdown of what that will be uh the elementary school again for the summer of 2024 we're removing hazardous floor placement of VCT and select classrooms um removal of removable partitions in those classrooms and replace them with hardened gips and stud walls replacement of Select Hardware or select doors and hardware along um other classrooms mostly first and second floor um and the uh first in uh and the kindergarten Wing um within all those rooms that we're doing the abatement

046and the flooring we're also replacing ceilings and lights as well as full building um mostly full building electrical and the switch gear and I and I asked that we will um the switch gear due to lead time um we've had design and coordination meetings that won't take place during the summer so we'll do small panels in the hallway and and localize and then once that becomes available we'll do a winter of 24 full building shut down we'll have generators for items of of importance it related fire alarm related boilers things of that nature uh and then adjacent outside work along the wreck area just on the top of the hill uh there's a chain link fence were installed there so a little bit of sight work jumping over to the Middle School uh we the

047installation of a new gymnasium sound system uh repair of gymnasium concrete staircases that Corridor that that leads back into the gym pretty much all those staircases that you see that's got some Cs and spalling a little bit of handrail repair uh we are redoing or regrading the infield uh for the softball fields uh making sure that there's less ponding uh with the new drainage system we are replacing the exterior basketball court uh Jon into the town and then the perimeter fence along the the neighbor so there's a little bit of site work there following just real quick on the middle school do you have an approximate cost of what replacing the softball field infield aren we also doing the Outfield and Grading that too so it's not a dropped off slope no we're not doing

048that no we're not we're so we're we're doing we're doing the clay area shallow shallow infield what call like that right the clay and then the um all the drainage system L2 the SW approximate cost of that I can get we've got the schedule of value is broken down uh we're working on councilman now but Vos is done so I can certainly email the team and get you that no what was our estimate going in what the value of that that particular uh scope do we have that you can get that to us also the value of of the replacing of the exterior basketball court at the middle school yep yep that's all that's so we schedule bage broken down by building and then by scopes of work mat neor a big deal I guess

049that's WR um over at high school we've got again removal of haes flooring and select um classrooms along this Corridor and then and then beyond the the principal's office uh and then replacement of the lockers and the um contaminated plaster above in the ceiling so everything from this Corridor and then the one uh Beyond from floor ceiling will be um abated we put new Lockers in and then you know we repair the walls uh we're also refinishing the the wood walls right outside the auditorium uh at the high school right across from the gymnasium and then there's a bunch of exterior work in and around that uh exit beyond the parking lot going through the auditorium we replacing sidewalks and pretty much we're WRA around the so um all that is we're having bi-weekly meetings

050with all the Primes The Architects going through Subs um approvals lead times uh work plans things of that nature all in preparations for the uh the summer of 2024 um with the exception to the elementary school which I emailed Pete will'll have a meeting here shortly to kind of go through your summer uh everything else will be um be summer scho um what we'd like to do is give a little bit of update on phase two but just we heard your update for from s yes we do have approval for the high school oh yeah uh we got an email Friday that the techical review was passed and that was the only piece that was remaining so we do have approval forties as of Friday I get that so that's a good that's a good

051um you know conversation break so everything we talk about is phase two which we'll go through a little bit of the schedule which will laps um the summer of 2024 and then the summer of 2025 and we get a little bit of details of why that is um similar to the contracts that we awarded um in uh for phase one we've got similar we've got a general contractor uh mechanical electrical Plumbing uh and then and then associated with the field we've got the field or site work contract contractor and then a bunch of you know State Contractor co-ops you know bleachers Press Box um obviously we're not doing anything with the lighting or the scoreboard then you've got the track coding and then we're entertaining the idea right now is at the Middle School uh

052doing the fire alarm off of State contract and and Co-op purchasing as well as the public address and and time clock system so we're able to utilize U some of our local installers and um um State contract Co-op contracts uh to better our buying power a little bit about that schedule uh so we are uh now that we have all our approvals here from s we're finalizing all the bid packages the bid documents the bid schedules the plans the specs anything that maybe was lingering outstanding from s we finalize that we hope to be out to bid advertised uh January 12th we're anticipating a three-week bid cycle uh we bring the contractors in we give them us the site survey of the field conditions the buildings the boilers every everywhere we're going to be doing

053the work uh we receive the bids on February 2nd we will then bring all those uh low bid or second to low bid or whatever we feel necessary for qualifications kind of like a a scope interview making sure that you know all the bells and whistles were captured and purchased and then we hope to be back here February 13th with some recommendations for award um so then we will have phase one and phase two pretty much going on concurrent half of that work being uh the summer of 2024 but have a schedule kind of an idea of when the work will take place and you can kind of see a majority of that is is um July and August of 2024 so we always talked about phase one and phase two being a simultaneous with

054the exception of the long lead items and that being mechanical work so scope of the work is boilers rooftop units things of that nature um and they vary from locker rooms gyms libraries when we go to do that work that will all be the summer of 2025 we want to make sure we own all that equipment and then when we get into being disruptive um so we'll procure all that work it's a lead time issue U but we'll get all those contracts kind of awarded and assigned uh in the coming weeks um and then to go back so then we talk about the uh the start of the field work that will commence as soon as that's awarded we'll break ground as soon as the weather kind of allows us and then that that'll be

055every bit of H close to a year between replacing the field getting the turf in replacing the track installing the foundations for the bleachers and the Press Box uh the concession stand all that nature um and then you can see the the building work will be 2024 with the mechanical work and then the subsequent mechanical work now so let's say we're in um some of the cafeterias where we've got duck work above the ceilings obviously the ceilings and lights will come in the same as that summer of 2025 because we don't you know we need access going to be disruptive we're going to go in there once so a little bit about where we'll be sold um and we'll have phase one and phase two kind of concurrent in 2024 with the mechanical heavy scope

056uh being in the 2025 uh a little bit of where we stand on a budgetary thing so as you can remember on phase one we were a little bit of over budget with a little bit of that being um additional added scope or alternates you know so when we had it and we bid the lockers you know Bas bed may have been one hallway or a secondary section was another um or classrooms you know Bas bed may have been a select number of classrooms at the elementary school and we we expanded upon that so that kind of got us a little bit behind the aall uh going into phase two um ways that we are looking to minimize that impact going forward obviously you take a look at the work that we're about to do

057the field concession the bleachers the Press Box they're kind of an all or nothing right we're not going to build half a field or you know the bleachers without the Press Box things of that nature so there's not a lot of opportunity if you would to um get some alternates or some secondary numbers on that type scope will work um same with fire alarm PA clocks or the sanit are the water related scope in the middle school and if we're going to do the fire alarm system it's it's all or nothing so um so what's left out of that scope is the uh some of the office work we're doing the principal's offices uh we're doing the Food Service offices and then we're doing all the mechanical work uh so our strategy bidding this work

058is really having a set of of Base bids or packages that are you know we want to matter what for example the element or the Middle School boilers right and if you take a look at at that list there um in any particular location and then you have alternates so we will still it's all designed it's all approved it's all ready to go when we talk about an alternate is it's basically an Adder price right we're going to we're going to collect bids at base bid right that's going to be the set project no matter what and then these alternates will be something that amongst the team right the board the service select committee uh recommendations you know and pricing will be able to uh fill in those gaps or those shortfalls on the budget

059to make sure that we're know spending as much as we can but but you know being fiscally responsible on managing the jobs because it's going to be bid in the next couple of weeks and um we're talking about 2025 right got going back to uh the athletic field and that U reconstruction can you just walk us through from April through let's say October is there the possibility that Turf will be down and the only thing that' be done in this in the in the late spring is the coating of the track that would be U that would be the scheduled goal that we're going to put out just breaking ground um doing all the the drainage system subgrades for um the concession and the Press Box right and once that's all down then you start

060working on the drainage for the field and you know that's what makes a field the field right this the swamp the wetness the the pting of the water rate it's the drainage system that really takes a lot of time when you're doing the fields you're getting all that water off of the field uh so I would imagine between um September and October that Turf would be thinking about going down I'm actually finalizing that schedule now share it with the services committee we pave and then now we're it's in October now we talk about track coating track coating is a very temperature and moisture sensitive products what happens is you actually you winter yourself out right and a lot of times in this situation we'd be looking to come in as soon as Spring Breaks not

061spring break right but as the temperatures are there and it's drying up to go ahead and track that or Surface coat that track so we would we would take the field out of service this spring so no Lacrosse no track and field we would go through to the fall right um you know no football no soccer right and then again into the following spring we can have a conversation obviously there' be no track because there' be no track surface but do we want to have lacrosse right and wait on the track surface or just get it done and do later season home events of things of that nature so that's a conversation we just need to it's more about a district preference you know you we get into graduating Athletics and what sports yeah so

062just that was that was like one of my big questions with athletic practices you know thinking about when fall Sports will start practicing in August all the way through so as far as so the field pretty much won't be stting the spring so I guess now be three season inaccessibility has be Rel to the other buildings other facilities other parts of Campus you commuting to I mean we have that capacity to is there a plan already in place to Frank I think you have a preliminary plan once you know exactly what the duration is going to be of the preparation and feel I know at one time we spoke about hopefully in the month of October at least getting uh the varsity team to have one game either it' be girls soccer girls boy soccer

063or football just so those seniors have the opportunity to have a game on a turf field uh so that's why I asked that question is can we can we move the process along I mean I I've asked that we I want to thank you guys for moving the bid date up to February 2nd so we can approve at our February 13th meeting but can we break ground on that field in March because I mean it's it's construction it's not you know where it's temperature Sensi we can put equipment on that field and start ripping it up in March not waitting till April if we at as the district have to push contracts along and get approval from our attorneys to for bonds and insurances we'll do that just to get that thing moving I mean

064I think that's our intent and that's how our superintendent did a lot of laate work and went out there and sold this project to the community saying that those things are going to take place so I I think we really got to accelerate and push that project through and I know it can happen I was told all along that through State contract once you get SD approval you're going to hit the ground and put those things out and award them I don't know if that's being taking place with bleachers and press box and all the state contracts because you have all your approvals now so those contracts should those contracts should be in place this month and we can award beginning of our March our January meeting so I think that all has to be

065accelerated because we can't see we didn't sell this project to the community to go into 2025 so if we're going into 2025 it's got to be the least uh uh intrusive type of work to this District because we sold it that we are going to complete in 24 unfortunately SCD slowed the process down but now that's all in place I think phase two can accelerate is that standard for for three seasons because I feel like there's other school districts in the area who did not have their field out for three three seasons more like four because we get into the spring some districts have played football without the track and coded yeah there's I I there's some school districts that it was like they it was out late spring and they were back on there

066for fall so how is this taking three seasons and it's not just the sports what about the graduation is that two potential graduations that we have on that field that those two graduating class aren't going to have that same experience so it's not just three potential four Sports Seasons but it's also two graduations that this community looks forward to of having that commencement out on that field it just seems excessive that it's that long so so just to be clear I think when we talk first when we talk about the three seasons um it's uh spring fall spring uh so as far as your graduation it's really only affecting your graduating class in 2024 so 2025 you'll have the stadium in place um and right now everything that's being presented we we try to present

067it conservatively because we can't control the market we right as as Al said uh we're going to buy the field buy the carpet so to speak we're going to buy the rubber uh we're buying the uh the stadium the stadium right now after you side a PO that state the uh bleachers is six to seven months lead because of the war aluminum right now is anything that's aluminum based has really become more expensive and a longer lead time so when you look at something simple as bleachers on the other side and think about it as soon as you write that PO so we can't write that PO until February then there's a shop drawing submitt approval process those bleachers are not going to be ordered until March now we had seven months so we're talking

068late fall we're installing those bleachers that's that's the math right we can't change how long it takes to uh manufacture bleachers and a and a Press Box the rubber that goes down uh can't go down and anything than less than 52 degrees so 52 degrees is where that Mark is and we we sort of play ball with that at the end of October early November but that asphalt has got to be money for a week where we have to look at the schedule and say you know what we have a constant 55 we might be able to get that done what we have done with districts when we did spacking kills we were able to get that done two two seasons right we we did not three but we were able to get that like

069Al said we were able to get there March we had a soft winter we jumped in March and we had that Stadium completed in the fall of of that so we took only took it for two and we had the rubber down but when you look at spack everything was Plug and Play Everything was just the way it is and that's pretty much what you got here so we're not Reinventing what you have you know your space is right where it is what's great about it too the lighting the existing lighting is where it is we're not buying new lighting that lighting was put in uh years ago I was a part of that project when we put the lighting in we're not replacing at lighting so that's a great thing so that's one less

070thing that we have to worry about as far as buying installing concession if for some reason the concession isn't done perfectly on time that's okay you can still have your sports and that's that's the goal we want to make sure you have your sports but uh we want to make sure we're careful not the promise we want to make sure we say hey these are the hardships that we run into we talk three seasons when we talk three seasons not three Summers it's it's spring fall spring you're losing one summer your graduating class of 2024 no matter what was going to be affected you know and 2025 will be in will be in a good place so we you know we we're we're going to we're going to push as hard as we can what

071is the plan for track since that's two of their seasons and they be a little bit harder just a plan for relocating for the track team right now with the spring season coming up I mean I put fuelers out for track because that's the one where obviously track can't practice there um and then you're lacrosse would you know the plan on going to the Middle School flag football would either go to Tony Williams or to Townfield but you also have modified programs too um the fall you know we're going to be all over the place but if we move everything to the middle school or to the town those fields are going to get pound it on and and you know maintenance of those is going to take a lot of work to do and

072then with transportation for track for now two possibly two seasons that's gonna be everyday Transportation issue to get those kids to either marbor or new Pauls you know to give them an opportunity to practice so it's going to take a lot from everybody to really make it work for three seasons well we know it the plan for that the spring spring will be here before we know it so just thinking about you know um transportation for families like so so for any high schooler will bust them to well bust them to whatever location but then families have to pick up like brand new PS families have to go to new PS where they have to go to news to pick up their children or marble or would they I've talked to both districts and really

073it's about what could they let us do you know do they want 50 60 kids practicing while they're practicing or are they going to let us go at a later time I mean I would think that if we're going to go right after school we would get on the bus and then come back here and get picked up thing about for families like to go to go some families have trouble pick up their kids here at high school now we go to a neighboring town right that's another you know we may have kids that may not do some of these Sports because they can't get to news or wherever just bust them back we have to bust them back you have to bust them both ways and I mean the fall we've done it in

074the past with the fall when I first started um we started the fall season I think of 200 I believe 16 um we were down at the middle school we played two football games down there we played all our soccer games down there and we were able to get a game or two um in October and it worked out fine um and we'll make it work but I I I just figured it just be a season and a half I didn't realize it'd be going into three seasons I don't think any a and this just so it's this is common this is you know we we've done marals track and field it was three seasons spack kill we were able to do it two Rond out three seasons paing three seasons milbrook three seasons anybody

075that's converting to that the synthetic because of the storm water process the build of of the field it just takes time and if you rush it you're not going to have a fantastic product to play on um so it this is common with all the districts that we've been and in fact we're going to be building uh corn walls we're putting that out the bid same thing same conversation three seasons when but they have a feel at the middle school right which you guys you guys don't have though that those options um if you start in in in March you're basically Escavating and doing that kind of work correct and then you just waiting for the turf and different things at that point so no I'm not anticipating waiting the time related right I'm not

076other than the bleachers and the Press Box we really shouldn't be waiting on products it's just the time it'll take to do the activities get the turf down get the asphalt down let that cure get gas off all that kind of stuff and then you get into you know was the weather cooperating okay Frank were we able to or we ever asked to accommodate like say maloro when they were going through their field change over did they ask us for any space um not for a season for possibly in the past yes for some practices here or there or some games here or there but not for when they were doing a transition I mean the only issue with us we would need another District to just be for track we don't we we can

077take care of what we got here between in Nome field possibly which we used in the past for soccer that one year um the town field next to downtown and then also with um Tony Williams you know we can convert that baseball field into a flag football field and baseball for you know the spring so we can take care of what we got here other than the track team you and as far as the the abatement what's the impact on like building staff in the summertime here at the high high school will it be just very early in the summer is that going to be a big impact it's essentially the month of July between the two corridors and they need to be complete shut Downs so we've got you know barrier the whole building

078we've got separate entrances or coming off the side entrance over here the back we're coming you know out of the back and we'll kind of drive around and coordinate with the GC site works that way the main entrance we were told kind of needs to you know live and run and operate um but the building will have its segments of confinement for mostly the month of July and then and then it's the rebuild time lockers come back in and we're rebuilding walls and ceilings so you know those corridors even though may not be in the abatement type scenarios they'll still be in a heavy heavy construction situation it's the elementary school that's going to be the problem like not necessarily problem but it's the that's the one that's going to be taken out of commission

079the most because there's the most being done there this summer and unfortunately it's the way the calendar Falls this is the shortest summer that we have because school's going to start in early sep September because Labor Day is like the 2 or third yes yeah and school doesn't get out this year till like the 26th 27th something like that so that's what he's talking about about talking with Ian about doing some uh some lead work before actually before the kids are gone relocating some classrooms and things like that uh during those last couple of weeks but no abatement can be done when anybody is long it would be other type of work yeah they usually take longer than what you're told initially uhhuh well that schedule has been gone over like with a fine tooth

080comb with you could talk more about that than I we we we basically tell them what they kind of need to anticipate for the summer right you will be a batement you know done by the 17th of July and in a particular area and this is how we're going to rebuild it and then based on those kind of cost parameters they go ahead and they bid the job the low bidder based on those down defined rules they can go ahead and tweak their own schedule a little bit but then they go ahead and they tell us how you know they want to you know construct or move around the building build a better mouse trap type game plan uh and then and then those those schedules are updated if not weekly definitely bi-weekly it's not

081one of those hey let's do it once a month because there by the time you update it in the middle the end of July right Summer's you know over right so it's it's meeting with be it's meeting with the team and and giv them updat as the summer progresses Scott I know in our I believe it was our 2016 one of the projects where we did uh bat of baitman at the elementary school we ran into an issue with vat running underneath Cabinetry and it became a major change order has that been addressed that we don't anticipate vat under the Cabinetry in those 12 in the elementary school all of that was yeah we eved we took the univent out took the case work out and then put theal flooring and the new flooring down

082so anything underneath the existing that's part of the this contract okay yeah the abatement was the old so the way that if you go to a classroom now you see a 10 by 3 foot square of different BCT on the floor all that was the the new you know Abad Replacements and then we go we do the rest of with the rest of the building rest of the classroom on at a couple of our uh support service meetings and I believe also at a board meeting I had asked for uh an alternate to our concession stand for storage area has that been put into the project so we're going to expand it um towards the existing Pavilion right now it's easier to expand it that way than expand it off the side where the toileting

083is so yeah that's planned as an alternate there okay what's VCT vinyl competition tile it's the 12 x 12 tile that see typ tile so that so we're can add a storage area to that as an alternate yeah yeah okay it's expanding our existing utility room by 20 by 20 so it's common I and I if you could if you can't even afford that I would even say make the slab bigger so that you can build something absolutely I mean I've been pushing for for storage facilities but because you're never gonna have enough storage out there seem to strike out on that one you do always bring it up I'll give you that I might get a 20 by 20 instead of a maintenance building we we got car we have conx boxes throughout the

084whole District to me are annoying but I I agree you're agree they're ugly they are ugly okay does anyone else have any questions I think the key to this whole thing is getting aggressive bids and see if we can put everything within the scope of the project and the budget of the project and move move it forward but I think you've heard from some of the board members that U Expediting the the process is is priority I know you know originally we talked about a you know a March contract date and award date but I guess you kind of took our heed and moved those into the month of February which is great I mean I think that's what the district is looking for and the end result I hopefully the community be appreciative appreciative

085of all all was done so thank you guys anybody else have any questions or concerns I think just hear like what the plans are you know for the families like communication going out the families about spring Sports you know graduation because I I I was surprised hearing about the spring impact summertime but not spring be spring of 25 I think we always anticipated the 24r like you know like graduation and things like that so I just well I I'm I'm hoping that communication from our design team with our athletic department and our transportation department is happening so their understanding of what the process is going to be and what how it's going to impact them so that's got to happen I mean like we said you know the Spring's going to come before you know

086it it's three months down the road and less I mean it could be March could be a very nice month so uh we're 2 and a half months to that point so that communication has to happen with our transportation in our athletic department so they can start the ball rolling and and playing I I think it it might be the first that Athletics and transportation is hearing that spring of 25 is going to be construction so we have to make sure that that communication takes place because it it it could impact the entire District in our and our athletic programs and our transportation I mean we're strapping for bus drivers and more pressure we put on trans a makes it very difficult to satisfy everybody uh I I agree I mean communication has to happen

087we can't just wait for these meetings or wait for a support service meeting that communication has to happen on a daily weekly bases with our design team our construction management team and the district I apologize if tonight's the first night you're hearing that spring of 2025 is going to be impacted Mark I a quick question could you refresh my memory on the total cost of the project 16.9 16.9 is what I think it was for phase two 21.4 whatever overall 21.4 million I think if you contact quy we can get you we can get you the exact number tomorrow it's 21 we haven broken out phase one phase two and then the field right and then the overall refer Dion U as we get ready to package you know put the bids together are we

088going to be creative with all alternates yeah we so we stting to explore the alternates with with the mechanical system and the one Al brought up regarding the uh the addition for the concession stand building um I can look at it with my engineers and meeting with tomorrow to see what they're thinking about piecing some other pieces off yeah go deeper please that so that we have a chance to maybe get over a couple of hurdles if things are starting to a little high right and one thing I wanted to touch on before we go is the um State contract stuff that Al brought up so we are I think about halfway through that process so we do have quotes from probably half our vendors already and we're anticipating to have the rest that probably

089within a week um which I think the one that's really lagging behind is the the fire alarm and the and the and the public addresses middle school but we already have two quotes from field field vendor we have a quote from um a track coding vendor we have one quote for the Press Bo bleachers um so once we get those in we'll vet those and then we'll we'll get back to the other District look out what our recommendations would be forward so that process is moving forward we anticipate that that stuff will be awarded well advance of are our bids um being awarded in February so um we are in that process right now we just vetting goes out are we have a copy of this I have I have it I can I can

090add it to my update on Friday you will remember to send it to me yes all right okay anyone else have any other questions or concerns right just a question on um the Middle School fence between it the town property that fence and then let's say the softball field stays in a project would that wouldn't be done that would be done during the summer correct that wouldn't affect the spring or The Fall season there been a contractor request uh that we need to set up a meeting with the district to just to go through what that would look like on an operational basis it could be either or right the country has express interest to get it off the summer schedule if it benefits you know the district it needs to benefit the district otherwise

091ex set for summer okay that's that's what I would recommend I lose all okay uh appreciate you guys coming in giving the board an update thank you and we'll try to uh keep the board uh posted now that uh once those bid packages are presented to us so you'll have an idea of what they're looking at to possibly eliminate if we need to to stay within the uh value of the scope of the project keep the update okay uh cell phone usage discussion I know the uh our Middle School and High School put out a survey and I believe that went to just St teach teaching staff or overall staff uh good question was it every staff member or just their faculty that was just faculty for the high school okay and same at the

092so I don't know if you had an opportunity to review that um I I got to say the uh overwhelming factor in my mind was that the one question did do cell phone use affect the overall uh uh instructional process of of of the students and I think majority percentage wise of of Staff said yes they feel it does affect their performance uh in the classroom so me personally we'll have go around and have the discussion I don't feel should come down hard with a with a policy at this point I think we have to do a little soft approach uh and see how that you know fans out have uh keep the dialog going with our administrative staff just to get their input and their feedback and possibly you know for September putting a

093policy into effect that will you know um TW what currently in in place for cell phone usage and and expand on that so I don't think we should be you know hard noos and say you know we eliminate cell phones completely like you know some districts have and they go away I think we can do a soft approach and see how that affects performance and how staff uh will support that anybody else right now I I currently like the process that they have within the high school with the red light green light scenario when they can use them correctly in a row that right that's correct yeah teachers have full autonomy of their classroom to make the determination and the decision as to when they do or do not allow students to use their cell

094phones in the room and they they fairly successful with that from everything that I have been informed yes but Tom uh looking at the survey the survey doesn't support that philosophy of red light green light at all so if if what I'm hearing and staff has the option of using red light green light and they choose not to it seems like based on this survey and what I'm reading here uh and the one is do you think the acade the student AC academic performance is affected by excessive cell phone use during school hours and yes is 91% that's the staff telling us through the survey that's school hours but is that school hours in the classroom school hours is only seven hours no but I'm just saying is it and they got five periods a

095day time 42 minutes it's probably five and a half hours that's that's school school hour um that's have you experience any difficulties enforcing existing cell phone policies yes it's 63% so that doesn't tell me that the red light green light philosophy is working or or being used so I don't support the red light green light I'm opening up to the rest of the board yeah I agree I looking at the data like here yes I agree you know just reading the data that shows that whatever it is um you know when staff say they have trouble enforcing it you know the staff each each teacher has the ability to say cell phone use in my class or no cell phone use but that number 63% or 64% say have trouble enforcing it I was curious

096about the the last question about the positive impacts of cell phone usage so I was just curious like what the positive impacts or get more information about that and then just um also car said there's been conversations about about what teacher are using cell phones for in the classroom and then what do we have these devices for that can do the same job because I you know I find it I use my my computer a lot but I I rather use my computer than my my phone because the size of it to do certain things so I'm just curious like what um what teachers use it for phones for in classroom and what's the solution with the oneto one devices I'm pretty sure we have that you know we have that where you I'm just

097yeah so let me just give some clarity on some of the numbers 91% sounds like a lot but this is based on a number of 39 so we're talking about 36 teachers who that is what equates to 91% um it was three teachers again out of a total of 39 um who made up the difference of that so just so that there's a little bit more clarity and transparency as to the actual um faculty numbers that kind of make up that pie chart um Camille for those two questions um with the Positive impacts the split of 53% and 46 that's 21 uh staff saying yes and 18 staff saying no and I just want to uh make sure that I kind of emphasize the fact that we do have an existing policy in place that

098definitely identifies how um staff um is able to utilize uh both for instructional purposes and non-instructional uses um the Red Zone and green zone purposes um it's a laminated sheet for those of you that um don't know what it is um it's velcro to the wall and teachers have the ability it's their classroom to determine when students are allowed to use it um and when they're not if they're if a teacher does not want them to use it they put the Red Zone sign up if the teachers do want them to use it they put the green zone sign up so it's the teachers responsibility in order to enforce this so that said based on survey results that um they're responding with and you know I agree with Al that it's a little bit contradictory

099in the fact that 91% of them or 36 of them are saying uh one thing through a survey yet they still have the decision-making power and authority to kind of take care of that within their own classroom and police you know those types of responsibilities um so I think it's definitely part of a lar a larger conversation um that needs to take place but um again you know policy 7316 already is in existence um so it might be part of a larger conversation of taking a look at how things are identified within this policy um if there needs to be any updates that have to take place yeah I guess I question it took us a long time to get well it took us a lot of discussions to get to a onetoone environment Co

100happened and we automatically got there right um but it did take us without Co it would have taken us a long time to get there and just to look at and see the number of students who are using their phones over those devices anytime we make a decision to invest in a program equipment Staffing whatever it is it comes at the expense of something else right so the way I look at it is if we are funding one to one I want those devices used because I am foregoing something else or we as a district are foregoing something else um I'm not saying that I want a hard-nosed policy to say no cell phone usage but I really think it's in the benefit of all of our students and our teachers to have a very

101clear defined policy of what is acceptable and what is not I agree with giv teachers leeway but sometimes that does create a rough time with kids adjusting to those boundaries right mom's more lenient than Dad you know so it does create a little bit of an issue there um so I think I look at more so from a student mental health perspective as well right I think phones everywhere in life right we need to learn boundaries with them I myself need to right when I'm with my kids and we're watching TV and I pick it up and I'm like damn put it down you know you we all need to and we all need to be mindful of it think about these kids that are not as mature as we are in terms of making

102decisions you know I I really think that we need to have um guidelines that are are to be followed like I said I'm not in favor of saying absolutely not they all need to be you know locked up or whatever but I do think we need more clarity around it um the other thing that I just noticed from the the surveys was it seemed to be that there was a different survey for middle school high school yeah so we did we had some different questions based on kind of how the policy works are we have some different rules in the Middle School when it comes to cell phones so we added a couple different ones just to see what teachers thought about expanding things currently at the middle school we don't we don't really follow

103the red red Zone green zone in terms of cell phone use so students are not allowed to use their cell phones at all unless it's for a teacher very specific teacher driven activity which would be like there's only a few of them that I can think of uh some of the science classes and math classes use apps on their phone once in a while to do different things that you can't do on a Chromebook but predominantly we push Chromebooks um and we don't allow cell phones so it's a little different obviously high school students R right so um that's why those questions were on there yeah no and it makes sense and and really I think what stuck out to me I think it was on the middle school one was um would would staff

104be in favor of a policy right and I think you know I think it was the answers or the responses I saw or what I would expect to see right it's not an easy thing to enforce is what I'll say just something that clicked with me going back to your your question about the devices that we've given out to our to our students I I think we one to one throughout the entire District so you're talking roughly 1,700 devices Rich how many requisitions do you get in a normal week where devices need repairs a battery chargers not working or the batteries are dead or whatever do you get many requisitions in the course of a week for that for repair we do um we have um a system in place and at the middle school

105in particular because they are using the Chromebooks very extensively it's good to hear great to so I guess my point is that our investment in in in in the Chromebooks throughout 1700 students are we getting bang for our book there from a district from a standpoint of us being the fiduciary our our responsibility to the district is that happening I guess that's the question so I think it it sounds like it's happening more so in in the Middle School than it is to high school because you're getting more requisitions for updates repairs or whatever may be from the middle school so that's interesting there's also some maturity there too right I say so some of the requisitions some of the things that are could could not necessarily because of use academically right it could be

106like learning how to like hold or have an expensive not hit your back and I want say again there's a gap between middle school and high school right so there's a there's a gap of understanding that also I think like when you get to high school you know or as you get older you start to prefer things that are more convenient to you so I guarantee you carrying that or carrying this is more convenient as you get older too right the same thing like I rather carry like my iPad than my my work issued laptop because it's smaller it's easier I could throw them I don't have to bring a separate bag so as you get older right we we grow as individuals too so we start to develop what we like and what we

107like to do I'm not yes it needs to be you know confined to because they are still students and they're still in high school but I think that's some of it too is is that kind of getting used to what works for them too so what I'm hearing is possibility that we should re-evaluate our distribution of Chromebooks to the entire District I think what I'd say is that could be a conversation we should be able to I would think get some data on you know usage and and see yeah I know I had a district issued laptop I wasn't using it so I returned it because you know like the updates and stuff like that just you want to make sure it's being utilized the most as possible and I mean let's look at I

108would want to look at that usage especially at the high school Level Elementary School level is different they use it as much as they can I'm sure it's different they're not bringing it home there's you know but I think really from the high school perspective it's are we using using these most of the time whereas that laptop's sitting right I don't know do every student get issue one I me my son has a he has a laptop at home but he uses a school one so does everyone get one of these even if they choose not to L uses her her her Macbook so that so everyone has their they still get one of these if they don't use it everyone has issued one um we have found that some students they they may have

109returned it and they just use their device but by and large every student has issued a device one of our Chromebooks every student utiliz they use their own so it's left at home or it's in their locker to utilize lockers or buy new lock that we're putting a new lock next conversation so at the middle school is's no problem for s in terms of cell phones cell phon I mean there's certainly there certainly a distraction and we have a policy where if if they're out and using them in a non-school way then the teacher will remove that for either the period or if it's if it's the repat offender it will go to the front um and they can get it at the end of the day so we're pretty strict and so yeah I

110mean certainly they're a distraction but um you know I think we I think our approach is pretty good certainly some Mom and Dad right some teachers are a little bit more okay put that away whereas others will that you know it's going to the main office but I think we do I think we do a pretty good job managing it so at the middle school you don't have specific time that they can use them before school and after school before school after school um no in passing in the hallway none of that not currently no I mean listen it's something that we've as a team discussed F of fact though you're probably catching kids yeah and as they transition out of that environment at your school move up into the high school is there any

111uptick within that ninth grade level of testing Waters so I got to tell you I've had this conversation um with principles that I know in California Florida Texas Virginia and here in New York at last week's uh countywide principal meeting um the principles um are all seeing the same types of challenges um across the board uh this is definitely an uptick from coming out of the pandemic where students did not get the foundation that they needed in earli years due to being out of the building um and we're still um trying to navigate some of those challenges so it is a common theme and Motif um throughout public high schools with a lot of Administrators um that I'm friends with um having the same conversations um and again going back to the mom dad kind

112of uh approach with this there are staff who are very comfortable setting their expectations um it's not a policy because we have a district policy it may be a classroom practice but it's not a policy um but teachers um have set their practices from day one and let the students know what the use or no use rule is going to be within their classroom right um and other teachers um utilize it for different purposes as your maturity level though you know ninth grader comes in comes out of it Middle School to that new world at the high school that's a lot different than a senior um are the higher grades more responsible and how they use those devices when are they just better at it or you don't see it when there's an issue I

113I wouldn't disaggregate the data um by grade level I would say that when a teacher has an issue of some kind if they send in a referral to uh Administration then we handle it accordingly um I will say that it's very few referrals that actually come in for cell phone issues that's it's interesting to see that but then see the data right that says that they are having trouble managing it so it's kind of you know maybe it's not getting to the referral level but a constant distraction constant Battle of reminders and that is probably something else you know absolutely yeah yeah as a parent you we've had this discussion um my son you know um my sons I'll say my sons I'm not going to throw one the bus another but there one graduate

114one's here but they were they you know during the welcome open houses the teachers would say here you know Red Zone right right that's there but my kids could tell me which teachers they could use the phone in even if it was a Red Zone and which ones it weren't right so you're right like it's about like we have these rules and might have going to force in my classroom and some teach teachers will enforce the rules some teachers will don't want it to deal with it for whatever reason so um so man that's what I've heard from my own children that they they like don't do it in this class because it's you're gonna get in trouble um personally like if I get a phone call the phone stays at school am not picking

115it up right so they kind of know how I felt about the phones um so I haven't had any phone issues but they don't you know so it's so that's something me but I just I get to your point that that's really you know the enforcement of the current policy it does call on the teacher to hold you know uphold whatever policies in place uh couldn't agree [Music] more okay where do we want to move my question what's that yeah is the data like is all over the place I don't know that the data really points us in one straight path is there any other information you need I mean um and again I will say that Andy and I work very closely on the questioning of this as to what questions were going to

116take place between the Middle School and the high school and again based on the maturation needs of the students um and you know what goes on between Sixth and eth grade and 9th and 12 that's why the question yeah it's I mean I agree the questions are that the data is all over the place and we saw that too and I shared it with the teachers too um what we came up with so if you want us to dig in deeper into one of these areas we could certainly do that I mean I don't know I mean outside the data even the article you shared with us I mean even outside of that that it's kind of split like people know it's a distraction like people in higher ed like administrators all over they all

117know it's a distraction but in terms of which way to really go everybody split right I think everyone could talk themselves in and out of let's go this direction or let's go that direction um I think we have to figure out what is right for our community and our students in our district and I think that that's where I don't know what that looks like right now but I think that we just have to kind of worry about us and how to get our students on the right path would it be advantageous to us to ask the administrators to to put another small survey or even at a a faculty meeting whatever it may be to kind of get a feeling of how we can do a soft approach to uh improving the current policy

118or or TW waking the current policy where they have a little bit more bite to it so they can put an open-ended question out to every staff member and say what do you want to see and how do you want to see it happen and let's get them to tell us rather than just answer a question that you're blindly saying yes or no to that it's very easy for me to say yes I'm having a problem with cell phones I'm gonna say and I I've had teachers reach out to me on both sides of this like not you know sharing their concerns Andor what they to do so I think anecdotal would be great yeah and you know even putting that question out it half the teachers are going to say one thing and half

119we going to say the other we're right back in the same position also if you do the open-ended as well maybe put a committee together right and and therefore we have representation from administrators from staff from our board from you know just as a committee to to really look at what the right direction is like Janine said for our community and students too and students yeah I think what's important for me is to get some data back maybe Rich you can do that is what what we invested in the Chromebooks what what's our investment on a yearly basis to update them and if they're not being used why are we spending that money I mean we sit here at times and say you know we can use another mental health count we can do another

120social worker we can use this but if we're spending a couple hundred $100,000 to distribute the Chromebooks or upgrade them or whatever and they're not being used to the fullest and why are we throwing that money away so I I think for me another piece of the data that I would like to have is is what our initial investment was to outfit 1,700 students with a Chromebook and what is the the cost of upgrading at a yearly basis what do we budget for so upgrade them on a yearly basis I think that's that's for me that's important too and I also why teachers say they have difficulties in enforcing with both buildings like I'm curious like what what is that what's the difficulty are the students pushing back like um I'm Mis curious what that

121means because a lot of reasons why you can have difficulty and then the other one was about the positive impact of cell phone usage you know based on the the usage reports like we're not using the technology the digital applications we have and and I I work in a very um techsavvy District since for like probably almost 10 years so like I know what can be done but I don't I don't see that um judging by what I see comes in my house with pay so I feel like that's area that I'm hope I was hoping that we'd be a little further along with the pandemic but I think that's part that we have to start here here's that would help kids because they can't do it on their phone um so you know so

122I speak honest like we're just my we're not using those applications appropriately or not to the extent that we could the teaching staff are important to you know gauge the educational part of it but you have a whole other group of people in your schools par professionals sport staff people who are the people that interact with the kids see the kids in the hallway a lot of times in passing in between classes when some of that little ctitious just use usage with a cell phone you know it's pulled out to check something or whatever just using it in general having it out uh a lot of teachers are in their classroom or just in the doorway so you know there you got wide expanses there I think the par professionals and the support staff people

123need to have some input also on this because they're the ones more than not that are seeing this usage happen we I incl we included any of our Tas or Aids Tas who have their like they do study halls and stuff like that were included in this as well anybody who had their own period with students was included so it's we don't have that many but they were included okay because we did ask we did ask it earlier I think the question yeah I'm sorry I for I might have NE said it was just uh you know your teaching staff yeah we have like four probably four or five AIDS who have study halls so they were also included and ours was sent out to the T as well um however they only answered the

124questions that they felt were applicable to them so not everyone did respond to on right but there are there are also people within the support staff F that still have a lot of interaction too just you know not to be forgotten yeah thank you okay think I heard a couple different approaches I know you mentioned committee I mean what do we I like to use the word charge but what are we asking uh the administrators to do I think follow what Joel said let's get their input how we can improve and I think maybe that's the directive to go back to them and say how the board and we as administrative staff like to know ways that we can improve on the current policy we need help on it we're we're kind of at a

125at a watch right now be prepared you're going to have a very split resp it's ultimately going to be a decision of the board working with you guys to to kind of you know come to an agreement that this is going to be the approach and not not saying that it's got to stay there forever I mean we could tweak it after the first six months if we had to or after the first year I think that following the lead of like what Harriet did with the direct committee and the dress code I know that we had teachers who were not happy with it right but I think as a district we came with a something that was uniform and easy to follow at least from our perspective and it's I think most people support

126it even though in the beginning they didn't all agree with it so I think that was a like if we were to do something like that I think that would be beneficial which was a lot of work on Harriet's part so move on okay uh under miscellaneous early male voting uh I'm not going to read all that but everybody understands what the governor is saying that there can be early voting but they have to notify the district in advance uh for board members um I don't think we have any objection to uh the notice that was sent out that William heck been nominated by the walkill Central School District to fill the unexpired term of their rep at large qualify uh anybody have any objection to that that can move forward and just the elster

127County School Board Soph memo for board members uh if uh we got any questions you want to be asked during that January 25th meeting to present them to Lisa or Joel and it could be sent forward I believe that's the meeting that the legislators are going to be there and I know uh at least Mr IUS mentioned that um we would like to have some representation at those meetings to um Advocate on behalf of District so if we can get folks to attend that that would be advisable am I correct Lisa that's one with the legislator I'm pretty sure I thought it was as soon as I get uh I should get more in the next week from uh Dr Shanker and I can put that in my update okay um anybody have anything for

128the good and Welfare of the district I just want to say that I think we have to be mindful and make sure we get ahead of the curve with communication specifically with a lot that was discussed tonight with the uh Capital campaign project um I think that we just have to make sure that we are informing our parents and our athletes of what is going to happen for the roll out because I'm expecting that there's going to be some happy unhappy people and so we have to figure out a way to make sure that they're not unhappy and that our athletes are getting the same attention for them and that other things that take place on that field and in this community on our grounds is still taking place the one thing we'll find is

129you're never going to make everybody happy but I think if we communicate the best we can and make a comedy and ACC comedy everything as best we can that's all we're going to be able to make everyone happy there's going to be people but I think the key to that is making sure that we're communicating we're being proactive in communicating and not they're not hearing it second hand and then a lot of our telephones are being buzzed because they're hearing things and then we need to be proactive and make sure that we're being upfront and that we're figuring out the best plan based on the circumstances So to that is there any way maybe we could have probably put something out that's already in the works okay um and we were just waiting for for

130that last piece to get approved and as you can tell that they found out that it was approved before I did um not communicated you till tonight well I mean literally I usually I usually get the I usually get the emails directly from the state and I have been checking a million times a day so just got to apologize to Lily we didn't include you in some of this cell phone discussion do you have any she can speak any feelings and thoughts about all right I'll have you think I'll have you think about it that's your homework for the next meeting January yeah all right don't worry if I have anything to add I'll you let us I'll proven that and Lily if there is something you have ready by any Friday you can get

131it to me and I can send it to them because I send an update to the board every Friday awesome so I'll be more than happy to share if you want to give me feedback I will make sure they get it great thank you all right maybe some discussion with your peers and maybe you get some you know feedback from them that you can share be it would be helpful for for us CU we're struggling a little bit you know not knowing what direction cuz you know like everybody said you know the data is is fluid you know it's up and down so you're not getting a good true picture of and if I'm not mistaken I was in those seats the last time we reviewed this policy we did have some students come to

132the board and express their opinions so not that we need I know one time when when I brought it up a few years ago probably five six seven years ago a lot of Staff members came to the meeting and expressed because we were talking about uh you know kind of taking that that privilege o staff members came forward and said you know they're utilizing at that point for educational purposes and that's how the green light red light thing happen started at the high school Y ech what J said about just um I only imagine whoever is watching the meeting um hearing some of this like it's going to start the buzz about what what's going to happen not happening so I think the sooner that message can go out to uh prevent some of that

133and then just with the cell phone policy like simly I think um speaking from experience like the more buying you can get like not going to get 100% um but I think the more stakeholders you can get involved in that conversation it'll be a smoother um launch then to whatever to whatever may make come that's I that's going to be um key whatever happens that's I think maybe the uh our director of transportation and Athletics should possibly at time to be involved in in those uh committee meetings with the design team and our district uh director faciliity so they they got an idea of what could happen What going to happen because it does it does affect especially with you know the shortage of bus drivers it affects Transportation uh equally it really does if

134we have to start transporting for three seasons you know throughout the area to it's gon to have a big impact yeah I already wrote that down that we definitely need to have a conversation between all three departments probably other people because we are literally 3 months from yesterday the start of the spring season and it's going to take a lot to make it work and we have to have it in a position where it's everybody needs to be on the same page if not everyone's just going to be all over the place so I mean perfect example is if if if for that slide presentation if if the fields wer is not going to start until April you could possibly still keep you got the practice fueld you can still keep Athletics here on campus

135and then transport them out for for games and practices could still take place so we we need that that dialogue that dialogue has got to happen and I think probably the the bulk of that dialogue got to come from director facilities because he's in contact more with right with design team and that's got to be filtered down to those two two dep departments it has to be and they they have to be involved in that the spring season's over May 15th yeah I mean we're we're pretty much done with the regular season by anywhere between May 5th and May 15 our regular seasons are done so we're only talking about you know April and part of May but I think but I don't know what their plan is with I don't think any of us

136know I think they need to I mean I know there's a lot up in the air but I think they have to tighten their timeline too because that's a good point like spring is done by May 15th so are they saying like we're going to start on April 27th at that point then wait a week to finish out the spring Sports I mean yeah it's going to mess up graduation but at least then you could get one more season in I mean they have to tighten the de they have to tighten the Dead uh the timeline up a little bit because I mean that's a huge gap and I know he's saying that other schools were three seasons but many of us have administrators and have people in other districts where it was not that

137long specifically roundo M mik taking all that this is not pointing a finger at but whoever we hire as a design and a management team working for Highland Central School District not maror Central School District not new pool Central du they're working for us so they got to they got to move in our Direction I had to jump through hoops to get the bit schedule moved into February because it was way out there and I said God guys you got to accelerate this it's got to happen we're going to approve contracts if they're favorable contracts we're approving them in our February 13th me I guess it's it's G to happen are they aware like what Janine said like the seasons like when this you know spring start are they just saying here here's like we

138got it now let's go and not about school I don't know I don't think Communications to happen that the support service is coming I mean I don't think it's it doesn't happen here right that's what we trust service meetings do not happen on a regular basis I mean we basically have to Joel and I would have to call one and then then it happen you know and I got to a point where we haven't had one in a while let's get an update I think this this project it has to be you Knowle it's it's said they work for us district and everybody uses that team approach well it's it's us and the Departments we all have to work together to make this absolutely there is dead times in that process though yeah there is

139dead times if come on the calendar it's a dead time you just cancel it everybody likes time back right so you just try to get into a Cadence with them maybe that's better without doubt you know the first Monday of you know and if there's nothing going on then then cancel it but there is there is periods of time where stuff is going on but nothing has any effected that moment and acknowledge that's a lot on the support services committee too and so acknowledge and appreciate everything that that committee does too you know there's a lot of coordination there's a lot of time effort that goes into a cill project when we were going around to uh the buildings um doing the the cell you know to the public um the real for this Turf

140part of this project the real buyin and the push um came from the parents of the younger students who were going to be the kids that were going to going to be if you know they're not impacted right now unfortunately people would students in the in the high school yes they are affected um but the parents from the younger grades were the ones that I think really truly believe push this uh whole project through um and they're not gonna you know we have to notify them too obviously but they should be kept in the loop but it's going to a little rough we just got to do the right stuff to tighten things up and you know push it along and try to pull some time back you know I think we need to be

141cautious too right I think there's a line that you can tow there but making sure that we're not pulling it back too much to to Pro you know cause an issue that down the road we're continuously chasing an issue or chasing a problem you know I think it's it's definitely you we want it done right also right that's that's always my fear is that we try to rush things in or get them in quicker than they should be there's going to be people upset there's going to be a lot you know got to try to minimize that and move forward okay anything else anything for the good and Welfare of the district I'll open the meeting back up to public comment we U close public comment motion to adjourn motion by Tom second by Neil

142all in [Music] favor oppos