KCSD Board of Education Meeting 1/21/2026

001It is 7:35. We have returned from executive session. If we could please Mr. Spicer >> here. >> Dr. Collins >> here. Miss Anderson >> here. >> Mr. Ryder >> here. >> Miss here. Mr. Lamb >> here. >> Miss >> here. >> Dr. Bern >> here. >> Mr. Jang here. >> And of the republic for it stands. One nation under God. We have no action coming out of executive session. So that brings us to the approval of the minutes. We have two meetings to approve the minutes from the December 16th meeting. >> I'll make a motion. Second. >> Any discussion on the minutes from December 16th? >> All in favor? I >> approved >> in the minutes from the January 7th meeting. >> Make a motion to approve. >> Second. >> Any discussion on the January

0027th minutes? >> All in favor? >> I approve. >> That brings us to public. >> Thank you, Miss M. Anderson. Um, just quickly, I know several of you here and are here today and have been here in the past um, to discuss the safety and privacy of our students. Um, in the current environment, specifically our immigrant students. Um, as I've stated before many times, no one gets access to our students without proper legal reasons. These this means no federal, state, or local agency of any kind may question, remove, detain, or gain access to data about any of our students without a judicial subpoena. Not only is this our policy, but this is the law. Kingston City School District has always maintained this position and enforces these laws and policies for all of our students. Kingston,

003we've also set up different people. They ask different things. What are we doing? So, a communication protocol has been established between KCSD and the UDIN to be able to react and provide support in the event in the event of detention occurs in our district. Our school administrators have been provided with the training and instruction on how to deal with any requests for access to our students or access to our property. Our security guards and monitors have been trained by Victor Quva, executive director of UIBN and know on know your rights. Our 10 bilingual family workers are in the community providing information and support to our families here in Phoenix City School District. Our 19 social workers, 18 guidance counselors, and 15 school psychologists are always available to our students and their families in any type

004of crisis. I met quarterly with our bilingual family workers for updates and advice. And I monitor our attendance virtually daily to ensure that all of our students are coming to school and look for any trends that may indicate otherwise so I can bring help where need to h when it needs to happen. Of course, there are concerns that we can't always control. bus stops, walking to school, weekends, school holidays. These are areas beyond our capacity, and we need support from our community and local government to help us in these areas. The board has planned a discussion regarding uh much of what I'm about what I'm talking about for later on tonight. But I wanted to let our community know again, we will not give access to our students to anyone without proper legal reason. We

005have not and we will not. Much of what is in this resol resolution that is going to be discussed mirrors what Kingston City Schools District already has a policy and the practices we have practices we already have in place. I would fully endorse the board passing a resolution that affirms our commitment to the safety of our students. Also, I encourage those who are here to take your concerns also elected officials at the state level. The governor's released her budget and funding uh funding of not only our entire program but the supports to our L students to our homeless students to our students with disabilities to our school safety uh for our school safety programs our social emotional wellness programs and our mental health programs is not supported in this budget. These jeopardize our ability to

006continue to provide the support and safety that you're requesting for all of our students. So, we appreciate you coming here and advocating at the school board and we would love if you would go and advocate with your local uh state elected officials. Thank you. >> Thank you. Our public comment session. Good evening everyone. We are about to enter the portion of the meeting where we welcome public comments. Although state law does not require that we hold a public comment period, we feel it is crucial that we hear from our community about concerns. The board is here to listen. Your concerns and questions may be addressed at a future meeting of the board or you may be contacted by the appropriate staff member or administrator. If you have prepared this written statement, we do not have

007the opportunity to present it to board. Each speaker will have three minutes and this public comment period will not exceed 30 minutes in total. It is important to note that state and federal privacy laws and collective bargaining agreements prevent us from discussing certain topics in this venue including specific employees or students and agencies or negotiations. Any speaker who does not adhere to these guidelines will forfeit the remainder of their time. Thank you for your rules and your interest in the contin as always thank you very much for doing this public speaking. I just came off hours of doing your eyes watch and I do it at UIN who is at the Holy Cross church and we are sitting in the car watching for ice to protect the people who go there maybe 250 people 300

008people families who are going to get food so I come here as representative of direct response. Although I am not speaking for all direct response here. I come here as somebody who's rep representing Renee Good. I come here as somebody who cares about kids. I am so thankful to hear you speak about all the work you've done thus far and I'm thankful that you that you would support the referendum. I mean you really took nice Um, I really do hope the board votes in favor of women. We are out there gathering signatures. We have 350 signatures of people who were willing to protect the community. This is within Olster County. Half of those are Kingston people. And we we will continue to go out and to educate people about what their rights are and about

009the importance of protecting people who live in this community. Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to address? It brings us to our >> Thank you, Mr. Anderson. >> Uh, first on our superintendent report is our principal for feel free to Good evening everyone and thank you so much for having me tonight. Um, as you when I come up here to present, I will never pass up an opportunity to brag about the incredible students and staff at JFK. We currently have 307 students and 18 classes. Two classes that moved this year classes, one from first to second and one from third to fourth. We have 31 ENL students, which is about 10% of our student population, and 70 students with disabilities, which is about 23% of our population. We're a title one school

010with 76% of our students being identified as economically disadvantaged and we have 20 students who are current. I'm thrilled to share that this year we were voted the number one elementary school in the Hudson Valley um for the chronograph reader choice award. So we're all very proud of that. >> What the state once called goals and then switched to commitment is now called strategies. And while we were only required to have two key strategies, the staff got together and really focused on four things that we think will move us in the correct direction as a school and that are really meaningful to us. So, while we highlighted CKLA in one class per grade last school year, we're really excited that our first key strategy was to implement the tier one curriculum of CKLA in all

011classrooms across the school. Our second strategy is in conjunction with our tier one math curriculum I ready to immerse students in mathematical thinking analysis vocabulary problem solving and games to reinforce fluency and build confidence in students mathematical ability. Our third key strategy is to increase student keyboarding capacity by incorporating schoolwide consistent use of edit typing. And our final key strategy is to increase opportunities for experiential learning that directly tie to our academic goals. So for our first key strategy, um we kicked off the year with some summer work. Almost every single classroom teacher who was in Kingston at the time attended. Our pilot CKLA teachers led the work. We unpacked all of our materials. You see pallet upon pallet up there. Um and really started planning and setting our classrooms up for success. And we

012used our six supplemental grant funding funds that work. Our instructional coach Zip check is meeting with teachers monthly at PLC's to um review CKLA progress, discuss pacing, troubleshoot challenges, and review data to determine next steps. Our students are tracking their CKLA lesson completion. As I know you've heard from other principles, the CKA lessons are quite lengthy and require a lot of students stamina. So, our teachers have puzzle pieces up in their rooms and once a lesson is completed, they put a piece of the puzzle up and when it's complete, it um reveals an image that matches their plan. JFK was very proud to host the CKLA parent information night with a panel of teachers from across the district sharing about our new curriculum and student success. And one thing we're really excited about that's starting

013at the end of the month is that JFK students have been invited to attend an evening reading clinic that will take place at JFK from the end of January to the end of May from 5 to 6:15 at night um led by Dr. Sarah Hullbrook. She's bringing in um Sunni UAL's graduate students and Casey City School District teachers to work with our students and we specifically um targeted our students who are just about at grade level to give them the push they need to reach. We had 27 students that we targeted to invite and have had five enthusiastic yeses so far. Our second key strategy math immersion has been going really well. their teaching time across the school to 60 minutes a day in all classrooms. Our morning announcements now start with the JFK problem

014of the day. So you'll see one on the board right now. It's tied um most problems are tied to things that are happening in the school. So this problem is about partner who is our learn teacher and um it really encourages students to start their day off with a mathematical mind. my uh one of the kindergarten teachers on the building leadership team had said that her students often get disappointed if the question's too hard and they can't even attempt it. So we made a shift that every Monday the question I only call a kindergarten student up to the camera to answer and then Tuesday's first grade and so on encouraging everyone to solve and if you hit the play button on your own you can watch what the morning announcements look like and what that

015problem solving looks like live announcements. Um, we also highlight on the morning announcements another mathematical strategy where today's the 82nd day of school. So, I pull a picture out of what 82 looks like in tens and ones and in a mathematical equation to further reinforce those math skills first thing in the morning. Our December book fairy book was trying to love math, encouraging a growth mindset um about math and being brave mathematicians. We have a fully stocked math cart that any staff member can check out. You'll see the picture here with some students who helped me fill it. Um, so this is used for any moments of downtime we have. So if a student isn't picked up on time because their family got stuck in traffic, if it's like today and it's four degrees outside

016and we have indoor recess. So any moments of downtime that we can use to really reinforce this love of math and hands-on mathematical learning, we're using the cart to take that. And our teachers are planning classroom activities and routines to build math perseverance. You'll see um also pictured here is one of the fourth grade has a sedoku board up that in times of transition or again in times of downtime students can go play with the board in the back of the room which they've been really enjoying. We have nine teachers at JFK who are working with an I Ready coach Danielle who's been really amazing so far. Um she's coming in. She's working with all of our third and fourth grade teachers. She was in um recently to do some classroom observations and debriefs with

017teachers and then we'll be back to do co-planning and co-eing with them. And we just started a math after school program on January 12th that's going to run till the beginning of May um called Pride in Math where P power up your math skills with confidence improve every day. Dare to try new strategies and elevate your math mastery. We have 15 third grade students and five fourth grade stu or yeah five fourth grade students and the ability to take on 10 more. The teacher started with an assessment and broke into three groups. So, it's being taught by a third grade general education teacher, a fourth grade special education teacher, and our math AIS teacher. It's a great success. And for this program, um, different from the reading clinic, we targeted our tier three students who

018need the most support in math to try to give them that extra boost in confidence as we go throughout the year. For our third key strategy, when we were reviewing our state test data in anticipation of writing this year's step plan, we noticed that there was a dip in our state test scores right around the time computer-based testing started at the school and really put our heads together to decide what what could we do about that. We heard that Edson had done a focus on edit typing and thought that could be really helpful for JFK students. So, we made a commitment that every class would build edit typing into their daily schedule. The teachers idual decisions about when they would do edge typing. Some doing it during their morning work, some during wind time, but

019every class is doing it. We have some data here at the bottom where 300 of our 307 students are active on edge typing. We currently have a 96% accuracy rate schoolwide with an average word speed of 11 words per minute. And you can go into classrooms and just see how much the kids are enjoying it. If you're not familiar with the program, it's really nice for the kids because it shows an image of a keyboard and shows them where their fingers should be as they're fourth key strategy was to align our step goals to support all the academic work we're doing or I'm sorry to align our experiential learning and our community partnerships with our academic goals. So I started by having meetings with our community partners to go over our SE to talk about

020the key strategies and where we're working towards academic growth. One of our big shifts this year was shifting the top academic hour from homework help to center rotation to increase student proficiency across all grade levels. So we didn't want to take away the homework help aspect as it's something that parents really rely on. Um so working with Japs, we came up with the idea of how we would um really the teachers, the mentors, and the teaching assistants could do a center rotation where they're reinforcing grade level standards while also providing that homework help. And our students are also working with Kingston City School District instructional technology coaches on VR headset virtual trips. So just some examples, second grade um went to ancient Greece, third grade did an animal classification exploration with their VR headsets. And

021fourth grade did a medieval exploration. One change I'm really excited about this year was the shift that the elementary schools went from ENR to what we're calling CIS, special. So, if you're not familiar, ENR were free periods that special area teachers had in their schedule that were assigned to classroom teachers for enrichment and retach. The elementary principles all put their heads together and said, "We feel like there could be a more effective use of time." And we came up with the idea of special and it truly is collaborative work between our special area teachers and our classroom teachers um to support what the students are learning in CLA and I Ready through thematic activities and projects. So, examples. Um the the kindergarten the K1 to 12 to1 to2 class is currently learning about astronomy in

022CKLA and they're doing an astronomy project with the art teacher right now where they're creating celestial images. Second grade um created a popup book tied to a book that they were reading in CKLA. They did a Greek mythology unit project and are currently creating symmetrical butterfly prints while they're in their life project life cycle unit. One of our fourth grade classes in um art. It was in a personal narrative unit to kick off the year and they created these huge self-portraits inspired by Keith Herring um to go with the project that they were doing in class. In music, um the kindergarten students did a nursery rhyme rap and are currently planning for an international day of happiness project on March 20th. And in first grade, they are doing a project there's a hole in my

023bucket problem solving project and storytelling for Peter. Both of my PE teachers have separate CIS periods and are doing um very fun projects. A Little Red Riding Hood project in game, an animal classification project. You'll see a picture here of a math pattern project that coach did tied to the ramp unit and a school's project and coach did an ancient Olympic games in the gym matched to their ancient Greece units project research projects and a third grade world cup and is currently working with the 34511 class on an classification project doing vertebrae versus invertebrae. Here are some pictures of the work. So the teachers go with the students and it's a true collaboration between the special area teachers and the classroom teachers. Our nice initiative there is our nice and supportive initiative this year is

024again coaching for excellence. Um we are in year four of having an instructional coach. Um Emily Zipch works with classroom teachers supporting through individual coaching sessions, grade level PLC's. She does model lessons, helps teachers analyze data, helps with planning and assessment and material organizations. For curriculum, I know you've heard a lot about CKLA and I already um so far from many other of my colleagues. So, I wanted to share something a little bit different. Um never one to micromanage teachers. really trust them to make the best decisions for their students. But this year, the elementary principles got together and decided um with the help of TNL that we would create schedules for grade level teams. This is the first time we've ever done this at JFK, but it's been really successful. It helps ensure that

025the grades are consistent. It helps ensure those 60-minute math blocks. And what really supported is the push work to make sure that push and pull out that students aren't being pulled from the CLA lessons or the lessons. We're currently in the midst of diagnostic testing. Um, so as of the time I turned in this presentation on January 15th, 296 of our students had completed their reading diagnostic. Um, we showed a 13% increase between the fall and the winter diagnostic of students reading on or above grade level and a 12% decrease in students two or more grade levels below. particularly proud of our growth that students are above grade level in kindergarten. In math, the math window is still open until Monday. So, as of the 15th, only 223 of our students had completed their diagnostic

026testing. But we saw an 11% increase in students on or above grade level in math and a 13% decrease in students two or more grade levels. And again, some really beautiful growth in kindergarten, second grade, fourth grade. Also like to highlight our state test data. Um so here we have math um state test data from 23 2425. Um you'll see our overall proficiency level went from 16.4 in 2324 to 22% in 2425. And for ELA, we doubled our proficiency level. We went from 11.43 to 22.4. And the cohort data is really nice to look at, too. So our students who were in third grade and 23 24 um none of our students got a level four. And by the time those same students were in fourth grade, 5% of our students were at a level

027four, showing a 7.2% proficiency increase in that. You'll see some attendance data here. Attendance has always been a struggle at JFK and we continue to work really hard to get our students to school each and every day. We're currently at our highest attendance rate that we've had in a long time. So, so far this year we're at 92.13% with our chronic absenteeism rate at 16.67. which is 3.53 percentage points lower than it was this time last year. Um, one new initiative that we are doing this year is that I purchased trophies, five trophies that are agreed with our vision, which is with daily attendance and hard work, all students will graduate to create a better world to live, learn, laugh, and grow. And so every month I'm tracking whoever has the highest attendance rate for

028the what grade has the highest attendance rate. So the teachers and I really felt strongly that um we wanted to with an attendance initiative that didn't shame any individual student or any individual family. So, we thought a friendly grade level competition would be best. So, for the month of December, second grade had the highest attendance rate with 91.76%. So, every second grade class has a trophy in their room. And then on February 1st, we'll do January's data and those trophies will either stay or move. Fourth grade is currently in addition to that new initiative, we continue we have a active attendance committee that reads meets quarterly to data. We have a 5 day a week walking school bus that's going strong, completely run by staff members who volunteer for that. And our students continue to

029track their daily attendance using a monthly calendar. Um, we found this to be really effective. Students are also tracking their edge typing um accuracy and and their attendance data and they really enjoy setting goals for themselves and watching themselves progress. Um, just a quick cute story. My daughter Lily is only six. Um, but she's very much looking forward to getting her driver's license. And um, we asked Siri what day of the week her 16th birthday will be and it's a Monday. So I was like, oh, maybe we'll take the day off and we'll get your learner's permit and she looked at me with pure disgust. She said, "Um, mom, I am not coloring my calendar red." So I love that our students they're still going to be coloring calendars in when they're in high school.

030Um, but I hope that sticks with our students that um that you are responsible for your own learning and we show up every day and when we don't we've been doing the same um themes at JFK for several years now with the pride acronym positivity, responsibility, inclusivity, determination, and empathy. For several years, we've focused on each of these themes for two months at a time, but this year we changed our acronym from Pride to Pride Plus. and we um are focusing on each of the pride words for one month and then we're going to shift to pride plus. And the idea is is that the only way to be a community that is protected, loved, united, and safe is if we all show positivity, responsibility, inclusivity, determination, and everything. So, right now, we're in our

031empathy unit and working on being empathetic members of our school community. supporting this um work with our monthly themes. We're adopting a new social emotional learning curriculum, Character Strong. We haven't been trained fully in it yet, but the teachers were really eager to dive in and start. So, although our training is scheduled for January 29th, and we'll be officially kicking it off after that, the teachers have all tried lessons. So down at the bottom here, you'll see that um Miss Wes 231211 class did a lesson on empathy where students had to work together to form the letters of empathy with their bodies. One of the things that we did as a BLT is look at character strong and match our and match our JFK themes to character strong themes. So some of them align completely

032like there's an empathy unit and character strong, determination, perseverance, responsibility has a unit whereas others don't match. Exactly. But certainly um go together. So when we're working on love, we can do our gratitude lessons. >> That's everything I have for you today. Um I just want to thank you guys so much for your support and for listening tonight. Thank you Dr. Thank you to the JF students, faculty, staff, families, our community partners. questions or comments. Um, we'll start over here. I guess Stephanie, Mrs. Karns, okay, it's hard to follow that presentation, but I just wanted to say thank you so much. That was really beautifully done and very easy to follow. So, thank you for laying it out that way. Um, I'm particularly interested in the SIS approach and to me that's revolutionary and at

033the same time an absolute necessity in Um, how do you find time to create that thread between all of those different disciplines and to remain on theme in order to expand your approach to what each student is getting and to make sure that all of those disciplines and those areas of skills are equally bombarded in a way that um touches on the social emotional learning kids. >> So, it's not easy. The time the time piece is definitely the trickiest piece to it. Um, and I have music and PE teacher here who can attest to that. Um, but our instructional coach Emily provided all the special area teachers with the curriculum map so they could take a look at them. Um, the teachers talk before um, school starts at that 8:25 to 8:45 block um, time

034during faculty meetings and JFK has always had a staff that is very collaborative and is always willing to work together. I think that's one of the reasons why CIS is working so beautifully, but time is definitely one of the hardest parts. We waited three cycles before starting this. We waited three cycles so that the special area teachers and the classroom teachers had those three full cycles to plan out what their first project would be and really get in the swing of things. >> Awesome. And my last thing is the approach to attendance. Thank you so much. That's a real sticky spot for me. I think excluding people, especially children, who can't um control their health needs can be really um sort of destabilizing for them if they feel like it's And I really love your

035inclusive approach to acknowledging attendance and clearly it's really working. So congratulations and thank you >> Mr. Lamb and then >> first I'd like to thank you and actually could be convinced to go back to teaching in elementary school. >> I would take you on a you the CKLA which is putting Heidi Jacobs alignment of curriculum and and and going through the SIS all together. It's it's like Heidi Jacobs on steroids. And this district spent a lot of money training me back at Anna Divine was a building that we totally collaborated and we taught align curriculum and it improved our scores back then and now you're doing it much quicker and and and the kids are even more excited about it because it's sciencebased and the kids get that that they're learning and they're excited about

036learning. and your staff is wonderful. You have the most wonderful music person back there. She was one of mine, but you it's amazing. Thank you so much for all you do. >> Um I also want to thank you. As you know, JFK is near and dear to my heart. It was the school that I was at all the time when I was in district. Um I want to thank you for I did watch your uh back to school night message. great way to memorialize some things for parents. I loved it. Um, and I also love the inclusive things you're doing with uh addressing attendance because if they're not there, we can't teach them and um it's a challenge as you mentioned. It is not their fault that they aren't there. It's usually an adult issue.

037So, thank you for that. Can you expand a little bit about how often and what the coaching sessions look like? because we've given so much on the plates of our of our teachers. New CKLA, we know that there's a numerousy initiative that's looming and change is very very hard. So, how does I'm a true believer teachers learn best from other teachers. If you could just explain a little more in detail about how the coaching sessions work and >> Absolutely. So, um, at the beginning of the year, Emily sent out a survey asking if teachers wanted to meet weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly, what they had the capacity to take on. And then she tailored her schedule around that. So, there are some teachers who would happily have Emily in the room every single day. And then

038there are other teachers who feel like, I really need to get my feet wet with this new curriculum. Come in once a month and let's touch base. And then the PLC monthly um sessions that she runs with grades are totally voluntary. So, I don't require any teacher to give up their prep to attend. She puts them on the calendar and encourages them to come. And we really based those around the way the training worked when we were doing writing workshop with Lindsy Barton. And so she would come in and they would go through the upcoming unit and really talk about it and plan it out together. Um, and so that was our idea behind the PLC's and meeting with grade levels in that way, giving them a really focused structured time with a coach to

039get themselves set up for what's coming in the month ahead. Um, but like I said, it's voluntary and so I certainly any teacher to feel like they have to take the support if they need that time planning on their own. But most of our teachers um are eagerly accepting of it. And what about common grade level planning time and also the looking uh the lens of data and how that's incorporated? Is it on a regular cycle? >> It is. Yeah. And so they do that at the monthly PLC meetings with Emily and then we do it at post observation conferences um with myself at our upcoming um faculty meeting in February once all the diagnostic results are in. We're planning on having um a schoolwide data walk where I'll have the entire staff in one

040room every grade at a different table. So myself and our uh reading specialists and our math specialists can go tableto table and really look at data in a way where it's not so disjointed where it's meeting with one grade one day another grade another day that we get a snapshot of the whole school and what the needs are in one shot. So that's what our upcoming faculty meeting is going to look like. >> Thank you Dr. >> Thank you so much again. I love hearing your presentations. I feel like my colleagues pretty much skipped everything I was going to say and ask. Um so I will just reiterate that I such admiration for your leadership. It's so clear that the learning community you created really cares for the entire the whole child as much as

041taking care of the human as well as the academic rigor. And I I just think that sets real standard. Thank you very much. >> Mr. Spicer, like that saying Ben Franklin said, even though everything has been said, not everybody's had a chance to say it. So I want to add to what my colleagues have said. I want to start by saying how grateful I am for such a comprehensive and thoughtful presentation. It did personify excellence in everything. So thank you. I like that your pride in math takes out the fear of failure associated with math and emphasizes challenging yourself and experiencing the fun of math. So so very important. I I was a child who was afraid of getting the wrong answer. So, thank you for that. Enriching CKLA and I ready with deatic progra

042projects teach the children that reading is not just a subject. It's a real fun part of life. So, I really liked hearing about that. I also want to highlight the tremendous value of coaching for excellence. When successful instructional practices are shared teacher to teacher, everyone benefits and ultimately so do all of our students and and because you all know as a teacher and a principal, the best information you can get is teacher to teacher. So, thank you for that. And finally, congratulations on your improved attendance rate that progress matters. Children can only grow and thrive when they're actually here and your efforts are making a real difference. And we know from longitudinal attendance data, the greatest indicator of a high school dropout is their attendance rate. So, thank you for all your efforts in that.

043Thank you so much and a great presentation. >> Anyone else? Thank you. >> I'm glad you said it, Mr. Lamb. You do have a fantastic music teacher. No, I will not be recommending you. >> Not a shot. >> Next up, we have Mr. Joe Beans and our food service program. Hello everybody. Uh thank you for inviting us up to uh the grand room here to talk about food service. Uh my name is Joe, also known as Joe B. This is Maloney, also known as make things real easy in the food service world. Keep our names nice and short like that. So, as you know or may not know, we run our school lunch program under the National School Lunch Program. There's a lot of guidelines and mandates and nutritional quotas we must meet at each

044meal. Um, having said that, it's pretty easy for a food program to uh run what they call a fivew week cycle lunch menu. And what that is is basically exactly what it sounds like. You will see the same items appear over time in a fiveweek stretch. And that makes that makes the job really uh less complicated, okay? Because you're ordering a lot of the same things. you're procuring a lot of the same menu items at the same prices across the board. Uh your staff knows exactly what what you're serving all the time and how to serve it. Nurses know exactly what the nutritionals are so that there's no worries about uh spiked carbs or things like that. Everything is pretty much cut and dry. Um, what does that do to a lunch program? It pretty

045much keeps whoever is eating that stuff and likes that stuff, they continue eating it. And those who uh don't like that stuff continue to not participate in lunch and sometimes won't eat anything if they don't have anything from home. Uh, when Shay and I started a couple years ago, there was a loud cry for farm to school. Farm to school is a great phrase. Um, it sounds like everybody should do farm to school. And I thought the same thing. And as we got into farm to school, baby stepping our way into it, uh, we felt the struggles of why every district doesn't do farm to school. Uh, number one struggle is the personel itself. was used to providing meals that seem to come from the freezer to a convection oven to a steam table to

046the plate. Uh again, that's quote unquote that's pretty easy work. When you start adding the complications of fresh produce and the timely manner in which you have to serve fresh produce, uh things get a little more complicated on the individual school level. So, in our district, all of the meals that come into the district come to our quote unquote central kitchen, which is at J Watson Bailey. And at Jay Watson Bailey, we have all of the equipment we need to produce uh scratch cooking. We have all of the freezer space, storage space, etc. Um, so by the way, we got away we got away from the five week cycle menu. Uh we do do a menu now based on seasonal items that are available. I just wanted to say that before we got any further.

047Um when we do farm to school, there's a whole lot that goes into it beyond just getting the food to the plate. So what do I mean by that? So far to school means you're going to take something from a crop that's grown around here like say a watermelon radish and you're going to introduce it to a seveny old and you're going to put it on their plate and you're going to say this is watermelon radish. It's grown right here locally. It's really nutritious. Enjoy it. Uh that typically doesn't work. That doesn't work. Uh so with the help of community partners like Land to Learn, like co-op. We um we started down this path of creating farm to school community base. That means that before that watermelon radish which you see on the screen there

048is put onto a menu, we also will do a fresh fruit and vegetable program on Tuesdays and Thursdays where that little watermelon radish will be in a container and it'll be distributed to the children in each classroom and along with some talking points about that watermelon radish. The child will sit there and sample it with a little bit of education and amongst their peers and a couple days later it appears on the lunch menu and at that point they've already know what it is. Um, and we found like that's what really works the most when we have the help of community partners sharing in the education of what it is we're actually serving them. Uh, the other the other problem that we have with farm to school is and this is a problem that we

049all have as shoppers uh you know you want to have the best tasting item, right? So when you're introducing new produce to kids. You don't want an unripened pear that is going to break their teeth. You know, you don't want an overripened clementine that is going to mush in their hand. Want everything just perfect when they get it so that their first experience is great. By doing this farm to school thing, we found that those kids that we are excluding in that fivew week uh lunch cycle menu, we have options for other kids to join in and eat. Uh since we've gone no cost lunches in our world, uh our customer base is such that's in the school so to speak, right? We're not going to get a couple hundred more kids into a school

050in any given day. So to increase our meal count, we need to reach kids that don't typically get meals. Um we found that um some kids prefer a raw broccoli instead of a cooked broccoli. So on our menu, we do cooked or crunchy broccoli. Uh so at that same day, it's not just a frozen watered down piece of broccoli. It's broccoli that uh we brought in, we've cut down, and in our schools, we cook some and we give some raw. Um, we're proud to say that this year alone, so far, aside from frozen potatoes, we've served almost no frozen vegetables. Everything has come in and we've processed it and we've sent it out with options of raw or cooked. Uh, right now we're serving about 25,000 meals a week. Um, if we throw in summer

051school and parks programs, we do about a million meals a year. Uh, so that's a lot of cut strawberries. I see there. >> Uh, so the local foods from farm to cafeteria in a few days is very important in farm to school work. Uh, when we when we're talking about purchasing crops through the local farmers here in the Hudson Valley. We made commitments to them to buy their crops and um that was all set up which we set up in the springtime with the farmers uh because that's another thing that we found out doing farm to school. You can't uh ask a local farmer to all of a sudden give you 25 cases of butternut squash. They just don't have it, you know. And so what we learned was come April, May, we the Round

052Out Valley Grower Association, which is a co-op of small farmers. We we predict what we're going to do in September, October, November, December, and they set up this year, they set up farmers that would actually grow those crops for us. Um there's a lot of give and take there. For instance, it was just we're still in cabbage month, but um you know, these small farmers, they don't have places to store their goods either. So, we had procured cases of cabbage from a local farmer and the farmer's like, "Look, it's going to get really cold. Uh, I can't hold this cabbage." So, we actually purchased the cabbage a couple weeks ago. We've been holding it for that far. So, there's a lot of give and take in that area. And there's also the part of like

053I said before, we order we uh predict these crops and then what happens? the crops aren't there because something happened along the way come fall. Uh so there's always a lot of different wiggles and waggles with farm to school and actually getting it from the farm to the cafeteria in a few days. >> We had to highlight Barbara here. retired. >> Yeah, Barbara retired last year, but she was part of our uh food service program for over 30 years, and she passed the whisk over to Joanne, who's now our head coach. Uh it really does take a team in our department to make this happen. We have 66 employees. Uh and as you know, when it comes to the service of food, it is a very family situation um when our people are serving our

054children. Uh it's a quick, it's a serve, it's a clean, it's a reset, it's a serve, it's a clean, it's a reset. And again, everything starts at our central kitchen. Uh we have Sally, our senior account clerk, who's retiring real soon. And Maria takes in all of those thousands of cases of products every day. >> As you can see, um we also like to highlight uh different food events. This on this event here, we called this uh I love your watermelon smile. So uh we sent out a bunch of watermelon every day. That's a nice shirt, by the way. San Antonio. >> Yeah, we had a lot of watermelon. >> These are some of the children with the watermelon. I love you watermelon smile day. >> The day after we cut it off. As you

055see the with the signage uh there's a big promotion for our farm to school and uh every school is now on board and believes what we were talking about in the beginning of uh the less is more concept doesn't really work in food service. the more sport more sport more sport more concept and I think we have everybody on the buy in with that now because they can see that the kids are actually uh happy to get whatever it is that they want when they go to the line we don't just serve one hot meal on the menu there's also a turkey sandwich a ham and cheese a cheese a peanut butter and jelly and even garden salads we also have meal modifications for kids allergies, glutenree depending on certain things. Uh, one real cool

056thing Chambers and Robert Craz are doing is, uh, they have what they call the beach in their cafeterias and they actually do have these lights and the kids go into the cafeteria and it's kind of chill setting and they have their wipes and their hand sanitizer and they get treated with respect and when they're finished eating they're allowed to go out to recess on their own with whoever else is out there so it's not so uh institutional I want to say it's very very relaxed and they have they have enough time to eat and enough time to go outside and that's one of the major things that happens with our children. Just want to bring that up real quick is that the length of time that the kids actually have to eat is really a

057small small window. When I first started this job, there was a lot of uh talk about the food that gets wasted, the food that gets thrown away. And the more we investigated, the more we gave the kids what they wanted, I was still kind of trying to figure out why are we still throwing stuff in the trash? And You know, there's times when if you're on the end of that lunch line, you might have five minutes. You might have five minutes and then you're like, you got to go outside or your your lunch is over. Um, and I talked to Rich Silverstein about the same kind of thing. He wants more time for his recess. You know, we have the health and wellness committee and that's one of our things that we are pushing for

058is we that window of time there where the kids are have an opportunity themselves and not be thinking about the curriculum or the test or whatever. Uh I think that's super important time and especially on our end when we're putting a lot of work into this food and we want them to enjoy it and to really feel the nourishment, right? Because it's really not nourishment until it hits the stomach. So we could say it's nourishment and it's farm to school, but if a child doesn't have enough time to eat it, then I think we're penalizing them at that point. So, I mean, that's a that's a whole >> Don't get me started. >> That's a whole that's a whole another I'm trying to keep this under three hours. >> Uh, okay. So, we have a

059couple schools here. We have the high school, we have Edson, and not sure what picture that was from. >> Yeah. This is a Chinese >> plate egg roll >> chicken. Okay. So, um, one of the things we did this year was the smarter lunchroom. So, myself and educators um, we visited a bunch of our elementary schools. We met with our cafeteria workers and I got to see everything in action which was really nice. And we got to talk with our service workers about maybe any struggles they have with getting kids to try things or talking with them about strategies to improve kids checking out new vegetables trying to foster a really positive friendly environment to eat food. I mean when you go out in a restaurant you're not going to want to eat more if

060people are rude to you in the restaurant. So, we want kids to see smiling faces and feel really welcome in the cafeteria. We want that encouragement to be there. Um, we found that hyping things up really can make your break trying a new vegetable. Um, just seeing other people excited for it and the people serving you should also be excited for vegetable. Um, and also have a little bit of education about the product so they can explain to the children what this is like what is spaghetti squash so they can kind of describe it to them. So it's not this foreign object um with the staff educators after we visited the schools and met with several of the principles. We were awarded a grant that allowed us to order some visual aids and equipment to

061help the healthy choices like little baskets and photos of fruits and vegetables in the lunch line just to kind of help push that message that um fruits and vegetables are a healthy choice and the kids should pick those. >> Pure learning is really a big big part of farm to school. You know, when the cool kid, so to speak, has it on their plate, then everybody wants it. >> Uh this is a barbecue at JFK. action shot by >> every spring we do at the elementary school where we'll bring an actual grill and we'll grill burgers and parents and families get to visit and have a nice >> one of the other things that our department does is uh we help facilitate a backpack program which sends It's actually now over 215 bags home every

062Friday to eight different schools that Wolf and Julie Julie Machung's classes at the high school. Uh how that works is we pick up food at Hannburg from the food bank in cases and we deliver it to their classrooms at the high school and every Friday they in the meantime they have individually bag 215 bags for children to take home and on Fridays we distribute them to the different schools. >> We serve Um these are all of the programs that we do during the summer. So obviously we'll have staff during the summer and then wrapping them all up bagging them with the fruit and then wherever else we do breakfast and Here's our cool new truck. Uh, we figured, uh, we needed some signage. We needed some marketing, and with all these brand new cases of

063produce that we're purchasing all the time, we need a bigger truck. Uh, so we got this baby and we had it wrapped by Timely Signs locally and just it's really cool running through town. and really shows off what we're doing for our students with fresh fruits and vegetables. Uh, one of the other events we do each year is called the Big Apple Crunch. And this event is organized throughout the state promoting New York State apples. And the essence of the Big Apple Crunch is that a group of students school or a school district will all simultaneously take a bite of an apple. It's a great learning experience to talk about apples and how lucky we are to have so many orchards right in our neighborhood and each school participates. We started this three years ago

064and a couple schools uh got involved and this year every or two of seven. A lot of our produce actually comes a lot of things in the ground. >> There was a day when Olivia, she actually said she's like, "Can I deliver the carrots tomorrow?" And we couldn't harvest them. They're literally pulling them, packaging them, and then they're coming right to our kitchen. You can see all the cool people there. >> It really turns into a great event because it's October. Weather's nice are nice and everybody's smiling. Another thing that we started a couple years ago and it's really taken over as far as what was talking about the raw ring of sweet fruits and vegetables to get children to eat them. Um just what it says in coordination between different community groups and parents.

065Uh once a month now they the groups go in front of our food service line before the child gets to the actual server and talks up the food that they're about to eat when they get there. Uh and we found out that the best way to do it is to call them like ask them did you love it? Did you like it or was it for you because when there's a vote involved, uh, typically they're all going to try it and one way or the other, they're going to get an answer, uh, if they like it. We found that this approach adds to the consumption on the line about 20%. So, we're always about 20%. So, about 20% more when we do this pre-line introduction. >> Those are we gave strange. >> I got it.

066>> I would have gotten calls if those were >> it's definitely um a community effort. I mean everyone we have Cornell Cooperative Extension and SNAP and also the PTOS are involved our programs are involved. Um, our food service workers is really all hands on deck to encourage kids to try new fruits and vegetables and also to teach them about local foods. Um, at Eden they're teaching kids about compost so they can learn how that works. Um, a lot of our schools do have gardens um where they might be growing some vegetables that they get to taste. So they'll incorporate some of that in their lesson. >> One of the great things Melissa does besides all the stuff she showed you is uh she is very supportive of everything we want to do and land and

067learn program where they grow the spinach and in June they actually it is what it says fest. It's all kinds of produced items and they get to try smoothies and salads and all kinds of things. >> Yeah, she had a photo booth set up so people could take pictures of the footage extension reached out and we're looking to get a pantry table like fresh vegetable um farm. So I ordered the stuff and then got it there and then they set up tables at home growers there also. They had a bunch of cups. They do a whole board. A lot of our schools actually do this. They do a veggie the board. Um the veggie of the month is something we follow in our menu planning. So next month will be you'll see a lot of

068everywhere. We'll have um in our vegetable program and then we'll do fresh >> fruit and vegetable programs every Tuesday and Thursday at almost all of our elementary schools actually not We get fruits and vegetables in the central kitchen. We package them up, however we need to process them, make them bite size, and then we'll put together some educational and we send them out to all the schools every week. So, the kids get introduced to fruits and vegetables. It's just another way to kind of incorporate um healthy eating habits with kids. A lot of the the issue I think when they're making choices in the cafeteria is I don't know whether they don't want to take it. Um but if they've seen it before and they've had it with their friends and they talked about it

069or maybe they see how it grows. Um they're more familiar with it. It takes away that fear from trying something new. And that's part of the reason That's what it looks like when we get to work and the sun's >> rising 6:30. >> So, I thank you all for listening to us. We're on a good path for nutrition and we're very proud of what we're doing and our staff that helps us on this mission. >> So, Mr. Ryder, we'll let you go first. >> First, thank you for very comprehensive and and entertaining presentation. Appreciate it. Um, one of the hats I wear is working at the county resource recovery agency. What are we doing? Just curious about with the central kitchen. Are we doing anything with our postconsumer food waste? Um, a lot of the

070pictures I saw too were like cardboard upon cardboard and just different things. So, I'm just curious on how we can reduce waste. >> So, that's one of uh one of our goals uh is reducing waste. This year we did away with plastic cutlery and sport kits in all of our elementary schools. We're back to silverware there. >> We were living in a co world where lids on things and single touch items and all that stuff is slowly going away. It's going away a little bit quicker now. Um, we will be doing a plastic free Earth Day this year across the board. Um, again, it's there's steps that we take. We can't do it all at once. Uh, we're getting there at the central kitchen since we are producing so much. There is a lot of

071compostable items and we do have someone who all it takes is a text and they come through and they grab it. It's a farmer that is just filling his fields with our compost. The school level. There's really not much waste in the kitchen that's compostable. There's compostable items outside of the cafeteria that is turning into a collaboration with uh the maintenance department because we really need police at the trash cans for that. But yeah, we're working on >> reducing reducing reducing. >> Great. No, first I'll meet you first. Thank you. Uh, I want to thank you for the wonderful presentation. I am so jealous. Food choices every day. Beastro style dining, barbecue, sumptuous chicken, parmesan, and spaghetti. Farm bomb fresh Friday is a folly from the tuna melts and whole milk they served up at

072PS94 in Brooklyn when I was a kid. So, thank you for that. Uh but on a more serious note, the food insecurity rate in our nation averages around 14%. Spiking to 46% for our families who lost their SNAP benefits in November. So I am just so grateful that we continued our backpack and summer feeding programs. Hungry children don't learn. your support in this area is is more vital in our community, especially now than I I know you know. I was going to say than you may know, but I I know you know. We have starving families out there who need that that food to go home on the weekend. So, thank you so much. And it seems I learned today in your program, you actually follow children around in the summertime, wherever they are, to

073make sure they have a sandwich and and a fruit and a and a drink. So, >> thank you. Thank you. This is turn. >> In the interest of time, I'm gonna accelerate this. Um, I am so interested in this part of our district and, you know, our work and I'm so grateful to your careful attention. This sort of deepening of understanding about food delivery to kids is super critical. Um, and I have a vested interest. I have two children in the district. Um, shout out to turkey cubes and gravy. The legacy of that, my kids favorite. Um, I love the exposure to the food and the raw vegetables. I've seen that as a mission. I'm curious if there's ever been exploration about the incorporation of those vegetables into things like smoothies, muffins, ways to deliver

074more directly in a less direct exposure way to kids to ensure that nutrition um and find all the clever ways that have been adapted over the years about giving that food to kids and having more balanced options. My concern is the ex student choice exclusionary of certain things and the limitation of food they're getting as a result of it. My other question is about food quality, temperature taking, making sure that once the food is received by the student that it is still warm and it is still ready to eat. >> Yeah. So the second part of your question uh of course is monumental in serving food at its peak and it healthiest. So uh food safety is first thing across the board always. Uh everything that we serve throughout the day is put on what

075we call a production sheet. So at each school level when a uh tray of green bean casserole is taken out of the oven, it's written down. So everything is tracked along the way uh from the oven to the steam table to the plate. So, as far as our actual controls of making sure the food is hot when it gets to the child, that's our that's our mechanism right there is taking the temperature and going from heat to heat to plate. Um, are there instances when something like a say like a burger loses temperature real fast? that happens by the time the child goes and sits down and starts to eat it and whatever may happen, we probably fall out of the 145° zone by then. Uh but there are other things that will stay hot

076for a long time like mashed potatoes. On the other end of things, exploring new menu items for these products is like that is that's the trick, right? That's that's the trick. That's why I made the joke about the Uh, we're going to do some pickle beets. >> Awesome. >> And we're going to do actually we're going to do a chili. >> Oh, great. >> Because what can you do with beets that a child is going to actually want to explore, right? >> Yeah. >> Especially if they've never seen them and now why are my hands red my face? It's like what's going on? You know, so it could be a real scary experience. >> Uh, so we're trying to make it fun each time. And uh with the vegetable of the month that we do,

077it's beets because that's what we have right now. >> It's cabbage. That's what we have. Winter squashes. That's what we have, right? We're not doing tomatoes in January because we don't have tomatoes. >> It does. And a shout out to the amazing um food service staff just on every level, part-time, full-time. I mean, these people I think are the most incredible and essential in the ecosystem of each school. they are delivering love and food and nutrition and that relationship and connection with the kids is important and I just encourage all of them to remember that while it's chaos and chaotic these kids are really relying on that love to be served with the food and I appreciate those that really prioritize that >> and they do they do know they realize after a little bit

078of uh doing this food service thing that they're on stage every day >> when they go to shop and kisses. So, I mean, it's it is it's smiles and it's >> a lot of our staff actually, especially ones who have been here 20 years, they know all the kids names. They know what they like. Oh, this kid's going to want ketchup. I know he's going to want this. They know them just by their face, which is really amazing. Um, that's definitely something we're trying to >> Benny, you had a question. >> Yes. I'd like to start off first. I love your shirt. Second, >> second, I absolutely loved last year's um the meals and the collective really variety in that. And I'm just curious because I know you started off your presentation with kind of

079the logistics and the difficulties with it. Are you taking a push back from farm to school in the high school? because I've seen the lack of or really the return of five week um really meals that were seen previously before via uh food to farm or farm to school meals. >> So the high school is a little bit different because of just the way they're set up with their serveries, right? So we found that on the high school level there are certain items that need to be there every day like they'll go across the street. Uh, you know, uh, we have French fries on a station every day with some burgers and some chicken sandwiches. We have an area where we have bento box area where each child can make their own bento box out

080of different cuped items. Uh, we have sandwiches, hot and cold. We have a salad area and we have a chest plate area where that rotates every throughout the week every day between an Italian pasta uh tacos, Asian quesadillas, things like that. So we figured in the high school over a history that there are certain things that a high school student is going to gravitate to uh almost on the daily you know almost on the daily money almost the same thing. um the farm to school initiative there as far as the rah rah rahing of the uh fresh fruit and vegetable program the farm fresh Fridays we haven't moved that into the high school but we are still buying the same ingredients that we're serving all the other kids it's still the fresh broccoli it's still

081you know everything's fresh not frozen so the high school is in our sites uh We uh hopefully down the road are going to put in a New York smoothie uh snack bar area. So the every smoothie made there will be all New York ingredients and then it'll also be um something that we call reimburseable where the child would have to pay for it. So we're moving towards that for the high school. >> Mr. Lamb, did you have a question? just very quickly compliment you on what you what you have done because the the kids are being introduced to things that they wouldn't be. They're trying it and watching the kids and hearing from them. They're they're liking what you're doing. Now, my question would be, what is the uh temporary kitchen going to do to

082the difficulty of continuing this through next school year? >> How much time do we have? all the kids. >> We'll make it happen. >> Yeah. Yeah, we'll make it happen. >> Uh >> we do expect we do expect some some proposals from our from our our uh kitchen food service designer that sold the space. We should see that in a couple weeks. So, I'll we'll reveal that at that time. >> Yes, it's not going to take a backseat. >> Thank you. Yes, we can. The train left the station. Yeah, we can't go backwards. >> Any other questions or comments? Thank you very much, both of you. >> Just very quickly, I won't go through too much. Um, we have some other things on the agenda that the board wants to work with, but I did

083want to um just remind everyone, tomorrow is the last day of our region exam. We have regions uh Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Friday is a grading day. So we have um we will administer the last our regions exams tomorrow and then Kingston High School will go back on the regular schedule on Monday. I do want to also remind everyone that we have used two snow days. That means we have four left. Don't don't read anything to the timing of that announcement. I'm just saying there's we have four snow days left and we've used two um and upcoming committee meetings. We have audit and finance in the 27th at 9:00 here. Facilities committee January 27th at 3:30 also here. And teaching and learning is on February 9th at 9:30 also here. >> I will hand it back

084over >> just really quick. So if we have a two-hour delay, we would just move audit and finance >> if that works for everyone. Yes, that would be fine. >> Not saying two hours. I probably can't do that, but maybe Yeah, I mean usually was I mean moved to you want to move to another day >> possibly. >> Okay, we'll we'll talk. >> If we get there, >> do we any other questions or comments for Dr. >> Okay, that moves us to um our student representative Benny. I don't know if you have anything to share or >> I guess just a um continued recap and some questions to really understand the district's whole policy towards their vaping initiative or the reduction of vaping initiative. Um so I'd like to start with by thanking you, Miss

085Anderson, through giving me and Sophia a direction of where we could go through the district health and wellness committee and the district safety committee. Um, we've reached out to the district health and welfare committee already and we're in the progress of reaching out to the district safety committee and thank you so much for directing us and guiding us to those resources. Secondly, I'd like to move to more questions for Miss or Dr. Pelina, sorry. Um, first is really just are we are we really aware about the percentages or the usage of nicotine products in our middle schools or even in our high schools? Have we surveyed that at all or done anything in that regard? >> We have not. Okay. I will tell you that I am meeting with the um with um also convention

086to talk to them about their youth survey that they that they do. So, so I'm representing the superintendents in Olster County have discussions with them about the contents and the distribution and the administration of that. So, that will give us some of that information. >> Okay. And would that still focus on some of the middle school or are we still able to get some data from the middle school or it would absolutely be high school? >> No, I think we both. >> Okay. Thank you. Um, next is I'd like to request maybe just a reminder about our district policy towards reform and rehabilitation of students who are caught vaping in our school. >> Say that again. >> Um, the district policy or direction of rehabilitating our students after they're caught vaping. Yeah. That whole process.

087And I think that's all part of the vaping campaign that we're on. We have started that we've done a few restorative um you know approaches towards vaping. But we are also working you know again also prevention is working with us. Miss Bonville and the communications team is doing a lot of work as well as our safety and health and health and um wellness committee. So I think that looking at how can we take it better um how can we be more restorative in this and how can we provide more supports. We have Shawn Bailey. You I don't know if anybody knows who Sean Bailey is, but Sean Bailey is is in our high school and he's provided us actually our last name with a lot of really good input about how we can you know

088not necessarily punish addiction. Um uh you know there's certain things honestly we can't have people high in school but we can address the issue help to address the issue and also work with outside services to get students everything they need. So I think it's a combination between getting students those services and having those restorative conversations um as well as a public awareness about the dangers. So we're working on all three lessons. >> Um so really right now we don't have really too much in form of rehabilitation for our students or >> right now I mean again Mr. Bailey's work is always is always there for us. I mean we recommend a lot of students there almost every student who gets suspended for vaping. And I'll tell you, I mean, most of the students that come

089to my desk, that's that's a superintendent hearing. It is about vaping. >> Um, not tobacco or nicotine, but usually about, you know, THC. So, I think there's, you know, he is involved in his name is on almost every one of the findings I have that the student must, you know, participate in programs with with Mr. Bailey for a certain amount of time to return to school, those kind of things. So, that that's really how we do. What we need is more Sean Bailey's and actually This is the young man we have at Bailey at Bailey Middle School back. >> Fair. So, we have some of the family over at the middle school level, too. So, we do have he's not ours like Sean is, but he does a lot of the same work. >> Thank

090you so much, >> Mr. >> Do we ever end up collecting having a collection of dates? >> We confiscate them. >> Yeah, that's my question. And then what do we do with those? >> They're probably in a drawer. administrator >> because disposal of those is one of the big issues. >> I'll find out. I'm not sure. >> They're just they're fire hazards. >> I'm not really sure. I'll find out. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> We probably should have a protocol for how they're >> New York State doesn't really have a protocol. So, >> so, >> but they're rechargeable. So, they become fire hazards in regular. >> That's right. >> I think there's probably thousands and thousands of vapes in principal drawers around the around the country. >> Fire hazards for Yeah. for the past years

091probably. I mean, not just dates, but >> anything else, Benny? >> No, I think that ends this. >> Okay. >> Thank you very much. >> That brings us to our consent agenda. Are there any trustees who would like items pulled from the consent agenda? I don't want something pulled, but can we have discuss a brief discussion after? >> Yeah. All we have to do is move on. >> So, no, no. >> I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda. >> Second >> discussion. >> Um I just would like Dr. P to explain 2025 because I called on this today. Um P73 professional. We're we're hiring a new hire and then we're moving them to a new position just so everyone is on board. Yeah. So it's not a Yes. We're hiring a new we're

092hiring a new hire and then we're we have to hire this individual under in their tenure area. So we hire her in her tenure area, but then we assign her separately to become a cse chair. So it's replacing a former cse chair. So it's not we don't have to replace that teacher in that that tenor area teacher if you understand what I mean. And it's it's similar to what we do with our instructional coaches where we have to hire them in that tenure area then we have to assign them to the instructional coach position. So that that's the answer to that. Does that make sense? >> Oh, it made it made sense to me when you explained it earlier, but I didn't know whether everybody else got it because I had no idea. >> If

093you remember a couple weeks ago, we had the music teacher who was getting who's getting tenure, but he was actually he's one of our instructional technology coaches. Same same kind of thing. Any other discussion? All in favor of accepting the consent agenda? I >> Any opposed? So, our consent agenda is approved and we do have a couple of donations. Hi, everybody. Okay. So, the board of education of the Kingston City School District hereby accepts with grateful appreciation the following generous donations. To Kingston High School from Mr. Vincent Sinatra, a donation of eight gift cards in the amount of $100. Thank you. To Ernest C. Meyer Elementary School from Hannerford Health Schools Program, a donation of $384. from Meer Elementary PTA, a donation of $232.65. And from Boxtops for Education, a donation of $40.70. Thanks to

094Chambers Elementary School Library, from Amanda Green, a donation of books. Fantastic. Thank you. And to Mahar, yes, the beautiful Gaelic name, not the way I pronounced it last time. To Mahar Pri from the Community Foundations of Hudson Valley, donation of $5,000. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> Scooter bikes. That's what $5,000 for. >> Great. Anious to see the photos of the school. All right. We now are at our board of education business with a report from our policy. Um I'm going to make a motion that we approve the change in policy 1900 that was sent back to us for um one brief change. If you look at the second paragraph of that we remove the world word natural um which was a request from a board member and supported by the entire board.

095So I would like to move that policy. So we have >> second >> and a second. Any other discussion on that? All in favor of um policy 1900. >> I any 1900 is approved. And then just you have first reading on 2120 school board elections, 2120.1 candidate camp uh candidates and campaigning, 2121 board member qualifications and 2130 resignation and dismissal. These have not been brought up since 2004. It was time in our cycle for those to come up and we will have second reading and moving on those at the next meeting. Our next meeting is scheduled for February 6th to Friday at 9:30. >> Mr. writer. >> I know it's first greeting but and it's late but I do want to discuss a couple of So in the election um policy change we added any

096person who willfully violates >> which one are you on? >> I am on the one on the election schoolboard elections >> 2120. So do we have the authority to make it a misdemeanor or was it it looks like that's being added. So we are saying that election hearing is a misdemeanor >> that is out of council advised us of that and and added that whole section and that was out of the law. >> Okay. >> So it is law misdemeanor and we're just highlighting it there. >> We're required to adopt >> its to And then I had a question about um candidates in campaigning um which is the >> 2120.1. >> Yeah. So we are now requiring any candidates to provide their address where in the past they've just provided like their residence but were

097we were they required to put their actual home address? >> Yes. before and now we're just adding the word address. I just don't >> Okay. And then we are adding the requirement for campaign expenditures regardless of whether money is being spent in the past. I think it was about you. >> You were supposed to turn that in no matter whether spent or not. I preferred them in with zero and I had them >> I think it was the three. I think you had to do one, right? But >> it was always three. Okay. >> All right. >> Thanks. >> So it just was missing from the content of the policy, but it was required. >> It was what we were doing. >> Thank you. That brings us to old business. Great. So, uh, we have

098this proposed KCSA school board resolution. Um, we've received a number of people over the course of the past four months since I've been on the board. um from the public who've brought us many many different versions of it and then we provided a version. So this latest version um which again has been sent to us via email and sits in front of us. Um Mr. Ryder was kind enough to put copies on in front of us uh is really important to our community and we've delayed for a long time uh to make a decision about it. Um, in the notice where they sent it to us, we see that it was rooted in language that the NEA and NICLU produced. >> Point of order. Don't we need to make a motion and have it second

099before we go to discussion? >> Motion to approve. >> Well, go ahead. >> You're going to say >> motion to approve. What? So, why don't you go ahead and do the motion to approve? >> I'd like to move I'd like to move the resolution to approval. >> Second. >> Thank you. I didn't know I had to do that first. >> Thank you, Mr. Now. I I tried to get this right and then I messed it up. >> You're doing fine. >> Great. Great. Thank you. So, um it's a really beautifully written legally noo has has, you know, approved much of this language. It's been brought to us many many times and this is its most recent version. Um, I want to say before um we take a vote on it and we get discussion and

100all that good stuff with Maria's leadership, excuse me, Miss Anders, Mrs. Anderson's leadership, that um we have a duty um as a board to not just be badgered into doing uh making statements sort of when someone has been murdered. For example, when George Floyd was murdered, there were already black people in our country and in our city um who were being harmed. Um and when Miss Good was murdered in Minneapolis, we had been asked for months to approve a resolution and that had been happening prior to. We had had ICE in our community for months at that point. Um, and in our community there are also trans kids and queer kids who are already being harassed. Um, and we we mustn't wait until there's murder and violence done to our community before we are called

101to act. And so tonight, I call to move the resolution to approve. And I ask us that as we sit here and we have members of the community come to us and for months ask us to take action as a board even though a resolution is not the same thing and doesn't have you know policy power per se um that we act before and we act when we're called upon to act. And so I I ask us to approve this resolution tonight um as is as the community has sent it to us. Um and that we do so with expedience and that we consider um any other requests made of us with a with a greater expedience and and and think through our policy and think through our board resolutions regarding other communities who are

102currently at risk as well. So but for this board resolution I do approve move the resolution to approve tonight. Mr. Ryder, then Mr. Lamb. >> Yeah. And um I appreciate everything Dr. Barn just said. I to me it comes at a sense of urgency, not because of necessarily one murder, but because of we've heard now from the federal administration that ICE is coming to New York and California. Top leaders have stated that. And so while this resolution wasn't on the agenda, I feel like it deserves the expediency of bringing it up here um and passing it tonight to protect our students. I, as Dr. Pilino said, the district is doing all of the things that are in this resolution um and any policy that will follow and I will work with the policy committee to

103try to draft. Um, there's NEA policy that goes with sample resolutions like this and I think we need to pass a policy as well. The district's already doing that work. I think it's now time for the community to hear um from the board that the superintendent um that we have the superintendent's back in doing that and pushing this resolution forward now will will show our community that. >> Mr. I agree with everything in the resolution. I do not agree that a resolution does anything to change anything that the board is doing or the district is doing. I think the only thing doing a resolution does is paints a target on our back. I think it paints the administration into a corner um in what they of action they can take. And I believe that we

104do everything that is within the New York State regs and allowed to do already and it is in our policy and our administration has been extremely active in that and I thank them for being active in that because I I couldn't agree. I think this this is the most disgusting time in our history ever. However, I worry about passing a resolution. A resolution changes nothing. Did did Martin Luther King Jr. day changed because we had a president who refused to do the resolution that every other president since Ronald Reagan has done. It didn't change for me. I celebrated the same way in prayer. I mean, so I I I got to be honest. I I don't like being forced to do a resolution that changes nothing and that 80% of our school districts in New

105York State have chosen not to do from what I have researched slowly and trying to find out how many have actually put a resolution in. Our policy is there. It governs us. The state law is there. And finally, the state has said they're going to back us and they're going to help protect us. And I just worry about putting that this out there and saying just come on and get us because one, we don't release our safety plans for individual buildings because we don't want people to know what our mode of operation is because they can then undo it. The more information they have, the more they know what they have to bring when they want to get into our schools and I just worry about that because I I don't trust what is out

106there and I I agree with with with Dr. Barnaby. I agree with um Mark Mr. Ryder, but I'm really frightened about passing this resolution and I I think it could do end up doing more harm than good. >> Mr. and Mr. R. There is there's a number the exact number of the difference between all of us and Renee good. That number is zero. There is no difference between any one of us and Renee good. Which means there's already a target on your back. When your government can walk walk up to your car and shoot you three times in the face for just being there, that's me. That's you. That's anybody sitting here when ICE gets to New York. So, so there's already a target on your back. Number two, resolutions change everything. The United States

107in 1776 was already at war with Britain when they wrote the Declaration of Independence. And that declaration changed everything. And when your back is up against the wall to write a declaration to say to your government, no, the answer is no. Tells them New York says no. Kingston says no. And Kingston was one of the chief places that beat back the first king. We want to deal kings and desperates resolution. That's why when this comes around, I vote yes. Mr. >> Yeah. I I just want to speak to the target thing. I mean, we live in what this administration calls a sanctuary city within a sanctuary county. And so, and they've already signaled that they're coming to New York and California. And so I I think what people have heard is a lot of information.

108That's great information on what the district is doing from the superintendent. I don't believe they've heard from the school board and I think that's important. >> Dr. Collins and then Dr. Six years ago, maybe five years ago, five years ago, we were one of the first districts to pass a resolution exploring diversity, equity, and inclusion. I think we were at the leading edge and other districts followed in our footsteps and it seems to me insistent that we would then also pass a resolution to support our most vulnerable populations in order to keep them safe. So, Mrs. >> I just have a question of clarity. Um because I do support the resolution. My only question is with the protocols that are outlined in the resolution. This really is procedures that falls to administration. So is this

109they're defined very specifically. So um is this um in conflict with what our current protocols are? Because typically in my world we don't have protocols in board resolutions. >> One of the things that I you know in reviewing it that I looked at these are in our policies which are directives of the superintendent and in our practice. So I don't see it being in conflict with anything that we do or that is in our policy. >> Dr. Bundy and then Mrs. Um, I just appreciate the conversation very much. Um, ICE is in our community. Um, ICE is in Newberg every day. Every day. ICE is in Albany every day. There was a day this week where ICE was in Hudson, Newberg, Kipsy, I can't remember the fourth place. And today ICE was in Kingston. So,

110and ICE has been in Kingston before and ICE will continue to be in Kingston. And there are people in our community, some of whom came today and some of whom are not here because they're actually watching for ICE in in Kingston. Um, and so I just will say this, you know, you can't Well, Audrey Lord, let you do the quotes usually, but I'm going to do one today. Audrey Lord says, "Your silence will not protect you. and communities of color um in particular black communities and indigenous communities also queer communities to a different extent in different ways um silence has never protected them and has never protected us. It's not actually a a strategy that works. It only works for those who already have privilege to maintain privilege. And so for us to back away

111when the community is asking us to be strong um and when we can actually be learning from black and brown communities across history, it's like an opinion thing, but it's just not it's not how it works. Um and we're already experiencing this violence every single day. There are parents in our district right now. Um one of one parent of the family is now either um out of the out of the community because of ICE or has self-deported. There are fun raisers throughout the community to support families with children in our district who um no longer can can be here for fear or have been um deported. So, I just want to say loud and clear and and I will also just say it again. When the time comes when the trans community is sitting there

112and asking us for the same thing and we have to be clear by that point that we're ready to rock, just like you said, when the DEI stuff comes when um George Floyd and Brianna Taylor are murdered. Um but we don't have to wait for it. We can actually be bold and strong. And I agree. I think that the rest of the county is waiting for us and when we act, they will follow in suit. And in fact, that pledge that folks were talking about earlier, 350 signatures, 50% of them in Kingston, it's the rest of the county that's also paying attention to us. So, we're going to have to have each other's back in this, but I just um they're here. >> Mrs. Curts, I'll be brief. Um I do support this resolution and

113and have for some time. Um my hesitancy this whole time was purely about the safety of the folks that this would affect and making sure that this did not draw attention um in a negative way. It's clear that it does not any longer have an effect in that regard. And to me, listening to those constituents and understanding their circumstances and the situation that they are all in um which includes fear, um instability, um lack of control, lack of access to things. It's unfortunately now beyond our control to help support or protect something that is no longer existing. So this statement makes a clear response to the next phase of what our responsibility is, which is to commit to doing what we can within our responsibility and role to make our constituents feel um secure and

114taken care of and that we're putting their education first. >> Mr. Just the last thing I wanted to say is this is a leadership body which means we're a part of the community that's leading a part of the community. Our children need to learn from this body. You stand up for your friends. You stand up for a life you want. You stand up for the country you want. Democracy is not an accident. And they need to know that. and they need to know that from us. That's all I wanted to say. >> And I pretty much agree with everything that I've heard. I particularly Mr. Ryder's comment. We've heard from the superintendent and we trust and and believe that that those individuals that are working in this district are doing everything that they can to

115adhere to this resolution. And but it is that the board make a statement of support. I did contact NISPAN to see if they had any guidance. I I'm very curious as to why um I thought in this week's news magazine they might have something, but um and I haven't heard back, but um I I think it's time that we make a clear statement and support this resolution. >> Can I call the question? >> Can I make it? >> Yes. I think it's important for the board to realize the role of the board of education is to create policy. That's your number one goal really is that the number one thing you do is make policy. And while the resolution is the resolution, I think moving forward and really answering Dr. Barnaby, I think that the

116idea of having a resolution in the future to communicate properly with our community to let them know these are already in the policies that you created and passed. >> That's right. >> We already have them. We don't have to be out in the front. We already are out in the front. We're already doing it with So, it's already there. And I know I've said this a hundred times in these conversations. These this this resolution just restates our policy, >> right? So, I I think that that's important to know that we're not just joining on the spot acting out, you know, acting because something happened. This stuff is already in place and we're already doing it. Like I said many times, no one gets access to our students. Never. Never has. Doesn't matter who the president

117was, doesn't matter where the immigration agents are, no one gets access to our students without a without a judicial subpoena or a parental permission. Doesn't happen. So I think that there's, you know, I want our community to know a that we support them in the in the in these times, but I want them to also know that we've supported them in all time. We've always been there. It's been up on our boards. It's been on our core values. It's been in our policy committee, our policy meetings, and our policy manual. So it's not just this isn't a reaction. We've already reacted years ago. It's already in our policy and and you all passed it before prior to you passing it. Can I quote a question? >> You can. >> All in favor? >> I. >>

118Any oppose? So, the resolution passes. >> That brings us to any other old business. >> We're going to do this as quickly as possible. I brought up last week and we said ag or two weeks ago, we agreed that we would discuss this very quickly. the rules of orders that were presented for us to run our board meetings. This should actually if this is what we're going to say is good, then this should be in our new handbook for our people coming on board so they understand how we actually run meetings and so we all understand how we actually run meetings. So, I would like to um make a motion that now that you've had a chance to look at these, we move on these as our parliamentary procedures so that we can include them

119in our handbook for our future board members. >> I'll second it for then discussion. >> Okay. Second and then discussion. >> These were in the library. I don't I don't recall seeing what you're talking about right now. I don't know that I >> two weeks ago. They were in the library and we two weeks ago we also discussed at the board meeting which you were not at. >> I was not at >> um but these were done these were given to us at policy when we discussed parliamentary procedures. These are designed for education. >> And how do they differ from Robert's rules? >> It doesn't have all the stuff that we don't need. Number one, it doesn't have all the um some parts of Robert's rules cannot apply to school boards in New York State

120by law. And these contain everything that we have to have to run a meeting. These were done by our council. >> I would probably, if I can, I'm not prepared to vote on them tonight because I didn't see them in the library. >> Mrs. I would like an opportunity to work on them a little bit only to the extent that they're a little more descriptive because if they're an educational tool, I feel like right now it's like a list, but it doesn't really explain like flow of meetings, certain examples of instances it would work with. And I think to be really effective, it would be nice to have it be a little more narrative. That's just my my request and offer to help support and further the document. I don't mean to pause the progress.

121>> Mr. Did you want to speak first, Dr. Coll? >> For those two for those two reasons and fairness to our colleagues, I move the table. It needs a second if anybody wants to table it. It'll give us more time to review it. >> Sure. That's what I said. Yeah. Would you like to speak first, Dr. Collins? >> I was also sort of procedural because my my sense is that moving this to I have to remember exactly what the motion was. If we're moving this to formalize it as the way in which you run meetings, that's different than it being in the form that goes into a hand or the handbook. So, I didn't know if if I appreciate your comment. I actually think it's very um very useful to imagine that if we're going

122to be reading this inside a handbook that it it has some examples of some context, right? Has no context. Um, but if we're just voting to whether or not these represent how we run, then it >> Yes. And I also believe that if we had these, we wouldn't have had a question on how we were proceeding with the issue at the meeting. I think these are important. I I don't care if these are workable document that we can change. We can change anything we want. But these tell us, you know, the proper procedures so that we are not questioning in the middle of something. Oh, do we have a second on do we have a motion on that? Oh, can we discuss that yet? When we do that, it's a waste of of time. And

123I think these will speed up and simplify things. I The other option is to function under Robert's rules. I mean it and and have a parliamentarian and do all that but we need to have some kind of procedural. >> So we have a motion to table >> and and I I also wanted to add if if the board is comfortable with moving forward moving forward but when there's a motion on the floor it's either up or down. If we need a little more time to consider it, you throw a table out and we can bring it up again. But once it's voted down, it's voted down. So, do we want to give ourselves a little more time? >> Only for this meeting, it's voted down, >> right? >> Come up. It can come up at

124the next meeting again. >> That's why we're going to table it. >> Second the table. >> So, now there's a motion to table >> And a second. Yes. >> All in favor of tableabling this motion. >> I Any opposed? >> I >> We've been three years discussing this. >> We can we can read another board meeting. We've >> been three years discussing. >> I'd like to read it. >> I'd love to read it. I don't know how I missed it. I see it now. But >> oh, in the there in the Does any discussion of tomorrow's um communications goals workshop um come in old business or is it named somewhere else? >> It could come up in old business. >> Okay. So, I just wanted Can I say something about it? Okay. Um so, we're

125doing it tomorrow, right? >> Tomorrow, January 22nd from 5 to 8, we are sitting in this room. It is a public session and we're talking about the board goal of communications. Correct. >> Well, we're actually reviewing all of our >> all the goals and then we're honing in and digging in on that. Okay. Thank you. >> That's all I wanted to say. >> I didn't think it was public session. It's public why I'm saying it here. So that >> Thank you. >> And it was still >> Are we still in old business? Are we in new position? business. >> I just remember from tomorrow there will be light supp. >> I just had one piece of new business. >> Uh just a thank you to all the board members who came to our first two

126school visitations. our principles who are really grateful that we were there and and they're proud to to brag about their buildings, but also to show us the things that they they would really like the board to know that need to be worked on. And I wanted to tell you going forward I I would like to take my notes create a document from the visit but all the people who visited please look for that email and say no I want to add this or that or that to the final document because when it's all over the these are observations we're going to give to the superintendent for for the administration to go forward with them. So, I just wanted to let you all know how I would like to go forward with the data we're collecting

127on our visitations and and thank you to all the board members who volunteered uh to go. >> Thank you. >> And Mrs. Siri did send that schedule out to everyone on Friday. So, and if if things happen and it has to be changed, we we can be folks >> because we're going to need to reschedu uh >> mahar. Yeah. >> Monday >> and Monday. and Mondays. >> That's Kingston who's willing not to exist. >> No, I'm not. I'm telling you the opposite. >> Any other new business? Any other any announcements for board members? That was going to be my announcement to remind tomorrow. Um, we have our second public comment. Anyone from the public like to speak? I got the impression and I'll sit down if I'm wrong that the board had that resolution that

128you discussed on ICE uh more than 24 hours. >> We had it last at our last meeting. >> It was normally respond. >> It was sent it was a sample sent back and forth. I just wanted to make sure I understood it correctly because if it was less than 24 hours, I'd just go sit down right now. Um, but it wasn't available for the public to see. And uh, records to be scheduled for discussion. On October 19th, 2021, an amendment was signed to into chapter 481 of the open meetings law uh specifying the records that need to be available to the public to the extent practicable. um posted online at least 24 hours before a meeting if the agency maintains a regularly and routinely updated website and utilizes a high-speed internet connection and all of

129the above apply. Um and so simply put it would have been nice to for a discussion that so much involved transparency to be able to read what that resolution said while you guys were discussing it. Thank you. Can I just clarify something? >> And I just want to clarify for the record, we were sent by community members a draft resolution and the first time it was discussed, not even discussed. I shared that I wanted to discuss it today, this afternoon. So there was less than 24 hours, but it was not a draft that was created by the board. It was created by a community member and reviewed by the board and then action was decided or talked about >> 12 hours ago. >> Thank you. >> That brings us to >> a motion to adjourn.

130>> Motion to All in favor? >> Thank you very much.