2021-6-10 HPCSD Board of Education Meeting

001okay um i'm sure um right [Music] i did not forget about that oh uh nice so hmm me so oh thank you i'm gonna need this feel real here because there's no microphone uh before we begin the meeting i am going to remind everybody that masks are required inside the building so i would ask you to please put your masks on um okay we'll call the meeting to order welcome to the hyde park central school district board of education meeting today is june 10th [Music] you know they please stand for the pledge friends class at ralph r smith reciting the pledge of allegiance are we ready okay i pledge allegiance to the flood of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and

002justice for all [Music] okay um and we didn't introduce those but those children but who what's christmas ralph smith those are students from around um may i have a motion to accept the agenda is there any discussion all those in favor any against motion carries just a reminder to say your name when you make a motion so that jay can make sure you get it 5.1 upcoming events the district is closed on june 18th in recognition of juneteenth our next board of ed meeting is june 22 thursday it'll be here we also have a bunch of point and point of order isn't it tuesday tuesday i'm sorry it is our next quarterback meeting is tuesday the 22nd not thursday okay and do you want to talk about all the dates first um i'm sorry jay

003um i didn't bring them with me oh i'm sorry you gave them to me but i just put them in my calendar so i could say them mostly from memory um and just correct me if i'm wrong here so my apologies for that um so i believe the elementary virtual ceremonies are the morning of the 22nd i believe that's true um hopefully someone will fact check me right away um the virtual ceremony moving update ceremony for haviland is the 23rd and that's at six in the evening fdr's drive-in graduation is thursday evening the 24th and there's a drive-through part for the staff on the other side of the road and then we're having our three ceremonies at fdr for getting diplomas and that'll be the 25th in the morning in three different groups on what

004oh the 23rd okay that's what your email says okay any upside down any other upcoming dates i don't think so okay um pride we'll move on to pride so i'm just gonna say zade is is taking exam tonight so he's not here he wrote it up okay i'll let you read his thing sure so this is from zade our wonderful student board member said sorry i cannot join tonight the time you're reading this he's taking his ap physics exam online my daughter did that last year all right lots of great pride for tonight thank you for sharing it so starts with fdr prom was great everyone had an amazing time truly enjoyed one of our last celebrations as a class big thank you to senior class advisors ms schultes and ms rich for putting together

005such an amazing event the food venue music were all great and thankfully the weather was perfect this was definitely one of my best high school memories and the same for most of my peers i'm really glad to hear that um varsity softball set a season record with 11 wins and only one loss they've qualified as the number two seed for the section 9 class a sophomore tournament girls lacrosse ended their season with nine wins and five losses winning their last five games in a row to end their season strong boys lacrosse ended their season with five wins and eight losses they also won four of their last five games to finish their season strong baseball finished with nine wins and seven losses and qualified as the number three seed in the section nine class a

006baseball tournament the track team had the amazing season the girls finishing undefeated with 10 wins and the boys finishing with nine wins and one loss the team will be competing in the section 9 regional championships on friday at deet stadium in kingston boys tennis ended with four wins and eight losses the crew team competed on sunday against seven schools and had an outstanding performance boys golf finished their season with eight wins and two losses with mike bukolski and ike rothman qualifying for the section nine championships many teams are in the title of new york state public high school athletic association scholar athlete teams to be recognized as a scholar athlete team with a certificate 75 percent of the team's roster must have a gpa of 90 or above the following teams are baseball softball girls

007lacrosse boys lacrosse girls spring track voice tennis and boys golf and i'm always so proud of this because it's both it's really hard you know being a student athlete competing spending all the time practicing and also achieving um so thank you to patch and all of our other student athletes who made this great achievement haveland thank you to the amazing havelin pta for hosting a third quarter honor roll breakfast for students who earn their names on honorable or academic achievement and congratulations to these outstanding students students enrolled in french class at haveland were able to enjoy their french cafe day they spent the year learning about the french language and culture and were able to have a taste of france as they approached the end of the year spending a period enjoying french food and

008drinks violet avenue violet a new installed story walk it's an interactive read-aloud in their playground area storywalk is an outdoor literacy experience for the students and community the book the little red fort in both english and spanish has been selected for this event so i actually did story walks so when you're walking one way away from the building it's in english and when you're walking back the other way it's in spanish each page was deconstructed laminated and mounted on an outdoor board these boards were then installed on the playground for everyone to enjoy during and after school hours classes have also been invited to go outside for an interactive read-aloud experience with their teachers this story will be displayed through the end of june and replaced by a new book in september violet avenue's plan

009is to continue this project throughout the next school year with news stories every month north park they concluded their canstruction project i saw some photos today families donated over 300 canned goods to our local hyde park food pantry with the support of our amazing transportation team designs were all very creative and unique some included spongebob squarepants book covers butterflies hydro flasks i don't know what that is actually and the schoolyard habitat food chain all out of cans five outstanding fifth graders presented at the dlt meeting that's the district leadership team meeting and i was there and they were amazing they discussed the data they had collected and disaggregated about how to most effectively use technology the alignment of the district and building goals and even shared some arabic congratulations to ishmael um alex dean or

010myers amir thompson and sarah utter for being such wonderful student leaders finally fdr haviland north park graduate graduate folly molly feibel competed on jeopardy tuesday night molly made an impression on several of her teachers with her high level of intelligence congratulations and well done on this once in a lifetime accomplishment so that's zade's pride so amazing that he did this with the ap exam it is it is and i actually saw the signs of pilot avenue when i was driving by this morning i saw them and i was like i wonder what and it's out all the time and no one is defacing it i hope i'm not attempting fate but it's it's been up day after day and it looks great um and then i have some pride that i brought in um teacher

011juliet boone and bill bedford are working on an amazing project at fdr they're creating garden for use in the community based class it's really taken off among the larger fdr community as well the chamber foundation incorporated which is an affiliate of duchess county regional chamber of commerce has selected our very own zade sahana for the linda and steven lance scholarship so congratulations zade um i i also had something about molly so that that's really exciting being on jeopardy dwayne olsen fdr student had his replica of chitty chitty bang bang used on the kennedy awards this past monday evening um thank you nancy halton for letting me know that um and there's a new feature in the story walk that's it okay do other people have pride i just saw pictures of the prom and it

012looked amazing lots of pictures and stuff so it's very cool does anybody else have any other pride okay then we'll go on to the superintendent's report okay so um as i think everyone knows by now there was a lot of confusion across the state last week when it seemed that the governor's office had cdc approval for face masks to be optional in schools i received this information from the media friday afternoon along with everyone else there were immediate challenges and calls for clarification i sent a message out to the community on sunday right after we received confirmation that face masks are still required in schools and then on monday we got an update confirming that the cdc will allow for a choice of mass outside only but that the mandate is still in place for

013indoors for the remainder of the school year the decision about mass being outside was left to individual school districts um stakeholder input was not required for that decision so i then was able to immediately communicate the decision the same day that we are allowing students to be outside on playgrounds and outside our schools without math students and staff and although you know we have days that are this hot and humid every year it's the first time we've had mass in the equation it's also the first time we've had remote instruction available and some families did let me know they chose to keep their children home earlier this week and they were able to access their classes and i had one other just to mention the presentation tonight on the proposal for the utilization of federal

014stimulus funds it will be posted on the website tomorrow um but there is a public forum next wednesday june 16th by sent to school messenger out at 5 30 at havilland for staff and families to share their thoughts about the plan before it's submitted so you may recall we held a thought exchange recently for everyone's input into the plan and all the top ideas have been incorporated into the plan the presentation i'm doing tonight will be posted and that's also what we're going to present um as long as there aren't you know changes along the way so it will be an opportunity at the hearing um that again the plan's not submitted yet so it does give us the opportunity to make changes if needed okay do you want to go right into that 7.2

015hybrid central school district plan for the use of american rescue plan and is that coronavirus response or relief act thank you so i should go up there yes please up great okay so there's two pieces that are required or many more but two pieces that are happening tonight there's a safe return to full-time instruction plan which can be based on our reopening plan it's just not as comprehensive and then there is the plan for the use of the funds so tonight we're really talking about the plans of the use for the funds and i can tell you pretty succinctly about our safe return to full-time instruction which is that our plan is to return full-time five days a week full days in the fall okay so there are three different funding sources there's the coronavirus

016response and relief act and there were two different portions and and here i just have our funding not the overall state funding so we were given some 99 000 of governors relief elementary secondary act three million dollars and then the other source of funding is the american rescue plan act and that was five million dollars so that's our total um over nine million dollars it is spent out over four years a four year period and it is as we plan we need to be careful because that money will be gone after the four years and we can't have you know a funding cliff where we have positions that then all get cut if there are things that we really need so we had to be careful about some one-time things some things that we really

017know we need anyway as a response to the pandemic that we know that we have you know a lot of work to do for our students who have been out of school um who are out of school last year and who um maybe were not able to access the education full-time so there are three main areas of focus for our funding and this is again a proposed plan so it hasn't been submitted and it hasn't been accepted yet so this is a proposed plan health and safety learning opportunities and mental health support so again this came out of feedback from our whole community so we had javelin students fdr students all parents and all staff and the top rated ideas really fell into these four categories summer school extended day programs hvac and air conditioning

018and class size reduction and and they are all included and when we talk about um well we'll talk about mental health in a bit so but these were the top rated health these were the top rated ideas okay health and safety um we are looking into the hvac finishing the hvac at fdr so where things are left in the current project is that due to the needs at north park and finishing up that project the rest of the a track at fdr was scheduled for the next capital project the um approvals from the state ed department take a long time and we are looking into whether we could move that piece into the stimulus funds since it's already been approved and then we'll be able to in the next capital project move hvac along faster

019through the district so that we have a process of capital projects that keeps our debt service level and we can keep that going but we can move faster if we're able to use stimulus funds it's also a great use of stimulus funds because it is um one time so to speak and and wouldn't have to continue after we just keep our capital project going so it'll just get us ahead learning opportunities we had already planned on expanding summer school and we offered it to every elementary and havelin middle school student i believe to every family and were able to accommodate every single family that said that they wanted to participate in summer school so that information has gone out they're staffed and the high school program is is really based on need for credit recovery

020so that is continuing and and we are running that program internally both this has done it in the past we're doing it this year ourselves um extended day programming k-12 which will take place in the next school year arts enrichment summer program class size reduction in second grades in the last few years we have made an attempt where class sizes are up at 29 or 30 which is allowable in our district but when the class size have been that large in kindergarten or first grade where there's not co-teaching where it's just one teacher in 29 or 30 you know five or six year olds we've either broken out another section or we've hired a teaching assistant to come and support the class so we've been doing that just for kn1 this coming year we made

021the decision to include second grade in that and were able to break out sections in the three buildings that had really high numbers for second grade next year so it's the current first grade class and the justification came from staff and also parents that this is a group especially you know this year's first grade they had the pandemic in kindergarten you know so starting in march they were remote and then all of first grade has been some students remote some students hybrid and um we really felt like we needed to have smaller class sizes for for this big cohort and elementary intramurals so we're looking into the idea of having um i you know this district hasn't had it for i don't know if we had it way back when but we haven't had it

022in the 20 years i've been here so it's like you know sports at elementary before going into modified at havelin whoops i just want to make sure i've got it okay and then we're also looking at mental health support so there's a program that our guidance advisory committee had already been looking into and we were looking to implement which is a program really to support social emotional needs at the building level um an additional social worker or psychologist so i'll say that now that it may not be a social worker we're really looking at you know best fit at haveland and at fdr and one teaching assistant who's been trained in de-escalation per building k-12 that there would be i'll talk about the director of guidance in a minute so i want to be clear

023in past presentations and past times we've brought programs back from out of district for special education and hired staff that's not what this is so this isn't about bringing students back who are not placed this is a program for students who will be in the building previously and we just didn't have the supports for kids who may have a lot of anxiety maybe transitioning out of psychiatric care who have school anxiety who are afraid to come into school and it's like we visited some of these programs in massachusetts and it's like there's a space with a clinician available a psychologist or social worker usually a teaching assistant and students start going back to class as they're ready so they maybe go for part of the day or particular classes where they're most comfortable and then

024someone is helping them you know keep up with the work in the bright room and they're getting counseling and then transition back to school so it's been highly effective there's also a lot of support in the network for professional development training for staff um so our you know our clinicians are really excited about that and and so our you know our staff and our administration so some of you may remember um 11 years ago we cut the director of guidance position from the budget and we are looking to oversee not just bright but our multi-tiered systems of supports in general we have adopted new social emotional learning curriculum we've done social emotional learning seo curriculum in all buildings but it has not been consistent aligned across the building so this year dr brown worked with

025a committee they developed criteria they selected programs every teacher in the district got to have a presentation on all of the programs and voted and we selected programs for next year so there's oversight of that as well as all of our our mental health support the other piece about the director of guidance is according to the regulations that i think are now three years old there needs to be elementary guidance support and we've been able to accomplish that with the haviland and high school guidance counselors writing the curriculum for elementary and being available to elementary so we've met the letter of the law but not really the spirit which is that there's real support for elementary so what would be different with this director of guidance position is that they would really oversee the elementary

026program and be available and be housed not just in the high school but be you know a district office and spending significant time at elementary level so there are two administrative stipends also with the funds that are only for the period of time of the grant so one is fiscal oversight of this nine million dollars making sure that we you know do everything right there's a lot of progress monitoring and reporting that comes with it you know no one gets nine million dollars for nothing there's a lot of work that goes behind that and we want to make sure that that there's really good oversight over that and a covid coordinator um someone to you know continue the work of the contact tracing and you know all of the guidelines and rules and regulations that

027come out um feels like on the daily but you know maybe to be fair it's weekly over the last year and a half but um some support with that would be great okay so this is part two the safe return to full-time instruction plan again monday to friday full day not cutting it short for office time we're looking at full return to school um health and safety guidelines are outlined in the plan as they stand today if they change the plan will change you know it's a living document as it was this whole year where every time we made a change we highlighted it and people could see at any time what was new in the plan and we tried to keep up with you know the pace of change okay next steps i mentioned

028the public hearing at havilland that's next wednesday at 5 30 it is in person and have a middle school in the auditorium so there should be enough space for distancing there the plan will be posted um i'm looking to have it posted tomorrow that will include the presentation and the safe return to full-time instruction plan and this summer there are different deadlines depending on which grant that are going to be submitted this summer i think this is my last slide there we go but i'll stay here for questions does anybody have any questions i have a i have a couple um so normally we get um aid for uh capital projects right isn't that isn't that true yes so if we spend money out of this on capital project so wouldn't it wouldn't it be

029better to look at projects where we don't get aid that just make the dollar go further it would make any capital project work then we wouldn't be able to do any capital project work with the money and i would hate you know hvac and air conditioning came up so high on the community's wish list that i think we should put a portion of it toward that even if it's one time so i hear what you're saying but i we also want to listen to the community that they wanted a faster speed of change with hvac and this is one way to do it every year you know we're we have to submit the plan for all three or four years but we can change it along the way so we're not looking to spend a

030disproportionate share on hvac um but just that that's part of the plan do you mind if i say anything please so when we have a capital project that's voted it's um about 67 percent of our that we receive back in eight this would cover a hundred percent of what we do you know i know that but if we so we could spend it on something else right that we don't get aid for so the dollar would go further right so if we were to so if it's a million dollar project we'll we get 67 back in that out of our pocket is 33 percent yes right whereas if we use it for something else we get a 100 of the million dollars to spend on something else that we would spend a million dollars on

031see what i'm saying just mathematically it'd be good if we use our money for something that's getting aid in this money for something we're not getting just a thought yeah just yeah every time we spend federal grant money on something that maybe is boces aidable you know we lose that aid but sometimes we know that that is um the best use for those funds and again those those funds are not you know local tax dollars either right there may be nothing but it'd be worthwhile to look at if you people bigger some other spending aviva said earlier the plan that we have for hvac and regular capital projects would be late it would be longer drawn out if we could do a portion of it now then we can start doing other schools sooner or

032later we could do like the definition i get it it would be having a building have their hvac renovated maybe three years before otherwise you were on a tv that's not this year can we transfer that million dollars to capital this year get the 67 percent aid and use the federal fund to buy the tv for a million dollars and mike one of the things that will be interesting i mean this is one this is the first presentation of this a couple people have asked me for it and i just emailed them so a few people have seen it before and it's on board so people could have seen it since tuesday um but at the hearing if what we hear is like no as long as hvac's happening through the capital project we'd rather

033have you spend more funds on something else you know if we hear that there's still opportunity to change um but for now we went with it was a pretty high number of people who wanted that spent some money spent on the hvac and moving toward ac so there'll be more information on that okay and then for the bryt program staffing it looks like there's an additional 15 people is that temporary or is that forever you know um it is our hope is that it will be a wonderful foundation and something that is a priority going forward it's not a guarantee you know so it's something that we had planned as a priority i mean we've talked about mental health needs of kids and supports needed in buildings and it really was a continuation of that

034work so that this is really three years in the making before we knew there was going to be a pandemic or federal funds so i don't know that we could have started in all six buildings in the fall if we didn't have federal stimulus money we would have to have a pretty slow rollout but we're also really committed and we committed to our staff that we're not going to start a program doing it like halfway um and you know that's just an important commitment that you we work with the people who run the program this is how it works um and we really don't want to understaff it and put more of a burden more work on people that are already you know have a lot on their plate i mean you started this presentation

035saying you didn't want to use the money for something exactly some of the things we're going to be in budget problems some of the things will and some of the things in it we would want if they become priorities there will be other things that we need to cut and you know linda has done fund balance presentations over time and and looking at that we think that we can sustain this for some time um but you know conditions we've just seen what can happen you know there could be a windfall and then we were looking at a budget crisis a few years ago so it's it's all in consideration this is like what kids need right now so we just want to meet the needs of these kids because if you think too far ahead

036five years ten years ahead the kids have already graduated and lost an opportunity so yeah there are some things in there that we hope will continue um but again there's no guarantee okay thanks yeah um well what class size are you looking for to reduce the second grade class so we have second grades that are up to 28 30 with two sections so in those three cases we're adding and i'll say the other i think yeah so when you add a third then you're to 20 19 20 19 like that anybody else and i'll say that this year because we didn't have 100 of kids coming in person um those classes were not as high as they are you know teachers were responsible for 30 kids learning at home and at school but the classroom

037wasn't full of 30 kids so we got through the year this year but there's a there was a lot of concern about coming back in for these kids who who some of them have really missed a lot so i was just able to you know thank you for sending out the surveys to the community it's so important to you know let everybody know what's going on that's that's that's very helpful the bright program i think it sounds very exciting you know as a parent of special needs children i'm very interested to see updates in the future to help that population of students thank you okay thank you thank you um next is 7.3 our district comprehensive improvement plan and revisions for the strategic coherence plan with breakdown thank you okay so good evening everyone the

038last time we uh we got together and discussed the strategic coherence plan we did it virtually so i'm excited to be able to both give you an update several months later but also do it in a in a different format so just as kind of a review there's five different areas or priority areas under the district comprehensive improvement plan and those include equity and inclusion to utilize data to improve instruction in both ela and mathematics kindergarten through eighth grade to align our curriculum resources and our instruction to the rigor of the learning standards student engagement and attendance is a priority area and lastly is the use of data for continuous school improvement so these were the areas identified in our plan and last time we got together i shared with you the top half of

039the slide which were the things that we were proposing to do or things that were underway i'm happy to say that all items that were proposed under priority area number one were completed so that included our equity work with natalie mcgee and consultants from progressive partners we met with our building leadership team our district leadership team and we had a series of learning experiences together to help set a baseline for our work moving forward in terms of next steps we've begun working with dr harrison berg dr harrison berg is a both a renowned author and leader in this area that works with schools she's out of cambridge massachusetts and some of the steps that we're going to look to take with dr berg is a summer leadership training where we're going to orient our staff

040we're going to embed increased cycles into our existing routines and if you remember from the last presentation we talked about how continuous school improvement really requires you to collect data in different domains so there's demographic data those are like how many students you have in your school what's your you know ethnic makeup in the school what's your graduation rate etc there's also perceptual data what is the experience that you're having as a student as a teacher as a parent within the school district and collecting that information there's also the schools or student achievement data which is a third domain which we talk a lot about in presentations in that school most of those were suspended or you know postponed over the pandemic period and then the last piece is our systems and structures like the

041way that we do business and the way that we align our work within the district so it's really important that when we talk about data whether it's through an equity lens or otherwise that we have those infrastructures so we're going to return to that theme a couple of different times because it's foundational to a lot of the work that we do the last piece is that we want to start to develop what are called cross-functional teams so teams that may be across grade levels across school buildings or across the entire district those cross-functional teams can include stakeholders from the community leaders within the community our students together so teams that work across purposes and those purposes would be to look at the four domains of the new york state culturally responsive and sustaining framework which

042was uh approved by new york state in 2018 and then recently we're going to take a look at the um there's a whole nother piece for the diversity inclusion and equity uh framework which was just passed at the may board of regents meeting so we have both now policy guidance and we have curricular instruction and assessment guidance from the state in these areas so we can start to look to align our work both what's uh the curriculum that we have written and the curriculum that's taught so that's exciting work and we're excited to look to dr harrisonburg to help us lead that work within our district for priority area 2 that's utilizing data again to improve instruction in ela and math i'm not going to go through every item on this slide because we went

043through them in some detail last time but again all the action steps for this year i'm proud to say were completed our next steps again is to fully implement the map reading fluency k2 the map ap accelerator i'm sorry the math map accelerator 3 8 fully implement reading plus 6 8 and then start to work on our k8 formative assessment schedules so that we're making sure that we're benchmarking our students progress in responsible ways throughout the year this is both formative which means we use that to inform our instruction inform the types of interventions that we provide our students and inform parents on where they stand relative to the new york state standards which are like our achievement benchmark the other items above there like the map reading fluency accelerator and reading plus those are

044our different programs that work in tandem with the screening tool that we have so nwea maps assessments that the district uses as our benchmark assessment now this is a program these are progress monitoring tools and or curricular tools aligned to those skills that are measured in that way so i just wanted to point out that while you see math or maps a couple of different times it's on purpose because we want to make sure that what we're measuring is what's being done that way we have accurate information to make good instructional decisions for our students for priority area three this is aligning again the broader curriculum and instruction to the rigor of the new york state learning standards this year would have been that full completion of the revision of the new york state learning

045standards the next generation standards however the exams that accompany those were postponed another year so between last meeting in this meeting the state has put out additional guidance saying that there's an additional year for implementation i'm happy to say we were in alignment and we're ready for the implementation this year and we're just going to continue our efforts in that way that happens with our curriculum writing over the summer which is already signed up for and underway and we're looking at walk through tools so that when we go into classrooms we can give teachers real-time non-like appr evaluative feedback but have a common tool so we're using a common language so across buildings we can provide feedback that's understood no matter where you teach or no matter where you're observing and then really to look

046at developing a five-year curriculum audit cycle that's something that school districts used to do very regularly until the new york state board of regents and new york state ed started revising all the curriculum for the last like eight years in a row we've had one or more curriculum areas that have been revised by statute by law so we've had to do it now that we're at the end of that cycle it's important that we continue to do that on a regular basis and not just wait for state ed to tell us when the next time to do it is so that's what that means for a priority area 4 that has to do with student engagement and attendance this is where the bright program we talked about in more detail last time lives this is

047a an intervention for students for the bright program it stands for bridge for resilient youth in transition so it's a it's a safe place with clinicians where students can transition both back into school or if they're struggling in school they can transition into this type of additional tier two high tier two tier three support service without having to like rely on say like aster or other hospitalizations where sometimes we see students go if they haven't had that type of mental health support so it's really exciting to provide that with the district and with the people and the teachers and the counselors who know the students best and it's been proven to help kids transition in and out or not transition out at all so we're really excited to be introducing that and aviva just spoke

048about the fact that the federal stimulus money actually accelerated our timeline so while we were originally talking about implementation of bright at the middle school next year a soft roll out at the high school and in conversations in subsequent years for elementary with the filing of these federal funds we can accelerate that timeline offer the program at both the middle and the high school and then do a soft roll out a year or so early at the elementary school ensuring that all of our students k-12 have access to this level of support so i just wanted to kind of follow up on that a little bit we did um we're going to be doing district wide sel training and i think on the next slide i'll show you a little bit about that i've even

049mentioned the fact that we spent this year uh you know our our sel subcommittee despite kova despite all the other things that were going on spent six months researching seo programs and sel approaches and they used criteria the castle criteria this is international criteria to benchmark different programs these this committee advanced six different approaches three for k eight and three for nine twelve to the full faculty where over teachers participated in presentations around this they benchmarked it against the castle criteria and then they weighed in on where they believed in which programs they believed would best serve their students and from there we're going to start the implementation process so just to give you a little bit of a sense this is what that actually looked like again so on the k8 side you can

050see 52 percent of our teachers said that second step was the program that they believed would be uh the best fit for their students and then you can see the castle criteria below with the mean scores and the mean scores actually benchmark very closely with what castle rated each of these programs themselves which was kind of just an interesting side note and then the 912 you can see the mindfulness in schools project was selected by the faculty so rigorous process started with learning together as a committee gathering feedback from stakeholders bringing in the entire faculty to weigh in crunching the data meeting again meeting with the groups and now we're ready for implementation priority area five is the use of data for continuous school improvement this is something that i talked about at the very

051beginning because it underpins all the work that we're doing right now and we've we've done that through uh soliciting some help from victoria bernhardt and brad geist specifically who's come and worked virtually with our district over the last like four or five months to start looking at continuous school improvement cycles and processes and embedding that work in a regular cycle for us so what does that mean for next steps that means next year we're going to be implementing that framework that continuous school improvement framework in each of our schools and that requires us to examine those four domains of data that i shared with you earlier that's going to require us to collect perceptual data so this is going to be something that's new for the community so be on the lookout we encourage you

052to participate it's a an anonymous perceptual survey so we're going to ask you what your experiences are we're going to ask the students anonymously what their experiences are and we're going to ask the teachers to give us feedback on what their experiences are and the real power of this is uh is not necessarily if everyone says oh we're great like let's say it's on a scale of you know one being not so good and four being wonderful if everybody says three and a half or four it doesn't mean our work is done what it means is we look for the variation is that experience consistent for everybody and then where you see the differences the variation in the data is where you go back and you look at okay do we do we triangulate that

053with student performance data are the students that are saying that they're most connected to school are they also the ones that are the ones that are doing the best academically and then we can examine our programs and say do we have programs that support all of our students so that's why i said the data collection really underpins all the work that we do academic social emotional diversity equity and inclusion so everything that we do so i'm really excited to get that going and there'll be more presentations to the board and to the community regarding this work as we move forward but we've made some really good strides uh during covet so i guess i'll stop there for the update before i kind of jump into another large program or project that we undertook this year

054but does the board have any questions about our our improvement plan as a district in those five domains come on i didn't do that good of a job explaining it what does sel stand for thanks mike sel is social emotional learning and if you back up a little bit i'll go back to the slide here i know it's small so i'll read it but you can see the castle criteria here so when you're talking about seo there's five things that well there's really six that you're looking for but there's five listed here so you're looking at the development of social awareness so between people and your own emotions how you identify your own emotions the development of relationship skills so how you relate to others is another skill of seo um the development of responsible

055decision making so you know that's that pre-frontal lobe development and risk reward right and then the development of self-management so how do you manage your emotions when you feel a certain way or you're experiencing something so first can you name it can you recognize it and then do you have strategies to uh to work through those feelings or emotions as you experience them and then afterwards and then the last piece is that self-awareness part so sel is um it's a require it's a required piece of the educational program from new york state but we wanted to make sure we brought it to multiple levels so what we're talking about here is the tier one level this is the level that every student gets and then when we talk about bright that's like the tier two

056with tier three levels so that's when you have like an acute um like mental health experience or something like that or you need additional support but then you could transition back to what everybody's receiving so out of district placement would be tier three which is what we always try to avoid we want to support our students at that level one and two level or levels any other questions about that part well thank you sounds really really good well all right so i'm going to jump into the last piece which you know honestly i have to stop here and just say a big thank you and and how proud i am of our staff of our teachers of all of our support staff our teaching assistants who worked on this our community members and students who

057worked on this because you know one of the things that districts do is they plan strategically for their future and one of the things that has been put on hold often in a crisis are some of those long-term planning or those big ideas the things that you're thinking about into the future and our staff decided we're going to do this despite covid because it's that important so i just wanted to say how proud i am of the work that they did over the last six months so if you remember back in clearly i was not here then but uh from what i've been told you all embarked on a strategic coherence plan with john acosta where you started to look at what are the four big bucket areas within the district that you want to

058focus on and align your work to well that plan expires in just a couple of weeks so what we did was we spent some time together as a team over these different meetings and we started by saying you know trying to answer these these questions who are we and what do we believe and we looked at our mission vision and the profile of the graduate that was originally developed within the strategic coherence planning process uh the first time that it was done in 2016 and there was resounding support that our mission is still relevant today that preparing students to strive for excellence and to connect to their globally you know to be a part of the globally connected world is still relevant today we looked at the vision for our district and the profile of

059the graduate those attributes that we want all of our students to leave our k-12 program with and the committee decided these all still make sense so rather than doing a full strategic coherence planning process from the very beginning creating a new district mission vision changing the profile of the graduate around significantly we embarked upon an audit of that after affirming that we still believe the things that we said we believed in 2016. so we went to the next question and said well who are we now what's changed between 2016 and and 2021 i almost want to like laugh when i say that because so much has changed especially in the last 18 months so we audited and updated where we are what we think our priorities are and our needs are and we did that

060in a collaborative way we then said well what will it take to get to where we want to be and those are our core values and beliefs and we went back and affirmed with one another and said we believe that all of this means that we want excellence for all of our students that we want opportunities for all of our students so that's where we looked at our core beliefs then we decided well how are we going to get there we're going to initiate a goal-setting process and instead of doing it for five years we're going to do it for one year with really concrete steps that we can take so that we can benchmark that at the end of the year and say how did we do on this this is what we aspired

061to do we're not going to wait five years to measure it how can we measure it at the end of this year and that's that final part how are we going to know what it looks like when we get there so i'm going to apologize now because it's kind of small but again you can get the presentation from the board docs but there's four main areas the first is the curriculum area if i was to just summarize and the one main goal or priority that the group came up with out of consensus was to fully embed all of the four c's into the k-12 curriculum both written and taught and i think i think jeff you might have asked um at the last presentation when i gave an update which one of the four c's

062were we gonna do next and i think at that time i said well just wait till june um the group recognized as you know a cohesive group that these skills do not operate in isolation that they complement one another so there was initial discussion about which is the next one we're gonna do from critical thinking and then the consensus was even if we don't master all four let's take strides let's take steps in all four areas so we're going to embed that and what does it look like when we do it well that's that far right column we're going to see instructional staff and administrators using the same language around the 4cs we're going to see community members board members and and parents talking about these four elements in the same ways using the same

063common language we're going to see it reflected in our self-reflections we're going to see it in our resources and we're going to see it in our training so we're going to say we believe this and we're going to keep working on it so i encourage the board to continue to look at that far right area because that's how we're going to know when we're getting this right the next piece has to do with instruction so you've got curriculum and then instruction and that's deliver and share quality instructional design through the lens of the four c's and make it accessible to all students so rather than just have innovation let's say or collaboration just happening in an ap class let's make that part of the foundation of all classes for all students so that's where that

064piece comes in and then you can see again some of the attributes of what it'll look like and some of the steps we need to take next year to make that possible the next piece is assessment which is important both formative and summative but we need to build our capacity to embed formative assessments and do that benchmarking throughout and i talked about that as part of the dsip so this is an overlap here i won't spend a particularly long amount of time talking about it but we're going to look at assessing not just the new york state standards but the four c's within um you know with both our formative and summative assessments throughout the year finally there's a couple of goals under systems and structures alignment and that has to really do with like

065resource allocation if we do this right then our long-term budget and planning is going to be an alignment with those other three goals that we said because we'd want to put our dollars behind what we believe and if those statements ring true then that's what we believe we want to be uh moving forward it also has to do with policy regulations so as we look at the different policies the board policies in particular and then some of the procedures in our buildings make sure that they align with what those priority areas are and then finally we want to talk about like our leadership focus how can we create structures where we're doing this in a systematic way where from the board schools each year to aviva and i in the cabinet's goals to the building

066principles to the building leadership teams how is there synergy between all of the different priorities that exist and what types of structures can we do so we make sure that we hold each other accountable to those and then you can see one of the ways that the teams believe that we can do this is through the development of plcs or professional learning communities so most of our our educators know what the defores plc's really are but it's when you get together you talk about four different specific questions like what do we want students to know and be able to do how are we going to know when they're able to do it what do we do when students already know how to do it and then what do we do when of course i get

067to the fourth one and now i'm going to stumble but what do we do when students aren't able to do it right away that's not a direct quote don't hold me to it but every time we have a data discussion it should include those four things what do we want them to know how do we know it what do we do if they already know it and what do we do if students aren't able to achieve the first time so i'm really excited about the work you can see it's pretty comprehensive in the next board meeting you're going to get a finalized document that memorializes a an addendum to the original strategic coherence plan where all of this with all the supporting literature will be provided so i just wanted to share where we are

068and the work that we've done and again all this work was done during a pandemic it was done virtually it was a serious learning experience for everyone and i'm just really happy with the good thinking and the collaboration that emerged from this and i'm hopeful for the future as we work to implement it so i'll field any questions now about the strategic coherence plan so okay are we going to have measurable goals meaning that we spent five years teachers coming out of classrooms the students are not having their teachers we're paying for substitutes but are we going to have measurable goals next year jeff i think um i mean the answer is yes i i i'm there's going to be a mixture of both qualitative and quantitative results for all of these so you're seeing

069qualitative things on the on the side here so like outcomes staff develop consistency for implementing plcs and protocols for instance that's something that you would see if we were going to quantify it then i would be coming back to you and saying this percentage this is the percentage of collaborative groups that are using this format that i've observed so it's going to be a combination of quantitative and qualitative certainly because yeah sorry i just want to clarify since greg you weren't here that the professional development the teachers did with the four c's in lesson planning was all during professional development days so it was not with substitutes wednesday oh yeah but we had the dlt with the teachers out all days yeah and multiple times developing the critical thinking skills yeah we've had a district-wide

070team for several years yes but also are you planning to bring this back to the dlt as a full review of the goals and the data that goes there as part of the dlt because it's dlt with this part has only been the instructional part of the dlt i just wanted you to bring the rest of the dlt in to review these goals and the data that comes from it yeah so so jeff that's a good question i think right now the instructional team has put together the priority areas to move forward the evening dlt i know there's two different groups so for those of you that aren't familiar with like the inner workings there's a there's two groups that meet one is an internal group that works on instructional things like i'm just sharing

071with you now and then there's like a governing body that's part of regulation that meets in the evening as well yeah i believe that all of this should there's members on both teams so there's like some cross membership on both which is really nice but this is going to need to be continued to just be discussed and moved forward i think that if we're going to do any further work in terms of mission vision core values the profile of the graduate anything like that that's going to be a much bigger conversation that the instructional team wouldn't do in isolation i think all four of these goals are in alignment with what the evening dlt has put out before in the original strategic coherence plan right yeah on your on your first detail slide the curriculum

072one yeah i have a question on under professional development the last one where it says authenticate curriculum design linked to instructional implementation does that mean developing in running pilots or does that mean something else so i'm sorry mike i was having a hard time hearing you could you just say that last bullet point under professional development yeah i'm trying to understand what that means and i'm wondering is that does that mean uh designing pilots and and running them got it i'm sorry the peer-to-peer professional learning piece the peer-to-peer professional learning was as i understand it opportunities for teachers to share their learning after school i was on the one before that curriculum right thank you third bullet point under professional development authentic curriculum design linked to instructional implementation so yeah so authentic curriculum design is

073a way of designing curriculum that's in alignment with the four c's but it has has a couple more steps so it requires an authentic audience it's usually tackling a purpose sometimes it's called problem-based learning or project-based learning as like a shell for delivery but the bigger goals behind authentic curriculum design is to have a real world problem something that's like a worthy problem worth worth solving right and then uh like a an authentic audience so a consumer of that work that could be a board presentation like i'm doing now that could be a basketball game where you're watching the skills that were done in practice and you're watching how that plays out on the scoreboard that's like a performance assessment so what we would want to do is not just have authentic prop like projects

074at the end of a unit so we do traditional learning and then we get to the end of the unit you get to do this really fun thing at the end we want that authentic project or that authentic problem solving to be the learning so that's what is meant by authentic curriculum design we want to look at embedding authentic curriculum design within our written and taught curriculums so so one of the goals is to do more problem-based learning within the curriculum um it could be problem-based learning is one way i would argue it's not the only way of doing that but yes you could use problem-based learning as an instructional practice uh to get to authentic curriculum absolutely any other questions alright well thank you very much let's change this thank you very much greg

075um okay may i have a motion to enter public participation will move perry second jeff i would just like to remind everybody that as a general rule for public participation um it's limited to three minutes per speaker with the first public participation segment limited to 21 minutes um so we have a lot of people that want to talk so i would just ask everybody to please be mindful of that um is there any other discussion all those in favor any posts okay we're in public participation anybody would like to speak hello my name is pat stolen and i'm a current junior at fdr good evening to the board of education and superintendent kafka my name is pat stolin and i am here to speak about my concerns with our district's ability to keep our community

076safe at the last board meeting i discussed the events in which my father who was physically and cognitively handicapped from a neurological virus was denied handicap access by our athletic department and security staff this event has left my family and i embarrassed to call ourselves members of the high park community as i heard about the events that occurred that evening i was destroyed both mentally and emotionally no member of our community should have to endure the embarrassment and struggle our family has had to go through this past month as a result of this instance i felt unsafe and uncomfortable to return to fdr a place where i am the student body president the vice president of our national honor society a top 10 student academically i was invited and nominated to be on this board

077and the captain of the lacrosse team additionally last week i was announced to be the captain of the football team for the upcoming season this honor is an outstanding achievement and something i'm very proud of however it means nothing when my teammates cannot see me succeed in the classroom a place where many of my teammates struggle and need the most help i want to be present at fdr for daily instruction to help my teammates and serve as a role model how am i supposed to lead my teammates into our community when i can't influence them throughout our school if they don't see me in school doing the right thing how can i expect them to do the right thing i need to be back in school not just for my own benefit but to lead

078our student body my teammates and peers need me now more than ever to lead them through a time of uncertainty as we head into a new school year i am asking you to please make the right decision to allow me to return to a place where all of our community member safety is valued in order to return to fdr i need to be respected and most importantly safe i love this community and i know our community members deserve better than updates in our procedures and extended sensitivity training we need clear action and accountability to those who have put the safety of our community at risk until that is done i will not attend school and will be forced to remain remote at your hand this is incredibly disheartening as i desire more than ever to

079return to school which is a place that is made to be inclusive and safe for everyone in our community thank you for listening to my concerns and i hope you can use your power to make a safe place for everyone in our community thank you i have asthma so just to speak good evening this week has been extremely tough for me i really am sorry can you please state your name oh my name is ashley this week has been extremely tough for me i really struggled sending my first grader to school on 95 degree heat with a cloth covering around his nose and mouth surrounded by plexiglass and 25 other kids as another local mom put it we want to treat dogs like this the attitude can't be oh well there's 10 days of in-person

080school left if we did this to animals it would be considered animal abuse there is no reason my child needs a mask the data shows these kids aren't affected by kova the way adults are anyone over the age of 12 has access to the vaccine people can still wear masks without mandating it for all let's use common sense why is it okay for other seats to unmask but not us this is a political issue and it's at our children's expense my child's health is my responsibility and that's why i'm here tonight to fight against this i'd like to point out page 9 of the new york state guidance switch states responsible parties will need to consider and address developmental appropriateness feasibility and ability to implement such policy in a safe consistent manner students who are

081unable to medically tolerate a mask including students where such masks would impair their physical health or mental health are not subject to to the required use of a mask i am my child's responsible party and my child is not medically able to tolerate a mask anymore i'd like this exemption applied immediately to my family i don't need to have a doctorate degree to figure out that it's not healthy for him to be almost passed out on the gym floor because he can't breathe it's not healthy for him to wear a mask in 95 degree weather it's not healthy for him to wear a wet cloth on his face all day this is common sense these masks cover their nose and mouths preventing them from being able to breathe socialize or communicate with their teachers properly

082the government doesn't own our kids our dollars are what supports this district federal funding help but we are your lifeline we deserve to be represented and have our children's best interest fought for why is hyde park not a leader in this fight where's the passion what is the district doing to fight back against this weapons district sent a letter to officials asking them to lift the mandate where's hyde park's letter as aviva said in our email it is far more effective to come together and speak with a unified voice to advocate for change so why are you not speaking out one of my biggest fears is fears is public speaking but i stand here tonight speaking out fearing more about what is happening to our children if we can't stand up against a massive issue

083we're not going to be able to stand up against the vaccination being forced or other issues to come we elected you to represent our district and our interests and it's time you push back and fight for our children aviva if the superintendent association will do the right thing i implore you to band together with local districts and unite your voices these are uncomfortable times and i encourage you to speak out you have the power and ability to make the right choice which is to stand up and speak out for choice it is unfair and unjust what these kids have been through this past year or in the name of protecting adults and now it's time the adults stand up and protect them for over a year now our children's ability to have a normal in-person

084educational experience has been taken from them and it's time that we give them their lives fully back like i tell my children be a leader not a follower hi my name is candy dolan i come here this evening to once again ask the superintendent and board of education to understand the situation that poor planning and illegal actions by this district have caused my family i have come to three board of education meetings and had numerous correspondence with you regarding this situation this situation is not going away and neither am i at the very last board of education meeting my son a student at fdr described how he felt unsafe and disrespected in his school and asked this very group sitting before me for help it is ironic that at that very same meeting this board

085of education was granting tenure to the very individual who planned and oversaw the illegal action of denying handicap access to my husband and the community that action alone says that you feel this individual is doing a good job and you are inviting them to permanently join the hyde park central school district community i was speaking to a district groundskeeper who said the athletic director had told him that no one can have access to the road leading to the handicapped parking at the stadium that shows the athletic director knew he was closing the handicap access at the stadium this is illegal and the board of education is granting this person tenure i want the community to understand the board of education is giving tenure to someone who broke the law the district expects my son to

086return to in-person learning and look the other way as the security guard in question does her job my son has not done anything wrong i can't believe this district stands by employees who would disrespect and be members of the handicapped community and their families not only do you stand by this employee but you allow her to operate and man the handicapped gate having direct contact with this population i'm glad that you are confident with her job performance i want to tell you my plan now moving forward i have filed a formal complaint against this district with the united states department of civil rights i am currently as their advised following a formal complaint with the new york state division of human rights i am also submitting a daciform to investigate these events i will be

087reaching out to local media and representatives to publicly inform our community about this illegal action against the handicapped i am seeking legal counsel to gain knowledge of my family's rights moving forward i am not going away my son a senior coming in for deserves an education at fdo without his safety and dignity being disregarded my name is nicole wesler i'm here tonight speaking as a parent in the district i wanted to start by applauding our teachers and the staff who endured probably the most tumultuous two years of their professional working experience so far and they continue to be the backbone and support system for our students i acknowledge that they're underfunded understaffed and widely under appreciated at this time so as a parent i'm saying thank you to them on record i open my sanity

088at this point um and thankfully we've got a little bit of a slight repeat from the heat because everybody's been miserable all week i'm sure administration all the way down to our students but i'm disheartened that this district did not have a stronger response to the recent fiasco that was caused by the new york health commissioner and our governor in regards to mass in schools this district needs to make a stand against the use of mass mandates and i want to be clear on talking about the mandates they be telling them they have to be on the district needs to take a stand against mass mandates being used as a political tool in new york it's deplorable at this point that we are expecting five and six-year-olds to be able to advocate for themselves to

089ask for mass breaks if they are too hot or not feeling well i will tell you now as someone who has a teaching degree and also works with individuals with disabilities these students are not going to stand up at that age and say i need a break when in schools we have signs that say that please we're giving our children conflicting messages right now children are scared to take their mass off despite the fact that they're having trouble breathing the mandate of mass at the beginning of the pandemic was completely understandable and as a parent i was all through it and have continued to do so however are now at a point where following the science no longer makes sense uh as of uh may 19th the governor uh reversed a 15-month long mandate that

090kids age two through five did not need to wear masks and miraculously all of a sudden they now needed to and early intervention day care centers and certified providers across the state along with hundreds of thousands of parents spoke out and within five days new york state reversed his edict that they now had to amass they have gone back and said it is highly encouraged however they are not mandated to wear it it is time for this bird and this community to start to do the same thing if young education providers and families can speak out and reverse a mandate that was not scientifically supported there is no reason why we can't do this now if we are following the science let's look at our county science our seven-day volume positivity average right now is

0910.5 yesterday in dutchess county 1746 herbert tests were conducted and there were five positive cases out of that number if we're following the science mask mandates do not make sense if we are following the science we have to acknowledge that children's mental health has been drastically impacted by covert 19 i spent the winter working with my five-year-old through continuous mental breakdowns the science also says that these children are experiencing cobra like the flu you tell me about three minutes i i'm just going to ask you to wrap it up i'm not going to cut you off i'm almost there i think there's only about 10 people the biggest thing i want to preach right now is that pediatric cov19 hospital hospitalization rates are over reported by at least 40 percent so if we're following the

092science we need to take this into effect if i'm wrapping this up i will cut quite a bit out but at this point i'm asking this board to no longer acknowledge that mass mandates should be dictated by new york state government this is now a political weapon and our children are the ammunition for this governor's agenda and new york state education's agenda along with whatever political or union parties are affiliating so at this point i want to be clear i am not necessarily anti-mask if you want to wear one wear one you have every right what i am asking this board to do is stand up for families having the right to choose along with the staff there is no reason why this governor should be acting as though he is the third parent to

093my child i am my child's parent i make their decision this district and this board needs to follow the example put forward by dr bach of the washington wappinger central school district his letter was clear and we need to start by asking for a mask to be mandated or dictated at the county level this is the first step in protecting our children and i implore you that if you do not fight for families right to choose now i give it a year's time and i will be standing here again arguing for the right to choose whether or not my child is vaccinated and to end with if you don't believe that this is the writings on the wall for mandating vaccines for our children you are wrong and please think about what that means in

094the scope of the district choosing to make sure that we are providing equitable education services for children because a higher wealthier proportion of this district will move your property taxes will decrease you will face budget shortfalls and you will find education inequality in this district once again good evening my name is pat whalen and i didn't plan to come up and speak tonight but i'm here because my grandchildren attend this school and i applaud you moms i applaud you moms god bless both of you for getting up here i expected to be a thousand people here tonight a thousand parents i'm a senior citizen and yet i can go into a grocery store now without a mask i can go into the supermarket i can go into a department store without a mess i can

095go to my church with 200 plus people and not wear a mask but my four grandchildren have to wear a mask you know let's play out a scenario i watch my grandchildren in the summer okay i'm a senior so i say okay kids you know what grandma's compromise you got to put a mask on and it's maybe 85 90 degrees and i don't have ac in my house then i take them in my car and i don't have ac because the buses don't either do you know i think my neighbors would call the cops and have me arrested that's child abuse and you have to agree with that do you know that my granddaughter played for lacrosse she's an eighth grader i wanted to throw up i'm out in the open air and she had

096to wear a mess wearing lacrosse sweaty and whatnot that is child abuse now this lady said the right thing the control goes back to the parents ken and layla wrote a letter to the arlington school district stating that he said parents have a right to choose kids can wear hazmat suit whatever they want to wear whatever and i'm not denying there was a virus i'm compromised at my age but i'm not going to be afraid of it and i'm not seeing children should wear masks if their parents want them to but do not put that for don't force that right to go back to you or back to our governor it should be a parental right and no other so take this into consideration and remember as a grandmother i'm gonna be a fight in

097and the next time if this doesn't change this place better be crowded because parents got to get more involved you people don't control our children or our grandchildren thank you anyone else good night everyone my name is david parker i'm probably the odd man out and i understand a lot of the concerns that the parents have i have well had three children going through high park schools different ages and i understand some of the concern but i'm gonna speak for the underdog um well the science says that called black and brown people but minorities are more impacted by this virus than than other races um and the young the younger ones aren't as affected as the older ones but i understand the need and the problems with kids breeding and stuff like that but on

098the flip side it's all fun and good when you're part of the 99 but when you're in that one percent it's a is a completely different story my older son when this whole pandemic started he was like oh it doesn't affect young people he wanted to go out don't wear mass and he was the first one in my family to contact the virus and that led to my wife getting sick and that led to megan is sick and that thing knocked me out for almost a month and i've never been sick like that ever in my entire life so it's all fine and good when you know you're not impacted by it but when it hits you is a completely different story and yes the young are strong resilient but i have parents who are

099in their 80s and they have underlying issues and and so so i have a concern people may not care about about that but i care about that because that's my appearance you know and and and i understand it's not it's not easy but part of the problem is nobody knows all the exact in an ins and outs of this virus there's a lot of misinformation there's a lot of guessing but what what i believe helps and it's not a hundred percent but where the mass helped to cut down on the transmission if everybody doesn't wear a mask then it doesn't it doesn't help right so but the thing is from the time i was growing up when you cough when you said you cover your mouth when you sneeze you cover your mouth right the

100doctor you go into the hospital the doctors put on mass because it may not be a hundred percent but it but it helps and i guess the question becomes who life do you value more right yes you you found them for your kids your kid's life is important which is fine this is good but the whole thing falls apart if everybody doesn't wear the mask um but the right to choose thus you know i'm not here to say where the right to choose but i know from my experience my kids wear masks my son plays a lot of basketball he's been to tournaments and there's tons of kids hundreds of kids and they wear the mask i've never once heard one of those kids complain about the mass not to say that some kids don't

101but you know i i don't hear a big outbreak from the kids and i'm around a lot of kids about the mass um i hear the parents complaining but i've never heard any of the kids none of the kids in my neighborhood none of my kids complain about the mass so i i don't know i mean that doesn't mean that some kids you know don't complain or they have issues with it but i'm just saying most of the outcry comes from the parents and i guess there will be another opportunity for some of the teachers or the board to go back and find out from the kids take the survey get the data and see what how the kids really feel about wearing the mask you know halloween i'm just gonna i'm sorry so that's

102all i have to say but you know everybody is impacted in different ways and some groups are more vulnerable than other groups thank you all okay we have time for one more thank you madam president if there's nobody else who wants to speak to this topic i'd defer we'll have a second public participation ah this is to a different topic good evening my name is gully stanford i live in uh seoul point i'm a proud resident of the hyde park school district uh and i have the honor of representing you on the boces board of trustees and i've been a little neglectful in my failure to attend regularly and i apologize for that i'm discovering quite how steep a learning curve it is uh to try to master the operations of the boces but since

103it's been a tumultuous year i thought the least i could do is give you a very short report on the fact that we have indeed as of yesterday hired the new district superintendent to um replace uh to succeed uh the irreplaceable richard huley his name is jason bing the last name is shettelik but he will be going by dr jason bing and i think some of you had an opportunity to meet with him uh over uh at the boces uh last week we are unanimously thrilled with this appointment and we believe that you will warm to dr bing he comes with great enthusiasm and great energy and uh from my point of view has a heroic commitment to making career and technical education available uh to all who is to take advantage of that on

104another front uh we are stabilizing the uh the the the administration as you know uh and some of you as board members were concerned how much turnover is taking place uh i'm very pleased to say that um uh we've found cory's temple's successor again the irreplaceable chorus temple thank you for preparing her so well to be our deputy superintendent which he performed admirably but jody lucia probably known to many of you um is going to be the deputy superintendent and mitchell strong's successor in career uh technical education will be nicholas milas so i feel there'll be a very good uh transition we i'm in the uh i have the charge of rewriting the agency's goals uh in the course of this summer so any suggestions as to what should go into the goals of the

105agency of the boces to ensure that we're providing the best uh in services uh please don't hesitate to let me know our retreat is on april the 18th and finally just to let you know that some of you expressed concerns about how we had a problem with the site contractor and we fell behind with the earth moving we do have the replacement side contractor in place things are going ahead speedily yes we have lost some ground but we're busy trying to make it up and of course the goal is to try to ensure that services to the students you entrust to us uh are not uh interrupted uh or impaired so it's a great honor to represent you and hopefully i can be a little more regular and please don't hesitate to let me know

106your expectation of the boces thank you very much madam president okay at this time we're going to close public participation would anybody like to respond yeah i took a lot of notes so i think i'm just gonna go off the top of my head so um you know i want to address all the families that spoke about the masks and we're talking about the mandate to wear masks indoors because now there's not a mandate for outdoors so this question really arose um less than a week ago that when i talked about the events of last friday afternoon that you know at roughly the end of the school day you know i found out at four o'clock on friday that it looked like the governor's office might be saying that children have a choice of wearing

107mass inside but it was very unclear so we have less than a week of that information and that confusion i know everyone doesn't think it was confusing but i think we here can agree that it was very confusing which is evidenced by superintendents making very different calls across the region um and the state and so it's in asking me to advocate because i'm clear people asking me or and asking the board to advocate on behalf of children having a choice of wearing masks inside um in my role not as a private citizen but as a superintendent i have to represent the whole district and i have been hearing um from people in this room and a handful of people not in this room who who feel as strongly as you do about the choice of

108wearing a mask inside right now that's not the law um and we've not heard from the rest of the community we heard from one parent who feels differently there's a lot of parents who feel differently we have a district full of diverse opinions on it at the high school we have three more days of in-person instruction so you know i'm asking that we not put the school in the middle of a battle about masks we are following the law and if there is time within the next three days or 10 days that we have for elementary we can put out a survey and i'm wondering if we should and ask all the families how do you feel because other families have let me know they feel very uncomfortable sending their children in for in-person instruction

109if some children are not wearing masks inside so you know i'm not just the superintendent for the people who come here but for everyone so i just want to say that so that's again off the top of my head i hadn't planned what i would say because i wasn't sure what you were going to say um so i know if the board wants to answer on that one and then i think that you said it you said it perfectly we we're following the law [Music] it's the mandate yeah we we don't get to choose we don't get to choose what regulation excuse me wait no excuse me please sit down we this is not a dialogue i'm sorry this is not a dialogue the process is the public participation you you speak we get to

110respond at this point there's a second public participation in which you can speak out again that's the way this is held this is the way it's always done so we do not get to choose what regulations we follow we have to follow all the regulations provided to us by state education department that's it we cannot just arbitrarily decide that we're going to do something different than what's being mandated by the health department and by new york state again this is not a dialogue we do not we're not having this interaction you have an opportunity this this is a this is a public forum in which it's a meeting of the board of education in front of the public not necessarily with the public no i'm not thank you so i think just to clarify for

111people that um are coming out for the first time that public participation at the board meeting just works like this it's really not particular to the people that are here what you have to say that this is how it operates in the bylaws that's how it is for our board of education so we um having public participation at a board meeting is a choice that hyde park has always taken which i take great pride in um we have public participation at the beginning and at the end of the board meeting so all of that the way that it works is that people get to speak we don't answer individuals in the middle we close participation then we respond and then there's another period at the end so i don't want anyone to take it personally

112or think it's about their views um but it isn't a back and forth there's when we have a public hearing then that's a different venue and people have back and forth discussions so i just wanted to make that clear and i i want to not be remiss that there were two other topics that were brought up um first of all you know i just want to thank golly stanford for coming he's a great support even though he's been active in the community doing good and hasn't been able to come to as many board meetings as i know he would like he certainly is a great supporter and is in touch with us frequently and he is you know our hyde park um representative um on the boces board so we're very happy about that um

113and um to the dolan family um you have been here three times about the incident that happened over a month ago i want you to know that while i can't answer to personnel things that you've brought up um that of course catch you welcome back in school as i said initially and i know you feel differently about it but i just want to say of course you are and that there really are um ongoing efforts and some of which you're aware of um and some of which we're still working on in terms of training for all individuals and also a task force really looking at all of our accessibility across the district and looking at that as well so i don't know if anyone else has anything else to add i guess i just want

114to i guess i'd like to go on record as saying this pandemic is far from over what happens in india what happens in great britain matters there are new variants out there some of them more infectious some of them more virulent right now our numbers are very low thankfully that could change next week else okay we'll move on to 9.1 board subcommittee reports policy committee met um reviewed a bunch of policies that will be on the uh the next round of approvals and i think we're almost done for the year but we thanks to jay we've we've plowed through a lot of items this year and i think uh brought everything up to date jay do you know how many policies we reviewed this year but it is they've all now been reviews or revised

115every policy within the last five years which has been a goal for a really long time so congratulations three years we've been on a three-year cycle i believe right thank you jay for that thank you carl anybody else did any other subcommittees meet not this not this two weeks okay um 9.2 board discussion does anybody have anything they want to bring out okay i can't move on to the consent agenda may i have a motion to adopt a consent agenda second pairing is there any discussion uh yeah what what is the one change in the moa with the hpta is there a change in it that we're reviewing this is it just the juneteenth day off i'm just looking that's what it was what number is that one jeff 10.37 no you're talking about the

116hybrid four day yeah no it's actually a few real changes that when we went from hybrid two day to four day there were some actual changes we needed to make in programming and the teachers and administration were really cooperative through the process so we were actually doing these things but it wasn't memorialized okay so it had to do with like services more services being in person and less remote because more students were in person for example anybody else yes um i would just want to bring up that there is a retirement um listed i'm just trying to pull it up so i get the right information yeah miss that let me perry we couldn't hear you okay i'm just trying to pull up the right information so i get you must have missed that he's

117got a support staff retirement of bob fogg and i i just always feel like support people go without much mention bob's been in the district for 14 years and contributed to the betterment and the maintenance of all of our buildings for those years and i would just like to publicly make a point of thanking bob for uh for those years thank you thank you very very highly respected and regarded within not just the department but the whole district yeah and very well craftsman uh yep yep we wish him all the best yeah everyone's nodding if you can't see yeah okay anything else all right all those in favor any opposed motion carries [Applause] okay i have a motion for 11.1 special education placements second jeff any discussion all those in favor aye any opposed motion

118carries i have a motion for 11.2 updated corrective action plan for 2019 2020 internal audit some move parry any discussion all those in favor any opposed motion carries may have a motion for 11.3 the ban bus bond no move perry second jeff any discussion all those in favor aye any opposed motion carries we have a motion for 11.4 the lease abilities first um and hpe don't move perry jack and jeff any discussion all those in favor aye aye any opposed motion carries i have a motion for 11.5 the lease abilities first with vassar ambassador violet elementary island avenue school i have an avenue school first time second pairing any discussion all those in favor aye any opposed some carries i have promotion for 11.6 police with healthy kids still move perry second mike any discussion

119all those in favor aye any opposed question carries at this point we'll go into a second public participation the general rule is that public participation will be limited to three minutes total for speaker the second segment will be limited to 12 minutes so anybody who would like to address the board or to order you have to have a motion and a vote well i thought you know from public participation promotion to open public participation any discussion follow us in favor aye aye okay we're now in public participation the first question is i'm speaking on behalf of casey simons by the way how many of you on this district on this board have young children that attend school here that's my first question my second is science i love science favorite subject this mask does not

120work this mask works that's science it says it on the box i'm not making it up that's what it says you buy a box it says it says it says it says right on the box not for infectious disease so a mask may prevent a snot particle from flying as we'll cover in your mouth like we teach our children but it won't prevent coveted particles clovid is too small it's like trying to keep mosquitoes in with a chain-link fence unless you have a proper fitting k95 mask it says do not touch your mask on the box how many of you can tell me my kid is not touching my first grader is not touching their mask i'll die it says it on the backs so that means it's a health issue if they're touching their

121mouth goal die we all know this this isn't made up here some facts i like facts too during the 2018 to 2019 flu season there were 188 deaths in children with statistical modeling suggesting that there were approximately 600 deaths due to under-reporting due to the flu there have been 134 covert related deaths in children under the age of 14. in 2018 there were 636 motor vehicle deaths in children under the age of 12. for perspective my child our children are three times more likely to have something happen to them on the bus ride to school than they are to have anything happen that to them related to covet and my final point is i'd like to know why we still have the plexiglas up in the classrooms guiding from april says that we could take

122it down the glare is awful and prevents them from seeing the board seeing and hearing is pretty important to learning it's time that we take these measures down and give our kids their life back and that's science it's science this is all science and facts not making it up check check the statistics anyone else okay we'll close public participation anybody like to respond yeah i can tell you about the barriers so um the reason our barriers are still up in elementary because we also got the guidance that elementary students could be three feet apart with mass inside without barriers and we're really excited about that but the also along with that came the guidance that we needed to have six feet apart while they're having lunch and we don't have the space in our cafeterias

123at elementary school or at havelin to have children six feet apart while having lunch so the barriers are still in place there at the high school they were able to have kids six feet apart having lunch so um the barriers are definitely a problem for learning i'm not going to deny it um teachers have been well no we can't do that but i'll talk to you after that so what i was saying is that because the many elementary classes and havilland eat lunch in the classroom because of needing to have social distancing we do have the plexiglas in the classroom because that's where they're eating lunch otherwise we'd be able to get rid of the barriers so that's what i needed to say about the barriers so we will remove them when we can okay

124i also want to talk on the mass the masks aren't there to protect you the k-95 is but most mass are not there to protect you they're there to let me finish let me they're there to stop spread i've worked for 30 years with mason and that's the reason my job that i work in raw mask is the particles can go out at least six to eight feet from your mouth with a mask on it drops it down to three that's why there's a three feet rule there okay so that the whole point of a mask you talk about the science we'll look at the science how far spread is on a mask without a mask and that's what i'm saying the whole thing the mask is not there to protect you it's there to

125stop the amount of spread and how far out it goes from you and as for the science it also says that children can catch covet they're asymptomatic and can be a spreader but they don't get sick but they can spread and if you have immune or compromised to our people at home yes my mother-in-law has leukemia white daughters i think i'll be wearing a mask for a while but that the whole point is excuse me this is not an intro [Music] excuse me excuse me please don't worry thank you do we have any other matters that we need to discuss with the board okay i'd like a motion to adjourn the meeting don't move bearing second jeff any discussion all those info