KCSD Board of Education Meeting 10/11/2023

001oh yeah sure BR is not here I S it go out that way maybe we should yeah we're waiting on one board member up on she is it is 710 I call this um public session to order if we could please call the role Dr jaob here miss La here miss Jordan here Mr Spicer here Dr Collins here miss Anderson here Mr Ryder here miss Fitzgerald here Mr Sanders bord here and could we please all rise for the pledge of allegiance of Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liy and justice for all we have one action coming out of executive session Boe 32 to appoint a hearing officer be it resolved that the board hereby appoints Lewis Paddock

002as the hearing officer pursuant to section 75 of the New York State Civil Service law with respect to employee number 2325 and authorizes the hearing off to hear evidence make a transcript of proceedings and to issue a written report of his findings of fact and recommendations including a disciplinary penalty if any be it further resolved that the Board of Education hereby suspends employee number 2325 without pay commencing October 12th 2023 up to the maximum permitted by the New York Civil Service law during the months of the employees paid work year and then with pay during the dependency of these proceedings if during a time when the employee would otherwise be paid do I have a motion and a second all in favor any opposed this um resolution passes we now um I'll look to approve

003the minutes we have the minutes from the August 9th 2 20 2023 meeting we have a motion to approve those minutes second second any discussion all in favor of those minutes any opposed and so those minutes are approved we also have minutes from the August 23rd 2023 meeting do I have a motion to approve those second any discussion all in favor any opposed and so those minutes are also approved we are now at our public comment session we do have a few uh individuals who would like to speak so good evening all we are about to enter the portion of the meeting where we welcome public comments although state law does not requir that we hold a public comment period we feel it is crucial that we hear from our community about their concerns the

004board 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 the appr appropriate staff member or administrator if you have a prepared if you have prepared a written statement and do not have the opportunity to present it please leave it with the clerk of the board who will see that all trustees receive it please note that state and federal privacy laws and collective bargaining agreements prevent us from discussing certain topics in this venue the guidelines are posted on the boardroom wall thank you for your respectful adherence to the rules and your interest in the continuous Improvement of the district we ask that you please

005honor the time of 3 minutes the clerk will provide timing reminders our allotted time for public session is 30 minutes if we run out of time there is a second public um comment session at the end of the meeting or you can put your comments in writing thank you and we can begin Reverend Charles good evening I guess about a month ago I left a uh letter with you because I had to leave the meeting a requesting that you give me some information and I assume that that's coming or if not that you will contact me to tell me what's what uh so I'm just here again requesting that you uh respond to the letter that I sent to you thank you Reverend Charles Amy Goodson hello my name is Amy Goodmanson I'm a par

006two students in the district and I'm here to follow up on a concern I had from this past spring I'd like to start by saying this isn't a criticism of any specific group in our community or any struggling or confused students uh but in the spring I heard about a book at KHS called gender queer which I'm sure a lot of people have heard of which is listed in the online catalog as an adult book I saw some pages that were sent to me from someone and I was instantly concerned about the images uh so I rented it from the public library to read the entire book for myself I contacted the board and I requested a book removal based on District policy 1420 Dr patalino responded in June that you all decided the book

007would stay on the shelves at KHS um but I find it disturbing that the adults on the board are okay with this material which is very adult for ages 13 to 14 in our schools um we should acknowledge that there are younger siblings at home that this book and there's also students that might take it out simply because they get to see pornographic images um which is all provided by the school um would we allow 50 Shades of grayer PL magazines to help the student with their sexuality I don't think so um District policy 4513 says Library material should be appropriate for the users of the library but this book is very explicit and very graphic so such as one of the pages is Plato Symposium which has to do with pedophilia with a young

008boy which we call pedophilia and it's illegal it's a crime um but the person in the book is fantasizing about this I don't want our students to think that that's normal to fantasize about that um we have another page with texting um I got a new strap on harness today I can't wait to put it on you it will fit my favorite dildo perfectly you are going to look so hot I can't wait to have your [ __ ] in my mouth I'm going to give you the [ __ ] of your life then I want you inside me that's not for old there are images of graic sexual acts going on in the book um Dr patalino your letter to me also said that adults in the school are available to talk to students who might have questions

009about this book but who are these adults our teachers and staff have already been instructed by the state and the district that they're not allowed to share these discussions with parents um unless a student wants the parents to know it's not okay for adults to be talking with our kids about topics like this as sexuality or identity without the parents knowing they have to keep a secret I don't agree with that um imagine the potential for a confused student to be taken advantage of or influenced by an adult that they have these conversations with we're living in times where this is happening in schools and other groups that a young person trusts um so when did this become okay for this to take place I 100% do not give my consent um and now that

010we're in a new school year we have a new board president I am just resubmitting my request so long with a whole bunch of other requests to remove the book there's more Comming um students can get the book in a public library and we don't need offering this in our schools Brit Riley hello members of the board once again thank you so much for volunteering your time to take care of these complicated issues for our district um I am here today um regarding the same issue that I've been speaking about many times before at um George Washington Elementary School where our formerly um our school was formerly in good standing and has slipped um into the condition of being BSI school and I have been a representative on the building's leadership team in the past

011school year and I am continuing to bring up these issues because they are not being addressed um unfortunately locally at the school or by the the Kingston School District unfortunately um a group of 40 of us who included teachers and community members and many many parents took a lot of time out of our schedules to to pour through a lot of very difficult documents over the course of the summer and that resulted in us sending you all a letter on um August 22nd which was two board meetings ago um we have not received a response and I've taken the liberty of making a spreadsheet to show the status of the requests um that have to do with the success of our school and also how it is being governed and our representation as double stakeholders

012in this um situation uh that we're trying to remediate together collectively at a local level with you know a good Pro process but as you can see most of these items are red indicating that they have had no response whatsoever and we are now introducing um some new additional requests our first one is that our um parent teacher organization be allowed to elect our own parent representations to our buildings leadership team currently I'm going to distribute to you all um a copy of a letter um that indicates how this process is running which is not Democratic and we are not we are being denied participation um and we're asking you all to please step in and take look at all of these issues that it is becoming crucial there are we have now become aware

013that there are state level complaints being filed and just trust me it is it's getting bad so we need to address this we need a response please Lee Kelly everyone thank you for this opportunity um I know I'm not the only parent here who's very eagerly the results from the lead testing at George Washington Elementary School's playground um I'm particularly interested in the methodology behind the testing what was tested how it was tested and specifically how many samples were extracted since if too few samples were taken this can drastically uh affect the accuracy of the results um but I'm sure everyone in this room can agree that there is no safe level of blood um You Might Recall from one one of my earlier memos I've referenced the the Biden Administrations uh uh new regulations

014that they proposed uh as of July 2023 stating that any child care center or home residents floors previously the uh were allowed up to 10 parts per million for play surfaces for children playing on the floor that's now going to be reduced to zero um and I think that we should uphold the same standards for exterior Play services so we regardless of what these lead results happen to be uh there is simply no place for for lead and children's product um we also all know that lead is not the only toxin on our playgrounds unequivocally so uh Yale conducted a study pretty recently and they found 306 chemicals within Crum rubber that's not even including the polymer or the MDI the binders um 197 of those were computationally predicted to be carcinogenic and whether or

015not additional testing has been performed on our playground surfaces I for one don't need to conduct tests to realize is that these chemicals couldn't possibly be good for human health let alone children who are growing and have are are more susceptible to the harms of these toxins um with that in mind one of the things I'd like to to address it's very small I have a six-year-old who's a first grader and he's let me know uh that he's not allowed to wash his hands when he comes back from Recess before going to the cafeteria to eat um I see kids on the playground every day eating drinking playing Pokemon picking up soccer balls they are touching this surface uh the CDC uh the the EPA uh Mount siai Medical Center at minimum say wash your

016hands change your clothes uh some of these uh professionals these experts take it a step further they say take a shower uh brush your children's hair clean and remove your shoes vacuum and so on so it minimum I would I I would beg of you to send a memorandum to the teachers and administrators and suggest if not mandate that at minimum we wash our kids hands until we can progressively investigate this issue and confirm its safety uh from my perspective there's not a single component of these playgrounds that is safe um for those of you are heing about this for the first time this is a product that is Ban uh and the entire European Union uh Washington DC Boston Vermont Maine and the list goes on because it's made from recycled tires which are

017an unregulated product and they contain uh faat endocr disruptors uh rubber chemicals cogens heavy metals and the list goes on so thank you Michelle Rodriguez mendz hi I'm I'm Mich Rodriguez and I'm a brand new teacher at uh Kingston High School um teaching Spanish um I'm here to talk about the ELC that um Miss Armstrong is going to bring soon to y'all about how good that networking is I came from a district um I just recently moved from the Bronx um and became a Kingston resident as a one month now um so I'm now Kingston resident I'm happy right now with a positive um experience that I have experienced with the EOC she tracked me down when I was in Puerto Rico I was telling her that I was on vacation she was like oh

018you'll come back I'll call you so she tracked me down and she got me here and I applied two years ago and I was um got granted the opportunity to come as a middle school teacher but I was more fit as a high school teacher so I turned down the position and but she kept on being persistent and after two years she got me into the high school I believe that this program is a great program to bring to keep on continuing um and bringing more diverse students into our I mean more diverse teachers into our district because the more resentation we have the more um the students are more eager because as they saw me some most of our native students are Hispanic when they saw me I'm Puerto Rican I was born in

019Puerto Rico my native tongue is Spanish my second is English my third is Italian I'm getting certification in Italian as well so hope we can bring it um I want to bring more languages um so when they saw me they saw another Hispanic teacher so they were very happy and they always come to my room and um after school and always have a have been have been positive to me and like I said this has been a positive um experience for me coming from seven different districts I worked from um Upstate New York and all the way Upstate near Syracuse um to Selvin County to um Bron Town bronze County and mount Veron so I have taught in a lot of school districts and this by far has been the best experience I've had um

020in the school district so I would love to continue the uh positive work that Miss Armstrong is doing with this program and this networking and getting more teachers that are look like the students that represent us so thank you so much Diana Mena good evening um my name is Diana Mendes I am an enl English as a new language teacher at Bailey Middle School I was an L an English language learner myself my first language is Spanish my parents are Colombian and I get looks like that when I told the kids that right which is really nice to see representation and the kids recog I have to say that this summer I was not sure I was going to come back to teaching it's been a rough couple years and for whatever reason I answered

021Miss gon's phone call and I heard that the message the you know the voicemail whatever was in Spanish and in English I said huh that's interesting and I called back and we talk I was like okay this and I and I go to the meeting as was Miss cheral uh and Miss Armstrong and Miss gri for anyway and we you know we get around intr introdu and then M AR comes up with well I'm you know the coordinator of educators of color now I go the what you wait you have a district that's making a concerted effort to recruit teachers of color like it's something they need to work on a side note I may have um cost myself a phys when I asked the superintendent Once Upon a Time what they were doing to

022ensure that their admin and their teachers look more like their you know their students do you think I'm going to hire based on race and it did not go off from there so when I came here and I hear about this wait and I remember I I was I was telling my friends I at our orientation you guys are talking I guys look at the the program is talking about a concerted effort here wow this matters right it matters because it's important that our that our students all of them look at a model hey I could be a teacher wait because and and I'll stop talking in a minute but like when I was growing up I didn't even realize that none of my teachers looked at me I'm from Miami dude like I'm from

023Miami like you would think and I really had to think about it in teachers of color that I had growing up I can count on one hand and that's Miami Florida right so the work is extremely valuable it's important to to make constr efforts right and to really work as a district and I have to say that so are so good and I will piggy back off of uh Miss Rodriguez Mendes no relation uh comment and that this is the best experience that I've had in the district we have a lot of work ahead of us and it's hard but no one yelled at me speak English when I walk in the hallways so thank you very much Alexander Morton Adams hello I'll be reading this for Alexander Morton Adams who couldn't be here tonight

024due to lack of child care um my name is Alexander morn Adams and I reside in uptown Kingston with my spouse and four-year-old child my family and my fellow Kingston residents share a deep concern about the use of toxic materials in parks and schools in which our children play We believe strongly in not only common sense but evidence-based facts when choosing what to expose our children to Common Sense would tell us that we wouldn't want our children to play in a rubber tire dump nor would we deem it okay if we simply Shred the tires before allowing them to roll around in it common sense next up is evidence as our community leaders you are tasked with countless decisions regarding education and safety and well-being and for your hard work we say thank you however

025your lack of urgency regarding this material is alarming please do not allow further use of this obviously toxic material Kingston as able to prove that it is safe common sense says it's harmful so please do not expose our children to shredded tires until you can prove otherwise it may save the board time to Simply follow the lead of most major cities and entire government blocks around the world which have banned this unregulated and toxic material my son is currently playing in shredded tires at his school's playground and it comes home with pockets full of the stuff frequently Mount Si's econ School of Medicine prescribes that if anyone comes into contact with this substance they should immediately shower wash their clothes body and vacuum all particles to Only Name a few of the long list of

026precautions there are better ways safer ways please do the right thing and protect our children our families and our residents from undue harm thank you and on a personal note I spoke with a gentleman from bis a little over a week ago who did confirm that there is lead in the R so I hope that something will be done um thank you okay thank you for your comments um that ends our public comment session and we move into the superintendent report thank you um I'm going to kind of flip the superintendent report agenda and I was going I would like to have Miss Armstrong um do do her report first she has many people here supportland that I need to get up and go to classrooms tomorrow morning I want to get them out so

027uh Miss ARR will be doing our uh diversity hiring diversity inventory report the I was going to try I was going to have a little extra minute but Dr pedal not surprise me just give me one second here we go good evening everyone um I'm going to give my presentation but I wanted to start just by saying saying that a couple of the slides are repetition from what I did for you two years ago only because you have so many new board members so some of them are going to be repeated see if I can flip this and flip this at the same time see what happens here okay so I just want to tell you a little bit about me um I'm a black American woman of African pan Manan and basian descent I'm

028a bronx native born raised in the birkshire I'm a proud mom of a black son who is a graduate of HBCU called Hampton University my son here I am a child of God a daughter a sister a aunt a loyal friend and educator I hold the BS in education from Michigan State University a masters in human resource development from American International College and a certificate of advanced graduate study in educational leadership for Massachusetts College of liberal arts I have been a professional educator since 1984 and this is my 40th year positions that I've held I've been a special education teacher Middle School assistant principal coordinator of special education High School assistant principal an adject professor and now director of recruitment retention and Equity so although I possess a master's degree in human resources which I

029feel makes me qualified for this position um when I got this position I felt that I needed to get up toate on what's going on in the Dei community so Cornell University off offered a certificate program in diversity Equity inclusion building diverse work Workforce so I took it it was a two-month program it was four classes and I got my certificate trying to flip pages let's do this um so the annual goals that I work on um are to increase the number of educators of color in case the city school district to retain educators of color Network I should say maintain um build collaborative relationships influence and enhance hiring recruitment systems in kingas city school district and collaborate with the executive director of diversity equity and inclusion these are some of the things that I

030do I recruit screen and interview candidates for various positions I'm the district leison for the brothers at Bard mentorship program for young men of color I am the local area superviser for today's students tomorrow's teachers I do teacher a evaluations I assist with planning professional development for administrative staff and other staff and staff I do Community networking I am the facilitator of the educators of color Network I sit on the Jefferson committee as a district representative I assist goban greatness with recruiting for college tours I attend college and recruitment fairs I sit on the advisory committee for stand against racism for the YMCA I continuously communicate with educators of color with the goal of offering support and a safe space so in looking at the different um goals and values of Kingston City School District

031to make everyone else informed um our district values um our equity for access to all a culture that Embraces diversity promotes safety belonging empathy collaborative relationships achievement and success an elimination of biases barriers and disparities and that's where I come in the Board of Education goal from 2022 23 I'm kind of telling them I'm sure you know it um is to develop policies that Advance Equity by diversifying the the hiring Community standardizing hiring processes and making the hiring process transparent and when Dr patalino did his Federal funding allocation plan commitment the commitment was that by June of 2024 Kingston City School District faculty and staff will proportionately reflect the diversity of our student body so on all these things is where I live and what we as a group and as a community and District

032are supposed to have dedicated saying this is what we're going to work on representation matters so did you know if student has at least one teacher of color by third grade it increases their chances of graduating by 25% black students who had just one black teacher by third grade were 133% more likely to enroll in college while those who had two black teachers were 32% more likely the study found these findings are a continuation of a 2017 study that found that lowincome black students probability ility of dropping out of high school is reduced by 29% if he or she has one black teacher in grades three through five and this was a John's Hopkins study from 2018 so this is our current School enrollment um as of June 30th 2023 there are 6,143 students between

033prek and kindergarten 50% are white students and the other 50% are students of color so um I just wanted to clarify some things from listening to previous board meetings and discussions around what I do and um and my T what you know who I'm targeting I I know that you guys were going over statistics about cleaner and head people but I want you to understand my target audience the target audience that I work to increase are members of the Kingston teachers Federation members of the aspa aspa which is the administrators Union and members of ESP particular SEC secretaries and Tas why them you might ask these are the people who have the most influence on our students either by their presence in front of the students every day policy and curriculum that impact students or

034role modeling higher levels of achievement and this is who this is why I focus on them I'm looking at impact for children and that is who I focus on so in 2021 when I um presented I gave you um numbers on you the different positions in the district and these were them and so I want to just show you that was 2021 so 2023 fast forward two years these everything in red is a change so um secretaries there were 30 there's 34 secretaries we had four two are at Mahar and that number is about to change um social work ERS out of 19 there were four and now there's five if your consent agenda is approved tonight social work here okay um teachers I think we were 7.3 let me go back we were at

0357.1% in 20 and 21 and we are now at 88.4% um there are 13 Tas um which makes up 5.8% and district office has added positions and added um persons of color and that would be assistant superintendent of business operations who wasn't here before two years ago we're happy to have her and our Treasurer so then I gave you all um numbers of educators of color back in December of 2021 so now I want you to see the difference between 2021 and 2023 again in red are where there have been changes I'll just let you look at it I don't need to read it to everybody and you have a schematic of it because I'm sure I'm gonna have to come back to this um so percentage of hires of educators of color by year

036um 2021-22 which is I started after we had gone through the hiring season 16% of our hires were 16.6% of our hires were educators of color in 2023 133% um 13 .9% were and this year this school year 33.3% of our hires were educators of color so in looking at that that total 34 hires from 21 to um 23 I heard you at a board meeting asked for the breakdown so I put a breakdown on there for you for each year year you can see um the percentage of hires and The Hires and it's broken down by race um just to answer and address your questions um so at the same time in res we've had 16 resignations um five through retirements so we're happy for those people and 11 um were resignations one I

037know was for a better job two were because they were um driving a distance and they just couldn't they wanted to be closer to home um and the other eight are other for various reasons and again I was trying to address some of the concerns and the questions that you guys have had um in the past so I'm going to tell you a little bit about where I recruit and how I recruit um a lot we post a lot of our positions on Olaf um one thing that we started two years ago is we added a diversity um statement to all of our postings um I said to Dr patalino well we say we want more people of color but how do you know how what says that that's what we want so um I

038gave Dr patalino a bunch of samples and he put together A diversity statement that he felt was appropriate for our district and now when you open Olaf there is a diversity statement there um I go to job fairs um at various colleges around the area um and I started um an annual Kingston City School District diverse Educators job fair I do it every spring um which has netted most of our hires for the last few years um I plan to do it again this year um and it has been very successful way to um to rec to recruit social media sometimes I put in notes on LinkedIn um and I do networking with Sunni newa the black student um administrators Round Table the black and brown conversations stand Against Racism advisory committee the ELC networks

039there's more than just mine I tell them when we have job openings we're looking for um I've made some beginning connections with The Minister's Alliance um Sunni new Paul has just begun a future teachers of color um organization so they're just getting started this year so I'm plugged into them um I've participated in various panels in which I've had the opportunity to talk a little bit about our needs and um hopefully in the future we'll be you we'll be hiring teachers who are part of today's students tomorrow teachers which is our which is how will grow your own program in this District so if we're going to grow them we need to use them um also personal contacts and happen stance for instance I was at um ropos um school for children and I was

040going to do a workshop with the boys who were working there from Brothers at Bard and I got in line and I was in the parent line with the kids I know where I was going and there was a young lady who was there and um she was directing me she told me no you're in the wrong line this is what you have to do so later as I got into the campus she came along and we started talking and I found out she was an English certified English teacher well now she is our English teacher so when I say happen stance that's what I mean so that's the methods of recruitment I'm always looking for more ways to recruit more areas to you know to infuse myself to recruit um for our district so

041it's not enough to recruit um educators of color we have to be doing things to retain educators of color so for me my first thought was to have an educator of color Network and what that is is very simply the the people who are in those groups that I talked about earlier I invited them and said look this is what I want to put together I want us to be able to get together I want us to be able to network I want to be a support I want us to be able to support each other and I had this big reception with empanadas and planon and everybody remember that first meeting um and I invited them to come together and get to know each other and I had them um I gave them a

042survey and said would you like to meet weekly what would you like to do would you like to talk would you like to have discussions would you like to have professional development would you just like to do something social they wanted to do it all so every month we do something um and then I at the end of the year I did a survey in 2021 and I asked them no at that at that same meeting I asked them why do we need Ed the educ of color Network and these were their responses I recognize that many of us feel isolated and are unsupported in our positions and would appreciate more camaraderie amongst our peers for many years it has been my dream to create a network where our educators of oh this was me

043this well the educators of Congress congregated to me Converse and network and support each other that's why I wanted to do it everybody else said we need kids to see themselves in us being a person of color can be difficult at times due to the lack of cultural sensitivity it is important to support each other and our students someone else wrote been looking for this to happen forever um educators of color need support as they navigate predominantly white workspace it's time our voices need to be heard people in my building assume I was only hired because of my skin color because I'm tired of feeling like a fly in the milk because the ratio of students of color to teachers of color is unacceptable so then this year I did a thought exchange with the

044teachers just to try to C you know to catch up and become current and the thought exchange question was what are some of the challenges that you have faced as an educator of color and these were the top five responses being considered the spokesperson for all black people because I am the only one expectations that I should do more than others implicit bias assumptions based on my race and gender microaggressions and not being afforded the same race as others working with people who have not been exposed to black people especially in the workplace and there were more comments but I gave you the top bar so I want to talk about numbers are one thing but we need to look a little deeper um so I want to talk about the obstacles to hiring and

045retaining educations of color that I have seen from being in the district from talking to members of the ELC so I'm going to kind of summarize what I think so these two that I'm going to talk about I feel are the main reasons why we have difficulties so Gem Gem expectations of hiring committees so gem stands for I I don't know if you guys got the book The Board too we were reading uh doing a book last year called the enduring invisible and ubiquitous centrality of whiteness by um Dr Kenneth Hardy um we weren't reading the whole book but we were focusing on his early chapters and a gem stands for good effective mainstream minority and the characteristics of a gem is that a gem not only cognitively understands what is required to appear wh

046like or white light but is also able to demonstrate Mastery of it the gem understands a healthy famed racially neutral relationship with whites is transactional an acquaintance appeasement and conscious avoidance of authentically addressing race constitute some of the core requirements of becoming a gem let me explain it a little differently gems even though the staff and students are melanated the preference or unconscious expectation is a European posture so remember I'm talking about people who are hiring who are sitting in interviews as their meeting an example is in the past couple of years we have hired several educators of color from the city people from the city me being one tend to be very direct they're direct because they are taught to be for the purposes of survival but here here in a smaller more rural

047environment directness is interpreted as aggressive non-collaborative and even insubordinate and the reason is because direct is not comfortable so it becomes seen as a negative which causes a whole pleora of situations the other big thing I think problem we have um is microagressions so the board gave a definition of microaggression so I'm just going to read your policy microaggressions are every day verbal non-verbal and environmental slights snubs or insults whether internation whether intentional or unintentional which communicate hostile derogatory or negative messages to Target persons they so solely upon their marginalized group membership in many cases these hidden messages May invalidate the group Identity or experiential reality of targeted persons demean them on a personal or group level communicate the perception that they are lesser human beings and suggest they do not belong with the majority

048group threaten and intimidate or regulate them to the inferior status and treatment good definition by the way um so a recent um microagression this year that I've heard about from several people is we or Miss Armstrong only hires black people so that's the new microagression is going around to me this comment highlights the preference of the adult and it is void of what research shows is best for kids it could also imply skin color is considered void of confidence therein lies the microaggression I would counter by saying there is a double advantage of both competence and culture for our students other obstacles the number of available positions annually I know that um at your last board meeting you were trying to come up with like a percentage of people who you want to hire but

049the position numbers vary from year to year if you go back to my earlier slide like one year we had 33 positions and one year we had 50s you know um so that's one of the obstacles because even if we want to diversify a school the school actually has to have openings in order to even give that consideration um another is civil service limitations when we're talking about um everybody who's who's in a nonprofessional has to take a civil service test around here so I don't I'm not bitter um so you know secretaries and the like um so there's two things that limit with civil service The Limited availability to negotiate salaries because Civil Service sets the salaries and the salaries are on the lower side for somebody who's trying to have a family and

050raise children there's also bias in the testing not only the testing itself and you can probably look at any report and there's bias and testings in all kinds of areas for all kinds of positions um I'll give you an example we are getting we today as you vote we are going to lose a secretary of color at the administrative level she's been working for eight months learning a huge job um that she's taken on very earnestly and she's worked very hard at it she took the civil service test she passed the civil service test but she wasn't one of the top four and now she's being terminated so Civil Service limitations I'll just leave it there and I'm not bitter okay um and there are sometimes when we have positions where we just don't have

051any applicant of color for certain positions um and then there's that obstacle is lack of support and acceptance of being allowed to be their authentic selves and unapologetically be who they are and that goes back to my example of people who come up here from the city um you know they're abrasive they're not abrasive they're direct and they learn to be that way it's a survival thing so I think that is a big obstacle and the need to increase buyin by all in the hiring process so all those people who are hiring need to share the same goals that you share the board shares the policy shares and that's not always the situation and then I also heard you talking about diversity well there's other ways of looking at diversity and there's other ways that

052we have Diversified our school district so one thing we did in this year is we increased the number of male teachers at the elementary level they may not be men of color but they definitely bring diversity anybody who's been in a elementary school can see that we are void of male teachers and most excitingly we have a male in the preschool this year I think that is so awesome I saw him the other day and it made me so happy so that's another way to look at diversity 133% of our students identify as lgbtqia plus and when Mrs um cetti did her culture and climate survey 3.7% of the instructional staff identified um as belonging to this group and I'm sure there are some who chose not to but there is other representation other ways

053to represent as well as we just hired a new male secretary as well so I just want you to think of diversification there are other ways that we're diversifying as well so what are we doing about it what are we doing so our continuing a next steps so this is what's going on as far as professional development and procedures go right now we're going to continue the critical inquir inquiry projects with teachers fa celebrated by Dr um Javon Hunter within the CRS framework CRS stands for culturally responsive and sustaining education we're going to continue the roll out of the CRS framework framework we're going to continue to improve and clarify hiring procedures we're going to initiate cbrt which is Crawford bias reduction theory and training for our district administrators which we hope to start in

054November and it will happen um monthly for about five months um and we're going to roll out the complete results of the culture and climate survey facilitated by Dr Jess lablanc and Kathy cetti and then that will net what needs to happen next in that area when we've you know seeing what the new belts are so we're proposing um Dr know I talked about this I'm not proposing um that for the next 5 years at least 50% of the new positions will be filled by Educators of color um I know that you talked about data um 10 years back I really think that we should start with 2021 when I started and started keeping data specifically around this area and that we move forward and the commitment is to continue the data um we um

055proposing doing cluster hiring I think it's real important cluster hiring means just that instead of hiring one person to be in a building where they're going to become the lone person of color that if there's three positions that you hire more than one person of color to be in the building so that they're not by themselves they don't feel isolated and they have someone with whom they can relate and also once again where's Miss Jordan targeting them elementary schools because I'm the numbers just are not there and they we need to make a commitment to improve those numbers in elementary schools especially knowing the data of how it impacts children by third grade and fifth grade we have to make a more concerted effort so I want you to meet Elijah there's a video Karen

056is it not in here click click picture click on the oh you just have a just has a clicker weting it's it'sing on what is perseverance perseverance is when I don't give up Elijah what is respect Elijah what is courage good elij what is friendship I never want to hear my kids say Dad all Elijah listen Okay you can listen to it I it's more important that you hear what he said compassion compassion is when I care about others and want to help them good Elijah what is responsibility responsibility is doing what I'm supposed to and keeping my promises Elijah what is honesty honesty is telling the truth no matter what Elijah what is perseverance perseverance is when I don't give up even when something is hard Elijah what is respect respect the treats like

057they are important Elijah what is courage courage is being bra even when I'm scared good Elijah what is friendship friendship is being is caring about my friends and being so Elijah what is empathy empathy is feeling how someone else feels so I can understand it better Elijah what is gratitude gratitude say than I am Elijah what is integrity Integrity is that's a good person when someone is watching me it is watching me Elijah what is confidence confidence is me believe in good high five all right Elijah what is compassion compassion is good El what is responsibility Elijah what is honesty honesty is telling the truth the matter elij what is perseverance okay thank you so just a simple um it's not saying but a statement that I read um Frederick Cohen diversity is a fact

058Equity is a choice inclusion is an action and belonging is an outcome the goal should be belonging acceptance based on one being their authentic selves thank you for your time and your attention [Applause] questions comments anything more um first of all if you weren't hiring teachers of color you wouldn't be doing your job thank you so I appreciate this and I appreciate revisiting because it really did have an impact on me when you talked about what a change it would make for young students to see themselves in their teachers so I really uh appreciate that that is one of the goals to have more Elementary representation um and the other thing um the piece that that I still don't see that I wish for is a piece that would change the culture because that's really

059where we started the systemic racism the culture that we are all living in and a part of and a product of and um so I I guess I would hope that as you move through your process with your group of teachers that there's a way to inform the board and the district about how we can better create a sense of belonging for 100% of our teachers um so you know that that's the piece that I think we have to look towards next and even though the progress is slow at least we're trending in the right areas but it's very frustrating that it is so slow but at the same time I just feel like I don't want to build silos in the district we've had enough of those so I guess I want the doors

060to be open um throughout so we're so our attempt to do it is through professional development and that's why we're focusing on the culture respon sustaining education and that's why we're going to be doing the bias reduction training with the administrators because who does the highering mostly it's administrators and I think it's important that you know when I talk about gems and that sort of thing that we're able to look at our biases and see how our biases impact our um our decisions and then from that we hopefully we're going to start talking about how you can best support educators of color and make them feel that they're welcomed and wanted and I see a natural connection between you and Miss's work and I think that that you know it's so important that as colleagues

061you set kind of the standard for everyone so I appreciate it and thank you to everybody thank you you know the two years of progress and work and of course for um taking it so seriously with the need so I in segue with the gems I know that you had mentioned we have asked for at least 10 years of record and I think for me the reason behind that is that prior to you we want to identify any Trend right so you you have been able to you know identify the barriers or the roadblocks that you've had within the last two years but those road blocks from PR these incidents so we're looking to possibly you know as far as you can go um with the information and data that you have to possibly see

062if there are certain commonalities such as you know the civil service exams like what has been the barrier does it been the same has it been the access has it been the announcements has it been the prepping so that we can you know work and move forward in that also to for the hiring process um would it be that with the administrators have they formed that has you know understood the value of a diverse workplace and have they provided feedback to the candidates that were not selected I said why they were not selected and then what would you know what would make them what would make the position what would give them the opportunities to come back and to reapply and possibly obain the position if they're interested so that would get to show so

063those are what some of the areas we're looking for previous um records so that we can see isolated situations we can identify if there have been some repetitive and Trends then we can hit them on because they will continue if we all address up but other than that you know as she said it's all again starting from creating the culture from the culture of hiring from the culture of understand diversity on all aspects um from the culture of connecting with the community that's how we've met you know there are opportunities for us as to and as you hire these new individuals they are your number one recruiters as had individuals come in today and proudly say that they've had the best experience those are the people you want out there with you that are going

064to be in the community Festival community events saying hey I was on board CU right Educators recruit other Educators so that's a source that we would want but other than that wonderful work we appreciate that hopefully the information could come through um and then we could collectively identify what have been some of the common issues prior to you that you C experiencing so that we can Rectify andain and one thing I've emphasized um to Dr Catalina um who's been oh so supportive of this work I mean I don't know how we could have done it without him um is that I also feel like when we're when we're doing interviews it's important that someone of color be in on the sits on any interviewing committee any school anywhere that that's important any position yes in

065any position so then with the new ones that you're bring on board so that would be part of their professional development is possibly having them prepare to be members of the interview committee and that's definitely something cheap principles can do in their own schools as far as that goes you know I think Mr Spicer has his hand up so we'll let him speak Mr we hear you can hear you good you're good so first my apy also with the feed so that that's a little disturbing everybody still he me yes hear me yes okay okay so I'm sorry that I couldn't be exposed to co so we had to F this one out but I I asked and uh the bo um very well technically U enabled me to to team in zoom in on

066the meeting so I just want to add that you have presented us a great deal of data for further review the body and gravity of the information uh that gave us is complicated and revealing I encourage our board to employ this data to drive policy and fund programs to support your efforts Opening Our continued work and raising awareness of the delerious effects of microaggression at every level of the educational system will allow our district the insight and tools to support our of color demonstrating our desire to retain their presence at every level the cor program reduction theory training sounds like a really great Retreat we could have Bo level as well personally I feel the most important aspect of the diversity report gave is retention we can spend thousands of dollars recruiting and and in

067placement but if we can't keep the employees of col one here then we're watching all that money time and the agre thank you this comprehensive and presentation for the board to understand the key parts of this issue Solutions being implemented and the challenges ahead I'm also so proud of your work so proud of your service experience and your example of a competent effective and successful black woman for our children and thank you thank you other um Mr Cher so I just want to First say um tremendous I mean I'm overwhelmed with this gratitude for you um I just before heard of you and the wonderful things that you did but this presentation really was a very Stellar presentation of all of your work I want to say that I really do appreciate that you took

068the time to address all of our concerns you're watching board meting you're really a example of what this is you're not just when you say happen stance I think of something else I think you are living you are living your purpose and I think that's really really important and um admirable and then I the last thing I just wanted to say in support of you I wasn't necessarily A proponent of you know having you know a lot of information from before and I think it's just because because I've been leadership in nursing for so long and I understand coming in as a nurse manager different institution it takes three to five years to create a a full culture shift right um and a you know this repetitive climate survey that we do to see how

069we've improved and to inform our next steps I think is really very important um so I don't think you've reached the fire Mark that right we still in the middle of of doing it and in the middle of doing it this is a pound level of success I for me to see um so I just I I want to say congratulations and thank you thank you Dr Collins and then Dr and then Mr Ryder um mostly first just want to EO my colleagues for the work that you and Coles are doing and it's clear that a lot of time effort and intention is put into the work you're doing um so purposeful appreciate and see that and drawing attention to the slide that has the um educators of color hires by percentage or 33% of

070our Educators in this last year um were hired where educators of color is astounding and excited to see that Trend continue I think that's a really valuable piece of data and one we want to highlight and build on um I also want to thank you for serving our um and hearing seeing those um quotes from so that we can understand the flavor of what it's like to be in our district um and I feel like it lays out a little bit um where to focus our efforts moving forward so um thank you for the honesty the people who are willing to fill those out and um helping us understand where to direct our efforts moving forward and then I just have a question about so you mentioned the bias reduction training being um gear toward

071administrators and I wonder if teachers in the district who are performing evaluations for other for teachers are receiving that training so that evaluations of our Educators they they have been done some they've started you know we have been doing bits and pieces of it over the last couple years since Mrs soletti came in um the idea is we we had a conversation actually today about how it's so important that we continue to to to grow off of what we've started and so we're going to talk a little bit more about what we're doing the teachers um have been really focusing been focusing on that cultural responsive piece which is if they do it and learn it well that should reduce the bias pieces as well so the idea is that everything is working in tandem

072with with the goal I could just imagine that evaluation place that's why we're training the that's why we focus on the administrator administrators do the evaluations and is are are observation body are all done by the Admin like the goal to change the other people be teach they have in some way change the culture or what theyve obtained what theyve learned how theyve implemented you're talking about a way to evaluate what they've done as far as making a difference they done to implement the program gotta part of their goal you me teacher evaluation employee evaluation structure the cabinet level but you were actually talking about all of our principles not Cal not Central Administration Place recruit be us Dr just wanted to lend my voice to um the thanks and to the congratulations it's really

073a tremendous amount of work and a tremendous amount of success in a really short time and you had a vision hit the ground so you know thanks to all who allowed that space But I really appreciate the time and effort um thank you and the continuing work so in the um you had a slide about levers and why and levers and why people leave and there was an other category um and I understand the constraints of this presentation and I'm sure there's a lot in that other category and I hope that you're I assume you're working there um it's not for me to say understand but I think it's an important space to understand I what I will say is in most cases Dr pedalino and I have conversations okay and so he's not unaware

074of some things that I'm I'm thinking or you know okay great I just yeah I'm sure there's a lot there's a lot there um and you're also leaving me with um a phrase that I'm now going to carry with me and you said that um there's a double advantage of culture and I'm I just want you to know that I'm taking that thank you that's an original Mr Ryder um again thank you and being one of the new um board members I really appreciate you kind of going back and repeating some things that you've done in the past this was a very thoughtful presentation I was going to bring up the part about the eight others and I would hope that as educators of color leave if you were able to do a exit interview

075of some kind and we were able to dig in and not know why a specific person left but if they if be come to the board on if there was a reason that was U microaggression you know culture of of the workforce because I think we could focus more um professional development on microagressions and cultural competency it sounds like you're already doing that but um and I think it's important to expand that not because teachers are going to evaluate other teachers but teachers evaluate students on who they decide to send letters of recommendation for not just honors classes we've changed that now a little bit but but colleges and universities and I think having as much kind of PD circled around that cultural competency and and getting rid of the the inherent bias even at

076the educator level would be helpful in the future and that's all thank you you're welcome I think the combination of what M Armstrong is doing what Miss CTI is doing is really what you're getting at um how that department as a whole is working towards changing culture not only in our hiring practices but also in how our teachers work with our students every day I think there's um you know I thank Mr Armstrong for agreeing to do the presentation and being up here giving us a presentation tonight I know um we we meet monthly and as said um one of the things I think we talked about is while this is good um it's not all great we have a lot of work to do we need to keep moving forward this has to be

077a complete District the team effort can't be on the shoulders of his Armstrong to do all of this work and I do thank the other members of the team who have who who have who have brought in and and and works with his Armstrong to move us forward but again we need to go further forward and you know Armstrong and the rest in all of you probably administrators to know I always talk about graduation that's my thing graduation rate graduation rate graduation rate and when we look at these data around what hiring of Education col will do with our graduation rate and I just just look back and think you know we think about getting from that one number to that impossible number that I like to talk about which is 100% that everyone says

078impossible but in 2012 our black students graduation was 57.4 in 2023 it was 80.3 take initiatives like this and get education of color in front of our students of color that's where we get to that impossible number that's how we go from that 80.3 to that 100 that I keep talking about and everyone laughs at me um we look at our with our Hispanic students in 2012 we were 57% graduation rate in 2023 we're at 72 still a longer way to go to that impossible number 100 but where the rubber hits the road this these initiatives that we're putting together and look making sure that we have Educators we call in our classrooms within our buildings is pushes us right to where we want to be so I think that there's I mean you talk

079about people think said trigger people graduation rate triggers me and we look and we can graduate all of our students at that impossible number this is one of those initiatives going to push us to get there so I I appreciate all the work that every on and I appreciate working with him his Armstrong we have a good time um even working pretty hard now after this she's going to be her head's going to be so big at the next meeting i'mna be able to deal with her but okay we have Mrs La would like to yes I would just like to say it was a great presentation and you put a lot of work into this and I appreciate it thank you so much thank you and I I'm going to add uh did to

080everything that's been said but I've known this lady for a while and this work has been in her heart and on her mind for a long time and uh thank you so much and congratulations it was very helpful and I do agree with Mr Spicer I think the work has to happen at the board level as well thank I just want to one last you are allowed to be have a big head at the next and it's belonging and it's being your authentic self so you want to have meeting you should have thank you heard that great okay uh next on the superintend report we have our audit report and our external auditor is here that is a hard act sorry now Financial much less exciting um so I will spare you all the the

081detail of going through all 80 plus pages of reports that we have for you and I tried to put together a summary here that goes through the required things that I need to communicate to you and some of the highlights um so I'm going to try to do this as concisely as I can to be respectful of your time but also give you the points that you need to know um so those for those of you who don't know who I am my name is Chris hey I'm an audit partner with mmbn company um I've been with the firm for over 10 years um I think we we discussed at the the opening of the audit with the audit finance committee meeting that um you engaged last year Marvin and Company to perform the audits

082for the next five years um Marvin and company merged with MMB on January 1st which is the the reason for the change in the name um I was with Marvin prior to join all of our folks are there it's really for economies of scale and and putting our attention on our our own part um so I'm going to go through um the communications with those charge with governance first um we have audited the financial statements of the district and also the extra classroom activities fund and one thing I just wanted to point out here it's important to understand that you really have two sets of financial statements as it relates to the the district as a whole you have the dist wide financial statements and then you also have the fund financial statements and the

083difference between those uh it's really a unique concept to government where your fund financial statements are your what's happening this year what's the shortterm focus that's very similar to what you see in your Revenue status reports your appropriation status reports your Treasures reports that you get in on ongoing basis and then you have full acral financial statements which brings all the long-term assets and liabilities of the district on to the financial statements which is supposed to make you look comparable to any other business that's out there that produces a financial statement how useful that is in comparing you know you would likely not do that but nonetheless you're required to do that so I'll talk about a few of those differences um as we go through um our responsibility is to form and express an

084opinion on the financial statements we obtain reasonable Assurance not absolute Assurance so certainly we would be here for a very long time if we were looking at everything that happened in the district so we perform a risk assessment using our professional judgment and focus our procedures on areas of of higher risk um we're responsible for communicating uh significant matters to those charg with governance which is what we're here doing tonight we're we performed the audit uh consistent with the plan scope and timing communicated um in the preliminary meeting and in the engagement letter um management uh we're independent of the district management reviews and accepts the financial statements and responsibility for the financial statements prior and issuance um significant risks identified so any audit that we do we required to consider management overrided internal controls

085and revenue recognition as a significant risk because those are the most likely areas where there could be errors or fraud or misappropriation within financial statements so this has nothing to do with anything that the district does or does not do this is just where we focus our time and effort if we have any U internal control findings or other matters to report to you you would have that in a separate communication and we don't have any of those things related to any of these areas um and then financial reporting bias that really relates to your 4% uh real property tax limitation so depending on um where you're falling in that and and where your reserve levels are there could be incentive to potentially manipulate um manipulate those uh fund balance levels significant accounting policies are

086included in footnote number one all financial statements have estimates the most significant estimates are the depreciable lives of property plant equipment calculation of compensated absences which is the estimate of what you'll pay um employees teachers um when they uh terminate employment and then your other post-employment benefit liability which is your reti health insurance uh that's based on an Actuarial calculation and then the New York State Pension asset or liability which is based on the New York State uh local retirement system and the New York State teachers retirement system they have come in and they provide you with that information those are based on estimates we had no significant difficulties in performing an audit no uncorrected misstatements and no material corrected misstatements so what that tells you is the the numbers that you're seeing on an

087ongoing basis are accurate we're not coming in and proposing significant adjustments to bring your financial statements to uh the audited package that you see here um so that just a test to see the fact that management is on top of things um so certainly you know thank you to sh the team after for that no disagreements with management management provided us representation letter stating that they were truthful accurate honest gave us all the information that we needed and there's really no other significant consultations or significant matters required to be communicated here I know that was a lot for this part are there any questions here before so that next section of the reports would be the uh independent auditor report itself so really I'd like to say that the pages that you see that are

088on letterhead are really the only pages that are our product everything else is the responsibility of the district we audited the financial statements of the district um as of the year ended June 30 I apologize I um I see a lot of Threes And zeros this time of year um but June 30th 2023 um and in our opinion the financial statements do present fairly in all material respects the financial position of the district so that's the clean or unmodified opinion that you're looking for that says the financial statements We Believe are materially correct again we conduct the audit in accordance with Professional Standards we're independent we believe we have um obtained sufficient appropriate a evidence for our opinion Management's responsible for the financial statements that includes internal control we're responsible for auditing the statements obtaining

089reasonable Assurance exercising professional judgment identifying and assessing the risk of material misstatement and designing procedures to respond to those risks we uh obtain an understanding of internal control control but we don't provide an opinion on your internal controls if we had anything that we felt needed to be communicated to you we would do so we have nothing uh in that respect to report and then we also evaluate your significant accounting policies and estimates and we believe that those are all reasonable there's a further report that's required in accordance with government auditing standards so it's because you're a governmental entity we're required to follow some additional measures um it's very similar uh we consider your internal controls over compliance we would report anything that we felt was a a a significant deficiency or material weakness in

090um this area and then we also report on actual compliance so certainly compliance with laws regulations contracts agreements is uh important U so we perform certain tests in those areas we do have one uh finding in this area which is a repeat from the prior year related to your school launch fund fund balance so New York state says that you're not supposed to carry more than three months worth of expenditures in that the fund balance uh that amount has significantly reduced from last year but it still exceeds that amount by about 39,000 which is U material enough for me to report to you um so I Believe Management of the district is working on that and I would just also add here that that's really not uncommon right now with all of the extra funding

091that was available with the free and all three meals for the last few years with with Co so I wouldn't expect to see that continue to grow you know I would expect to see that continue to go down um so I just wanted to point out that that's not unusual uh for for the current times we have one more report in here which is our report on compliance in accordance with the uniform guidance that's your single audit the district expends well over 750,000 of federal Awards so you're required to have a single audit that um compliance is based on the OM compliance supplement which identifies um uh direct material um compliance requirements we audit those iance requirements and we believe that you have complied in all material respects with those compliance uh requirements and we

092did test three major programs uh this year we tested the education stabilization funds which is all of the co related funding we tested um the Child Nutrition program and we also tested um the special education cluster so we tested three pretty significant programs and I'll get to that here in in a minute but again Management's responsible for compliance we audit compliance express our opinion we consider internal controls over compliance in this area as well and we have no findings to report uh here either so I mentioned the major programs to there you'll see the total that the district spended was about 17.6 million of federal dollars during the year end of June 3023 and we tested uh this again the special education cluster the education stabilization fund of the child ins cluster which make up

093a very significant portion of of that total uh I mentioned your compliance with real property tax law so you're required to make uh 4% of the subsequent Year's budget is the maximum allowable un assigned fund balance you are at 3.9% at the end of the year so you're you're in compliance and I'll just add here that this is an area that many districts are out of compliance in this area uh again based on the significant extra funding that's been available so the district has really taken advantage of building up reserves for for those areas where you may need them in the future especially given that that fing is you know as we all know is about to significantly decrease as we move forward restricted um fund balance so this just lets you know where all

094your reserve balances are so you have a total of about 48 million all except for The Debt Service Reserve are in the general funds uh The Debt Service fund is really related to U unexpended Bond proceeds or premiums from prior years that you're required to use towards repayment of debt long-term obligations so at the beginning I talked about the two different sets of fin finial statements so this is the area that most um most districts don't spend as much time and attention on so I just like to bring it to your attention at in this setting so that you're aware of what's out there these are all the long-term liabilities of the district and you'll see that the total um is certainly not a small number it's $690 million um but of that the $561

095million other post-employment benefit liability or oped that's an Actuarial calculation of what your actuary believes the district will pay in retire health insurance essentially if the district shut down as of June 30 that's what the estimated future liability would be you would never have to pay that all at once you pay it as you go you pay those premiums but nonetheless um certainly the largest number on your financial statements so important to understand what that is um and then the other item that I mentioned that was a significant estimate to net pension liability that's another area where you really don't have any control over that that's based on your participation in the state pension plan plans and based on market conditions of those State plans you're required to report either an asset or a liability

096um we also audited as I mentioned the extra classroom activity fund so I just like to mention here that that's based on the cash basis of accounting uh which is what the state uh requires you to follow and we do issue a qualified opinion on the extra classroom activity funds because there's really no effective controls that you could put in place that would guarantee all monies that should go into the bank get into the bank because of the amount of cash and the student involvement you have controls and things in Pro in place to uh try to mitigate against that but there's really no way to ever know if um you know there should be an extra you know $100 is there there's really nothing that that you can do so um every District that

097we do receives this this same opinion um so just important to know that and then we did have a few minor comments um we provide uh as it relates to the State guidance that New York State education department puts out about their best practices for the extra classroom activity fund so those are just things that are for consideration because we came across those not uncommon we have those uh similar findings in in almost every District that we audit again really based on student involvement and the program is that designed to teach the students and um you know whenever you have students involved it's going to be difficult to have 100% compliance with you know having a signature on every single item um so not un commmon um and with that that's really all I have

098I'm happy to answer any questions but you know thank you to sharifa and Elena and Dan for all their hard work and and um it's a lot of information that goes into uh you know this this financial statement so um certainly thank you for their time and effort and if there are any questions I'm happy to answer questions comments Mrs M I would just like to thank you I'm the chairperson of the and I I appreciate all that Shara and her team has done so thank you so much thank you I just wondered if [Laughter] we I just also say thank you and certainly if there if you review go through and review and you have further questions feel free to reach out you know I'm happy to answer any questions I I'm happy to

099answer questions on an ongoing basis throughout the year as they may come up you know feel free to to reach out thank you Mr hey thank you very much as you all know we a lot of change in the business office over the last few years including new Auditors so you know um Miss carbin and her team have not only replaced the treasurer the assistant Treasurer or the deputy Treasurer I say the the purchasing agent assistant superintendent but we also changed Auditors so a lot a lot of change going on so it's good to see you know a clean audit can thank you thank you for being flexible in our change and uh order okay a few other things for the superintendent report uh just a quick easy one just to remind everyone not this

100weekend but next weekend is homecoming weekend for Kingston High School we will continue the tradition of the homecoming parade it'll be a little different this year we'll be starting at GW but we're going I'll send everyone the path but we will be marching up to Kingston High School where they will meet at the in the new main entrance of the high school and the uh the cour will be named in the um Fieldhouse with with the student party President we get confirmation there won't be any construction I cannot get confirmation when you think it's done and you least expect it it pops up yeah yeah I know that's I know of the city on that but we have but they know we've already put it for our everything else so we have got all that

101so the um I'll send out all the the details of we think the parade will kick off around 5:15 I think is what they said and be at the high school by about 5:45 6:00 this is on Friday this is on Friday yes I'm sorry Friday and Saturday the football game will be at Rond down Valley obviously you know we don't have a home football field but um there won't be the usual halftime crowning of the king me c we're going to do that Friday um read more about it on our webite um if you want to uh let everyone know we have gone through the process of uh identifying a candidate that we would like to hire for the montauri coach at GW um our human resources have reached out to her to make

102to make an offer and hopefully she is she's waiting for them to connect uh but she's a p person currently working in Pennsylvania doing exactly the work that we're looking for someone to do which is her job is she's blending the montau uh philosophy with the state standards of Pennsylvania um that's exactly what we want to see when we need that code to help our teachers Administration do it at GW so um keep your ears open for that we'll be hopefully next week I'll have our next meeting I'll have a resolution to bring that that individual on board the one downside being that there is a relocation and a and a need to get certified New York States it will be probably looking at a January 1 start date for that individual again we're still

103working to get her to accept the position hopefully we'll have a resolution next week or two weeks had some issues with transportation I know all of you who experienced it as parents or have heard about it we are um Miss carbin myself and Miss Boyd we're setting up a meeting um most of our problems have been with first students this year opposite of last year last year it was uh Bernie uh with first student but we're setting up meetings with the principles of all the um bus companies as have we sit down and talk about why we are where we are now not situation we were last year but um we don't want to see this snowball into more uh delay room Ro more canceled groups and those kind of things so we are working

104that problem and we are meeting with the organizations to get Solutions is it a driver issue yeah it is it's a driver issue um that's really it short issue it's a driver issue a lot of our drivers at the beginning of the year are traveling drivers you know a lot of traveling drivers that come from out of the area they stay locally during the week and drive buses um and as a couple people around this table know Co is back in a lot of ways and we're seeing more of that amongst our bus drivers as well so but you know it's time for us to do some problem solving with the the bus companies and get this kind of straighten out I can ask as much as you can try to get the communication out

105as early in the day like a lot of times it's 12 12:30 I've already seen like somebody posting on the the kingon parents page that like there's going to be a route or not going to be a route potentially so somebody knows that information earlier I think it's the driver right but I mean if oh the driv they posting yeah no some drivers are posting that that kind of which is helpful to the parents on those routs but like a lot of times I don't see the text coming from the district till like 12 12:30 so parents are scram yeah I I'll I'll see what that what that delay is sure there's different reasons we shorten that time um did you you have a question well I I have another if you don't address it

106then I gu I will this is about Transportation it is it's about it's about safety and about um you were you were going to look into safety of our particular Sports buses and band buses and I'm just wondering what the status this boy is working on that bar um she was out for a few days at the end the last week so have her working on that so what does that mean she's she's looking what she's looking so as you know our buses we don't use first student or our burd bus or Ethan Allen we use outside contractors different contractors for our Sports bus and ourt a lot of our extracurricular bus like band buses so looking at you know we looking at their safety sheets looking at their driers records looking at all those

107those kind of things that we need to do to check and see where where are they are they where they need to be as far as their inspections and those kind so she's checking double like she's checking the federal and the state cuz I know there's different like one of the things that came out of the Long Island accident was that in one case they were had completely clean I think it was their driver's um safety records were fine but their do inspections had failed um the the bus company that was used and so depending on like it was you know who knows what cost it but possibly a tire blew out just Mak this she's checking all the different we'll work together with it any you El on Transportation where where are the white

108the sports buses coming from the sports buses are cramden coach um which is that that's that other the other company that we work with it's not it doesn't do our it's not local or it is local it's not local I mean it is and it's not I mean they have Depots or where they keep their buses here the company itself is based in massachus there's like four or five of the white buses that are in Miller like in all those are the coach buses that are storing there those aren't okay yeah so yeah what they do is they have local drivers that live around here they they have their buses there they come there D but normally Deets was open be they'd be up there they were at Deets they were at Chambers and we've

109moved them to other places um just to get an update on Deets over the other day today work is going on um some some abatements going on some um they're doing the demolition inside the bleachers with all the the locker rooms and the bathrooms in the be but more importantly um you know in compliance with our IMA with the city and there myself the the design team and the construction manager Jack schoemaker who's here and Mr Ryder will be meeting the third Monday of every month to talk about you know the project Mr Bogart who has been D in the back you all know still continues to go to their construction meetings and so he has he has his you know finger on the pulse of what's going on actually with the construction teams at

110the site so we have this level conversation Dylan how often do they have the construction be yeah so weekly Dylan's there every month Mark and I will be meeting with the deign lastly uh I know there was some concern and conversation about the the playgrounds uh we did receive the lead testing back which we will put make that public I comms team working on a statement overall about um playgrounds not only about the surfaces and the testing also about future testing and about the when they're going to be done um but so our lead testing did come back at at 4.4 mg per kilogram and the Epi standard is 400 mg per kilg as far as lead um I'm not a lead I'm not a chemist or you know but but they were tested in

111multiple locations at the at the um playgrounds but I will make that available to everyone and again we'll commit to further testing um this product is not Chrome rubber but it's called P poured and place surfacing uh it meets all the safety standards this the this is the the due diligence we did prior to this um each all the safety standards of American society t materials International and certified by play equipment manufactur Association has been tested and as in compliance with consumer product safety Improvement act which addresses among other things lead and phades um the surface is not made with any of the following materials CFCs phades poly polycyclic arated hydrocarbons pfas chlorine cavium Mercury lead zinc or asbest um and they're not in the in the materials or in the bordon place binders or

112surfacing um the project also has not been is not under not de hazardous under ocean hazardous hazardous standards and again so you know with all that being said we're still willing to do more testing around that but that was where our um you know decision-making process and our Architects um who I met with again this morning um you know this is this is the standard product that is being used on new place Services both in you know school districts and municipalities um but again we'll we'll take another look at other things our initial testing was just on lead but we'll test on other other substances well to see where we are and Report out can you just repeat the name of the product slowly well it's a it's a port it's a port in place

113surfacing okay so it's um you know it's not a it's not a loose rubber it's a it's a pour in place surfacing that has a binder um okay when you do that release the communication which I think is important can you also can you put a link to the actual test and results so that people can see the results and like how the testing was done yeah well as far as our testing I have that in sheet so I I can give that I mean and I have the MSDS for um uh forms the material safety data sheets for all of the products um that we use the playgrounds whether it was the the machine Zelf or the or the um binder okay and is there a test of durability that's you know those things

114de great over time and is there a sense of how long it will last before it starts if it starts to crumble and stuff like that uh I can find that out okay I don't know if so just the msbs sheets will be also link or L to oursite yeah we can link them you could you could go on the you can go on the internet right now and ask for them and and get the right but if you just went to if you just went to um now the name of the company just came out of the yeah create links was so the place um often still uses tires in it rubber so do you know what is's large granes and granes andal do we know what rub large granes are in I don't

115that was my question I don't is there yeah kind of like to say she was saying I heard everything that it's not made up I just wanted to know what it is they definitely should be a was their yes I don't know what's going on there but like washing your hands is like a long cleaning but that's really important especially those big sinks in the cafeteria right we mean just on a regular recess or they probably come in from the playground and go right to the cafeteria so there may not be um facilities but that something has to be figured out so there'll be some communication about that yes thank you um that's all I have okay any questions or comments of the superintendent okay that oh I'm sorry trying to find email it wasent

116who sent an email about the bus company that they switched um used to use the same one in 20 2016 and there was a reason why we switched to another company I think that was from like the 29th of was that from Mr lamb something I guess from Mr lamb yeah um resp yeah we that that company he was talking about was companies that we used to use just for the band we didn't use it for the sports and we haven't used that company I think since I've been here okay um so I don't know when the switch actually took place from from that bus company but cron we've only been using for maybe five years six years um as our Sports bus company because I think that's what he said they used to use

117cron and then they they chose to go alterate I think they they used to use a different company then they went to but but but he had the same concerns with cron because of their um they're not a school bus okay thank you I just but to your question I did think I saw Dr respond I did respond yeah I actually responded with an email I have conversation okay thank you okay we are moving on to um Board of Education and committee reports beginning with the policy committee okay policy uh committee has met twice once on September 15th and most recently on October 6th um the August 4th and September 15th minutes were reviewed and adopted policy 4321 programs for students with disabilities under the idea and New York's education law article 89 was reviewed

118several edits were made for readability and to include age changes made by law which extend eligibility to Stu to students 22nd birthday so that's in reviewing this policy became apparent that an overarching statement that clarified the use of parent or quote persons in Parental relation would eliminate the confusion in these policies that use different terms Mrs Siri Siri identified just what we needed that was in that policy but we hadn't we just were looking at the trees I guess instead of the forest um but when she was editing it she pulled that out and it really speaks to exactly what we wanted so we're suggesting that we take that paragraph out we just edited it so so it's pertains to all policies not just special education policies we're going to put it at the beginning

119of the policy manual and then be able to refer to it in any policy that has that kind of language that becomes just overwhelming with those kind of terms um we'll offer that for full for approval by the full board at our next meeting along with an edited first reading of policy 4321 we also discussed policy 4 4772 graduation ceremonies and have made the language of the policy reflect the wishes of the board to ensure speakers address the entire class and their remarks reflect the board's desire for inclusivity and that policies related to diversity equity and inclusion be followed that policy has been provided for a first reading in your library policy 0100 non-discrimination and equal opportunity was reviewed some edits were made to include suggested Language by nispa and we were awaiting our website

120upgrade update to include more language working with the Communications Department because there was some specific to Communications and we felt that since everything's being overhauled we might as well wait a little bit and have the Communications Department involved in that reworking um this policy will be offered for the first reading at our next meeting hopefully as well um policy 841 4.5 alcohol and drug testing of drivers we reviewed and compared our current policy with that suggested by nispa and decided that misas was an improvement and so offer that for a first reading tonight policy 2382 broadcasting and recording of board meetings we compared our existing policy to the nisa's recommendations it was decided to amend nisa's suggested policy and that is what we are offering for a first reading tonight so we ad aded most

121of their policy and just edited it up policy 5340 your favorite educational Community standard of dress is in your library for a first reading the committee has worked very hard to incorporate all stakeholders feedback and address concerns to make the policy as clear concise understandable and enforceable as possible many thanks for the patience and determination of all who participated our next meeting is scheduled for November 3rd where we will review and update policy 2210 board organizational meeting Ty who sends to policy 110.2 sexual harassment in the workplace which is awaiting legal review and that's my rev thank you Mrs Jordan and we have no we have no policies to adop oh I'm sorry yes we have all for first first reading but n to adopt thank you any questions for Mrs Jordan I just consensus

122driven we have wonderful conversations and you know what's wonderful about this committee is that people can bring up their concerns I think and the administration is always so helpful and the board members are always so helpful and everybody just really has um I hope a feeling that we can collaborate so I appreciate Miss Fitzgerald joining us because she's a great asset I agree I just want to say that um I appreciate the graduation ceremony to change I've compared both of them and I'm glad to see the change the policy thank you know certain examples as to what the St of safety precautions would be well if you read the policy it it it tries to clarify why we are doing certain things some of it is not safety some of it is for emotional safety

123that people should not be able to wear that would trigger somebody so I think if you read the policy you'll get a sense that um we tried really hard to make it uh fit what all the constituents wanted at first we had done something that was very very free and students and parents didn't they just didn't want that they want to be told very succinctly and clearly what they can and can coming from like the example of like you know Crocs in the gym you know that safety those examples if you don't say clearly to them then they're going to say well it wasn't tell me I couldn't so that's if you read it and find something that's really not feeling comfortable then bring it up to discussion thank you thank you um teaching and

124learning Dr Collins I know we have a little change but yeah we do have a little change we met on October 2nd um the materials from that meeting which included a pretty dense and interesting Rich um presentation on the curriculum initiatives um did make it into our board packet in time I'd really like people to be able to look at that closely so in conversation with weed to move the tnl reporting until we from now in our next meeting on October 2 so that we could discuss those and people could question there's also um an abbreviated presentation um that that we saw tonight on the da de initiative which now seems also be there as well as some updates on the honors um initiative so those and are revised Charter so all of the in

125and in that um the revised Charter changes are highlighted in yellow and those are already inbr for the next thank you audit and finance Mrs the audit and finance committee meeting was held yesterday at o' UM the committee reviewed and approved the minutes from the September 12th meeting the committee reviewed and discussed the August 2023 claims Auditors and treasures reports and the June 23 fund reports these reports will be sent to the board for approval the external auditor will make a presentation which he did to the board tonight board members will vote on the approval of the auditor's report tonight the audit report and corrective action plan will be uploaded to the state portal after the presentation and vote by the board the committee spoke about the senior tax exemption with the increase in Social

126Security payment dollars some seniors are over the threshold for this tax exemption which is currently 25,000 annually the last time the exemption numbers were amended it was 2015 the board can make tiered adjustments adjustments that will make this exemption viable again for many seniors the business office will put together the numbers to show the shift that is the best interest of these taxpayers Miss carbin will bring that information to the next audit and board Finance meeting and the board Dr Collins asked about the capital project timeline Dr patalino spoke about the phasing of the project and how the aligns how that aligns with state aid buildings that have renovations re have had Renovations recently have to be done later in the timeline because of the allowable aid for each building projects will also be clustered

127geographically to help keep cost down in the bidding process Kingston City School District State 8 for building projects is 75% Dr Collins asked that the building Aid information be communicated to the community when talking about the project phasing uh the next meeting will be November 14th at 9:00 any questions so we have an action now we we uh have to approve cons agenda okay okay thank you no questions a discussion thank you Mrs L um our last Board of Education business is the um board goals for 2324 20232 24 and everyone should have received those in the library and I want to thank the committee um those of you that worked on those board goals um and I guess we'll look for a motion uh to accept those goals and and then whatever discussion we

128think we need to follow so discussion um so I'll just add that what in goal two we kind of added we we took a goal that was Prior but added belonging and I think that that goes along very well with the presentation that we saw tonight um especially with the EOC Network and so that works already already happening um and go four is just focusing on fisal responsibility because we had a stand alone diversity Equity inclusion yeah I think the other big changes really were in um go five and how we were speaking about enhancing community relations and Communications we talked about this year conducting issue based forums for communing development and we came up with some topics um topical ideas um around mental health and drug awareness and the same time that the board

129of AD would like to put on for the community um in based forums um we discussed the summary of Board of Education meetings that we um write and then disseminate after each meeting which is why I'm constantly looking at my phone and keeping time um and then continuing a process for responding and timely ways to to emails otherwise um I think those are kind of the major changes Dr Collins um thank you very much foring hard on this and um I just had a question about so I think the issue we talked about that last year as well and I think it's a great idea I'm wondering if those three are the topics that are chosen are those ideas or are there options to others or they were ideas I believe you know yeah I

130mean the thought was would have won a quarter I think in quarters two three and four and those aren't the ones that the board agrees on I mean those are the ones that the committee thought were important for this first year um but but if some time came up we might be able to propos something substitute for I think so so those are suggestions yes okay they were goals but that I mean if something timely came up I think everybody would want that to be to be um change you know but we just hope that we can do that because we feel that it would be a positive interaction with the oh yeah I think it's a great reason to focus people together I can just imagine that you know screen time may not be

131the thing on everyone's radar it's not really screen time it was just about screen use about media and uh social media screen time was probably just a Miss I think it's been done before iall screen time has but this is more about the social media piece and how parents aren't aware very often of um The Dangers that may lurk under something that just looks like a flashlight on your phone icon that leads you to you know a site that would not be um helpful so I think we can have more discussion yeah it's a piece of it but that wasn't really the wasn't critical because it's the evu me made Would we not achieve our goals as think make do yeah and those IDE but I see what you're saying we're evaluating part of it

132was that we have some of us have connections to resources that may be able to help with some of these like the idea was to be cabling and not just to provide more resources toes only I wanted to add which I guess bring it in and how we um Implement some of these would be also to like being engaged in being face literal FaceTime with the community I know with the concern yet still there are several opportunities for outreach or opportunities for us to represent of the board to just engage and you know um and to be part of so volunteering opportunities we either or you know St any together calendar of some sort we really have B time with the community fesal or whatever it might be gather that data schedu the VAR organization

133participate and have sign up for so are you um that would definitely fit into goal five is that additional language that you would like to recommend you know I recommend that the board would look into um collaborative efforts of FaceTime Community engagement for sign up for volunteer to kind of show up where some of them were already there in a capacity but this would help as a board member so do you mean like so for example being physically that the board would have a presence at a festival that right exactly like for instance we have um spread L is happening that that's one that happened this is the third year I think happening right on C the street collaboration with Center for creed of Education with different sponsors and different organizations that support and they

134start from Tuesday prepping all that food so it would be board member come a board member come in join us and we go in and cut onions feel onions just an example but there are lots of community engagement festivals and connection opportunities for us to to sign up something like just I'm just trying to think of encompassing everything that you're like all of the possible opportunities that we have because they're so diverse and I think I had originally about this to that but I don't I don't know if we want to be specific but would something like explore opportunities to yeah be more creative in how we think yeah the community or there some kind of Waring like that just to diversify our presence or something like that I don't don't know what the words

135are like to see opportunity to collaborate with other organizations that are servicing our community and for us to be able to provide some FaceTime within the community open FaceTime to connecting with our community that opportunities respons these opportunities to collaborate with other organizations that are serving our community yeah and to collaborate support volunteer I know we're already doing this volunteer work presence just to be there and we're talking about the board not individual Bo I mean this is almost like a formal like we would table there or because a lot of us like you said a lot of us are doing certain things and part of what I think of as a responsibility as a trustee is getting out in public and talking to people but this is more like having a board Presence at

136some of these and then we could do a sign up if it can you know if it's not all of us maybe we you know whichever you ask four or five to represent but we know as a board collectively will'll be there and if it's an opportunity to table information question session we do that to give UPS that's kind of like we did before right like at the market so that I mean we can we can look to add something like that into this go five do we want to start with like some number like three or four events like you don't have to be each but just as like an evaluated measure in order to hold ourselves respons I that's a good idea we should put something Friday Mr Spicer has his hand up

137no I think he just oh no his can you hear yes that seems not to be included this year's goals our C conversations our direct communication opportunities with communities I wasn't sure why we took that out and um I was hoping we would kind of be in state that our visits with the BR and other organizations were were to me consider doing conversations or Direct Communications besides I saw we had presentations and and Community um well Community presentation I was continue conversation Mrs Jordan I think the idea um Mr Spicer was that we thought that we would try these Community Information events that would bring us all together around a topic uh so that we could offer information not only to us as board members but also to parents and community members and then have

138conversations around that so we were thinking of it as an alternative not in not to totally get rid of coffee and conversation but we can have coffee there too and we just hope that if we picked um topics that were meaningful to help our students that the parents would come kind of build them build it and they will come and we will also have an opportunity to interact around those topics rather than just having um to be honest I mean you know me just have gripe sessions is not productive in my I and we don't always and certainly it's lovely to go and have cookies anywhere they invite me but the idea was to try something different to see if we would get more out of it and our students would also benefit so I

139think that I guess I guess we move forward with this idea which is a good idea it's a good idea um um I I would into the venues that we that's a great idea no I think that that's really great um that's great Insight we could we didn't talk about where they would be located but I think that that's a great way to start this and so we kind of could combine the coffee and conversation idea but have a theme that would be helpful so and I think at the end of this year part of the evaluation will be is that better or worse you know because we've never tried this before soing out to our community and also Shar I love that for explaining that sure I like that idea though I think it's

140really a good one I would like to add one thing um I did a training for board leadership last week and I I learned that board goals should be focused on the functioning of the board so I'm going to suggest that under goal two we add a training for the board um in terms of the diversity work that is being done throughout the district that the board be included in that that's so if we could add that as a c training for the board and diversity Dei I'll let you be the word Smith there miss Dr J okay so if we um so I have good notes on this do we um does everything else look okay I can just add these in and we can vote on it next time everybody's okay with that

141okay I would just like to Dr chob Woods for all our work organizing all of our thoughts I really appreciate it and also again to offer that goal really that is now on your shoulders like you don't have enough to do to um tell people where to go in the video to find what they're interested in I really appreciate it thank you it's actually very good work so when we finally get it out to the public I think we it'll be a really a good thing for the community great well it was a it was a great board committee gold committee and it was a great conversation and um and was a Ser actually very helpful and pull together okay that brings us to the consent agenda are there any items that board members would

142like to have pulled from the consent agenda hearing none can I have a motion to accept the consent agenda and second all in favor any opposed so the consent agenda is approved thank you Bailey's in the back ofor so welcome to K City School District Mr biley although you've been here for you're now officially here again again yes oh yes congratul so [Laughter] that there only four pages that's all the apple and pumpkin picking uh events in the schools for our volunteers and band chapon that is true all right I think that brings us to Old business any old business Mrs La could you uh give us an update on the greeters Mr re do you want to yeah so we create the five positions two are on tonight um and it was another uh

143acceptance today was any would be on the board hopefully we'll have all five in place um at the next we'll start the training for the Raptor and everything hopefully everything will be in place first of the year it's technically monitors that's what no title that be that'll be their duty is light on Kingston and the update on that um yeah well no I reached out to to Miss Dawson last week and hopes to meet this week to kind of get conversation started I have not heard back from her I I'll nud her again tomorrow any other old business brings us to new business Mrs Jordan well I just wanted to make a comment about policy in terms of the the parent that was concerned about a library book on the shelves that was reviewed according

144to the district policy by people in the district who um have access to well their Librarians they English people and uh then make a recommendation to Dr patalino but I wanted to let people know that if a if a parent has um concern about any book in the library system in Kingston City Schools they have the right to block that book for their student they just don't have the right to block it for anyone else's student and I just want people to be aware that it's done technologically which is amazing to me but child brings a book to the librarian to check it out and the parent has asked that they not then that's flagged and they can't check it out and so I think that that's why um I think parents should should know

145that they do still have all the control that they want over their student thank you is that old business yet or no that was she brought that up been new old it's kind of medium I have now you're on all right I would like to know about the parent group when we're going to start that I'm meeting with Miss um clay tomorrow to set dates first we get started inob this is October yeah this is October okay late October so then I have question I know I spoke to Mr Reinhardt about this before um and we were going to get information but we never did pouches for the phones for the students I forgot the company the company is called Yonder Yonder it's a it's a phone pouch that school districts have started to use

146we've been contemplating that we think we need more time to look at that that program and that process before we make any commitment to to doing that um you know Upstate Bethlehem Bethlehem Central School is doing it Middletown is doing it um but we we need we we looked at it I think we need a little more time um to make a decision and actually have more communication before we make decision whether we want the price of that you know price wise I have no idea yeah it's not as pricey I mean we would pay for the for but it's not it's not as expensive you would think do a little cont we're talking about cell phones in schools correct I'm sorry yes and so and we're talking about how to deal with them in

147correct at all levels so secondary also Elementary I assume yeah I our Focus was going to be on secondary but again I think we we the we're way over our skis in this I don't want to we're we're not we're not rushing into anything we're going to take a little bit of a hard look there a conversation is happening in the district about how to address cell phone student cell phone dress yes and this is one this is one strategy yeah but um so I know there's a few teachers at the high school that I know of that they have like shoe holders yeah so put the phones in there and take a number or something I think that's the cheaper easier way to go well the classroom isn't the problem okay the hallway is

148the problem the cafeteria is the problem the classroom generally we don't have a lot of little bit problem what's that it's a little bit but it's not this is not where our major issues with cell phones have been coming from you know it's the it's the air drop from a picture in the Met boys room it's the filming of an altercation in you know in the hallway or it's the you know it's that kind of thing I mean yeah there's bullying that can go on also in the classroom or distraction from destruction another pieces pieces of that but um you know I think that this again there are several different strategies we're looking at Yonder was is one of those possibilities but I'm not I said like I said the CP is way ahead of

149the horse right now well I would be more concern about safety for safety not the phones I know safety for the phones but safety in general because we stopped like even metal detectors I mean I would prefer something like that safety than phones to be honest with you let's not worry about phones so much well I think EI either the metal detectors or the or the Yonder pouches would be things we needed to discuss with that not only the investment of the metal detector itself or the Y pouch itself there's investment in the Personnel that need to be done so visited and I know uh actually miss carbon went down with um Mr Parker and we did several visits with different schools and the the Personnel checking students in at those at at Newberg through

150um through metal detectors and Middletown that has metal detectors bag Jacks and Yonder pouches is that it's it's quite an operation so there's there's budgetary you know allocations that we would need to make so we need to homework and be able to come to you and talk about if we have strategies that we want to invest in and we going to ask you put the Budget moving forward in the we share at least what our policy is students use time time location them well our policy with cell phones are not supposed to be at school that's our policy that's our policy it's not a well you know they're bringing it in right that's why we're having this conversation and you know I mean I went to school for 13 years there were emergencies and I

151need a cell phone um but there's but yeah so right now our policy is go cell phones now you're right they're in people's pockets or wherever they're they're out you know um but obviously there's there's a there's a distraction there's there's our teachers have spoken about the distraction our administrators have spoken about the issues so we're looking at strategies to deal with it reason why I'm saying that too because even with the cellone providers and the different tools there are ways that parents can um limit the cell phone use during school time right that will only allow them to utilize it for emergency so like literally between n and three cut off any internet access until the parents do that to the parents phones too because they're the ones who call I will you say

152I think most of us here probably went to school without cell phones but we also didn't have active shooter drills active shooter situations on a regular basis and I I think you know trying to take away opponents is not the answer I just making they're not yeah that's that's the plan that's the challenge that's the challeng I've always thought if those little things that like the shoe holders had ports that would charge their pH to put them in or even download any other new business that brings us to our second public comment anyone to yes may approach I may not a scien done a lot of research and I definitely caution your trust of both the manufacturer and the vendor uh regarding their products and I encourage you to do third- party testing um I'd

153like to read directly from Play Safe surfacing own website hold on they have a product description page where they describe the PIP uh poor in place playgrounds which can contain recy rubber I I admit this Bas mat this is the black crumbs you've seen many of the pictures the rubber granules for the black paved Bas mat shall be recycled as sprr rubber um I have pictures of this rubber that I've sent it's all over um I would I would be careful and I would scrutinize the language of whatever these assertions they they've made are because they might be saying we have not purposely added any of the chemicals that you mentioned but by the very nature of the fact that this is a recycled product I pretty much guarantee it's almost impossible for those chemicals

154to not be present um and I uh previously I brought um an article to your attention uh with regards to the 17 playgrounds in Washington DC that were tested there was an extremely high level of non- detects that can mean no letter it can mean very low levels such as the level that you suggested 75% came back as non-detect that's why it's very crucial and important to test a large sample of these uh 25% came back astronomically high and by that time the average from the very low to the very high was 7,000 parts per million so I personally would love to see a copy of that report I'm very nerdy I appreciate the science um but again I caution you and I would I would definitely uh investigate testing uh additional testing um look

155up the and look up recycles it shouldn't take you very long without going to a site like pugm Med or peer-reviewed scientific studies to determine that this is not a product we want our our kids around uh just one more quote I waited a long time um hold on bu my this is from Mount siai they have a comment on the pit playgrounds hold on let me this up easier to do on my computer than my phone um many continue to install what's called pour in place rubber flat spongy rubber surfaces that can contain other chemicals of concern uh those more solid rubber surfaces can also contain additives and binders that could harm the health of children though the exact chemicals vary by manufacturer Sarah Evans an assistant professor of environmental medicine and Public Health

156at M Mount siai Hospital New York City says those poured in place rubber playgrounds still pose exposure risks for kids children could pick up chemicals on their hands as they play and then accidentally ingest them when they eat meals or snacks on the playground I think there's a little bit AG green washing going on because they're using a synonym for in place still can incorporate the crumb rubber crumb rubber can mean uh the oreol like particles that you see on artificial turfs that players Come Away with all of their clothes and it can mean the shredded the shredded rubber tires that you see on our playgrounds that look more like pieces of licorice that I've actually seen children pick up and finger and put towards their mouths um the top layer Sor oh I didn't

157realiz had a Time heat heat Islander Burns and thank you it's almost my bedtime so sorry if I am like slow right now um I want to talk a little bit that would be great to go back to have tops at GW that is actually an enrichment program the past two years it was just a child care center was not enrichment at all the kids did not have the option to choose from different classes both my kids complain about that and I saw the difference when they used to have that so I would like uh to make an effort to have really enrichment program um all sorts of things from sewing cooking chess Legos so many different things that kids can do um also as of my May 2023 and as far as I know

158the montesorri implementation at George Washington School continues to be at below 30% uh and I just heard that there is an possibly a a new coach to be hired and so happy to hear that please when you hire a montor coach for our Beloved School look for someone that has montesorri training through public montesorri in action or cgms also of course this person has to be someone for whom montor is working many of you know that I'm also very involved in the PTO of the school having fundraised hundreds of dollars to provide support for children and teachers alike in the in the needs that the district can meet I have also devoted a huge amount of volunteer hours taking notes attending meetings coordinating Child Care translating materials in Spanish and organizing events or helping other

159parents with events among other tasks as many other parents also very dedicated have done last night CH Washington school PTO meeting was frankly the worst experience I ever had as a at a PTO meeting I'm also a member of the PTO at Bailey and there I can say that the meetings are actually functional last night at George Washington school PTO the mention of montesorri materials created immediate sneering constant interruptions and general negativity was felt throughout the meeting not not even counting the lack of democratic process for the PTO to choose one parent to re representative to The BLT or at least give everyone the opportunity to apply the message that we received was sent home late and the decision was made over the weekend on another topic and following up on what Le was mentioning

160please stop building playgrounds that include harmful materials and replace the current ones a ASAP thank you thank you yep it's my bedtime too so I'll be quick um um so uh Chrome rubber pour in place playgrounds whatever it is they the potential may be bad chemicals in it um it's bad but we should also think about the the heat islands that they can create um they get up to 150 degrees in the summer uh in heat kids fall down when they play uh if you remember this past summer like down in Arizona from heat stroke and getting second and third degree vers just from falling on the asphalt so imagine that happen to kids when they play and I just feel like we shouldn't install playgrounds I have to come with so many safety warnings

161and tell them you can't run you know don't play don't play tag as one of the safety um warnings on the playground at graves kids are going to play tag they're going to run so we need to install playgrounds that kids can be kids um so thank you thank you board member announcements any announcements from the board Mrs Jordan I just want to thank the families and students around um George Washington school because now that I'm a grandmother delivering her child the um the sidewalk uh and road construction is so difficult but people are good humored about it and they accommodated it and I really appreciate all of that I'm sure it's hard for the teachers as well you know just coming going in school so I hope that the project is done very quickly

162thank you Mr Riner the only thing I'll mention is that um I went to the first home game at at rondou and um the next two are this Saturday and then homecoming the following Saturday and you know I the the crowd was quite a bit but if we could all like just get out there to get people there um because we only had three home games for football this year and so uh these are going to be difficult thank you any other announcements here hearing none I can we have a motion to adjourn all in favor thank you very much