001in the united states is there a motion to accept tonight's agenda so moved second all in favor dr harrison over to you yes good evening everyone and welcome to the 21-22 school year i'm thrilled to be sitting before you knowing that all of our students are attending school in person on a daily basis this year you know our spirits could really be down uh because of the challenges related to covid that are still before us however i'm finding such enthusiasm and seeing our students learning in class with their peers and with the support of their teachers if you could see the difference in student morale and spirit now versus a year ago you would be convinced that we have all come a really long way as i stated at last night's main street school open
002house we have dealt with a pandemic tropical storms floods washed away road ways yesterday power outages that were waving throughout the area and then today an extended error in our fire alarm system at dalles lane that had everybody outside enjoying the beautiful weather but through all this and for the benefit of our students we have really proven that nothing can stop us and there is really no place better to be than here in iufsd i want to thank everyone for their patience as we open this school year as we adapted to new protocols and certainly when we think about the impacts of ida and the damage that was done to dallas lane was a true curveball for all of us and you know when we saw that challenge we certainly adapted once again we are
003agile and adjusting our plans and to make sure that our students didn't miss the first days of school i really want to extend my great appreciation and thanks to all the faculty and staff at daos lane who really went above and beyond the call of duty to make sure our plan was implemented and implemented well i want to thank the facility staff who played a key role in all of that work and importantly i need to thank our students parents because they had to adjust their lives they had to adapt to a different type of first day of school than they had expected so my thanks to all the dazzling parents in the audience finally i always have to acknowledge the tremendous partnership we have with the village of irvington starting with larry shopper and
004the chief of police chief pignatelli dpw all of their communication their support the extra man hours that went into helping develop our plan and to make sure our students and staff were safe during arrival and dismissal times it was all greatly appreciated again there's nothing that can stop us here in irvington we come together to overcome whatever challenges are before us later in the meeting i will give a an overview on our covid mitigation strategies that we have implemented and i will given also an overview of how testing is going to play an important role in maintaining healthy school environments but before we get there i want to invite gail to share some updates and news from the opening days of school because i know at our last meeting you alluded to many upcoming critical
005events preparing us for the school year but now that those have happened i thought you could share a few words absolutely thank you so we've had a wonderful opening we had a great opportunity to meet with our new teachers for two full days and we talked about district initiatives and goals we talked about appr cultural responsive teaching our diversity equity and inclusion initiative and also gave them time to get to know their their mentor teachers in their classrooms so for opening days this is always a wonderful time for me and especially being new to the district our school community we had an opportunity to engage with our faculty on the district goals for the year and we engage in some professional learning about what it means to be a cultural responsive educator in irvington during
006our opening days dr harrison and i and then our building administrators followed up through that professional learning in small group discussions at the building level to further continue the conversation additionally we focused on social emotional learning during these conversations so at the next fortification you're providing the board with an overview of what our plan of work is going to be this year so again the big question is what does it mean to be a cultural educator and that's going to be our focus for the next board of education presentation which will be on september 28th so we're off to a good start and i'm looking forward to continuing to get to know the school community and to see how i can help support moving our work forward as we are aligning the work with our
007district goals great thank you so so much and um just to say that um that right now um gail has well she's only been here for a couple months has built some strong relationships has been highly visible is engaging with all of our faculty staff leaders and is truly a leader on the instructional hr front already so gail thanks for all of your work thus far carol can you give us some updates regarding transportation where we know it's been a a bit of a challenging start to this school year from a busing perspective for a number of reasons and then after that give us some updates on the capital project certainly so in my years here this has been the most trying year for transportation issues and i will just start out by acknowledging and
008thanking all of the community members who have been patient as i try to get back to everybody and work on their their child's issues um which are numerous at this point so and we are not the only one in in this boat this is the it's like a perfect storm here right now we have a bus driver shortage which has contributed to a lot of changing routes and trying to combine routes to you know get as many kids on the bus as we can as at this moment we still have several unrouted students which we're actively working on on fixing and this is not you know only irvington um we have a new director at the um arsley transportation center who was you know doing a tremendous job working tons of hours uh but you
009know again it's he's lost some of the institutional knowledge that we had uh prior to uh our previous director who you know was phenomenal and um they also have an open position so there's there's just they're working overtime they're doing what they can um and then there was a software glitch to boot so like between and now the consultants from the software company are are were actively working these issues as well so so really i guess i would call that a perfect storm i am trying to run interference when i can i am speaking with them the contacts that i have multiple times a day without trying to be a complete pest and letting them actually get their work done but it is something that i i am aware of so i do encourage parents
010to reach out to me directly i am i have an active list chances are your child's list issue is already on my list but because it may be a route where i already know they're out is an unsafe stop or was routed differently than last year and it seems to be primarily affecting kindergarten some fourth grade some sixth grade and some ninth grade so mostly the kindergarten for some reason so it's it's um it's which is tough because that's our littlest kids and our most vulnerable so we are getting there i think every day there's another couple that we solve and then we're getting back to people and i hope you know shortly that we will we'll be in in a better shape than today um for capital capital is probably better news um we
011are close to completion of phase one and um you will see the middle school enclosures are done and the students are starting to get used to the the traffic flow pattern that that resulted with that we still have to swap out some temporary doors that we had to use to get that done and i guess like there was a theme for transportation of of issues the theme for the capital work was similarly there was um covet affected the distribution of supplies and materials so our contractors had to figure out how to substitute something on a temporary basis in order to keep the project moving forward because if they didn't then we really would not be in the shape we are now so i actually do want to applaud before i even get into any more
012detail all of our contractors who really did get creative and figure out solutions along with our construction manager ivan from triton construction who's really been also a godsend in terms of just managing these issues so we're getting very close um the clp the the campus learning pavilion is almost done we're almost at the punch list point now with um getting the final uh certificate of occupancy issues that we need and we're close to that one at dao's unfortunately we did have one issue with our gym floor which we had some water damage from hurricane henry i think it was called um and so water got onto a brand new floor that hadn't even been sealed you know sanded or sealed or anything yet so that it you know we tried to dry that out it
013did not work so we are um having to take that one back up and put a new one in and that's going to take some a while to get the material to demo and get the material so unfortunately um that is bad news for us but we it will get mitigated within you know several weeks now we're waiting on a final plan for the the vendor who caused the damage to then fix it and um and oh yeah we have a double issue at dallas because we have the vestibule at the district office entrance is also not finished because they had been waiting for certain material and i have to stage these two but you know to make sure that i have a handicapped engine to that school so we're really having to coordinate this
014now in terms of making sure if i start the demo work for the gym i have to can't do the best of your work or vice versa so we have to really coordinate this now to make sure our kids can get in our school and our staff and anybody who else needs to so there's little complications but the the most part things are done the paving looks great the roof again we're waiting for one final material but the rest of it is is done it's watertight and we've not had a leak with we did not have a week with ida so that was good um so you know we're getting there oh and the gym is air conditioned so it was quite cool in there today so um you know so there's there's a plus
015there's a lot of pluses and it's been a fun summer but i do think we um are getting there now so and then finally i think we're starting to see a ton of emails um from sed about our phase two project so i will have an update for the board at our next meeting hopefully about where we're at with some of those approvals but i'm seeing a lot more activity in the recent weeks so maybe they've returned to their offices and are actually working i'm not sure because we all are but i don't know that they are so hopefully you know they are doing that and we're starting to see these these uh requests for information or or this or that so that's good good sign great thank you carolyn as um carol indicated about
016the work that continues to be ongoing um i do want to acknowledge our construction manager that's on site triton and the representative ivan who is working incredibly long days and creating punchless hounding and organizing all the contractors to make sure they stay on top of every aspect of the project with the work that is outstanding at this point in time i do want to assure the school community that we're taking all necessary safety protocols that work that would occur inside of a school building will be happening outside of school hours it'll be happy in the evenings weekends vacation periods to ensure that we have the safest space possible for our children unless it can be isolated in one way or another so so um that being said you know there's some exciting aspects of this
017not only have you know or we already taken advantage of the new storage in the music wing uh david i think you would appreciate seeing that it's spectacular and not only are there not instruments on the floor anymore we've actually created a lot more open square footage in the band room that it just it feels and looks so much bigger and the teachers and the students are thrilled science rooms look fantastic the bathroom over outside at dalles lane we should hope to be opening it up on the end of this week it was done but we had a little issue with asphalt that was being replaced that should be done on thursday so we're hopeful that we'll be opening to our students at dalles lane as well as our middle school and high school student
018athletes that use the facilities the athletic facilities after school hours by the end of this week and as carol indicated we're moving right along with the uh everything out at mizzero's field we are hopeful with you know homecoming just around the corner we're going to be right up to the wire but there's going to be a good chance that we're going to be able to use the grandstands for the homecoming weekend there's a good chance we might can't make promises but a good chance that we might actually be able to use the campus learning pavilion the restrooms the concession stands all the finishing touches are going in and we're hopeful that we'll have the ceo by the early to middle next week just in time for homecoming so hill would be still be closed because
019obviously we need the grass to grow but the the new building and the grandstands we're hopeful will be open next week so this should be an exciting proud moment uh for our school community and of course for the board um that being said um you know i do want to remind everybody that next week is homecoming and it will culminate in many of the traditional festivities where we'll send out an announcement early next week of all the related details and the schedule of events while we are going to make efforts to ensure that we're coveted safe we can still come out and show our bulldog pride as we root on our student athletes and have a great time together as a community that's really unified in all this great work that we've been doing over
020the last couple years so thank you thank you dr harrison my pleasure very good so uh i know our committees have not yet met so i don't think there's much reporting uh ms stein gave this sufficient update on bng and and what's transpired over the last uh several weeks so appreciate that update cab had a meeting today sorry the community advisory board had a meeting ah perfect so if you can update us on that yes so we had a busy hour this our first meeting um we broke up into small groups and the students talked about they picked out three issues that they would like to tackle this year as a group and was very interesting on everyone's list was de-stress and they liked the workshop that they had last year and they want more
021more of the de-stressing so i thought that was interesting um other things came up yes stress and time management was a big thing too because managing their time is stressful early start for high school lockdown drills and climate change were some of the other things that came up and uh we just had some housekeeping to go to do and uh talked about the state regs for vaccination mandates and the construction on the campus from the presentation from dr harrison spoke to that thank you um and brian uh westchester putnam met last night but i'm gonna reserve any of those comments for um so now we have our first community comment uh period so if there's i see we have a community member who wants to speak so go ahead good evening my name is david
022ruben circle drive i think that's the standard um first i just want to point out that my topic which is chromebooks i don't know if it's on the agenda or not it was up and down i just want to first mention that you don't have any feedback yet on the survey that was done a couple of months ago except from that i do have a question and i know the question i'm going to ask is a question that the board does not have the purview to answer but i'm hoping that they'll take my question and ask the administration and have the administration provide an answer which they'll communicate back to the community at large by the way i have a 10th grade student which is sort of germane here's my question if the administration identifies
023diversity and equal access as one of its top priorities please explain the policy it has instituted this year in which two students can sit in the exact same classroom and one of them can utilize any piece of technology they choose while the other is forced to use exactly one school provided device with which they have limited experience and proficiency thank you for your comment slash question dr harrison over to you right so um thank you mr rubin and we'll certainly take that into advisement and seek the appropriate ways to follow up so are we moving forward with the agenda items now okay thank you very much great thank you patricia uh so as i indicated you know we're starting off the the school year um in a familiar space and in doing so um we
024have launched a number of mitigation efforts those of which are pretty comfortable and familiar for most folks in the school community while we surely wish we were in a place where we were not having to deal with these particular challenges every step of the way the district continues to follow the guidance from the new york department department of health the westchester county department of health and of course the state education department i do want to comment that it was very challenging for superintendents for school districts for all of its employees to manage the instability in the state governance throughout the summer months with the resignation of governor cuomo i am appreciative of the leadership of our new government and our governor and the work that she is doing to provide guidance and direction to school
025districts one of the primary challenges though is that you know schools had developed plans to reopen their doors to students and staff and at the 11th hour the new guidance was released and continues to be modified and tweaked a little bit so all school districts are continuing to make adjustments to be able to implement all of these necessary mitigation efforts and other related protocols but those that we're most familiar with those that are most prominent that we need to be considered of of course are the wearing of face masks indoors at all times they have to also be worn by occupants on school buses and certainly in our classrooms and schools we are providing mass breaks as needed for our students and our staff in speaking about masks i do want to make a connection
026with athletics as well because the indoor outdoor nature of sports also still has to follow the masking rules like they did last year social distancing continues to be a priority of course in doing so we're looking at three feet of social distancing when possible will be provided and that's specifically called for and recommended in cdc guidance it trickled down then into the state education department guidance and recommendations and then finally in the department of health the one thing to note here is that every single document every single set of guidance that applies to the irvington schools and school districts in the state of new york prioritizes daily student attendance over social distancing so in cases where schools can't provide three feet of distancing they can go to less distance so as long as they have
027students all in attendance on school buses there's no longer a requirement for three feet of distancing so as long as everyone is wearing masks and you have ventilation such as windows open on the school buses which we continue to do when we look at other activities such as eating singing playing wind instruments pe and recess we are to strive for six feet of distancing which we're complying with in our cafeterias in particular that we're focusing on of course in our music program and we're limiting any large gathering so by way of example i referenced open house at main street school last night and we did that virtually and across the district we've done many of our opening events large-scale meetings virtually to limit those large gatherings you know hygiene continues to be an important part
028of all of these mitigation efforts hand sanitizer is still available everywhere for our students and staff to utilize and hand washing is continuously encouraged all the time ventilation is a focus in our schools and on the buses as i had indicated one initiative that carol has led is that we're adding air purifiers to our cafeterias music rooms and health offices to make sure that we have the cleanest safest possible air in those spaces the contact tracing protocols have been modified and the one real big takeaway here is the impacts of one being vaccinated on the determination as to whether they need to quarantine if they've been determined to be a close contact so generally speaking we look at an area where asymptomatic vaccinated individuals will not be required to quarantine if there are close contact
029if they've been wearing their mask which should be at all reasonable times and in those cases they are wrecked it is recommended that they receive a cova test three to five days after that last state of contact with the positive case and then they wear a mask for 14 days indoors so obviously that's the case in a school environment but the encouragement is to do so beyond school if you're going to the grocery store if you're going to the coffee shop that you should have a mask on in those particular locations um close contacts are going to be determined in a bit of a different way we're looking at if we have a positive case we're looking at the perimeter of three feet with students again this is all connected with students wearing masks and
030six feet with adults and what's interesting and i said this question this question was directly asked of the department of health on monday in a meeting the superintendents had with them and why the difference of three feet and six feet and the response was something that was very obvious maybe um but still peculiar and that the amount of breath that an adult is going to exhale and put into space is far greater than that that a young person would um so that is the guidance that's provided albeit we could argue that point with some of our high schoolers but that is the guidance we are to follow when we also look at the identification of close contact we are looking the amount of time that one is within that perimeter or that space so we're
031looking at a 24-hour window where there are 15 minutes of time and that can be one solid block or up to three five minute intervals within a 24 hour window where you're in that particular time close contact so when you step back and you think of the level of complexity involved in all this so we can talk about evolving guidance we you're going to hear about what is happening with the testing program that we're building but we truly are in a spot where you're analyzing things down to the minute when you're identifying closed contacts which requires a lot of communication a lot of work and you hope folks have a really good memory because we do interview staff members we interview students we look at bus videos we look at cafeteria videos for the evidence
032that we need to pursue so covet 19 vaccination is as i said playing a huge role in our work in the schools right now as we know the vaccine has been proven to lessen the effects of covet 19 on individuals we also acknowledge that the different variants that we're facing pose different levels of challenge we acknowledge that there's breakthrough cases that are being discussed all the time where we're looking at vaccinated individuals who are contracting covet and i can say much like we've read in the news that those cases those individuals have really seen minor minor symptoms in contrast to what we're experiencing a year ago the district as you know has coordinated vaccination clinics for its students and staff leading up to this school year we had two student clinics between may and the
033end of the year and we provided the opportunity for our staff to attend one that was sponsored by the department of health exclusively for the irvington schools as those opportunities surface and as more information comes out about the recommendations regarding booster shots i will continue to provide those opportunities for our school community in doing so i certainly will prioritize staff and students that will be eligible but my hope is that we'll be able to expand beyond our student body and invite adults in the community to participate as well so as long as the department of health can support the registration numbers it is very clear that we cannot require students or staff members to be vaccinated that is an individual choice right now it is not a directive by the department of health for that
034to be the case as when we think of measles and mumps and the other vaccines that our children must have to enter schools staff members who are not vaccinated however will have to be tested weekly clearly this is something that's been in the news not only on a state level but on a national level now and this is something that is a requirement in the state of new york and one that the irvington schools is prepared to comply with i can tell you right now we're in the process of collecting all of that data from our faculty and staff and we have roughly 360 staff members in the irvington schools and as of now we have about 81 percent completion rate and of those which is about 290 staff members of those folks 98.6 percent
035are vaccinated thus far so i would imagine as we get in the coming days those final bits of data that we need that number is going to fluctuate and drop a little bit but we should be really pleased to see those high numbers in our schools right now and not only to see that our staff is taking the steps to protect themselves but that also trickles down of course to our students so we are going to be partnering with the westchester county department of health to facilitate covet testing in our schools and this is going to take on a couple different forms as i'm going to outline so initially and and i can speak a little bit more specifically than when i put these slides together because this afternoon gail carol and i met with
036the folks that are going to be working with the district to facilitate the testing but first and foremost i do want to give accolades to the westchester county department of health who are utilizing essentially stimulus monies that have trickled down trickled uphill from d.c to albany and then down to westchester through grant monies and where westchester has determined that one of their priorities is to support schools so accolades to our executive latimer for that work and in doing so they are going to provide testing free of charge to all of these public schools in the county so in doing so initially they they did an rfp where they awarded the contract to three different laboratory firms and then they assign those labs to individual school districts irvington has been assigned to work with quadrant biosciences
037and those of you that want to go to the you can certainly google this or this is posted on google. on board docs and these are hyperlinks so you can go to their website and we are going to utilize a saliva based pcr test that's called clarify and it is a simple simple swap test literally picture a vial with a big q-tip sticking off the end of it and literally need to swab it's a self-administered test swab the inside of each cheek and under your tongue and you stick it back in the container and it's done um so there's like many saliva tests where one is actually placing their own saliva into a vial of sort this is something that's very hygienic and can be easily managed in a school environment and again in contrast
038to the surveillance testing program that we facilitated last year that occurred outside of school two major differences here one it's going to happen in our school buildings and two rather than being a rapid antigen test it is going to be a pcr test which is of course the most reliable the district and notably the families or staff members within 24 hours will be able to log on to the quadrant biosciences website and get your own results so we'll have results within 24 hours which when you think of that timeline right now for folks that are exposed going out getting testing i'm hearing stories of that timeline getting longer again for the turnaround on tests so we are going to do this in some tiers right now first we're looking to target date right at the
039end of september ideally september 30th and october 1st where we are going to perform what is referred to as gateway testing or baseline testing where we will establish a baseline by having everyone that has consented and that is a key part of this consented to participating in the testing be tested in like a two day period then the protocol that is being implemented and recommended by cdc department of health you wait a window of about two weeks before you want a weak gap between your gateway testing and when you begin your surveillance testing so in that second week of october we will begin surveillance testing surveillance testing will test 20 of our students and staff and i want to provide a point of clarity here it's not 20 of those who have granted consent to
040participate in the testing it's 20 of those who would be enrolled or working in the district so that sample is going to be proportionately larger than 20 of course of those who consented and we will develop protocols and routines for how that testing will be administered throughout the school year in obviously five week cycles the one addition and the big change that superintendents had been lobbying for just occurred last night in that when we have the requirement for non-vaccinated staff members to be tested on a weekly basis the county has revised their contracts with the respective laboratories to include those staff members within that surveillance testing pool so what we will be able to do then is on a weekly basis we will be testing 20 percent of our students and staff who granted consent
041and those handful of staff members that need to be tested on a weekly basis right now we are beginning to prepare our consent process which we anticipate we'll have communications going out to the school community no later than monday and that will be a two-step process for every student and staff member who is going to participate and again it is voluntary with the exception of the staff members who are unvaccinated they're required to do this the first step is going to be complete a google form that will be giving consent to participate in testing in the county level program which this is considered a county clinic that we will be running and then the second step will be actually to register your personal information in the secure portal with quadrant biosciences the reason for the
042latter is that they're able then to be able to provide you directly with the results of tests and they will be able to set up a system where literally every test sample is labeled with a barcode that will then link to every individual who has been tested so we don't run the risk of any tests getting crossed or mixed up so it'll be a two-step process we said it's a simple simple test they said the entire process from distributing the the vial with the swab in it to this administration to it being packaged and labeled takes no more than five minutes per individual the county has partnered with westchester medical center who is going to be working with irvington staff from westchester medical center will actually be on site working with us to administer the
043tests each and every week so what will come out of this is a need for us to sign an moa that has yet to be finalized among the attorneys at the county level with the bioscience company and the hospital but they're telling us that they hope to have that done in the coming days um tonight there's a resolution for the board to authorize us entering into this partnership and giving me the authority to execute those agreements of course with the review of our legal counsel so as i said already that we will be testing all unvaccinated staff members and again that number that i shared before is going to be very very low based upon our 81 response rate we have almost 99 of our staff members who are vaccinated and when you think of
044that math that means out of 290 people we have two people that are not vaccinated so it kind of gives you a sense of what that math means but this will occur and it will be a part of the surveillance testing program some other important guidance that is going to be going out to the school community from my office and likely the schools this week is some particular guidance to families as to how to determine when their children should stay home this is was developed this protocol and the communication that will come out was developed with our outstanding school nurses and dr huff utilizing all of the guidance that's publicly available to school districts and looking for those particular symptoms related to covid i know this is overwhelming and to think like oh my gosh
045on any given day i could feel tired so we're going to have to encourage you to use your very best judgment and determine if something is atypical for what your child's lifestyle is or as a staff member what your lifestyle is if it's a headache is it different than a headache that you may get related to stress or being tired and evaluate that and contact your health care professional if any of those surface if one does have symptoms of course we ask that they stay home seek medical treatment if a child is feverish and this is something that is important to remind parents please do not give them any fever reducing medications and send them to school not only will they not be at their best but you run the risk of spreading illness to
046others if we find a child that is feverish in school parents will be called and their child will be isolated and then picked up you know certainly when we step back and we think about where we are there are some changes that continue to occur when we look at the world of covet testing the technologies continue to shift and last year as things began to loosen up we became more flexible because there were testing requirements associated with travel so we moved from a pcr test to then looking at for travel align allowing for a rapid test to be utilized but now there are very specific tests that are required and recommended for use and again this trickles down all the way from the cdc to state departments and this is specifically supported by our wonderful
047school physician dr huff that we are only accepting what are referred to as naat tests and i recognize the t is redundant but that's how they use the terminology when you read the literature which are nucleic acid amplification test it is a pcr test or a rapid molecular test so with this level of specificity you could say oh my gosh how are we going to find them when you go to an urgent care you go to your primary care physician they're going to know specifically what those tests are and this is a category a test and there's a wide array of different test products out there and devices that they will be able to utilize but we are not going to be accepting rapid antigen tests at this particular time and then finally i think
048the last thing that is before us tonight on this topic is the consideration of our meetings you know when we look back to last year we did meet completely virtually we moved into a space where we had the board and the administration sharing space our community joining the meetings home via zoom we then evolved to a place where that was no longer permitted because of the state of covid in in our region and we began to welcome of our guests back in with the concerns that are growing across the nation or globally the state of new york has once again provided the opportunity for public entities to begin to meet virtually so the question that as i see it before us and is really two-fold that we continue in the current format that we're in
049today where we're enabling our community to join us in public or we return to essentially how we close the 2021 school year where we have the board and administration meeting in a shared space such as the cpr and then we will have our community viewing and engaging in our meetings through the use of zoom which of course provides for that public comment period as we became accustomed to managing considering where we are and recognizing the growing concerns in the community wanting to keep everyone safe i think it's responsible to pursue the latter of the two and that with the meeting on the 28th that we would shift and of course we'd be communicating this to the community beginning this week shift to the board administration being present community virtual and begin to utilize zoom again
050as opposed to our passive broadcast through youtube that we've been doing over the last couple months so that is my strong recommendation for the board and certainly would entertain any feedback or conversations that you would like to ensure thank you dr harrison for your presentation and uh i'll just quickly address your recommendation regarding board meetings and then open it up to other comments or questions from the rest of the trustees i appreciate the recommendation and i think given where we're at at a community and how the village is having its meetings at this point i do think that is the responsible recommendation to you know return to zoom especially as i know there are some community members who aren't comfortable attending in person at this time if we're to have a large meeting with with
051with with attendance so uh you know with that i would support the recommendation that we returned to have how we closed uh the i guess you know the end of last year on that so but with that i'll look to trustees for their questions and on the presentation um dave wait can i just interrupt do you think it might be helpful if we have everyone weigh in on the board meeting issue quickly get that out of the way and then go into the rest of the presentation sure sure yeah i am in support of uh proceeding the way we ended last year with the zoom meeting allowing for public comment to be virtual i'm in support of that um i do have a question if a board member has to quarantine for some reason would
052they be able to zoom in i believe so yes i'll confirm that but i believe so there hasn't been any official legal guidance or interpretation of it other than our attorney saying yes you can return to what you're doing last year okay that was my question so i'm good too so i'm also that's absolutely fine that's the scenario that i had hoped for as well thanks okay i support that structure but i do want to just i said to brian and david and some other people well everyone i was at a westchester putnam school boards and what we're talking about now is an executive order that expires in january and i just want the entire board to be aware on the public to be aware that um there's a movement among school board associations across
053the state to have open meetings law amended in a way that would allow at least for the public participation to be done that way it's not something that's happened yet but i just want everyone to know that the school boards association are thinking about this in their conferences next month in a bigger picture beyond the time of the executive order thank you dave i i agreed how's that perfect any any questions on the presentation dave we'll go back down now i didn't really have any questions i i mean you know i guess there's a couple things i want to just sort of put on the table for the thought you've already surfaced once i'll come to that one in a minute but i did want to just take a minute again as i try to
054do once a year at least maybe a couple times just thank thank the administration and the staff and faculty again just for you know i'm in the business and the last time i saw learned about this stuff i don't think whatever right so the fact that we're doing this you're doing this work is to be commended so thank you for giving mine and everybody's children the opportunity to be in school safely um i'm i do have some interesting i mean i just can we talk a little bit about fatigue muscle or body aches and like what that looks like because you know you're about to start a fall sports season you're about to start rec programs for little ones in particular right who have growing bodies a kid who plays flag football in fifth grade
055may you know fall and you know hurt himself and feel sore the next morning and say mom oh my arm's really sore or you know so i just want to make sure that we the community or at least we surface in discussion that as parents we need to be mindful of what's what in our kid right like not just if they say it hurts you just sort of figure that out i mean we're all pretty experienced parents i suppose so at the end of the day but there aren't some there are some folks with kids that are in you know first grade second grade etc that don't don't you know haven't gone through that yet so anyway just surfacing that you know fatigue tired kids high school kids i i just worry about like kids
056missing school because they were tired and you know yeah sort of like can and then to compound is it possible for them to come and get tested here because we have the tests but that was the other question we can't do on-demand testing the contract is very specific for his purpose and use and we asked for some of those um that latitude considering that we're going to have available test kits but it's very specific and the wonderful representative that we met with from the medical center totally got where we were going and we were heading however the challenge is they're really driven and locked into contract and they're only able to provide the tests and administer them for the given purpose of the weekly surveillance testing aligning with our 20 data that they're going to
057have access to and then the non-vaccinated staff members so we we can't get into that at this point in time but it doesn't mean that we can't be creative down the road should we find ourselves in a position where testing becomes difficult to come by right now tests are readily available at all of our local medical facilities uh pharmacies and the like but it doesn't mean that we can't you know come up with a creative solution so as long as a family can go to the pharmacy and get one of the n a whatever i could i don't know yeah naat one of those tests and they can do that themselves at home no it's got to be something that's a lab based test where it's being tested in a laboratory or on site so
058some pharmacies and some doctors offices can act as labs for the purposes of the test but the idea is to locate those places so that we can make sure the parents in the community know where they can go so can we can we is it out of our frame of reference to maybe provide a list or a one-pager with a place where people can get those i don't know i i wouldn't know where to go so it would be helpful for me personally i feel the same i mean now that now that i know this it's like so so the entire community will have to call around to all of the places that they might normally try to go i mean how can we kind of save how can we how can we facilitate this
059a little more easily to make sure that parents will comply and that we won't have work loss and families you know needing to needing to figure out their child care situations um i apologize for speaking out of order but i really was supporting it you know that's okay i i'm just literally i mean i do understand you know people want information but we also be careful that the board and the district isn't endorsing any of those particular entities as to the services they provide or or anything or anything like that so maybe the ptsa or no i'm not volunteering i'm not volunteering that wonderful organization everyone should reach out to their own medical providers exactly or that or that roundup have already communicated exactly thank you you see i i don't know i don't agree
060but i think yeah well the state provides resources so they had a website that we linked from our website last year that the state department health program where where can i get a test and um so i'm going to i'll take a look at that to see what level specificity that has and then if it's appropriate we can push that out i'm just saying if you want to get it done and you want to get it done right make sure people move forward and keep going forward you sometimes you got to give people information with them right they can get it themselves or not and david i i can tell you from the communications committee will will be revisiting it and seeing how we can help okay it doesn't matter who whoever just put them
061on the table i'm good for me green light okay so um i'm just trying to get i don't know if you have access to this and we can certainly wait for it in terms of the gateway testing um from last year i'm trying to wonder what percentage of student consent we got last year for surveillance testing district why do you have a sense if not we can wait i do it was um roughly uh 68 percent of our our staff our students lowering the percentage of staff participated signed up what became the challenge though especially as the covid concerns began to lessen was that i would say on a i would say a daily basis or days of our testing that we would have anywhere from five to ten percent of those that were selected
062on a given day cancel their appointment because someone was vaccinated it was inconvenient um whatever the case may be so what is going to be a challenge is the two-tiered registration system that i referenced before the westchester county department of health consent and the registration with quadrant biosciences so that we're going to link it from the same communication and specify that it is a two-step process but i'm sure we'll have some folks that'll complete one step and not the second step which will bring down that number um when we talked about our data with the representative from the medical center this afternoon she was really impressed with the experience that we had last year and saying that they're not seeing the same in their conversations with other school districts right now okay so our hope
063is that not only could we match that but maybe we'll exceed it but you know time will tell and i certainly will share that data openly with the community no of course so um i just wanted to ask um there were two pieces of presentation i wanted to talk about a little bit more because we've gotten some community emails in within the last 24 hours and i think it's pretty easy to clarify for the community the concept of mandating vaccines which is reflected in the presentation people seem to be confused that it could happen in new york city or l.a but if you could perhaps you know clarify that's just not the case outside of those areas yeah i don't know of any cases where in a traditional public school district the big city districts
064are their own animal and we really have to be careful not to have that direct comparison absolutely um we cannot mandate that we recognize that there's medical exemptions that there's religious exemptions that could be applicable but if we were to entertain something like that it would have to be collectively bargained and then even that collective bargaining certainly could be challenged as we're seeing happen currently in new york city i do know of a school district locally actually two school districts one did it with a faculty association another did it with a csea unit where they struck a side letter where all of those individuals were committing to members would commit to be vaccinated those that were vaccinated were essentially rewarded with an extra day added to their sick bank that would roll over from year
065to year and that those individuals that were not vaccinated then had the obligation of going for testing on their own time their own expense and that was collectively bargained the reason that was originally done was so that the school did not have to own the responsibility of the the testing since both of those deals were completed um we had that evolution that i told you that occurred last night when we got a communication from the department of health allowing us to pull those unvaccinated folks into the surveillance testing so i don't see it as necessary i think it was some creative thinking by my colleagues looking to lift a burden off of a school district and putting it on the individuals who made that choice for whatever reason but at the same time i also
066see it as another area um that would be difficult to manage because then you would have to on a weekly basis looking to get test results from people and tracking them down if you didn't get it they were valid results that there's a whole other set of policing that would have to go in that would be a challenge for us a small school district like ours to manage okay and just to fold in again for the board and the administration and again for people in the community um at the westchester putnam meeting last night we were alerted to the fact that nisba which is the new york state school bus association is looking towards possibly we'll know more in october lobbying for amendments to the new york state public health law which would impact certain
067requirements of all vaccinations not only to school children but to adults in certain situations so that's something to look forward to developments on and i'll make sure to update everybody on how that goes and then one last question because i know i'm hogging up a lot of time i was wondering uh just generally i think it's my sense that outdoor use of outdoor space has not become any less this year in fact it's grown absolutely yeah we're encouraging outdoor space we you know as was released in my communications for reopening we're encouraging outdoor field trips we're encouraging outdoor activities we had the middle school welcome back barbecue we have a main street event coming up we're going to have lots of outdoor events where we're just going to ask folks to be mindful you know
068cdc always encourages folks that are not vaccinated still wear a mask outside so folks are reminded to make those responsible choices for themselves but based upon the department of health guidance there is no such requirement for school districts at this point in time and i have not recommended that we take that step here locally in irvington okay and we have the same number of tents and shares that we did last year yeah okay great yep you can go out and see the courtyard set up thank you so cool thank you maura so um to continue with what beth's questions um were i'm not sure if i saw or i hope i didn't miss in the description of mitigation efforts the use of outdoor eating for the unvaccinated kids did i miss that it seemed like
069we talked a lot about cafeterias and i wanted to understand what was happening at least as long as weather permitted so all of these snack breaks are outdoors and at the campus the students are using the quad and tables and tents are actually not tables adirondack chairs and tents to eat outside um appropriately spaced and it's working i mean i was out there today and it was a beautiful day so it was actually really healthy i'm glad to see kids outside and eating it's really kind of fun to see that so um maybe that'll be something we just continue and elementary we may continue from from our experiences here that might be one of them so may i may i just uh ask you to clarify on on elementary so the kids who are on
070currently unvaccinated is there something that prevents them from eating lunch outside so well right now it's really a supervision so they they are eating in the two in maine fiscal they're eating in the cafeteria and in the auditorium so they're half and half because of spacing there um so they're they're doing that and then they go outside to play so they have their the same time that they had outside prior i think all of their snack breaks are outside and it does we're doing the same thing we're using the cafeteria we have actually there we have a little bit more limited space so we are using dividers on the cafeteria tables it's a little bit more restrictive because we just don't have the space we don't have another alternative space for them and they're little
071you know they're really hard so they're they are you know i would say about four feet with the dividers at this point um we have the desks desk set up so their individual desk with a divider and it's working pretty good i think so and then the kids go outside so and all of the snack breaks are outside right sandy i mean everything's outside for everything else so yeah so um we also have a signed seating so if anyone were to have a positive reaction we would then know exactly who was next to them so you know that protocol is in place so the use of dividers means the plastic barriers that have been taken out of use just for the cafeteria locations so the cafeteria while they're eating on those desks they are desperate
072spaced out as far as part as we can get them and fit everybody in the in the cafeteria that is the only location we are using at this point other than staff staff still have some plexiglass on their desks to separate them but some of it some of them even took those down but mostly staff still have them uh okay thank you um so the the other question or really uh observation that i had and this is not i don't think i mean i think it's it's clear that there are limits to what the district can do um but i think as as uh testing requirements go on for families um like this and it could be that it's just an outgrowth of of general medical access which has an equity piece to it that
073as as we're looking at equity and how students are able to access education that we perhaps also think about how access to covet testing with families also could could uh be an element of that um it just as as we were talking about it just now it kind of rose to the surface so i didn't want to lose it thank you that's all i have thank you erin thank you everyone for working on this i'll echo what dave is saying because i don't think when we ended in june we thought we'd be back here again so kudos to everyone for following up on all the changes and everything um it's exhausting but you don't have covet so um i what i was curious about i guess a couple things one as it relates to the
074testing of you know obviously there's a large population of kids that aren't vaccinated because they can't be vaccinated is the approach the same in terms of the 20 of testing that it's just 20 percent of the whole district there's not a focus on unvaccinated kids like there is with the teachers yes it's so it would that 20 would be inclusive of unvaccinated individuals and those that are vaccinated that choose to participate but with the faculty and staff the unvaccinated are always getting tested right for them but not for the kids the unvaccinated will be tested on a weekly basis right okay it's just an interesting nuance that we are you know we're not also testing and i know it's not this district it's the regula it's the guidance but it's just interesting we roll back
075the hands of time three months ago that idea of a vaccinated individual participating in a testing program um the thinking behind it has really shifted right so before people generally were feeling secure and insulated from risk and now with breakthrough cases and the two real variants of concern at the moment that we we see that a greater need so i suspect we'll see more vaccinated individuals participating in a voluntary surveillance testing program than we did at the close of the last year yeah my question is more i'm just surprised we don't have to test the unvaccinated kids more because there's obviously more risk with them versus the vaccinated um and is that at all is there has there been any discussion around that or not at all in terms of changing the testing requirements for
076unvaccinated children from the doh well we can't mandate anyone participate in the testing program to begin with so we will strongly encourage it for both vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals but clearly um you know we need to impress upon folks that are unvaccinated that they're at greater risk so if we're thinking of our older students um who are not vaccinated or are young students who can't be vaccinated yet um you know we will encourage that uh testing and certainly hope our families will comply thanks chris um the other my other question is how are we evaluating the three feet of close contact because i believe that's based on mask wearing but how can we be confident that students aren't around other students and not wearing their masks at all times i feel like there's a bit
077of an assumption that if they're in class they've worn their mask you know perfectly the entire time in that class or if they're when they're at lunch obviously i don't know how we monitor the middle school kids on the the sixth graders because they're most of them are vaccinated on the adirondack chairs to know that they're obviously less than six feet um you know there's a piece to it where we said you know we look at spaces where we can we do actually go to the videotape and um but then there's a piece to it it has to come down to to interviews with individuals and especially when we think of the campus when there's you know we don't have the accountability of assigned seats that carol had referenced at the elementary schools and i
078can tell you that our students have really been forthcoming and no one is seeking to hide recognizing the risks that are present because i can tell you i can think back to one situation in the spring where we had a close contact students eating lunch outdoors and the student followed up with ms gm like a day later and said i just remembered that this person was there as well you need to talk to her and and so like students have really been diligent and responsible in this you know that as much as i wish there was a real solid way of doing this there's going to be no areas of vulnerability in every system and i think you highlight one of them but i think everybody in our community is really dedicated to one another's
079health and safety and i think we'll be in relatively good shape we're going to have cases no doubt we've had two already uh and you know we're gonna have uh many more but shout out to uh my son told me over dinner tonight that his teacher told him repeatedly today that his mask was too low on his nose sixth grader same thing you know john's class so i'm glad to hear that that means my zealots are so annoying um one other question i i think you might have touched on this but athletes unlike last year don't have to be tested correct there's no there's no athletic mandate for testing is that correct or am i off on that our athletic system we're looking at folding uh potentially our high-risk athletes into the surveillance testing okay
080um i think those are and but there's not if you recall last year there was a requirement for a board to approve high-risk sports that that requirement does not exist we directly ask the county if they were going to issue such an order they said that they were not i don't know of any districts that were canceling high-risk sports but we're going to try to fold those students into our surveillance testing program um so there's um you know we there's a deliberate randomization to that testing so we have to be considerate of how we we look to coordinate that to ensure that our high risk athletes are a part of that as well okay now that's my last question thanks dr harrison thank you jane thank you there's so much to process you may have
081covered this already if a vaccinated teacher tests positive does that teacher have to quarantine yeah if anyone tests positive they have to isolate regardless of vaccination status so would they set up a google classroom i'm concerned about the coverage with substitutes and if several teachers have to isolate i'm concerned about yeah so if one is able we'll operate similar to how we did last year if if one is well enabled we certainly will enable that opportunity understanding that we have an obligation to provide supervision in school as a reminder we're no longer employing all the monitors that we had last year to accommodate staff members that had to work from home for various reasons but you know hopefully those cases will be far in and few between but we do need to be mindful that
082we could have individuals that are vaccinated that have a breakthrough case that um could be really miserable and not able to work and we'd have to manage it through a traditional substitute right provided that they could they they are asymptomatic but positive so that was my question basically if they'll have a google classroom they could work for yes they could work remotely in those cases thank you but that would be at the you know case-by-case basis based upon the well-being of the individual of course thank you susan i'm sure i have a few uh comments and questions um number one i i think all the mitigation techniques that we put in place i think it should be noted to the public that we had no spread right so there are a number of cases last
083year that happened that anecdotally did not result in further spread within the schools and i think that's largely due to the mitigation techniques that we had in the schools we are mostly continuing so i think that's worth noting and um should give people good comfort about where we are now and that was pre-vaccine yeah and thank you for raising that and i'll tell you the most common way we saw spread was in households right and was at other outside events we had no evidence of spread within our schools not to say that it will never happen but right and that should be a good reminder to the community to practice good mitigation techniques within their own homes and in their you know outside activities um i have a question about the voluntary participation of the
084surveillance testing does the state require a minimum number of participants um so that we fulfill that obligation yeah it's twenty percent so okay it's it's a pers not a number but a percentage i see so if we have 1200 students just to well let's just make the math easy if there are a thousand um people in our pool every week we have to test 200 of them that's correct no matter even if only 200 people had volunteered we would have to test those same 200 all the time okay that would i think that's an extreme example flexibility but the the intention would be yes that it would be 20 of the total enrollment and employment pool um and then you would apply those numbers to the num for go from percentages to numbers than to
085those that have given consent right so realistically where we could say well it's 20 that means i will be tested every fifth week but because that number is going to be actually smaller but needing to test the same amount of folks that you may test every four weeks rather than um but that's what we're going to have to work through and it's going to be dependent on the type of response so if we don't get willing participants what happens we'll see guidance from the county as to how they want us to proceed it certainly um wouldn't be reasonable to set that expectation that you would test the same core group of people every single week um i i do believe that we will get far more than that initial 20 um but are we going
086to get 100 now right well there should be some incentive for people to volunteer to do that if it helps enable schools to remain open absolutely um and then the my final question is about um the the buses so we know in the classrooms that we know pretty much where everyone's seated at the you know within the classroom setting and we know about the space and requirement so the bus is a whole different situation so presumably one positive case on the bus is the entire bus having to quarantine so there actually the guidance shows us a map of a bus seating and if one where a location of a student or a driver and then who has to then quarantine based on the distance and the seats it's actually pretty precise if you saw that
087document i was looking at today but we will use video camera and interviews as well but a whole bus would not need to okay about quarantine it would be really fixed on the proximity and also the length of the ride if that student got on the bus and their route was only they were only on for five minutes as maybe they were one of the last pickups that's a different story than if they were one of the first pickups so that's good there's a lot of factors and we would be interviewing every single student and i will say that last year in the spring with all in we did have sometimes two and three to a seat and did not have one issue with the busting the kids are all wearing the masks the windows
088are all open and i will remind parents who are listening that the windows will stay open rain cold everything and so wear a jacket you know so we and i i go out periodically and sandy will attest to this that i am if i see a bus without a window open i am not letting that boss leave so you know we are really being vigilant with that and so far they've gotten really good at it we have one the first day we had one or two that didn't quite get that that memo but they certainly got it day two day three and so forth so okay that's good to hear because i think the mis i think they're the people i know are under the assumption an entire bus would have to quarantine you know
089if your kid in some children are on different buses so your odds of having to quarantine or be exposed or increased and and and i i heard tell of stories that were circulating from one particular school district that recently did that they quarantined an entire bus for an athletic trip based upon that um we had a kid on a bus and and they didn't take those extra levels of diligence or pursue the investigation that carol referenced and it's simply not necessary by their own guidance that's out there um but one school district did recently do that and i would find that extremely unlikely to be thank you we got diagrams in the state i'm sorry i said that was the final question but i have one more just a follow-up to what maura brought up
090regarding the potential for outdoor lunch at the elementary school um i understand the point of supervision but um do we know like how many more aids or monitors would be needed to enable outdoor lunch well after launch the issue there's space i don't know where i'll be we'd be doing it and it's supervision and space so we i mean we will think some more about it but right now it seems to be working what we're doing and i would say so main street school is certainly a space issue right we we all recognize that um dazzling where we have more space as possible but i have to when we have bad weather like that coming they take the covers the tarps off the tents and just leave the frames and then you imagine the hours
091and hours that goes into putting that back up the management of them is is pretty pretty incredible and you would need space in a very close proximity to the cafeteria which is also an issue at dallas because you know then you're talking about right by the playground the kids have to walk with the lunch and drop the lunch and so there's just logistics here but so far so good it's working i mean if obviously you know susan if we were to see some sort of spike in anything we would rethink this whole thing but right now i i don't see it being you know a problem so we're gonna yeah obviously keep our pulse on that one thank you thank you so i have uh no additional questions so uh now dr harrison i see
092item 7.1 is that just informational or is there something that needs 7.1 is just informational to identify the that the board has named its liaisons for a different community or professional organizations and who will serve in those individual capacities so it's a point of information and a reminder the public that those individuals that are assigned to respective committees or liaison assignments serve at the pleasure of the board president yes so now we'll move on to our consent agenda are there any questions on tonight's consent agenda um okay is there a motion to approve our consent agenda all in favor aye aye aye dr harzano if you have any i do we have a a couple important things and the first is to congratulate and thank the csea clerical unit whose leadership is in attendance this
093evening in the board of education and agreeing to a new collective bargaining agreement so kudos to your negotiation team district negotiation team which included carol and evan gross our treasurer so my thanks to all the hard work that went into that process and it was a true partnership and we thank you for all that you do um and for your efforts in getting this done carol i know you would like to say i would just say that you know stephanie sandy and pat really gave up a lot of their time we did a lot of this over the summer they came in on their time off to meet you know to meet with me and evan and to really like talk to each other and say here are the things that we are both needing
094so it was it was a collegial process it was pleasant we never raised voices nothing ever you know it was just a very good process so i think we heard each other right and so um it worked well and i do thank you for your time that you that you put into this thank you and congratulations great and i do want to acknowledge our lovely district clerk and registrar patricia patricia has submitted a resignation to move on to new opportunities and we thank you for your service to the school district and wish you nothing but the best in your future endeavors thank you patricia so and i just want to acknowledge um you know we do have some other personnel matters but of note is the appointment of a new cleaner steven thomas we welcome
095stephen to the school district and then we have olivia knopf as a building substitute at dalles and main street school and some other teacher aides and appointments so we welcome all of our new team members moving forward i do want to acknowledge that we do have a non-resident tuition student that's going to enroll in our school district in the general education program which is a testament to the district's fine programs and reputation that we see that level of interest on an ongoing basis thank you dr harrison so our next public meeting is here on september 28th at 7 30 and as we discussed earlier will be available for zoom participation for members of the community members of the community with that is there a motion to adjourn for an executive session to discuss the employment
096history of particular persons all in favor aye