001Are we ready? It is 7:08. We have returned from executive session. We actually did the roll call and the pledge of allegiance prior to because we swore in two new members, myself and Mr. Spicer. We also elected um president and vice president. Our vice president next year will be Dr. Collins. Thank you very much. And I have been reelected as president. [Applause] No applause needed. We have one um issue coming out of the executive session BOE5. Be it resolved that the board of education hereby accepts the changes to the current agreements of the district assistant superintendence as presented at this meeting by the superintendent, including a one-year contract extension and a salary increase consistent with the Kingston Teachers Federation of 3%. A copy of said agreement shall be incorporated by reference within the minutes of
002this meeting. If I could have a motion. So move. Second. All in favor of BOE5. Any oppose? So BOE5 is passed. Um we have minutes to approve from the June 4th and the June 18th meeting. If we could begin with um June 4th. A motion. I had um I'll make a motion to take this Second. Okay. So, discussion on the minutes from June 4th. Oh, um yeah, the um No, I'm sorry. All in favor of accepting the minutes from June 4th. Any opposed? June 4th minutes are um accepted. Minutes from June 18th. I'll make a motion to accept June 18th and discuss. Any discussion? Um there was um just one of the names was uh spelled wrong. It says uh under public comment it says Maria accepting the minutes from June 18th with The change.
003Any opposed? Minutes from June 18th are approved. That brings us to public comment. We have no one signed up for public comment. Is there anyone who would like to address the board? Seeing hearing none, that brings us to the superintendent report. Thank you, Miss Anderson. Uh, first on our superintendent report, we have Dr. Skorka with our report on Kingston High School. I'm sorry. Okay. Sorry. I I take it back. We super report. First, we have operation um recognition. And I will Would you let me read the resolution? Okay. Whereas, the New York State Department of Education has a program operation recognition that allows an eligible veteran who left high school without graduating to earn a high school diploma as long as they met the following requirements. One is or was a New York State resident.
004Two, was engaged in active duty active duty service for at least one day and three was discharged under honorable conditions. And whereas the Kingston City School District has received a request from the Reverend Francis A. Kelly Society on behalf of the veteran's daughter to grant high school diploma to veteran Clyde A. Gatis, Seaman Secondass US Navy World War II who died in 2011 with proof that the above requirements have been met as presented to the board at this meeting. Therefore, upon recommendation recommendation of Dr. Paul J. Palino, superintendent of schools, that the board of education hereby confers a postum postumous apostumous high school diploma upon veteran Clyde A. Gatis who has met the requirements of operation recognition with such diploma to be presented or sent to his daughter as requested. So move second. Any discussion
005except to say congratulations to the family. Um, we don't I don't think anyone needs here to represent the family. Okay. But we do have a diploma that we will be sending to the family. Okay. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Operation recognition is approved. Thank you. Now you can. No. I'm sorry. So, next we up we have Dr. Rachel Stoka with our Kes High School report. Good evening. Thank you for having me. I'm thrilled to be here and serve as the closer for the school presentations. I just finished year 17 in the district and my second year in this position as school building leader here at Kingston High School. I'm so proud of our school and I'm excited to showcase our work from this past school year. Here are some of the topics that will
006cover tonight. My leadership philosophy, who we are, academic data going through collegiate and AP courses as well as enrollment, our graduation data, yonder and its rollout, our discipline information, our team efforts, our restorative practices, and our school commitments, which feature an update of code of conduct and also a research assignment that some of our English nine honors students successfully completed. As part of my own professional development, I study up on leadership practices, reading books and articles, listening to podcasts, and networking with other school leaders. I've come to embrace Steven Cubby's leadership philosophy. He explains leadership as communicating to people their worth and potential in a way that it is so clear that they come to see it in themselves. Additionally, he speaks to the four pillars of leadership and this guides me in my daily
007practice. The first is to inspire trust. The second is to clarify purpose. The third is to align systems and the fourth is the fruit of the other three unleashed talent. Here is how I took these pillars and implemented them into Kingston High School and my own leadership philosophy. These are my five goals from the school year which I shared with staff on our opening day. Leading with kindness and compassion, using rationale and explaining the why in the decision-making processes, giving positive recognition to staff and students who do the right thing, and recognizing how these habits create change and improvement. Building the bridge for students to see their own academic and personal success. And finally, continuing to be consistent, transparent when possible, and communicative. This means sharing information multiple times and multiple formats. This mural was
008created by KHS alum Galani Krooks, who was my ninth grade student back in 2010. We worked to together to create a visual that would be inspiring and encouraging, showing that high school is just the beginning and the world is an open road. It shows college and career options for students. Choose your own path. It's located in the main building in the 100s and I hope that if you haven't had a chance to see in person that you go through and check it out. It's pretty remarkable. In true form, I share with you my ninth grade yearbook picture when I had no idea that I would ever be a school leader. My college graduation picture when I had dreams of being an investigative broadcast journalist. And how through different life experiences and meeting mentors and wonderful
009professors, I began a world in education, starting as an English teacher and moving to be an assistant principal and then building leader, all here at Kingston High School. Our paths are long and winding, but if we trust in the process, we land exactly we are where we're supposed to be. Now, from who I am and my philosophy to who we are as a school. This is our school community. We have just under 1,700 students, but you can see our dynamic makeup. Our school community is diverse and we appreciate and acknowledge how we work together in decision making, planning and daily operations. Very early in the school year, we suffered a tragedy when we lost chemistry teacher Marica Janams who was incredibly involved with our students both in the classroom and also through her work in
010science olympiad. We dedicated our school year to her as well as the west 300 hallways. And part of this yearly reflection, I wanted to acknowledge her memory and contribution to our students and their educational journeys. At this time, I look forward to sharing some of our data from this current school year. Here are the ways in which we offer collegiate AP and honors level classes to our students. And we are proudly a school that has open enrollment, meaning there is no criteria for students to take any AP or honors level class. We saw students excelling academically with an increase in our highest honor role. Our honor role and high honor were consistent with the last several years. Some other notable accomplishments, the number of students earning the blue cord showing they received at least 30
011college credits through Sunni Olter. Also take notice of the impressive collection of students earning the seal of biiteracy, seal of triiteracy, and the seal of civic readiness where we actually set a new school record with 115 students earning this seal. Next, we have our class of 2025 graduation data. Our graduation rates by subgroup population, gender, race, ethnicity, educational designation, and our overall graduation rate 87%. This is an improvement from last year as well as being an impressive number comparatively over the years. Although New York State has granted some newer appeals and pathways through our cohort model and team approach as well as credit recovery, quarter credit recovery, our summer programs, mentoring programs, and night school, we have increased our graduation rate. Compared to other local school districts, we have many more supports and options to
012get students across the stage. Here are some post-graduate plans for our class of 2025 students. Whether it's to the military, going right into the workforce, or heading to a two-year or four-year college, our students are going places. We're also preparing students to be college and career ready. A great example is our backpack program where we partner with Hudson Valley Food Bank. We can see just how needed this program is, especially in our very own district. As the backpacks go to our elementary and middle schools, our students take pride and ownership in helping give back to our community in this way. This prepares them for the workforce after high school, allowing them to make a difference while in high school. As mentioned earlier, our cohort teams are an integral part of supporting our students and improving
013our graduation rate. Each team meets weekly and discusses any student who popped up on the radar, whether this was social, emotional, academic, or attendance reasons. By working with the same set of students for four years, the teams have great relationships with the students and their caregivers. They strategize, collaborate, problem solve, complete home visits, and anything necessary to help students get back on track. KHS also has our nurses, bilingual support staff, and the attendance dean who work on each cohort team. So, the weekly meetings have at least 10 staff members working to help our students. This year, we implemented Yonder cell phone pouches and found the program to be incredibly successful. Teachers surveyed felt that students were much more focused and students themselves, although initially disgruntled, ultimately voiced that they were happier without their phones. If
014you looked in cafeteria or in the hallway, students were socializing again. Now that Governor Hokll instituted the Belltobell cell phone ban, I can share that four local districts have reached out to me so they can get advice on implementing a yonder rollout plan. Kingston was definitely ahead on this important work and I appreciate the district and board support because it truly has made a difference in our school climate and culture. Okay, on to discipline data which I'm really proud about. The yellow highlights when I started in my role as building leader. So last year we decreased our fights by almost 50% which of course impacted and lowered our out of school suspension numbers. I'm pleased to report that again we decreased our fights to 60 total and lowered our OSS numbers. Although I wish we
015could show a bigger decrease in out of school suspension, most of these suspension rates relate to having a THC vape pen. More on that later. In terms of inschool suspension, I wanted to explain the numbers here. Even though we have more ISS than last year, the 153 I subtracted relates to yonder. Students who had cell phones out of their pouch received one day of inschool suspension. We certainly had some students who were testing the system and also being normal teenagers and seeing what flexibility there was with the rules. If we take out Yonder, since it was a new initiative and not tied to last year's numbers, we went down and are seeing better behavior. Though, I wanted to explain why we did have the increase this year. The district and certainly KHS prioritizes restorative practices
016whenever possible. This allows the student to understand the discipline and have an opportunity to learn and grow from the experience rather than just serve a consequence. Let's use vaping. This is a national epidemic and teens all over the country are becoming addicted to nicotine and THC vapes. If we found a student with a THC vape, we used to give them out of school suspension with a superintendent hearing, but this just kept them home without a guaranteed understanding of the infraction nor any time for learning reflection or growth. What we've started to do is decrease their out of school suspension days and instead include some inschool suspension days, having students meet with our in-house counselor, Mr. Bailey, and complete some worksheets and a project on vaping. Students are back in school sooner and have access to
017support and resources. This allows them a more purposeful reflection and growth process. and we've seen an overall decrease in repeat offenders for infractions other than vaping. Examples of restorative practices include apologizing, writing a letter, participating in a mediation or circle, and reflecting and processing on the situation with support. This facilitates a more formalized method and students can truly learn about the effects that their actions had on others. This is a more meaningful consequence than detention or in school suspension. To be clear, a restorative action does not replace discipline, but works together in unison with the consequence. Each year, as part of our building level plans, our school creates commitments which guide our practice for the school year. of note is that KHS is a school in good standing, but we still go through the commitment
018process. In the 2024 2025 school year, we had three, and I'm going to walk you through them with some guest help. First, commitment one, we commit to developing and reinforcing the importance of personal success among all student populations. This will be done through modeling and encouraging students to use the support systems and interventions that we have at KHS. The question, what are you doing to achieve your goals? Will be our focal question for students as well as defining the qualities and habits that make up being a scholar. This is about establishing routines and skills, ones that focus on asking for help, preparing for difficult tasks, improving participation in class, staying ninth period for extra help as part of the school day, decreasing apathy, and building confidence so students can see themselves beyond the high school
019setting. I am now going to introduce English teacher Miss El Needam to explain a research project that she conducted with her classes which directly speaks to commitment one. Hi, I have a stopwatch because I want to make sure I do this in a good time. So, we're good. Okay. Uh, good evening to members of the board. As Dr. Skorkus said, my name is Al Neidam. I'm an English teacher at the high school and I teach 9th and 12th grade. What I would like to showcase for you tonight is the work that my nine honor students completed for their third quarter research projects. So, typically when we talk about a research paper, some of you might run out the door, some of you might be afraid, some of you might think it's really boring. Uh, but
020research doesn't have to be boring. And that was kind of the the major goal for me was, you know, to create a project that was going to allow my students to feel invested, to feel committed to the work that they're doing by asking those questions. What is important to you? And how do you want to make a difference in your community? And that is how the agents of positive change project was born. So this project takes place in three stages. And I'm going to walk them uh walk you through each of them. So stage one, students identified issues that were important to them that are local to our community. So, some of the issues of note that came up for this year's projects actually included food scarcity, homelessness, and substance abuse in our community. The
021importance of improving our water quality within the Hudson River, repurposing the Hudson Valley Mall to be a place where teenagers would actually like to hang out, uh stopping vaping within schools, and reducing domestic and intimate partner violence, just to name a few. So through some various brainstorming processes, students identified what was going to be the issues that were important to them. I did not give them a list. They made the list and then they decided where they were going to go next. Of course, as a teacher, we wrote papers. Uh but what was different about these research papers is that every single source for the paper had to be local. So, in addition to teaching skills such as MLA format and a beautiful work sited page, students also investigated how to navigate local government websites.
022They looked at local journalism to see what the community was thinking about these issues. And they also interviewed local members of the community. I had a group that did a project on uh price inflation and affordable h affordable housing in our community for example and they got to work interviewing local realators which was very interesting. So after those research papers were written they moved to the third phase of the project which is in my opinion the most exciting phase which is it's not enough that you can write a paper and share what you learned. How are you going to share what you learned with others? So in April uh students came together to create a research conference in our beautiful Kingston High School library and they exhibited in multiple formats. Um some of the different
023types of projects included uh small short documentary films, brochures about their topics with potential solutions to issues that they designed themselves on Canva and also storybook projects which are the two that I have exhibited for you here. So the image on the left is a group of students whose project was focused on the importance of developing multilang multilingual skills earlier in life. So they were focusing on the benefits of uh being introduced to multiple languages at the elementary school level. And they did so by writing and illustrating a children's book about Poncho the parrot who is on a journey to South America and all of the geological features that he encounters. He learns the words in English and in Spanish. The image on the right is another storybook project that was completed by two students
024whose project was focused on the importance of equity and accessibility in education specifically focusing around physical and developmental disability. So their story book which they also wrote and illustrated focuses on different animals on their way to school and some of those animals have disabilities and some of them do not. But regardless, they can all make it through their school day enjoyably because they have access. And part of their project was to interview with nurses and look at the layouts of our building to see how accessibility is achieved. Um, I could filibuster this entire meeting and keep talking to you about how proud I am of my students. Uh, I've been doing this work now, particularly with this project for the last three years. And every year that I do it, I learn from them. They
025learn from each other. And it's really a beautiful thing. It allows them to explore their interests while learning skills and uh I intend to continue this work next year. So if you would like to come to next year's conference, I'm more than happy to invite you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Al commitment two focuses on a sense of belonging and students craving and wanting authentic school experiences that they can look back on as adults. Some might sound cliche, but really do define the social experience of being in high school. Dances here, our first ever unified athlete dance, our homecoming dance, a pep rally in the winter, battle of the bands, and club competitions and local and state events. These were all organized because of student request and then our adults worked to facilitate these.
026This year we had our first ever club fair to increase club membership. We featured a black history door wars, a junior senior touch football game where the varsity football team coached some of the female students, and the return of the ever popular Tiger Tianda where we sell KHS gear to inspire and promote school spirit. Yes, gift certificates are available. This is collaboratively run by our PBIS ambassadors and the class of 2025 student leadership. Speaking of school spirit, our staff also loved to participate in spirit days alongside our students. Our history department even put together a Rosie the Riveter Day during March, aka Women's History Month, encouraging students and staff to dress up as Rosie. A last example of commitment too is when the National Honor Society proposed a painting idea to me. They wanted to
027do an informational expose on color and hung these paintings created by art students around the building with a write up about the color and its meaning. I was impressed with their proposal, organization, and followth through. I know our staff and students really enjoyed walking around the school and seeing this art. Our final commitment was carried over from last year and incorporates student voice in our schoolwide committees and decision-making processes. We have students serve on our school committees like the code of conduct, safety, building leadership team and I meet with PBIS and student government, really any student at any time to gather feedback. I also hold focus groups with students and these interactions influence our goals for the next school year. Therefore, the groups that I met with this year directly impacted our school goals for
028the 2025 2026 upcoming school year. I would now like to introduce Dear Branford who facilitates our code of conduct meetings. She will be presenting some of the changes that our students worked on this year. Good evening. Um, so many of you are well aware of the code of conduct uh committee. I figured I'd just do a quick overview for anybody who is new or needs some uh review of that. So, basically at the high school, we just oversee the code of conduct. Um, and that code applies basically to the high school and to the middle schools as well. It's just a more condensed version of the big packet that comes out from the board on um all of the conduct. Um so students and adults on the committee are equals. Everybody gets a voice. Everybody
029has a say. Um and in fact, it tends to be more students uh than adults that are able to make the meetings because they're during ninth periods and a lot of times teachers have to meet with students for extra help. Um, so we discuss potential changes. Um, and then after those after we've discussed those changes, we meet monthly um to decide what else we need to do and to clean up the code of conduct the best we can. Um, and then I present to the policy committee and then I'm here today. Um, so a couple of the changes that we have for this year are really just for consistency purposes. Um so the level two outcomes um and level three outcomes we just added to it andor loss of privileges so that it is more
030consistent with what it says in uh level one and level three since most of the things are um in each of the levels anyway. So that it gives us much more flexibility when applying uh the outcomes. Um the other thing that we redacted or suggest to redact is the loss of librarycomputer privileges. It just seems redundant um to have that there and it seems to be more of a throwback to when you know you went to the library as a treat. Um that's not the case anymore, right? Um we need the electronics, the Chromebooks and such. Um oh, sorry that's a little warped. Um the other thing that we added um this year is or would like to add is the intentional misuse or unauthorized use of another person's property. Towards the beginning of the
031school year that students were starting to take the tags off of the Nike backpacks and there wasn't really anything aligned with, you know, you don't want to call that stealing. It wasn't, you know, malicious like I'm taking money from you. it was just foolery, right? Um, so this gives that a little bit more flexibility. If somebody asks you to stop touching their property, um, it allows an AP to have that conversation with the student. Um, if this is the issue. Um, then, uh, for level three, number 23, just adding without permission just to make that a little bit more clear. Um, and then the other thing that we were seeing some uptick in is, you know, since now they don't have cell phones to distract them as much, they're touching each other. Um, so if
032there's anybody who, you know, didn't want uh to be tapped or touched or prodded, um, we wanted to include unwanted or unwelcome physical contact. And this was something that the students on the committee actually felt strongly about the wording of it. They wanted to go with unwanted, unwelcome. um they didn't like the idea of using the word consent. They felt that that seemed too much. So, uh we went with particularly the language that they preferred for that. Um and then this is the big one that we worked on for quite a while. Um lots of input from students um regarding AI use. Um, I did a survey of faculty to see how they're using AI so that we can have an idea of, you know, what do they need to see on the code of
033conduct here. Um, and it was really varied. Um, and we recognize that this is constantly changing. So, we have to have some language that's much more flexible because by the time you add this to the code of conduct, it's going to be changed again. Um so what we decided to go with is deliberate academic dishonesty so that the conversation happens is like what was the intent in your use of AI? Um and then andor intentional plagiarism inclusive of artificial intelligence and we believe that this fits in we looked at what the district had put out about AI previously. We think that's consistent with the language um from the district level as well. Is it Is there any questions of me at this point? Okay. J, you might want to just explain um the dropping of
034the Jefferson. Oh, yeah. That was something we asked to drop last year. Um it seemed as though it wasn't needed anymore, right? Like students didn't understand where what are we using Jefferson for? Um, and that was really, you know, from, um, the creators of the code of conduct committee. Uh, I want to say probably 30 years ago. I don't know. It's probably 30. More than 30. I was trying to I was trying to figure out when it was actually created. 1980s, I think. 198 early 80s. 80s. Okay. Um, and so students don't have that same feeling about it in that way. Um, and code of conduct committee just seems to be a little bit more straightforward, right? And KHS or KCSD code of conduct seems to be more straightforward as well. All right. Well, thank
035you very much. You're welcome. All right. So to wrap up, I just wanted to say that with all the exciting work happening at KHS, I wanted to acknowledge some people who help promote, cover, and explain the daily happenings, as well as the important milestones that take place in our school community. Miss Laney Bowler does an exceptional job running our KHS Facebook page. We have increased our likes and follows by nearly 2,000 from last year. And Laney works collaboratively with our staff to cover what is happening in their classrooms, hallways, and outside of the school in the community. We also have an amazing district communications team who covers our events and also puts out helpful announcements and information. We couldn't do it without them. I also want to acknowledge some staff who help our building run
036smoothly and successfully on a daily basis. our amazing custodial staff and Dave Johnson who will literally do anything to help the school. Our SRO's who prioritize school safety and being visible at all of our school events. Some of our security staff and the head of our district security team, Mr. Leseawn Parker and Mr. Chris Corba. We're always refining our schoolwide plans and policies in order to keep our building and students safe. Here are some of our hall monitors working at prom, which was a major success. And I wanted to take a moment to highlight these staff because they are often the first to report and respond to a student issue in conjunction with our support staff and security. They've absolutely contributed to an improved school culture. And lastly, my fellow administrators, I'm grateful and appreciative
037of my administrative team. It's been amazing to watch them collaborate, grow, and take on their own projects and initiatives. I'm proud to work with them and look forward to continued success on our shared vested interests and endeavors. In closing, it might just be semantics, but I don't feel the word principle means the same thing as building leader. Both are titles, but building leader feels more like an action verb than a noun. My work, our work, truly is never done. I do my best to lead by example, delegate and empower others, continue to build my team. Everyone that reports to work at KHS is on my team. Work toward our goals. We're never done. There are always new goals, but we have work that we're continually doing every day. Lastly, making room for fellow leaders. We
038need to do this important work together. Thank you. Thank you. questions or comments for Dr. Mr. Lamb. I got to tell you, the climate and the feeling in that building is so wonderful. I'm so proud of you and the staff in that building. It It's night and day from what it was and and I can't tell you what a difference a real leader makes. Thank you. Thank you. I should erased Mr. Lamb to he took everything that I was about to say. But the culture of the building and it's it's your team and you and I think it is just much different than it was. I also need to acknowledge that like the Yonder roll out went well and so a year ago I was not a supporter of it and I was wrong and
039I think it's it's It's it's made a huge difference and so I'm glad that you walked forward over my hesitation. But um just acknowledging that it is it is a very different culture than it was two years ago and it's your team. It's also you Thank you, Dr. Cons. Thank you so much for a really rich report. I mean, it's really clear just how much innovation and energy and positive energy you and your um staff and faculty are putting into that building. So, Thank you for that. That I just wanted to highlight that I appreciate the examples, the great work on the experiential learning and the code of conduct that's happening with your students. I think that's amazing. Um and want to commend and you on the graduation rate which continues to climb. So that's
040amazing. um along with decreases in disciplinary events and I'd like to think that eventually those will continue to be linked as we stop trying to um sort of remove students from the school building when they're in trouble to keep them in keep them learning and increase their graduation rate even further. So it was all amazing. I I have one small really technical question around the um seal of civic engagement. So it was a new record 115 students I think you said. What do students do to actually earn that? Yeah, great question. So, there is a point system that students are rewarded with as they're going through their four years. So, it can begin in nth grade and this is rolled out through our social studies department. So, there's a six-point criteria that involves them getting
041involved in local community events and they actually present a capstone. So it takes place over the four years for them to earn these six points and there's various student choice and ways in which that they can earn the six points but they do need to earn six points in order to get the seal. Um and it does also involve a type of presentation um also on kind of a local community event. So yes, we had 115 students which was 27% of our graduating class. That's wonderful. Will our um student board members get points? Um I think that they should. Yeah, I'll just have to apply. I'll have to talk to Mr. Christian, right? Yeah. Thank you very much. I just really appreciate all your work. Yeah. Um, I also want to applaud you and your
042team for uh really continuing to build positive school climate because clearly uh research has shown positive school climate leads to positive student outcomes. So, thank you for that. Um, I have one question. I know you had things in your comprehensive plan to try to involve initiatives to have more participation with our ENL population. That still seems to be and I I recognize why because um you know I've been there. I know it's a challenge for ENL to um graduate within our within our time frame of what we have depending on when they join us. But I'm wondering how you felt those initiatives and steps worked. Are there things you might consider continuing into next year or tweaking? Yeah, great question. Thank you. Um, we had as part of our plan um, initially to try to
043have some ENL liaison to meet with our student government members. Um, and we ultimately found that the ENL students didn't want to do that. Um there there still seems to be sort of a resistance um especially after the elections but prior to as well with really digging in um involved. We have a great bilingual team and it was actually Miss Rojos who is here tonight. Um it had been her idea in a way to try to get more student voice from the ENL population because when we have grade level assemblies for fundraisers or for ideas for the class um they're just kind of translated into Spanish and the students didn't have a part in the planning process. So we were hopeful that with liaison they could have some say but we did not have success
044in recruiting them as as much but I think that's always our goal right we're always trying to improve access and equity and student voice um including our um growing ENL population. So I think I think it's continued work. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah of course Mr. Spicer. I I also wanted to echo that the the spirit in the high school are just wonderful. They're just wonderful. And um I speak from experience from an from a a particular event when the whole high school came to Point of Praise Church and and sang. What was the name of that particular concert? The Masters. The Masterworks concert. It was they showed talent, precision, and and the whole event just washed over the whole community. Just an event of love and hope. It was amazing. And also was amazing. Almost
045all the songs were African-American um spirituals and and it was wonderful. of course professionally uh orchestrated and sung but um the whole audience en enjoyed and uh was uplifted by the whole event and it just shown the tone that's coming from the top of the leadership of the high school all the way down or all the way down to the bottom. So thank you so much. Thank you. And for those of us um that have worked at Kingston High School, we we know what a great place it is. I think Mr. Reinhardt can I mean they the staff is phenomenal and and um the spirit of supporting students has always been great. So thank you so much for continuing and improving and and supporting our students. And the first graduation that I remember that we
046did not have one blow up toy. No. I spoke to the adults. Don't worry. So, thank you for that. Thank you very much. Thank you. Um, I just have a few more things. Uh, I I was going to report on graduation, but Dr. Schwer kind of took that out of my hands and reported on graduation. But if there are any other questions, I'm ask I have a question and a comment. So, um, I I when I saw that number, I was very excited because it wasn't that long ago. In fact, it was 2022 when it was 82%. So I think that these this movement it's been incrementally moving up for the last years in ways that I think we just need to highlight and I appreciate the hard work that the district is putting in
047to make sure that happens. Um we didn't talk about the potential for even more few August graduates that just a quick comment. I think you know you look back to when we first really even building the high school and building it the way we did with the purpose of having the cohort model that Dr. Sto talked about and back in place and that that is just it's caught on and that I think we're going to see that that grow as it as we move forward with our students. But um the one thing about having a high graduation rate is you have a low number of students who are eligible for August graduation. So it looks like I think if I'm right we have three students who would be eligible for um August graduation unless that's
048changed Dr. Correct. Thanks. So, so while you know we want to get that's every every student across the state is is great. So, we will have the possibility of three. I just I'm so appreciative of those numbers moving up the right direction. Okay. Um just so you know that briefly the AR construction project is underway um pretty heavily underway a lot of work being done um you know at Bailey the Hback and electrical disconnects and demo are nearing completion so that's a big piece of this and as we talked about things like um you know changes in scope and some of our change orders and looking at that's really where a lot of that comes in when they start doing that demolition we seen that much happen. So, we're excited about that. Um, you know,
049the ceiling demo near completion. The current the curtain wall removal has started this week over there. Um, parking expansion is underway. Excavation and rock removals going on. So, um, the curtain wall is installed in tenderly, you know, starting next week. So, we're we're moving along pretty quickly as summer flies by for everyone. Um, similar things happening at Edson. Uh, the interior abatement was just some of these are different. Interior bait is about 50%. We did have some that had to be done. Um, administrator area demo is nearly complete. Side entry ramp ramps and foundations are started and new window frames are installed uh on the playground side of the cafeteria. So, they're moving. There's a lot of go over there and take a look. There's a lot of people moving around over there. We did
050have to um we did move one of our bus stops for summer school because it had slated to go up that way and just with the number of construction vehicles coming in and out, it wasn't safe. So we are moving that. Um I know that was conversation we had you know during the week with a lot of people and we got the got those students out of that area. Um but yeah this is that's pretty much we just moving along. It's really impressive the the amount of work that's been done so far. Summer school started so summer school started Monday for some of the programs and today for our uh 10 to 12 programs. Um, our numbers aren't what they have been in the past, but there are still we got a lot of students
051on campus. We have about 170 in our ESY. Our K through three at JFK right now, we at 110 at the time that I started this report, so we're still around there. Um, 10 through 12, we're looking at about 100. Summer 9, we're we're at 55, which is a great number for summer 9. Our rising five is 45 and our six to eight is 95. But one of the things we do have is we have about 300 students signed up for regions exams in June or in August. So we have students who are just challenging the exam. Again, are they challenging it or Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. My question is I know that there were uh first time administration of geometry um earth science and what used to be biology and that what life
052and space life in space or something like that. How how did that uh how did those go? Particularly for our identified population biology. That's that was my curiosity. Did they offer both exams? Because like on the schedule it showed the new title and the old Did they offer both? So we had to offer both for the students that living environment course. So they have to continue taking that reason. So district couldn't ch like we could choose what we did this year for the last year. I mean my my wife teaches the past years ago because the course is so much different biology instruction. And just Last thing I have is congratulations on several of our uh people here in KC School District who were awarded Chrono Grammys, which was something I didn't know existed until
053I found out the other day. Um JFK JFK got best elementary school in the Hudson Valley. Kingston High School got best high school, third place in the Hudson Valley. And our and best youth advocate in the Hudson Valley was our own John B. So it's really nice to see them be recognized. And that concludes the Okay, Dr. Collins, um you mentioned that the summer school numbers are lower. Can you talk a little bit about the demand versus the enrollment? Yeah, I think well one of the things we're doing is right now yesterday actually we had the principal calling every student who didn't show up who we who we thought was was going to be there. So then we can backfill some of those people students who maybe were eligible to go but didn't you weren't
054necessarily qual not qualified but didn't hit all the criteria that we're looking for to set to get a certain vocal group of students. So, we're reaching out to all the students who didn't come who were identified as you know the top tier need to be there and for those who said you know they're not coming we're going to start from you know we have tiers the next list of group people we ask them to come in and the next from there so we had recommendations um significant number of recommendations but that doesn't We don't necessarily get a commitment from parents and yes, we'll definitely be there. We we assume um and we do hear from some parents that definitely coming, but we did have a significant number of students not come to summer school. So,
055okay. So, I just want to make sure I understand. So there was um a number that were re was recommended 220 is recommended uh between scores that they had um from Ready and teacher recommendations a mix of I Ready teacher recommendations the the level of supports they need where the tier supports and also our ESL students were priority. Okay. And then so then those are recommended but that not all of those were invited then there were right well we had over 600 recommendations. Okay, that's actually so yes, we had over 600 teacher recommendations. So we took the teacher recommendations and we cross referenced them with all those with the other day. So we triangulated the data and picked the 220 who we saw as the the priority to get them to summer school for this
056year. Um again at elementary we can't mandate summer school we can't mandate but high school obviously they want to graduate they go to summer school so any reason but um yeah so we have that's how we did it but then we did have you know we have next next person up for every seat that isn't filled so um I guess I'm wondering if there are that many recommendations what that seems like a big gap between that those recommendations and the number we can actually serve yes huge gap and it's conversation that we that we're having is how did we have that gap? Um, you know, even if we had the Yeah. I mean, we wouldn't have the capacity to fill to to serve 600 students. I mean, and and really if you look at it,
057we only have we only have,00 K through three students. So, that's more than 50% of those students were recommended at the teacher level for summer school. So again, that's why we added in the other layers of of information to create that total meet. So there was, you know, the teacher recommendation. Now, let's say there's not one there's not one student who was chosen or or prioritized to the summer school who did not have a teacher recommendation as part of that part of the that checklist. So can you just remind us on how what was the number of students in summer school at the height of we ramped up all of our We did a different things also, right? Yeah. So, a lot of our offense and the $22 million the federal government gave us didn't
058hurt that we were able to, you know, we beefed up the day. We added more, you know, more seal, more community partners. We lengthened the day with food and transportation, all those things that we were basically running full days of school across, you know, across all programs. Um, and we were, you know, we were running 15,700 students on campus, you know, around in the district. Um, you know, we're not in that same place now. Obviously, without without that funding. So, it was um, yeah, that's so if we had potentially more funding or more staffing, we would have more, right? More funding brings more staffing, which brings, but also being able to add Yeah. Being able to add other things like being able to say to some of our community based organizations, you have a place
059here and we can pay you to come. That that eliminates the need for that much more staff. So, we can deliver the the you know the core academic areas but then we have you know our kids out in the garden then we have kids kids who are you know doing um different things with experiential learning with with other groups so we were able to do that kind of thing that we weren't really can't right now that yeah great to figure out ways to close that gap so we have that many students I don't know how many families of those 600 would actually be able to bring their students but if there's potentially that need and we're seeing academic outcomes especially among our subgroups that benefit from time in school. We think about that that time
060in history um around co also a lot of people were not going anywhere you know there was a lot of things not going on that they would people are doing now different activities they knew we're coming to school we were a safe place they knew we had all the resources that kind of thing but there's a lot of different reasons for that um but yes closing that gap would be good more fun that program would be would go a long way thanks Mr. Wy, the kids have their Chromebooks all year. Is there any like do they have any access to the educational software or anything on there? Like they if they wanted to, they could go on and still. I mean so we could recommend that for and the other thing we are doing so
061we Boseis is running our our secondary summer school at East High School but Boseies runs it um we don't run it in house but what we have done is we've hired teachers to work with our students who are taking the regence exam and provide regency review classes as we get closer to that exam so our our teachers will be doing that I don't know all 297 show up, but we're going to make sure that they're cooperative. Any other questions for the superintendent? That brings us to our um reorganizational resolution and this is a consent agenda. So, first I would ask if there's any items that trustees would like to put. Mr. writer uh R19 which is the calendar Anthony R14 any other. So um if we could have a motion to accept the reorganizational resolutions
062minus R14 and R1 19. Any discussion on those items? Um, no. Well, actually, I think um some of them touch on what's in R14. I don't know if that makes a difference. Yeah, because it says the existing closing item. Am I wait, aren't we having discussion on the consent agenda? It's not the some of the but they're within the body of the consent agenda like R17 references, right? So, I'm just he's just asking, right? Well, yeah. I guess as a point of order, should we do R14 first because it's the rest of it, I guess. So, can we can we accept the consent agenda minus R14 or would you like other ones closed? I I will remove my motion on approving the consent agenda. Will you remove your second or second? Um, I'd like to
063discuss something before we do before I remove it, which we're under discussion. Right. If we remove if we put the R14 back in, we can discuss that's under the consent agenda because it involves other areas and then bring it to a vote or pull it if we have to pull it. Am I not correct? I believe so. So I would I would like to change or ask Anthony to pull you know put it back into the consent agenda. Do you know what I'm saying? Cuz then we'll have the discussion and we don't have to pull all the other ones that are involved in it. If you move and second the the reorganization agenda as as is. After we move the second there can be discussion. out of that discussion comes a need to pull a
064resolution. You can do it at that time. So you don't need to pull them ahead of time. You can have a discussion and maybe the answer maybe the questions get answered and they decide not to pull it. That's that's yes I don't feel the need to do that for considerable. Yes, I agree with I'm fine with R19 being right. Okay. R14. Can we keep in? Sure. Okay. So now we have discussion on the consent agenda including R14US. SoUS R19. Um I noticed that uh it's we've always had the daily newspaper to um send the things that need to go out to the public. Um and I was wondering if we could add to that. It um it seemed to me that um education law is open to having multiple papers if you know a district
065had multiple papers which we still don't really but there is other ones out there. there just for background on that there are well there's no restriction on who how many figures we can have the more the more media outlets or papers or whatever you want to call them that we name the more responsibility we have to make sure that everything is there one mistake there especially when it comes to voting and budget and those kind of things which we we we share on our website everyone has access to it but if we if we miss one of those and the and the board has designated, you know, say five different media outlets. We've missed one of those, we have been violated and probably, you know, um completely thrown out a budget vote, a board vote,
066a capital project vote. So, while it's um okay for us to communicate to as many as possible, the most the more we have, the more likely it is, the more likely the chances run rise that we could that an error could occur creating a bad situation and specifically it's like that the legal part that like takes an entire page of very tiny print of I think that might even be difficult to do with the other options. I was just wondering if everyone else felt they would behoove us to talk about spending for me. We only have one daily and so that When I was the director purchasing for the county, um Suzanne's not here so I can start saying that again. She was criticized when I brought it up. when I was the director of
067purchasing for the county, um we had because the Olter County legislature appointed the Shangam Journal, um not the Daily Criminal, I believe, and uh Kingston Wire and Hudson Values, whatever it was. And it was difficult because they're once a week and sometimes the timing didn't line up. And so if there was dailies, it would be a different story for me. But I I think keeping you know I I support keeping it only to the daily and it is a designation that it's the official newspaper. It doesn't have to be the only newspaper. Correct. Any other discussion? We have a motion and a second. Can we take a vote on the consent agenda minus R19? All in favor? I. Any opposed? So, um, the reorganizational resolutions have been approved. R19. Make a motion to discuss R19.
068Second. Any discussion? Um, I see that we still don't have our attorney for the full meeting and maybe that was planned, but I I think it's important that that starts to happen. Um, if possible and I know Wednesdays are a conflict for them. I have conflicts on Wednesday, so it may be easier to move things to another day. I understand people have calendars that have, you know, marked off those days oftent times, but um just wanted to bring up if it was possible to shift to like a Tuesday or Thursday the just from administration at this point in in philosophy don't really have an issue with what day mean Thursday would be better but um that's just my personal not the second Thursday the the issue we have at this point we We've already sent
069out we've already established all of our faculty meetings, all of our all of our, you know, all all the meetings we have. We've already told all of our principles and don't do anything on Wednesdays. So, I mean, we would I mean, can we go backtrack and change that? Yes, we can. But that's that's that's work that's already been done with Wednesday as the as like that go touch that day because we know we have coordinates, Mr. Lamb. And then Dr. I get that and I but I don't think we are I don't think we're doing necessarily the best job at missing those days because things have happened when we are having meetings at such as um honor society inductions etc we're having meetings so but I do think it would behoove us to have our
070lawyers legal counsel of their own at meetings and I I think that maybe we need to move our meetings in order to get that or we we just approved our lawyers so we can't I don't I don't think the day of the week is is an issue. We have a contract with our attorneys. The contract says the attorney will be present for the entire meeting at the request of the board president and the board president the board is direct or talking with the board president says that we we request them to be here they are supposed to be here. So that's That's just the culture that we hadn't had in the past of the of the the attorney staying throughout the whole meeting. But I see no reason why me communicating that then that is
071the it's the wish of the board that they be here for the entire meeting from this point forward. That's that Mr. Dr. Collins then Mr. Ryder. No, go ahead. Go ahead. I was just going to um ask specifically for that. I mean I agnostic terms of which day it this year myself. But um it does seem in terms of the order of operations that communication has already moved forward with the school district. We keep it to Wednesdays. I would ask that we as a board request that about returning we are paying. So that's and then the next year if we want to change the change Mr. Ryder I mean so this has been probably a month conversation coming. we talked about this so I appreciate that if there was you know announcements go out we're
072also in the beginning of July so I would hope things could be able to shift but I think what is best for the board is what should determine our board meetings I don't necessarily think it's helpful if you know this is a firm that probably has 20 30 attorneys instead of meeting the letter of the contract by sending somebody that we're not used to and my understanding is that you know David is not always is often times not available this night and I think there's times where he would be helpful um it seems to have been an issue with a couple of the other attorneys you know there's a difference between just sending an attorney the other thing I want to bring up is like the osteris meetings are this night as well and I
073we have a board member that serves on that that's had to choose between missing that meeting or this And I just don't think it's wise to have a component district meet the same night as the post. We could be attending some of those meetings even not as like we're not all board members but there may be something that comes up that we would want to attend and we're here. Dr. Collins I just a question about that. Do we know how many of our current meetings overlap with votes? Because vote should have their schedule as well. Stephen, have did you look at that? Um, it's it's it's strange because uh our meetings almost never collide with their Wednesday. Their Wednesday is um is like the third Wednesday of every month. Uh and it's only one meeting
074a month. So there's almost never a collision and um if I I wouldn't register that as a major concern because if there's uh a very um pressing agenda here, Boseies understands and we also understand if if there is something huge going on in Boseis like a shift in I park 87 that you need me there. So I I really wouldn't worry about the Bose the Bose meeting conflicting with our meeting because it almost never it almost never happens. There's Mrs. Um the only thing I would like to bring up is if we are going to stay with Wednesday, I would respect respectfully request we switch October 1st because that I believe sundown is the first night of Yan before and that's where we get Trump with conflicting with other the other board is when we
075and I get it. We need to do that. But that's where it happens when we move the date. So I um would you someone clarify on that? You are correct. Oh okay. I um two things on the on the third and fourth Wednesday with the city and I've noticed that uh the time that that set Wednesday conflicts with our meetings is uh at some point during the year there is a point where there's five Wednesdays instead of the regular four and once that happens um things shift and so I I think because it it aligns the way that we do um you know like we're not going to meet again for what like three Wednesdays or or something like that now. Um if we just shifted one of them it wouldn't line up with the
076Boseies in that way. Does that make sense? Yeah. We we have to look at cross reference the BOS calendar with ours to know November 19th is conflict. Okay. There's no so just my two cents and there's no requirement that the board announce this tonight. I mean you have to adopt your next meeting. I would say that if you would like Karen and I to go back and cross reference all of these things and provide you with that information and bring it back on the next meeting to to make the decision if you want to move. I could I could ensure I can speak to the attorney, ensure we have a consistent person. I can check with the Bose to see if there's any conflict. I can check any of the other local meetings that are
077going on all over our county and see if those create confidence. I mean someone wanted to go to the Boseies meeting that one post said they couldn't or someone wanted to go to you know if we look at even you know the um anything going on in city or county that we might want to be involved in otherwise the obviously one person can go for but that's not we can provide all that information as much as possible to make a fully um informed decision Mr. rider. So it's I mean I have it's November 19th but have four bolster posts. It's February 25th, March 25th, April. So March 25th is always going to be accountable because that's the date we have right April. That's always going to be and that looks like that is probably so
078four. It would um be extremely helpful to me if um the meetings did not land on the fourth Wednesday as it seems to a handful of times of the year. um as opposed to when it was on the third just together when my other meetings are on the third I would just be leaving 15 minutes early but on the fourth I would only stay for half an hour before I'm done here Mr. Mr. Spicer, did you have another comment? I I just wouldn't worry about the Boseis issue in terms of our own calendar only because as I said, what do we have four conflicts in in the whole year and the Boseis board being a component board? We have a lot of members who can't make certain meetings because they have to attend their own
079boards. It it it's something that the Boseis board has taken into account in terms of how it conducted business. I really wouldn't worry about it. uh any conflict with the Bosey's board? Well, the superintendent has offered to take this back and look at conflicts and and so forth and um so it might be wise to pull it and review it and rework it. We will have to have um a scheduled next meeting though, right? Well, I mean I think we've already scheduled next meeting that's the So, can I move that that the superintendent that we pull it and let the superintendent review? So, you could make a motion to for a resolution to have August 6th be our next meeting. So, moved and a second. I'll second. All in favor? Okay. So our next meeting
080will be August 6th. At that time we will have a reworked calendar so that we can approve it at that time. All good. Okay. That brings us to our regular consent agenda. Are there any items on this consent agenda that need to be pulled? Hearing none. If I could have a motion to accept the consent agenda. Second. Any discussion? All in favor of accepting the consent agenda? Any opposed? So, our consent agenda is approved. You can make a comment. We have several we have several appointments of new members of our faculty and staff on this agenda and many of them have come here tonight and sat through the first hour and a half of our meeting which I apologize for. Um we should do the consent agenda first when when we have people there but
081I'm now going to put you in a bad position ask you to please stand up and tell us who you are and what position you're taking here in the district. All right. Hi everyone. So nice to be here tonight. Thank you for inviting me. My name is Washington. Thank you. Robert. [Applause] Hello. Good to see all of you. I would like to just say as a graduate of the Kingston School District I'm excited to join this amazing strong team of leaders and educators. I have expected sixth grade at J. Hi, I'm Jen Gardner. Thank you for having me. I accepted the 1211 I think that's everyone for tonight. Not everyone that's on the agenda, but everyone here. So, we appreciate you coming. Very glad to meet you. We're happy to have you on board. We're
082excited for next year. And you can go home now. Congratulations. Mr. Patrick, the the student board, they're not coming. Oh, they're not here tonight. We we just approved them. That brings us to the board of education and the discussion to fill the vacant board seat. If we could have a motion to open that conversation. Opening the conversation. Well, for discussion so discussion, the floor is open. Mr. Ryder, I I think I've shared this before, but I think for me personally, my my preference is to keep the the seat vacant. Um, my second preference would have been to have an actual election, but um, you know, given fiscally where we are, I I don't think that that is the most wise thing to do. So, I I I will support leaving it vacant. Mr. Fitzpatrick. Uh,
083I think it's important to have a more to have more voices than to have less. Um, I think that it would be that the board would be more representative of the public if we added the person who who ran and got the um next amount of votes. Um I know there was out of the like 22 meetings we had last year like um board members missed as many as 11 and that was seemed like there was it seemed like that we weren't at at full strength. I think would be helpful to add Mrs. C. Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Lyn. I was very disheartened by the fact that there were some of us that were away last week and some of the board tried to have a meeting and not have this discussion with everybody. I
084think that's wrong. It was not an emergency. I will support not filling the position at this time, but I I really there were people that had family plans and that's not an e. If it were an emergency, I would have come back from where I was for the meeting, but to try and schedule a meeting after multiple people on the board said they could not be here, that is one of the most wrong things I can think of that has happened to me in this district and to other people and it'll take a long time to heal that because I don't think it's right. Mr. Spencer, I'll speak to the issue in a second, but to address what Mr. Lamb said, every board member is an equal board member. Every board member sitting at this
085table has a right to call an emergency meeting. When an emergency meeting is called, if you can't make it and we don't get qu, the meeting doesn't go forward. But it's not an insult and it's not a personal attack for any board member. And I didn't call it for any board member to call an emergency meeting. It's not personal. And and there have been emergency board meeting. I've been on the board for seven years. There have been emergency board meetings called where I simply couldn't make it. And I was I was upset, man. I can't make it. I can't make it because everybody wants to make especially an emergency board meeting because we believe something has gone wrong or something needs attention right away. I didn't take it personally. It's it's just a meeting that
086I could make. But I will never deny any anybody sitting around this table right now who says, "I want to call for an emergency board meeting because that's your right." And then uh the the the president calls the meeting, the clerk uh calls the role. If you don't have if you don't have quum, you don't you don't have quum. It's it's not personal. And then to speak on what's on the floor, uh this community called for a nine member board and we've never not had a nine member board and in particular we may come to an issue that requires the tiebreaking vote and we won't have it. That's why most organizations run by odd numbers. I also think it's the democratic process that the the last person who the community voted for who got the
087most votes should get that seat. That's what the community wanted. And and um she didn't she got a lot of votes, you know, to to to earn that seat. And that's that's my opinion. um Mr. Ryder and then Mr. Lamb. So I I don't think it's actually the the Democratic process. If if we had a position on a ballot um that said alternate or something like that and and we had four people um vote for four, but the three highest I think it's a different story. That's not how this went. It's vote for three and the three highest are on the ballot. So, I don't think we can say the community spoke. Now, I'm not making this personal to I I think it it should be left um blank. Period. I I I'm not saying,
088you know, uh sorry, vacant period. I'm not saying that I oppose the fourth person being selected. I I oppose us appointing anybody as a board. I think we've done that a couple times and I know over the last several years there's been four or so sometimes that this has happened and a couple of times we've selected uh we the greater we I was not here um I was for one but some a couple of the times selected the fourth vote getter and there's been a few times that that has not happened and so I don't think that there's any you know special precedent um I don't think the time we did it, it it went particularly well, which is shaping my my my preference tonight. Um, if it's the will of the board that we
089appoint someone and choose who that person is, that's fine. Um, we're still not a full board making this choice at this moment. So, I I don't think we need to act tonight. I don't think that there was urgency for a special meeting, and I don't think we have to make this decision tonight either. Um, we have 90 days from the date of the vacancy not notice but vacancy correct. So we have 80 something days to make this decision and and my preference again is to leave vacant but it would at least be to wait until August you know the next meeting to make Mr. I think you're calling to table the motion. There is no motion. This is what I said. What is the motion? This is a motion for discussion. for discussion. So there
090is no motion that we're doing anything. This is just this is why I kind of questioned why are we making a motion in a second. We have discussion outside of a motion. Well, but the motion was to discuss the vacancy. The motion is not to choose any one thing. So there's nothing to table. Mr. Liam, I just would like to clarify one thing. I was the fourth vote getter and I was not appointed this board. Mr. it was. So just it might be important for the public to know that as a and Dr. Palino correct me if I'm wrong. As a small city school, we have three options. We can leave the position vacant. We can hold a special election, which there's a cost associated with that, and we can appoint. We don't really have
091um a a precedent that we appoint the next vote getter. We could appoint someone else. Um so it's just important to know that those are our three options. There's no requirement to appoint any appoint. You could appoint anybody you wanted. Dr. I think it um one thing to remember is that the people who did choose to run for board this last year um wanted to be on the board and so there is I think honoring that by considering appointing the next vote is something that we should keep in mind. Um that I would prefer that we go that route. The only the hesitancy I have in that is that there's less than a year now that term and so that becomes a we all know the learning curve that's associated with um on boarding and
092and and so if if I were to be convinced it's sort of a practical reason around the learning curve um in being able to contribute within the year that that term holds now but I I think that um while there was a gap between our number three and number four vote getters in the election I will say that that it's not as if only two people voted for our fourth person. So I believe that I would I would feel more transparent and that whomever that person is allowed to be on the board. Mr. Fitzpatrick and then Mr. Ryder. Um I wanted to point out that um it seems um to mischaracterize the the purpose of having a special meeting when you call it an emergency meeting. It's um business that happens um in between the
093regularly scheduled meetings and when we have uh you know power of elected office those things do come up. Um and just in the same way that we take resignations between um scheduled meetings, it seems appropriate that we would use a special meeting for that purpose. And that would be among the purposes that you know is not is not an emergency but could take place in between Um and the purpose of doing so would was to have a full board. Um something that we have not had the the entire last year. It was very I I think something like six out of the 22 meetings was a a nine nine member board. And that's again it's just more voices and not less is Um, I think definitely the way that we should handle the business of
094of district that's why Mr. Ryder and then Mr. Spicer I just want to clarify that anytime that we appoint it doesn't matter if like it was a brand new position and somebody resigned three days in the only way to someone to fill out the rest of the term is through a special election. Anytime we appoint, you're only going to get them for a year because that's the next not even happen. No, they're not filling out the rest of the term. It's the if we appoint someone, we could have four people up for election next year. We won't because Jen was already up for election, but anytime you appoint someone, you are only appointing them until the next election. So there's always going to be that learning curve when we choose to do that. I do
095think that we functioned fine with lower members and I think this year um went fine. Now the one thing that gives me a little pause is that I think it also gives people an opportunity to kind of I don't want to say test run but like if if someone's in it for a year as opposed to having a full three-year term, then they can a see whether they like it. I think several of the last few people who have been appointed have chosen not to to move forward, but also I think it gives the voters and other um stakeholders an opportunity to see what that person would be like for a one year without tying it to a three-year term. So that's where I'm kind of like but again my preference is still vac Mr.
096Sper without knowing any who's I make a motion that we appoint somebody to fill the vacancy and ease the second I actually would like to still be part of the discussion I was waiting oh okay discussion thing Dr. Collins and then Mrs. I've spoken already. Um, first of all, I've got um I apologize because I was tied up over the last few weeks and only got caught up with this on Sunday night, I think it was. So, I haven't had a lot of time to really process this, but a couple of things um do come to mind with this for me. First of all, I will not support a special election just because I will not for um spending expending district funds for that. We know it's going to be about what $12,000 or so.
097So, that's the first thing. The second thing, um I think very much like uh Dr. Collins had mentioned that having someone come on board as someone who has over 50 years of experience in education, it took me at least I don't know six or eight months to um be oriented to this. So I only feel like I'm just starting to actively participate. So I'm concerned about having someone who doesn't have, you know, who is going to be here for a short term. Um so then it goes back to well in appointing someone do we consider possibly former board members that um not that I've seen or spoken to anyone. We do have someone in the audience for our board member, but is that going to help support us through this, let's face it, what nine
098months, eight months period of time, or are we better off just uh leaving the seat vacant? And um again, I agree with I believe Mr. writer said this that although perhaps we did not have nine members sitting at every board meeting did not seem to inhibit our ability to do the business of the district. Dr. Collins and then Mr. Spicer I would say that um we do this was already said by Mr. But we do run a risk of a four vote on a very contentious issue and I don't know what our process through that would look like. So I think that anything would always be the coral to I understand that but I guess I'm thinking that in terms of um representing an issue and moving through it with um something that feels like
099a consensus. I know we're not consensus driven in that way, but um a 44 vote concerns me simply on what it represents in terms of our state spirit of decision making. So, so I realize that what is the the second thing I would say is that um also realizing that an appointment is only one year that um I don't think we can I don't feel like I can support appointing anyone other than the next vote getter because that to me is the only clear criteria. I think we've been accused of being um non-transparent before and that's a very transparent criteria and go to the next vote better. Um so to me that's a key point is that we just there's a very clear reason to do that. I know that it's not necessarily precedent, but
100we've done it before. Um, but I'll just leave that. I guess I'll leave it with that that there's a very clear line about what that criteria is and no one could question the board on our motive other than it's the next I just want can I just say something quickly? It won't be until it's not it's the day after the election in May of of 2026 that person's terms unless they win. If someone else they that term only goes from the day you all if you appoint someone the day you all appoint that person to the day after that election in May. So it's whatever 10 the 10 month it's not the June. So it's not the fully year term. I didn't know if everyone knew that I did say that. I just want to
101say I think I'm the only board member sitting here who was appointed and that one year thing happened but I ran and I've been there for seven years. So even though you say we're only appointed for one year, they're not going to have a lot of experience. That person may run again and and continue on. And now we've given them a year of experience on the board, you know, to to be an outstanding board. And I think I'm a good one, you know, and I've been there seven years. Mr. Patrick. So, I don't u I don't want to speak too much to uh the next vocator's um identity or experience or but I'm can say pretty with with certainty that it is one that is not reflected here. And as someone who has had very
102different experiences um in my life that can compare it to um those of the rest of the board. Um I find that having that that's another piece that um is important to take into consideration that this is um also an opportunity to add um more diversity that we have never had. Um just one other thing and this is if at the time we had known that there would be a seat open and we actually had four seats that were available for voting. I don't know because we did have two incumbents. Maybe there were others who would have run. So you know that's something to me that you know we don't know that's something that possibly could have happened. So Mr. Just very quickly, I would like to see us wait until Miss Karns, Mrs. Burns
103is on the board. I I think we're missing her input, and that's how I felt about an emergency meeting. And since it is not an emergency to do this, I would like to see us wait until we have that vote and her her input in what we are going to do. I I appreciate that point. I would find it hard to expect that from her given that so is discussion over? I think discussion is over. Then uh even though we would include Miss Karns on who we bring on the board, I would like to make make a motion that we do fill that ninth seat. I would like to make a motion that we fill that ninth seat. We would We're not doing it tonight. I'm just making a motion that we do fill that
104ninth seat. Do we have a second? So you need five votes for this motion, right? Yes. We need a second. I have a question about Well, I the motion on the floor is to use the one of the three options to appoint to fill the seat. That is the motion on the floor. It does not specify. No, you have to do step one before you do step as opposed to holding as opposed to like holding an election as it's meaning so just can I point of order at this point? So it means that we're to vote to appoint but then who we appoint is not is a different is it um but then we're stuck and the pointing when we have actually the philosophy of who we appoint is actually quite different than choice number
105one and choice number three sort of the vote the vote in the floor is either to appoint someone for the board to appoint someone or not. The other choice is I'll hold an election or leave it vacant or wait until or wait until the motion is to fill the position. Is that not your motion? That's right. By appointment, but we need a second hearing. No second. We will not be able to hold a vote. I'd make a motion to appoint Erica Middleton. Well, first you need a motion to appoint somebody. But no, Anthony is saying he wants to vote to appoint Erica Middleton. But you don't need your motion in order to do Okay. Are you making that motion? Yes. I second it. I second that we that we um appoint Erica Middleton to the
106board. Any discussion? Additional discussion. My my vote no is not because I don't want that. That's my decision. My vote is no is because I want to wait until Mrs. Karns is part of the board. So my vote will be the same. It's because I would like to wait for Miss Burns to be on the board because she was a duly elected member and we're talking about one of the month. Dr. just remind that it's a month of what is already a short term. It's also a lot of pressure to put on someone who will be among other. I call the question. Call the role, please. Mr. Lamb, no. Mr. Fitzpatrick, yes. Miss Corsones, no. Mr. Ryder, no. Miss Anderson, no. Dr. Collins, yes. Mr. Spicer, yes. You have three yeses and four nos. The
107motion does not carry. Okay. To be continued. Um, we do have a fac committee report. I will really make this quick because Dr. Pedalino did all of my work for me. Um we did meet on May 27th. Um KSQ and BBL gave a updated um status report on the curtain wall at Bailey that has to be secured before the windows can go in. Um they also reported that the um phase one work is underway as Dr. Panino said. Phase two um they are waiting for technical comments to come back from SED. Phase three um plans will go to SED at the end of May or did go hopefully. And phase four they are working with principles to develop those design plans. other summer projects. Um outside of the the capital project, um they are doing
108uh AC split units in the IT closets at Mahar and Crosby. The Mahar playground will be resurfaced. Fencing will take place at Graves, the Bailey playground, and I thought one other school um paving and catch basin repairs. And then of course their regular cleaning and maintenance work. Do you say the swings? Uh I did not say the swings. Um the mitigation steps for were briefly discussed for the temperature and and we will have to have board policy in place um regarding that for the opening of school. We did talk about the community reps on the committee and we agreed that we would be consistent with the other committees of the board and we would open that up for the public to apply and we adjourned a little bit before 4:00 short meeting and we are
109next scheduled to be determined. Mr. Lamb, is there a way that we can bump the air conditioning We passed the bonds. Is there a way we can bump the air conditioning up? Because, as you know, I'm I'm a former Miller teacher. You cannot get air through that building without that window opening on the stairwell. There is that building just gets hotter and hotter in that upstairs. It's really and as does George Washington as does can we somehow move air conditioning up? I think Dr. Pedalino can answer this better than I but I think it's an issue of of aid. Correct. Well, it's an issue of several things including the process of so we can't install a new system without replacing the old systems. So if I if you put in a new sink but you
110leave your old rusty pipes that sink is worthless. Right? So you put in a a air conditioning system that requires an increase in our electrical system. Right? So now we're opening the ceilings and the walls. When we're opening the ceilings the bottom line is can it be done? Sure. Will it cost more? Yes. Because we're going to have to do so you know we're going to we're going to open ceilings that we weren't going to open. So we have to replace ceilings twice. We have to go ventil the vents putting the unit vent unit ventilators in like an example was the window the curtain walls. So if we're ripping out the unit ventilators and it's that same time doing curtain walls that's efficient. That makes sense. If you're ripping out ventilators and we're doing curtain
111walls later that doesn't make sense. So now we're now we're double working. So I I think can it be done? I mean I think we're phased out to a certain amount. Can it be done? And I think maybe I should have And people come in just explained this more than I would. But the systems that support the new air conditioning need to be done. And to do that, you have to do things that wouldn't make sense not to do at that time. At Miller, we've already done the curtain wall. We've already done the ceiling. So, we're going to rip out the ceilings again. Yeah. And then you're looking at And you did the electric. I thought I don't know if we did the complete electric, but they also still did. We may have to do
112it again. the electric requirements may be different. So I mean I can get more detailed discussion you know descriptive but uh but that's Dr. Con and then Mr. is I seem to remember that we couldn't devote funding to Miller for a certain period of time because we've already the maximum the maximum cost I'm sorry to interrupt you no the maximum cost allowance in in certain buildings JFK is one of them um Miller is one of them the maximum cost allowance is still we're at it so we have to wait for some of that to get paid out before we can start putting money back in order in order get on it. So that that makes it so some of the schools JFK Miller High School of course we can't do anything for a while but
113anywhere we we've had construction we hit our maximum cost allowance. Um, so there's that piece, there's the the capacity piece around around our the workforce, and then there's a thing where again it's it's like, you know, painting the walls before you demo your kitchen, you know, before you demo it. It's just not a it's just an order of operations that don't make sense. Mr. I mean this is probably a facilities comment but I I want to raise it here because not the whole board I mean they're not the whole board is not involved in facilities. One of the things that BBL said is that there's not the work you just raised it that the workforce capacity is not there. I just I don't know how much they may not have capacity to do all the
114drawings. They were saying we were going to get larger numbers because there wasn't biders. There's a lot of biders out there. there's there's not as much work. Um I I just it would be nice to see them try to shrink it by a year or two understand like we couldn't do Miller this year but like instead of year seven or whatever finishing up here well we see the number of bids we got and they're not filling up the spreadsheet. So we know you know the number of bids and we have four people bidding for this. We have one person bitten for the glass. So we're not getting a lot of bids, a lot of biders. That doesn't mean that bidder couldn't bid on more jobs at one time, but we aren't we aren't getting not
115special jobs. We're not but the major GC working, but you know, we have you know we have Wick law so we can't just have a GC, you know, just have tips. So you know that you know we have to we have to have the electrical, we have to have the HBC, we have to have the plumbing, we have to have the GC and so it's not like you have one contractor that all the work together every one of those. So, it's a you know, I'm not sure. I don't know. I'm not a construction expert. Um, but I think if I would like to ask the BBL and to come in and answer some questions, I think that's that's to do better job than I than I can. Specifically, Miller is phase five, right? I believe
116and that one the scope was like to be determined. They didn't even Right. Yeah, we have we have sequence. Yeah, but they Why Why was Why was that? Is it just because there was so much in the other phases that they couldn't think that far ahead or they don't want them rushing through the drawings. They rush through the drawings. No, for for sure. They rush through the drawings. we miss loadbearing walls. You know, I mean, these are things that I'm worried about when we're trying to draw out phase, you know, phase six when we're we're just breaking front of phase one. You know, we're rushing phase two and and you know, we're seeing errors in phase one. We talked about this last last meeting. So, it's a I mean, it's a huge project and um
117there's a lot that goes into it. I mean, I think we've done, you know, In the last 13 years, we've done more than half a billion dollars worth of school construction in the Kansas City School District. So, um, the idea that, you know, a project this big can be handled so quickly or can be handled quickly or without, you know, issues is not accurate. It's nine buildings. It's massive inside work. It's putting air conditioning in buildings that weren't built for air conditioning. wired for air conditioning. Not not you know the walls are are right for air conditioning. You know when you put air conditioning in a new house put the air conditioner then you put up the wall. You don't rip the wall down the air condition. That's a word. So there's a lot of
118different complications that come into not saying that we can't ask the question why can't we pick it up a little bit? Um it's one thing between picking it up and rushing. Those are that's where we lose money. So, do you I mean that almost doesn't seem to make sense. They just tell them to do it faster, but would it would something like that be possible if we went back to the public and asked them for more money for improvement so the kids don't melt? I think well, you know, first of all, we went back with the new project. go back to step one pretty much all the approvals right be that long before we have to go through this I don't know if and I don't know if this how fast the state could could
119operate I mean yes you're not wrong our bids are going if we ask people to put in air conditioning now and come back to do the electricition and electricity and the plumbing and all those other things later the cost is going to go up significantly north um it's $162.7 million if I live in the city of Kingston and the district comes back asking for more money because they want to do things out of order, not necessarily in focus. And I don't think you're alone. Okay. Any other comments or questions on facilities? That brings us to old business. Any old business? Any new business? Dr. Collins. During our board self evaluation, we were talking a lot about communication both the district and as a board um and the idea was raised that um we might be
120able to somehow leverage the survey tool, the thought exchange, maybe working with the district to as a board survey our stakeholders um once a month or something where we come up with a question and send it out and try and get the temperature of something in the district. So, I'm curious about people's interest or response in that and then sort of the logistics of how to make that happen with him because we don't do that sort of change that um I think that um one of our greatest challenges of a board is communication. I've said it many times. So, I actually like the idea the logistics of it. I have no idea. But I like the idea of trying to do something like that as an initial first step to start to improve communications with
121our community. I think at the risk of being defensive, you're you're being very close to the line between administration and work. So I mean if you want to do surveys on it's all it depends on the question. Yeah. Now obviously whatever you want but I mean effective shared governance it depends on where the questions are and the intention of the use for the answers for those questions. So maybe an example of um do you feel that um you the board is aware of concerns that in the district I don't know something that is board centric and not about district operations I suppose but I I'm what I'm trying to address is the fact that that um we our communications are suffering a little bit and we don't have a great forum to understand and hear
122from our community about what they're thinking about important issues. So some people can come to talk at board meetings of course um but that's a select few and usually it's a very contentious issue only that brings it up and so I'm wondering if there's a less a more inviting way to understand what our stakeholders think about things but I understand your point and I want to make sure we stay in a lane our lane as board members so that's why I'm bringing it up for discussion like is there other ideas I'd be open to so what if we surveyed how well we were meeting our board goals cuz that was one of one of them was to improve that I think that to improve communication from last year we haven't set our goals for this
123year but I'm just saying that we framed it like that and because I know there was am I read on that I don't remember what specifically the goal was but I remember talking about how well we were reaching people was a part of that. So, we do have to have a session for board goals and it might be appropriate to just table the conversation for now when we set our goals and include the the steps that we want to take in those goals. And in the meantime, maybe we could meet with our communication team and see if there's a way we can um gather information without leaving our lane. And we we have fought exchange. So that can be used by the board. We own the serious truly I appreciate I think the board goals
124committee is a good place to start with this. Um but I I think just um having it we have struggled I think over the years to find a way to connect with stakeholders more broadly and particularly hearing um what they have to say and so um it's that strange place we sit as board members where we aren't doing the administrative communications ourselves but still really need to be in touch with what our community thinks challenge us one idea. Any other new business? Just very quickly, we need to get a list of committees that we're interested in to you. So that because we have committee meetings coming up in two weeks dates have been set. What committee? No summer dates. I thought we talked we have a financial audit. We have a and there was a
125um legislative action that we was reported in the last board meeting and approved. So that was going to be one of my announcements. Um Mrs. Siri will put out um in inquiry in terms of what where your interests are and then Dr. Collins and I will sit and make those decisions. I'll send out a link to a form like I did last year. Any other new business or announcements? Um I guess Did you say announcements? Well, we I skipped to announcements, but I don't want to skip over new business. Um I know in addition to the review of the mission and vision which is doesn't maybe doesn't need to be a separate thing but um the annual goal setting meeting is that something that is usually hashed out at this time or well we have
126an obligation to um approve or renew the vision, mission, right? Um, and usually it's just acknowledging what we have and agreeing that that's what we'll we will continue with in the event that there's a recommendation that we are changing the vision and mission that is bigger than the board because that was a huge stakeholder um endeavor. It didn't go ahead. Go ahead. We It took about a year. We had about five different committees. We involved community members. Um you know, we had representatives from every part of you know the district. Um and you know work through it like they said took over a year. I think we had almost 80 people it was their aunts in it over over that period of time and many many meetings. Yeah. A lot of meetings and um so
127I mean that not that just says it's on the wall has to stay there forever. I'm saying it's it's not I think it would be a mistake for the board to not do that process um to move forward if the idea was to change the mission and vision. Bringing that up was kind of and after that I tagged on as I was thinking about um the goal setting. I guess that was more of what I was wondering if we were that now or we wait, you know, set goals. No, no, no. Yeah, I don't know. Like last year we did like a preliminary meeting to do it and then but I don't remember how far goal setting committee I can we'll send something out with the committ ask if you want to be on the
128goal setting committee and then I'll also be putting out something about availability for the summer. Okay. Thank you. Any other new business? Any other announcements? So, we have to board announcements. Yes. I'd like to make a board announcement. Okay. Yeah. I want to begin by wishing our 20 25 26 board officers well and good luck. I believe we're in good hands and thanking our board members and our district educational family for their service in the coming year. Our overall mission to provide the best education for our most successful to our most neediest families is commendable. It's a it's a mission really and our community needs to know this in in really in all of our hearts. Public meetings and closed door meetings, it's really in our hearts. I enjoy being on this board because even
129when we disagree, we are not disagreeable. We remember in the end we're all striving to achieve the same mission, excellence in everything, and we continue in competence and diligence. I'm also proud of our superintendent and his entire leadership team. I like I like how our district always seems to be at the forefront of innovative uh educational initiatives like Yanda Pouches which is pretty cool cuz when we brought it here there was a lot of resistance but then over time our community came to really really embrace it and that's what this district does. And the other thing I love I'm off script now I'm all done with that. The other thing I love is when when we go to MISPA conferences and we sit down and they find out, oh, you're Kingston. Like when I forget
130which workshop it is, but it was about um the the the mentor program, the young black male mentorship program we have back, did you know the name of that? That the young black mentor what? Brother. Brother Zart. I I attended a workshop uh for NISPA and it was all about young men mentoring um in in schools and one of the leaders in one of the leaders in the in the workshop was one of the creators of Brothers of Bart and he said excuse me is is somebody from Kingston here and that happens often when we travel that because of all the new initiatives we try that we're recognized around around the state. And the last thing I want to say is I'm proud to serve with you all. It it is it is volunteer. It
131is it is longer and harder than it looks to the public because this is just a public meeting. There are committee meetings. There are service meetings. There are community meetings that we all attend. So, I just wanted to say thank you and good luck to us all this year. Thank you, Mr. Spicer. Well said. Any other announcements? That brings us to our favorite part. Oh, public comment. I'm sorry. I don't know if there's anybody Maria's going to make a public comment. Thank you, Mr. Ryder. An acceptance speech. I would do that. I am going to speak. Mr. Do I need it? I am going to speak about filling the board vacancy if you as a board choose to do that as opposed to leaving the spot vacant. Over the years, one method that I observed
132that this board has done is put out the word that you are wanting to fill a vacancy. However, you do that probably on the website or whatever, but um and then invite people to apply and you know It could be somebody that ran. It could be people that didn't run and then the board um not interrogate, that's not the word, questions them in public session and then makes the decision based upon their responses to board questions. It's just a methodology that I know this board has used in the past and it might be something if you choose to go that route to consider that methodology. Thanks. Thank you. Second. Second to adjurnn. All in favor of adjourning? I thank you all very much. Summer.