001it is 7 o'cl and we are back in public session if we could please call the rooll Dr K here miss L here miss Jordan here Mr Spicer here Dr Collins here miss Anderson here Mr ryer is excused Miss Fitzgerald here miss Dand stord here and can we please stand for the pledge I pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and jce for we have no action pertaining to Executive session this evening so we will move on to accepting the minutes from the November 8th meeting all in favor of accepting those minutes any opposed the uh minutes for no nber 8th have been approved we are at our public comment session anyone who would like to address
002the board from the public just before you begin we are about to enter the portion of the meeting where we welcome public comments although state law does not require that we hold a public comment period we feel it is crucial that we hear from our community about their concerns the board is here to listen because we do take your concerns seriously we want to have time to process and research issues your concerns and questions may be addressed at a future meeting of the board or you may be contacted by an appropriate staff member or administrator please note that the state and federal privacy laws and collective bargaining agreements prevent us from discussing certain Topics in this venue the guidelines are posted on on the boardroom wall thank you for your respectful adherence to the rules
003and your interest in the continuous Improvement of our district you may begin to complely ards ass talking and homor fored opinionating that is stand andc I doing after science science understands ASX to inevit inev because parents sincerely care dialogar STS in because have still not consed anyone else to address the board we will move on to the superintendent's report thank you M Anderson um just going off the agenda a little bit we do have here actually we have to open the door because I think they're waiting out outside we do have here tonight I'll let them get to the door morning [Laughter] bers so we do have here tonight Mr Garder Mr G house and I think three of our four drum maj from the Tigers two out of five ter Majors from the mighty
004tiger marching band largest marching band in New York state you like them to come in to recognize them as I know you all agree when we see the marching B walk out into the field we all feel a certain sense of awe and pride so we wanted to make sure after the season to bring you here just so we can hear a little bit from all of you and our fabulous music department and marching band and just have this opportunity to say thank you and congratulations to our students and our directors well thank you one of the things I'm I'm proud this is I think 40th year teaching proud of the um collaboration that we have in our in our specifically this marching program I we have parents volunteers who are building stuff for us
005and moving stuff and uniform people and we have a district that supports us that's that's important they support what we do um we have the kids working in uh in in with us and we have a staff and we I first started doing this was ni car for ex former and and so to me that's and they just that is always what bring me back to just working together what do you need you what do you need and that's the district parents so thanks to you guys for supporting us all [Applause] you we have one guy really tall guy who he's actually flying out ater concer and we have section she was very I'll start what you thinking of doing next year and all that stuff too because a lot of people think these kids
006are all going into music I'm Christ i' like neuroscience and so our competes in the New York statei conference enpass the entire State Inge schis me that districts arear size stop because I think one thing people really need to understand in this large school too they're the same population of students not same so we're the only School in our division and probably most of of the that makes no you're a soccerer of students States and he's doing cross country well he's doing and we have tons of kids who play Varsity soccer like that we don't cut those kids we have kids that come in who have never marched and who some haven't even played they're in our program we do not and that was a that was a decision that Tom Keane when he started
007this thing years and years ago said we want this open for everybody so you have seniors and freshman marching aside each other and they do a great job of incorporating them and so I do want to say when we go out with 170 and we're competing against aand of 60 but they have the same population as their school I'm offed by that because I think this the whole point public to give people the opportunity maybe they not ased as other kidsing just as hard that's so we start competion season in like early September and that starts our regular season so we usually compuse this year we had one around middle of September and October we had or four men and then our season andely [Laughter] oh it's coming up okay we start like graduation the
008sum numerous re we andersh to also SE and we also reheal I'm going talk about Camp is about one and a half to weeks in a and this is where everyone comes together for really long time during the day is where we start to movement in our which is called drill and we start to our we work through the day onun all ofs of what and out by the end of we have that's one of the great great ways to start the year because they're really working as a unit and then once marching season's over we split into three different C we also do we also do this weing the other thing I wanted to mention is which is really cool um our music is arranged for us so we start well we've already started
009we started a week after over picking music and looking at music for next year and have a gentleman down in Florida Chris who um will arrange the music specifically for says what do you have this year sections what do you have this year well this year our trumpets are fantastic maybe we're we're a little young in here and stuff like that and he'll he'll write it out and then he'll send it up to us we'll preview it and then we'll go back hey can you switch and for one year we're the only on that in fact we just saw on the website that he is selling our show now that the year is over because we're not going to do it again also a former KS staff member and this chriswell is in Florida and
010our KS staff member who graduated who hired nios is writing drill from the pan and sing it up to us so we we have drill that is and music that is written us is very well we actually have a little film of the of the performance in Syracuse that we would like to show you ready PA ni be [Music] is [Music] that's CHR [Music] spe [Music] the [Music] they [Music] yeah for [Music] e [Music] the [Music] e [Music] e [Music] to just quickly also just we've been highlighting the mar B can tell us a little about how many of our students were um made to this this year oh okay so um last weekend we had uh um area all state which is zone 9 just like Athletics uh it goes little bigger to the
011so uh we had um AR last weekend so we had 42 students from our school from school participate in the band Orchestra and um so that was last weekend and this weekend we have eight students who are participating in the All State um which is in Rochester where it's the best of all New York State pering chis we have we have an amazing amazing music program uh a lot of our students uh do amazing things um and it's and it's wonderful we can't get to this having 42 students go to a state without again said all as well as our our music teachers in the elementary level so without their support and and have hard harder followed all you have to all and then then they rank questions or comments from the board Mrs Jordan
012well um I'm just so gratified but just humbled by all of you and the D of the teachers who have produced this wonderful opportunity but it's to me it is the epitome of what education should be collaboration cooperation and what I love is that it's something you can only do together so I just love it and congratulations and congratulations makes it easy easier when you have support we talk to colleagues who don't have um I just want to I would just Echo what Mr Jordan said it's I'm so proud of our tiger band and I'm so proud of our music department all of my kids who participated in the marching band um and it's been such an amazing experience and I think when you were speaking you really um you gave a sense of the
013band but there's so much more student participation and Leadership opportunities here that are just really important at all different levels um and I just think to add to what Suzanne said when you talked about collaboration and working together there's real leadership opportunities and it's just really it's it's a really impressive Endeavor and I've been really gratified to be part of it for it'll be eight years by the time I last here and thanks to you guys I think all of you are going in July to9 Mrs fer so I'm not going to be laor this but um one of my favorite movies is is called the last meny and the reason it's my favorite movie is because that's what my grandkids call me the reason it's my favorite movie is because the Prem of is
014that we're taking something they're looking for something from the past to a b f of the children of future so they're looking for DNA from the past to ensure that the future surv and so when you're talking about these kinds of things I think the reason I mean cohesiveness is it yes but the the weight of having your alumni there and having long he just committed souls to I mean I graduated in 92 I remember I wasn't in B but it's just really impressive to see really that's kind of how they see it and I'm really happy to see Mr Spicer just a gigantic source of Pride for the whole Community you know your community adores you and it's your spectacular talent and also the entire orchestration of working together and putting all that together
015but the entire music department is spectacular I was in the audience at at point of Praise when the whole town showed up to hear that particular performance and how they just exploded when it was all over just extreme and welld deserved gratitude for the talent and and the work and also the what what really came through that that night was the love all the children have for you and and and that night all of that just really came through so thank thank you just all gratitude thank you so much thank you very much thank you next up we have um I lost my we have uh Dr San's going to present to us on our library uh materials K through 12 and I see I think almost every librarian in the district is here with
016you so that's free schri I'm here to how webr my agenda through basically how do we goals toct materials what we do when we have or Community concern what is a committee and what are the of is allem around policy3 I'm going tolight I'm all the specifics of the policy thec good understand of13 bases this policy gives the library permission to purchase collection and Sh The Collection as outed by theard so basically this policy reques Library provide information that will enich and support the curriculum provide information grow in factual knowledge literacy appreciation provide information that will enable students to make intelle judily basis and provideing sides controversal issues that1 into F our district vision for diversity equity and inclusion again I not going to read all of this to you but basically this part of
017the policy is asking the Librarians to provide informes of many and cultural grps contan and then maintain a divers Library collection that includes materials byth all cultures which reflect the diverse School local and Global communities of our students intoy reality and our liian are very liar they do without opinion without without to provide high quality materials mostly BS so when placing an order or shaping The Collection one of the things that our Librarians do is they consider the of our faculty STA and most especially our students they have people that are coming in and out of their Library all day asking do you have this book do you have this um I have grade teacher who does first chapter Friday and theeven graders Rush up to the library do you have this book I need
018book I want to read this book it's a new book and Lian immediately figes out how they get into students another they do and I Prov you a separate to IDE of all basic winning literature for any particular year some that you may be very familiar with like johal award the award the Scot book awards for auth illustrat award but are 21 committee literature Awards which our Librarians consult them including things like the American Indian youth literature award the Arab Aman book awards the Asian award Scot and tent award and naction for um also we have professional teaching Journal liian consult um all of oure subject areas English social studies math and science publish trade books support thatf and Librarians that they also includs that support and also unbi professional journals School library journal and
019then to sh the collection sool at some the Librarians are going to run out of space so they need to start making decisions of what books need to leave the library we have procedure that we go through Li to uh we of course look for books that have been damaged home and written pagesor sometimes books are so much in demand that they get very soil andorn and then we have to figure out how replace those books also they're looking to see if there's a change in curriculum maybe we have supportal ccul um also anything that's outdated they Ates they look at often has cheed out and then they decisions needs to they goes to you and youten see those to those books from the library androy that weely a year year have system and they
020have concern all books that are coming into the library all these materials coming into the library sometimes we have made choices which someone has concern there also poliy that addressy 142s that the recognizes the right of community concerns complainy clearly out procedure to be followed by avilable in our library including students basically withal process con inapproiate you would have a discussion with librarian and very often issues areen of right there at that particular level if the person who has concern is not satisfied with the conversation Li they certainly bule learning Ava buildo ADR invol and again most of our obje to any learning material is taken care of at the building level very that isens what is the book in question have they read the book in its entirety what are the objectional parts of
021the B um how have tried Tove conduc outlined this as well so a committee is convened by whoever Dr Pino has committ appointed to beenta there has to be an elementary school teer a secondary LEL teer there has to be an elementary administrator and a secondary administrator there should be an elementary school libran and a secondary school librarian M and then the director of diversity and inclusion that the um will come together um it is a session which they all come together U everyone ate oft and then what we what are and ofal we go through the process that the Lian G through in order to choose this particular consult the awards and the professional journals and the train books of the different National associations and what they about particular we Sol advice from sta
022facy building that might have expse and then aort ised for the superint based the superintendent ISS reportes and decision can to and then addal conding and the decision isal and yes we have pretty books child access responsibility right ofans to guide own child to DET the child's access to Library resources all in library areer re to ofs stud these student um The Librarians work with each student to take that just right look are always stud child does like bookine it we have students that take book look at it read the first chapter return it because is right to help them choose another book um if a parent doesn't like a book that a child brings home sometimes the we support the parent having with their child at home child writing I don't want child to
023book not comments or questions from the board Dr Collins um thank you so much for sharing this I think it's so important for all of us know exactly how this happens from hearing it from you not just a board policy as you said putting breath into the board policy but also um our public to understand the processes and um to hear what um what great efforts I think the district and you all are going to to support parental Choice as well so to that end I'm curious um that I I'm wondering if the first time parents become aware of this option of setting some limit on their what books their child they come out is that is is that likely to be when they complain about a book or when they send in up home
024or is there some how is that disseminated to parents in general that process other than this lovely very informative [Laughter] presentation I do know middle SCH do to mostly I just want to say thank you for the work that you all do in our libraries and fostering a love of reading in our kids um and all of the extra things I've seen and at least the elementary libraries that I've had access to their activities far beyond just reading books and so thank you for all other comments questions Mr Spicer I'm so proud of all your efforts to maintain a diverse collection I will tell you something you already know that when any person looks into a book and sees themselves looking back it's validating it's it's it's supportive it's life affirming and I will tell
025you I went to aladia salus elementary school school in Brooklyn it was a small school but there were only two books that had anything to do with being African American and Malcolm X wasn't in any of them but just just so grateful and because of the times too but just so grateful for all of your efforts thank you so muched support thank you it has to be concered e thank you any other questions or comments thank you Dr Sean and thank you Dr s uh next up we have and our Dei initiatives and thank you me to of the de and I want to say so many levs not um to some background ground work for this um we submitted we gave a survey excuse me out in the spring of um if you recall
026the survey was administered and we created the survey with the of Dr J um drino and his cabinet and I adapted questions from preexisting climate surveys to come up with um questions for our students that covered several different topics five overarching categories okay these would beate cultural diversity awareness student engagement student sense of belonging and teacher student relationships um we built the surveys to Center our student experience to find were thinking um some of the results from that um we gave this survey to gr three element of the survey a secondary of the survey results here favorability ratings favorability ratings are the percentage of students who either agreed or strongly agreed with the statements within the given cies right and you're going to notice that Elementary favorability ratings are higher than the secondary favorability ratings
027that's that is um large part due to developmental differences in the kids and different ways that school works there but you'll notice that there's a pattern there's a similar pattern in how students respond to so only 32% of our secondary students felt like the climate was um was favorable to them as they strongly agreed or agreed or strongly agreed that the climate was favorable for them in the school but I do want to point out point out for all of our students the teacher student relationships are the highest and I think that that is something important for us to notice and to point out because it says a lot about who we have working here again about the support the community and the school and the professionals that work there that this is the highest
028category for all of our students teachers relationship um you'll see the next category is cultural diversity and awareness at 40% and 70% favorability ratings compared to the about one thir of students who are feeling positive about the climate about their engagement about their sense of belonging shows that we have a lot of work to do right we have more work to do we're doing some great work we have more work to do the fact that the cultural diversity and awareness here is a little bit higher I think that speaks to um the work that we have been doing is that superficial work that diversity does exist around here but we need to do more work in terms of getting more of our students to feel like they belong feel like they're engaged in the work
029feel like they Bel their engaging work this is the work that we have to do right um we're working on cultural responsive and sustaining education we have more and more teachers learning and implementing culturally responsive and sustaining education practices several of are here ton and um what is culturally responsive and sustaining education does anybody have questions about the survey and how it I just wondered how many participated we all students had opportunity to participate we got within 3% plus orus 3% margin of error so that that's high return rate of the surveys I'm sorry um 1,433 students grades 7 through 12 answer the survey questions29 students grades 3 through do you know what what percentage that is like the percentage of the it was off the top of my head was 4,000 change total students
030through so that's pretty again it% I'm also curious the difference between how many more participants with the percentage participants Elementary to secondary it's okay I can do the number I can do the same number of9 I have one question well two questions one is I guess this is a two questions like one question is it possible for us to see I just like surveys climate surveys that just tend you know come from that kind of is it possible to see what questions were asked like if we see what question we might have already gotten that somewhere and I just have not seen it um that would be useful because I'm just thinking the second the part second part of that is look at climate favorability ratings is the climate part of the survey like saf
031perception of overall social and learning climate of school so wasn't think it's and um I don't know what's the best way we can't get you all that information I was just wondering you just want to see the actual surve actual survey it's of it would be question one more question about the response rate so um just I just want to be clear so you so secondary I mean elementary is grades three through six correct and secondary is 7 through 12 yes okay so culturally responsive New York state has put outwork the CRS education framework New York State's definition of culturally responsive and sustaining education says that it is education that is grounded in a cultural view of learning and human development in which multiple expressions of diversity are recognized and regarded as assets for teaching
032and learning right um there's four major principles that guide the framework you can see them listed up there um it's a robust document I if you haven't checked it already to look at it our districts um it speaks to the how of that we teach rather than the specifics of what we teach but in order to fully Implement CC education it requires deep Paradigm changes right it's deeper than organizational change we usually talk about that takes three to five years we're talking about changing complete ideologies all right it's it's a huge endeavor we need to work at building the capacities as individuals and as the institution and I like to think of this as the gold fish I know that you brought this Mr SP the two fish in the fish and one to the
033other fish how you doing how's the water today and the other fish is water what's water right we're working on teaching um everyone throughout our institution what the water is how we swiming through the water and how the affects people who come from marginalized communities are very what water tastes like through water many of us are not marginalized are missing am are you talking so it's a deep deep change that we're looking at making and it takes time to do it and to do it well and to do it right um how do we begin to implement that changey I have a few things going on um and and they just scratch to the surface the CRS committee is one piece that um I'm doing this year we have 38 ktf members they represent each
034School building um they have each volunteer to do this work um in other words they you know I put out invitations to certain people um people who have done work before with um Javon Hunter people have done our work with the unpacking whiteness people who' have expressed the Deep interest in doing the Dei work people work with Dr Peters over the few years and recommendations and I just like I said I want to make sure all the schools were covered um and we are doing work with d bosis they have four full days of training over the course of the year um and then all of the teachers who agree to take part in this um are doing some level of work within their schools they've agreed that they will go back and and teach
035their colleagues toar so it varies from school to school um what is happening in each school but it depends on the Comfort level of the teachers on the capacity of the schol um how much previous training the teachers have had one of my goals with this is to build the teacher leadership capacity um I want to empower the teachers in a way that that is also culturally responsive I want to provide them the space to decide how they want to work with their own assets how they want to work with their own colleagues how it would be best for them to get um their colleagues to understand this work and how to create more culturally responsive classroom these schools similar to the way that we want teachers to provide that kind of allow students to
036find out what is the best way for me to demonstrate my knowledge in this project so I'm trying to um make sure that all the work that we do here as best as it can reflects cultural respons that um in addition to this work with the Cs committee we're working again for a second year with Dr Javon Hunter I'm not going to talk too too much about this because he will be speaking to you guys at the end of January I believe but also at the end of last year many of you who are on the give a presentation of their critical inquiry projects so Dr Hunter is continuing the work with us this year um 85 ktf members have taken part between last year and this year with his work some folks are in
037the second year of working with him other people are starting again with the First uming with him these books up here are books that he has done with our elementary and secondary teachers um respons teaching in the brain start here start now civically engaged classroom teachers looked at last year are starting this year with Dr Hunter are doing Equity by Design and cultivating genius the teachers who are in their second year work doing Dr Hunter are not doing poies are so these are just two initiatives that are going on um even with this 85 teachers working with Javon Hunter many of them also are doing the um the CRS that's about 10 to 15% of the ktf population toal we still just begin to scratch just begin to build that individual capacity like I said
038right hoping to work towards the next step which is a curricul which is huge um we're looking to build to lay the ground to do a curriculum on it um I know that a lot of us want to get this done we feel like this is the main part this what we this is the work that happens with our students single is just one piece of it Al a huge piece of it I don't want us to do something um that's superficial and and falls into what we call Che right so we just check a box we can hand out um a a rubric to teachers and say fill this out and check it out and they can check the boxes we can say we do the curriculum but without us understanding that water that
039we're swimming in it likely won't be very effective so my plan Dr and I just spoke about this today with Dr is to work with first the administrative group and figure out our Focus what do we want to focus on for the curricul curriculum is huge so for example do we want to just focus start by focusing on a few grade levels do we want to start by focusing on curricular areas do we want to start on that student engagement want to start on assessments want to start on classroom libraries we as an administrative team have to figure out where we want to focus and from there I would like to assemble a team of teachers who are knowledgeable and comfortable with the CRS framework an appropriate audit tool which would likely be a combination
040of several different tools that we put together that would help us get to our focus and then have these I don't know what that um the equity and action committee we on applications there we have about at this point time my in terms of time of year to get people to agree to do something but we're going to keep on trying um these are the three main focuses I wanted to start with that equity and action committee of course it would be a committee made up of multiple stakeholders and so it will necessarily go where the committee feels like it needs to so it's not going to be completely prescribed these three these three main components and from there we could come up have subes ofos um thank you so much for this presentation I
041um I am impressed at the different levels at the work happening I think that's really important I know it looks at it's exhausting right but but that's really important so there's shows talking about we're talking about profal development we're talking about teachers we're talking about students um and I think as you as you said it's it's hard it's slow but it's really very deeply important um I'm really struck by those survey results they're a little eye opening so I would like to um delve into that a little bit deeper so maybe we can um look at some I I remember a survey there was a parent version too right yeah so parents took it took it right right so I would like to see some of those those numbers but um and you know with
042the with an ey fors really working to understand and maybe there's a way to look at this quantitatively um who who were the kids who were not feeling the belonging and what does that mean and then and I know you've done focus groups too so there's a lot of information we could probably pull together to figure out how to work to make these spes feel more comfortable yes and and like with that yes I thank you for appreciating that the work is there's a lot of work to do um I do want that's why I do want to uplift the fact that the teacher student relationship was high even though students are are not feeling engaged they are feeling more comfortable significantly more comfortable with their teachers than they are necessarily engag in those and
043again with you we need further into those numbers and there's also a lot of things going on for a you're right that's not insignificant that's an important data point that's not insignificant Mrs Sanders thank you very informative I just want to ask how do you get the 85 um teachers participants of the ume participated jav H so for the CRS committee I put out a targeted invite knowing folks who have done the work with Javon Hunter and like I said so I went out to folks who I knew were interested in this work the work that we did with Javon Hunter Dr Hunter um our thought process onest is that do this work who then get excited about it and then share with their peers and their colleagues and that's how we begin to begin
044the ground right when Dr H agreed to come back with us this year had so many teachers reaching out can I do I heard that was so great I want to take I want to do this and it's slow going um but there is a value in working with the Coalition of the woming right and ultimately everybody has to get this work right that's I was asking how is the and how what are find um is that the teachers are getting excited about doing the work right and the students get excited to see the teachers that brings people on and out and it's it's kind of slow going but at the same time it's it's hard no matter how you do it because there's always going to be push back and the with um the
045RPC in the face it's um the people who they love coming to do the work because they with people who are hungry so inad issues ex all of us So eventually gradually rep Mrs Jordan then Dr Collins thank you very much for all the work and for the people who are engaged in it I'm wondering I know that the board has made a commitment to this work and support I mean I think I wish we had the magic WS you can find mag than suppor work that comes from Dr his and what he is suggesting and they are all suggesting that needs to get done continue to support that um if this was if it in terms of policy or anything I know we look very carefully at policy but if something comes up during
046that training I think it would be helpful just bring it to the Dr IET every your support is is not unnoticed and and I think you know the teachers are very often um happy to hear and feeling reassured that the bo because I can say you know I can say I know the board is behind this I know Dr this I know is behind this this is the work we have to do so like Mr said that no it's not that we know support here for us to Dr Collins thank you so much and I just wanted to Echo the importance of the depth and breadth of this work and really the view of the long ging approach I think that um your point about the of culture and ideological change and the the length
047of time that will take is in and and really helpful for us to remember as we move take sort of baby steps forward um I'm I was curious about um well first I just follow up on the the data I also love to at some point I hope we'll have a presentation that also digs into some of the nuances of the data so we could respond directly with some both approximate and systemic sort of solutions to particular things that come out of the nuances of those data um but to that end I was just curious if you were to administer the culture survey on a regular basis or like when will that again be administered probably right I I can just imagine that there's sort of a uh a local temporal climate that can color
048everyone's response to a survey right so that that sort of also is being a long game Trend in a survey being across three years what's happening um and do we see movement then over 10 years I think we need to sort of look at you know grouping years so that we can remove whatever happened last week or something from from people's response on the survey um but it's also it's F to and so moving that out so I don't know what the plans are we with with those data then are you continuing as dig deeper to those nuances and yes we have running focus groups Jose middle schiley the of Focus GRS and thank you Cheryl just a couple of things that on what they my colleagues were talking about um I guess I have
049a question first of all I like the term Coalition of the willing I always think of the Bell Cur you know you got your you got your everybody in between and then you got your you know you got a so I think that's normal kind of stuff but this was the first survey this was the first climate survey like this that I we've done climate surveys pretty much every year but this is the first one that we tailored you looking at the CRS framework and working with J okay and then I wonder just in terms of like responding do we Benchmark or or kind of collect I'm sure we collect to respond to some of these things we Benchmark ourselves against any any other we we we thought about very different ways of doing the
050survey and because we the survey weily that's if it was our first survey and we used to use a big Survey Company in our previous on and we would we could Benchmark ourselves against the state the country um but we didn't feel that that was specific enough to the work that we wanted and the information that we wanted to do so we worked and created this survey it's really a mix of several different surveys and then some of our tweaking the questions Mr Spicer very proud of your work you know that and also our district once again on the Leading Edge to understanding this work and more importantly the and the value of this work the benefits of the cultural infrastructure we're laying will be a gain change in the years to come in terms
051of improved graduation rate diminished dropout rate and increased engagement rate it's going to take time and we all understand we're not talking about technical changes we're talking about a gigantic cultural shift and that takes a long time I also wanted to add I like seeing among your materials the book Equity by Design great book I was encouraged to see it listed as one of your resources because it's an effective practical how-to book for teachers to learn how to use Universal Divine for Universal soci for learning udl to support the largic goal of social justice uh a true breakdown do this get that and is that H suggestion all those book are Sugg all I'm just happy I do want to say back to I'm constantly struggling with that um you know just wants to burn
052it all down start and knows that you know you got to go step by step by step it's it's always that push um I know that the the incrementalism has been an excuse to use for a long time we can't do that because people might get upset so I'm constantly try pushing that edge amely thank you for the presentation and thank you okay we've had a very long superintendent report so I'll try to just kind of go quickly with other information that I have um some District updates um we do have six basic building projects going on right now uh obviously we have our our 2023 Bond $162 million Capital project that's in the planning stages uh we've been holding stakeholder meetings with both ba and um Edson which will be our first two schools
053and I think the facilities committee talked about that uh we'll be reviewing there but really a lot of different design looking at different things that they're that they're working on working with the principles and and members of the faculty and staff to make sure we're doing you know that we're getting the the feedback from inside the building of the areas that need to be improved and and how we're going to move forward with that project we also have our energy performance contract going on which is just it's moving along so probably not going to be done for the springtime which is about where we thought we would be but we're we're moving along pretty well there our smart schools Bond Act is still in the final finalization of our engineering drawings but as soon as
054we get that we'll start moving forward with the smart school bond act um again the playgrounds actually the tested analysis from cros came in today at 6:04 or whatever it was I was coming for so I don't have the results right now but as soon as obviously we tomorrow will be on that and that'll obviously be a topic for conversation on the 13th of December um our athletic fields all the all the athletic athletic fields have been made ready for winter so they've been a rated they've been overseed and our blankets have been and select are given certain fertilizers especially we're looking conern with our baseball field right now because we did use that for field hockey um but we are putting our our cover our thr blankets on most of our Fields so we're
055getting ready so in the spring we'll have the same um results we had this fall effective and successful use of that field while the last project is the Deep stated project um again we meet we're meeting once a month with the city this month he fell on Thanksgiving week Thanksgiving week and we but we did get a written um a written report and next month in December we'll be having a site visit um at at De St to see where they are but the grand stand seating area is all level and that can that's continuing actually get all the they got all the old seats out they're leveling the the concrete they taking the front Bas off and they put they put new on there you can see they're getting ready to build the tunnel
056there's going to be a tunnel through from the the um from the locker rooms the electrical is is about to be put into the grand stand a baitman has been completed which is great uh interior demo which is all the lock of rooms and the stores is all gutted that's all complete um utility installation around the site is being put in and The Rock removal continues and you see that if you can picture being the seats and you look if you're at the ticket booth on the left up on those by going towards the park there was that Hill if you go there today the Hill's not there anymore so so that has all been brought down to the same grade as the field so that's going to serve as a practice field moving forward
057so it's really it's very interesting to um to see the progress that's going on so I'll report more on that in December also um just some really I think one of the things we're talking about was um I think a lot of talk is been going on around April 8th um which is the lunar eclipse thing and I think I was think some things that are really neat that are going on especially with our elementary level was all of our students went into the learning Dome over the last few days and they learned about what's going to happen on April 8th so you know it's going to get a little dark here not completely dark but so I think that's a good way to engage students in science and things that are going on in
058the real world and using our learning tone which if you haven't gotten in the learning toone she get learning it's kind of it's kind of a fun experience a little bit disorienting but still fun um next week is computer science week 4th through the 8th so we're really excited all of our great all of our students are engaging in some sort of activity around um computer science week we have we have we have robot lessons we have other technology courses being being taught um the kids in living environment marine biology are using their our VR tours which are which are our goggles Dr jaob coming from that great grant that so we have a lot of things going on I could list I got two pages of things but curricular wise there's a lot of
059fun stuff going on and a lot of really exciting things and um I think we're utilizing all the things that we have put into place to really engage students especially as we're looking into the the work around our science programs K12 next what else do I have we did have on the anotated calendar there was supposed to be a presentation on Communications last board meeting we are going to I we weren't ready there were a few things going on including one of our Communications people was was out because of an injury um but we'd like to move that to December 13th so we can expect that from the n city county will be last name will be on the 13th um this is not a lot of specifics but I want people to kind of
060tune in we're going to have a lot lot of pretty big changes to our parent portal and to how we're communicating with parents um so we got some big changes coming we're going to put out a communication campaign about it but I'm going to work with the communication Department Gary and our tech department our and our teaching and learning team um we we're really going to we we've really upgraded the capacity of that of that tool and we'll be able to do a lot more for parents um in saying that I'll say not there's hopefully there's a lot of people watching at home um really want to encourage people to do the digital Equity survey that's a really important information for us the more of that we have the more we can use our some
061of our technology Communications technology with parents to it to you know be really effective with it so I know our principles are pushing it we're sending out many of you probably continue to get the emails about it but if you fill it out the email will stop coming um just so you know so they um but that's really that really is important information from being able to utilize and really the capacity of our communication as well as helping us identify students who don't have access because we can get it for them so we have Avenues to make sure students who don't have access or have poor internet or poor poor connectivity we have the resources to do that we have partners that will help us we've got different ways to make sure people so getting
062information to us is really important for multiple reasons and I'm going to leave it at that so that's the end of the superintendent report thank you very much questions Mr Mr Spicer and then M okay uh just one question Dr P the Deep Stadium project um any Mrs Jordan you mentioned that the um report came out just theing on the playgrounds and then said we talk about on the 13th but I'm sure I just want to clarify that if there's a problem that you need to attend to you'll do that before that meeting just yeah I haven't even opened the email but I'm confident that you if any action has to be absolutely thank you Mrs is the sandas that so yes and once that report we'll again share that with the public and everyone
063and part two of the de um one of our previous meetings we said there would be like I a step byep video of some sort that we were going to try to do um as before writing Mark's tale here so just to see if that's possible yeah you know what I haven't heard more about that but I'll check in with Jack the project the project manager so that people can was I thought the city might have something up but I haven't really I haven't seen anything on the city either couple so that was start I guess that was one of my questions could you take pictures when you go there um maybe for us and then two things the parent portal do we have like a date mind for when that's going to go I
064don't okay it's going to be well I'm kind of hoping it'll be soon and second semester at the latest um you know we're looking at how we can leverage that to you for parents to have full report cards which will then also help us move away from so much paper and and move away from so much postage and those kind of things that mean there's a lot of different um Tools in this program that we have not been using Gary's team has kind of built around it and unleash some of the power that that that it has that we're excited to be able to have good communication with parents by we also have a couple different security um software for parents around technology that we're going to be rolling out um you know something called
065go guardian and now there's also going to be a parents teens so a parent can have a teens account instead of have to go through their children's teens account those kind of things so a lot of different things on the horizon right there last question and it's the digital Equity survey so just having done papers on this um how are we so is email like the primary way that we're trying to get responses because of people who do not have digital access will not be looking at their email to respond to say I don't have this this or this so is there another Avenue that we can take to find people who are experiencing inequities yeah so that's a that's a great question right how's that someone who doesn't have ACC going to read the
066email that we're sending out but we so one of the things that we do know from our previous um that between 86 and 92% of our families have cell phones and use them to access information about the school district so between our website and our Text Blast but we also the other thing is relationships that's why we push this a lot of this information to the principles the principles know their students know their parents and can get information out Word of Mouth through the ptas that those kind of things we also know you know our social workers and our bilingual family workers are also people who play a big role in getting those surveys to build out get that information to people to make sure that is so it's not just an email it's an
067email it's a text it's on our website it's on our Facebook page but we also are depending on the human factor I just had a question on the parent portal is that tying into the new management system or no it's still part of the old management system okay so it's still part of the system we're currently using we're we're still having some some discussion around Synergy and how we're what our what our transition is looking like considering some of the um complications we've had along the road but we're still working on it okay okay where I was going that new system new communication system okay thank you any other questions comments thank you to the superintendent for his long report good report good report um that brings us to the Board of Education um we
068have policy committee policy committee did not meet but I think we have policies to V yeah because we were we had policy 6710 I'm sorry student voter registration pre-registration 6710 purchasing Authority and 9520 rights of employees to express breast milk in the workplace so those were given to you for a first reading and tonight we're going to ask for a vote so I'll do it separately I guess so people have objection so for policy 5605 student vter registration and pre-registration I offer that for um we need a motion I'm making a okay second any discussion on student voter registration pre-registration hearing none all in favor any opposed so policy 5605 is approved and it policy 6710 purchasing Authority I'm offering that do we have a second any discussion all in favor any opposed and last
069and I'm sorry is employes to in the work and that again so it's not really op and a second any discussion probably the longest policy in our book I just want to say about this policy um I I think it's very well written I think we adopted it from somewhere but I think it is Well written from this I was you know so I I like the way the way we doctor Amendment because I know that recently in June there actually some new pregnancy accommodations that are going go hand in hand with it I think what Mist will do as soon as it's enacted into law they'll send us so I'd rather not do it prior to okay thank you thank you all in favor of policy oppose and that policy is also approved thank
070you and we'll be meeting this Friday that's right our next um board committee report is audit and finance Mrs is La okay the audit and finance committee meeting met on November 14th at 9:00 the meeting was called to order the committee reviewed and approved the minutes from the October meeting the committee reviewed and discussed the September 2023 claims auditor and treasurers reports and the first quarter 2023 241 reports and to correct extra classroom reports these reports will be sent to the board for approval Mrs Lao asked if the tax window at Mahar will be open for tax season payments Miss Carvin said that with the number of tax colle lectors we have it is much more efficient to continue with the ongoing process and not do inperson tax payments at the window the district employs
071four part-time Tax Collectors reminder notices are being sent out to people who have not paid less sent out this year than in the past tax prep will go on until the start of winter break Mr Ryder asked about the exemption numbers for seniors that was discussed at the previous meeting Miss carbon answered that she needs more time to get accurate ual data she will have numbers for the committee at the December meeting claims auditor Tracy quick was appointed as been trained has been training and doing the work Mr Wolf will be available for questions and more training Miss carbin spoke about the extra classroom activity audit fund audit the Board needs to approve the audit findings there will be a resolution for the next Board of Education meeting Mr quell and Mark fet did trainings
072with the students at Kingston High School middle schools Club advisors and officers change each year so the trainings need to be out ongoing Mr Ryder asked about the claims order to report that states Refreshments are being served outside the policy discuss discussion continued on possible updating the policy Refreshments are not excessive but policy should be looked at some activities do fall within the policy policy also needs to be reviewed with Administration to make sure it has being followed the committee discussed child care meetings the district is meeting with the insurance company to go over liability anyone watching children will have to be certified and all students being taken care of must be Kingston City School District students the meeting adjourned at our next meeting will be December 12th 2023 at 9:00 any questions concerns let
073a question policy I don't know the number either but was what was the context the refreshment policy basically says food is not supposed to be served at any one of our meetings unless the meeting is taking place during let's say a teacher's lunchtime or or when someone would be eating dinner per sec so there's so there's if you're if you're engaging a full day workshop then breakfast and lunch would make sense and would be within the policy but if you're if you're in a morning workshop and lunches Serv so this is for PD huh this is for PD it's mostly for professional development sometimes in our parent meetings so our DLT meeting for example we we serve we usually have Refreshments for people for the parents who and the community members who have joined the
074joined the committee um so it's about PD it's about workshops it's about you know things like that so I don't remember does we'll we'll bring it up Friday we'll look at it first yeah there is policy yeah we we'll bring it up we'll do it so U the the ask for child care at meeting is saying that we're pending liability respons it would have to be someone who certified us what they said so right now the our attorneys have said that if we're going to provide child care at meetings then we need to treat it as if it's basically a school Deb um we need to have make sure we have the ratio of students to to teachers rights and we need to have a teacher and say that we had 20 students which I
075know we would most likely but we would have to make sure we had a teacher assistant available we couldn't just we can't just hand it over to students that's not where we're what we're supposed to be doing and also we also have the same liability in school as we in this as we were in school say like um vaccinations so are all the are all the students that we have there vaccinated do we have access to their information to know do they have a ke analogy who can pick them up if if someone else is coming to pick them up so we need to have all that reason why I'm asking is because there are some PTA meetings that are happening right now that have child care available so one they're in compant well if
076the P the PTA is an independent organization if the PTA PTA has themselves decided to watch each other's children that's a different story than the school district providing thank you Mrs La that moves us to the consent agenda are there any items that board members would like to pull from the consent agenda hearing none uh we need a motion to accept that consent agenda so move second and a second any discussion if I could discuss quickly you can discuss I would just I know we're going to vote now but I know that Dr aletto is on there to the new superintendent for assistant superintended for um curricul instruction data and assessment and I'm prev I'm a little I'm get ahead of myself but I want to think congratul Dr all in favor uh any oppos
077and so the consent agenda is approved we do have donations within that consent agenda this dandis can you share with us please sure all right donations November 29 2023 the Board of Education of the C City School District hereby accepts with grateful appreciation the following donations Edson Elementary School is a recipient of seever donations for the Edson Fall Festival including apples and pumpkins from Mr John kelder of kelder farms $200 value thank you apples from Hudson Valley research lab $500 value thank you $25 gift certificate from Adams Fair a Farms thank you bwax from Mr David row of rose of fair $100 value thank you 200 single cones from steuart's shops you a donation of $25.98 cents from the districtwide parents Council to the Kingston City School District and thank you a donation of technology
078equipment to Miller Middle School with a value of $981 198 from donors who. thank you very much thank you that brings us to old business any old business Dr dco business um we had talked when we set out our board goals about having um Board of Education seminars workshops um and the first one was going to be around issues of mental health and we're looking at March and I'm wondering Dr Pina where we are with scheduling that and we've kind of battered around some ideas but at the very beginning stages Okay so we would like to do it in March and you we're going to talk to people at the high school and see if we can I have to out for scor to get okay to talk about thank youor thank you and then
079then um we had also talked about having a board retreat I know we're going to have a retreat around issues of diversity which is important we also wanted to um have a mid your check-in see how we're doing towards our goals what we how we're doing like what we need if we need to change course um and I'm wondering if those I don't know that they should be combined because I think that the um course should come stand on its own but it's also a lot of time so I'm wondering what people think should you think that we can attach an early um arrival to one of our regular meetings for the checkin because that the checkin shouldn't take that long because we're just going to look at where we stand as our goal it
080might be easier because put aside that time right but we that da I we could do that I think have a thought about it too no so so that's an option we could come half an hour earlier I don't know how that might be hard for some people or we could stay later that not um okay why don't we why don't we see if we can find a time at a meeting that we can come a little bit early is that okay yeah I think that's yeah I'll throw out some dates some dates to see in weather coming up we might have one of those approximately what time are we looking you know what time frame I'm January is mid so we and if we had to cancel it for weather we would just then
081resed MH but I think it's important that we do a Check Yes I think if we don't do a check-in we'll lose track yeah exactly okay thank you okay any other old business new business hearing none we get to our second public comment session Mr lamb really wonderful performance of J ater Middle School it would have been even more wonderful the sound system old projects are done before we start new ones the band rooms at the high school have had none of the corrections that have been noted for years that were done incorrectly done to them I have pictures I'll you life um from three years ago the other thing is um six months ago we had a horrific thing happened at the high school incident nothing has changed and there was great talks on
082May 6 about things that were going to change doing a backpack check every two months whether we need to or not is not acceptable we need to be doing things on a regular basis I get that it takes time but the safety of our children and the safety of our staff are more important than time the things that would help keep our sta SA thank you Mr lamb any other public comments board member announcements Mr Spicer just had one I just wanted to wish a happy holoc to all of our families that celebrate which starts next week happy thank you any other announcements I think that brings us to two a motion to adjourn so move second all in favor thank you very much thank you thank you for the happy