001okay karen is still muted so i don't know if yeah she's not visible is she okay we are live okay um so the last thing i remember making mention of is that we did have an executive session for uh to discuss the employment history of particular individuals and to seek legal advice uh we have no business coming out of executive session uh and uh next item on the agenda is the approval of minutes for the february third meeting may i have a motion to approve those minutes some second okay are there any corrections or additions any corrections or additions hearing none all in favor please say aye aye opposed nay no abstentions um okay we have public participation uh were there any uh emails that uh came in uh by our deadline mrs siri yep
002we have 10 or 11. okay um so some of these are a little bit long so camille if you um want to cut cut it off at two minutes if we get there yep okay thank you um first one i hope this letter finds you well this is from tracy hodgba i hope this letter finds you well i'm writing to you as a constituent and as a parent of the kingston city school district i have lived in kingston new york for 23 years and my husband has lived here for 46 years my husband is a 1993 graduate of kingston high school my husband was an athlete in kingston he was part of the football team as well as tracking field i have two children troy and tiffany troy currently attends kingston high school and tiffany
003is a sixth grader at bailey middle school my ninth grade son troy plays football and has been on the track team like his father i'm concerned about the current state of interscholastic athletics in our school district specifically the high-risk winter sports that were currently voted down that were recently voted down as you are aware our kingston community is very diverse and in a particularly dark place right now our city has seen an increase in violence drugs crime and murder many of our children are suffering from depression and anxiety this is a real concern the opportunity to participate in interco scholastic athletics will provide our children with a safe anti-drug anti-vaping anti-violent environment under daily adult supervision furthermore competing in these sports will provide a sense of purpose and accomplishment representing their community and school district
004during these unprecedented times this is now more important than ever there has been no significant connection between interscholastic athletics or sports in general in the transmission of covid19 the wisconsin state journal published an article by todd richmond on october 23 2020 that stated a new study from the university of wisconsin-madison suggested that the state's high school sports have not caused an increase in cover 19 infections among athletes the study consisted of 207 schools 30 000 student athletes and more than 4 000 no sports were found to have a higher incidence rate of covet 19 and there were zero hospitalizations and deaths unfortunately the study also reported that in july nearly 70 percent of the 3200 plus athletes surveyed reported moderate to severe depression at that time my son troy has always been a very quiet
005and shy kid sports are his outlet okay dear kcsd this one is from tamika leget legette i hope this letter finds you well i'm writing to you as a consistent a constituent and a parent of the kingston city school district i have lived in kingston new york for 20 years my son jon jones who currently attends miller middle school loves playing football i'm concerned about the current state of interscholastic athletics in our school district specifically the high-risk winter sports that were recently voted down as you are aware kingston community is very diverse and in a particularly dark place right now there's been you may ask what football means to me to me football is more than just a game football teaches you lessons you can carry on and off the field it is where you
006form not only a friendship but become family i'm working and pushing myself every day to become a better player and to be the first person in my family to make it to the nfl it's been my dream since i was five years old and i'm not giving up on it that's from her son jon jones who's 13. as a member of the kcsc board of education you are an advocate for all our children it is time to stop ignoring the social emotional wellness of our children during this pandemic and take action to help meet the needs of as many students as we can please strongly consider approving the fall to and spring high-risk sports science has shown that outside activities significantly reduce the rate of transmission versus indoor activity in addition there are many parameters
007and guidelines for participation in all sports which were created by scientists and doctors that will maximize the health and safety of our kids and the teaching and learning community thank you for your time and i look forward to you supporting our children they need you now more than ever our next one is from a student um my name is roman mazon i currently attend 10th grade at kingston high school and play on the jv football team i've been playing football since i was 5 years old and hope to play for the air force falcons program in the future the lessons i have learned from football are priceless football has taught me how to tackle people and how to catch a ball but more importantly the value of practice and teamwork the game has taught me
008to never give up and how to handle both winning and losing football is life-changing i've seen football make kids want to be better and do better both on and off the field i know it's a risk to play right now but it's a risk risk i'm willing to take for the love of the game i will be safe and follow all the necessary guidelines please allow us to play this year we need this for our minds our bodies and our futures this is that same quote from jon jones 13 year old miller many people ask me what is my favorite sport and the meaning behind it my favorite sport is football and to me it's more than just a game football teachers football teaches you lessons you can carry on and off the field it's
009where you form not only a friendship but become a family i'm working and pushing myself every day to become a better player and to be the first person in my family to make it to the nfl it's been my dream since i was five years old and i'm not going to give up on it that's what football means to me this next letter is from lori richter hi my name is lori richter i have a sophomore and a senior at kingston high school my son is the senior and is the one who loves sports my daughter is in the band but that's for another day i'm having a really hard time with the decision the board made last week i have had to take a couple of days to make sure my son's mental health
010was stable again after your decision i have been in contact with the assistant director of sports my son is a wrestler and a football player he has been accepted into alfred state to wrestle in the fall that college has been practicing all season they are almost ready for competition most colleges are wrestling playing football and playing basketball safely on another note most other states have resumed all sports on a high school level safely i have done research a lot of research and would be happy to share it with you at the board meeting i heard a lot of talk about health i never once heard anyone say anything about mental health of the children so let me explain what has been going on in my house i have had a good student struggle at one
011point this year i wasn't sure he would graduate the lack of team coaches has sent my son's anxiety into a tailspin and led to depression sports was his outlet and kept him seen christmas morning i found him in his room he didn't eat for a week he has a support system and by the next week i got him into a psychiatrist he now sees his doctor once a week but what about the kids who don't have a support system i went to battle for him the last couple of weeks with the aed just to let the boys practice the light came back in his eyes your decision made the dark in his eyes come back he felt let down especially because you chose what sports are safe it should be all or none it's not
012these kids fault that they chose a more contact sport you have let these kids down in my opinion especially the seniors our district has done nothing in my opinion to make this an actual senior year for them but that is also another email to be sent i have told the athletics director that no okay this one is from malia cordell dear board of education members thank you for your hard work during the pandemic i would like to ask you to please send email text blast reminders to all family prior to each public boe section session messaging should include a link to the meeting i would also strongly encourage the district to provide spanish translation at every public board of education meeting these suggestions are concrete and easy ways to encourage more participation by the school
013community could the board and dr patalino commit to instituting these measures for all future meetings if not please explain why i also have a couple questions regarding pandemic safety procedures why is there no guidance from the district requiring students to wash their hands after meals and snacks at school with all the focus on cleanliness washing hands and cleaning surfaces it seems strange that students do not wash their hands after touching their mouths during lunch or snack time if we're worried about vile transmission from surfaces this seems like a simple and effective precaution as well as a basic good hygiene habit why is two why is there no guidance from the district discouraging talking by unmasked persons during meal and snack times i am still unclear why we are not encouraging students teachers and staff to
014refrain from talking during meal and snack times when unmasked the district has taken great measures to ensure all persons are masked at school yet permits a 15 to 30 minute period of time when in-person students and teachers are permitted to talk and laugh unmasked and indoors behavior that is otherwise specifically prohibited two simple solutions are asking people to put their masks back on before speaking during eating time or to eat quietly first then reserve a sufficient period of time for relaxed masked conversation afterwards precedence can be found in schools in south korea rhode island as well as new york's capital district who have instituted such measures while our district has been lucky to have relatively minimal coven 19 exposures thanks in large part to the safety measures instituted by the district that said there is
015no not yet universal vaccination let alone universal vaccines this letter is from joanne and ben raposa after watching the last district board meeting on 2 321 i felt it necessary to voice my concerns regarding fall sports as a parent employee and community member of kcsd i can say that i respect each of your decisions from the last meeting but disagree with every with my every being i'm writing today to voice my concern that by not allowing interscholastic athletics we are causing a great disservice to our student athletes this has and will continue to have detrimental effects on many students in our community many of our students are suffering from anxiety depression and isolation they are not attending school online or in person their mental health is suffering greatly they are becoming increasingly disconnected from their
016education many times sports are a place for those students to find academics the to the push they need to work harder they depend on sports for their mental health it is their right to play i am here to advocate for the rights of all student athletes varsity jv freshman and modified the kcsd board should be doing the same my son is 13 and in seventh grade he is extremely athletic and sports is a major release of energy for him he needs it he has played organized sports since he was just four years old he's been looking forward to seventh grade for many years knowing that he could finally get to play modified football for the district that he loves he was practicing and working out since last spring training outdoors no matter what the weather
017running in the rain doing cardio even when he was sick he was determined and dedicated that was all torn away from him in september to say he was devastated is an understatement i can also confidently say the same for many of his peers who are looking forward to this season as well these students social and emotional wellness is dwindling by a thread as well as all of our student athletes the sign shows that outdoor sports significantly reduce the rates of transmission versus indoor sports many of the parameters and guidelines for all sports have been created by scientists and doctors which will keep our students safe and healthy new jersey and several other states have been allowing all sports since september safely that's it karen time's up okay next one is from andrea sass i hope
018this letter finds you well i respect your reasoning behind the decision concerning sports deemed as high risk made at the 2 3 21 boe meeting however i humbly disagree with the outcome i believe that the majority of the board was only looking at this matter through one lens and this issue is in fact multifaceted i would like to paint a quick picture for you and give a glimpse into that moment of my life as i sat on my couch glued to my phone and streaming the boe meeting i listened intently to the extensive discussion concerning high-risk ports and my heart was racing my son isaiah thomas grade nine kept coming into the room asking so what did they say i ushered him away so i could give my full attention to the dialogue anyone that
019was watching the meeting could quickly pick up the tone sent and infer the outcome of the vote when it was finally done i had to tell him there would be no basketball i could literally see the air escape his body like there was no more wind in his sails i'm a concerned parent and community member of this district this district in which i have lived my entire life my roots in kingston are strong and they are deep i decided to raise my family here because of what kcsd has to offer my children while i wear many hats my most important and valuable job is that of a mother and i have a mother of a multi-sport student athlete i'm concerned that preventing inter-galactic at interscholastic athletics in our school district will have detrimental effects to
020the students in our community the vote that was cast to prevent sports deemed as high risk for the winter brought with it hopes of many of our children kingston has seen an increase in violence drugs crime and murder many of our children are suffering from depression and anxiety this is a serious concern that should be on our radar the opportunity to participate participate in interscholastic athletics provides our children with a safe and stable environment i believe the public often makes generalizations concerning sports people who do not have stock or history in our local high school athletics quite often believe that the students are not only participating that the students are only participating to compete while competition is an important part of sports it is not the only reason while i'm advocating for my son i
021also stand here to advocate for other young athletes okay next is from kelly powers i hope this letter finds you out i'm writing to you as a consistent constituent and a parent and lifelong resident resident of the kingston city school district i've lived in kingston new york for 41 years i have a child sean paris who currently attends bailey middle school and plays football and basketball i'm concerned about the current state of interscholastic athletics in our school district specifically the high-risk winter sports that were recently voted down as you are aware our kingston community is very diverse and in a particularly dark place right now our city has seen an increase in violent drugs crime and murder many of our children are suffering from depression and anxiety this is a real concern the opportunity to
022participate in interscholastic athletics will provide our children with a safe anti-drug anti-vaping anti-violent environment under daily adult supervision furthermore competing in these sports will provide a sense of purpose and accomplishment representing their community and their school district during these unprecedented times this is now more important than ever there has been no significant connection between interscholastic athletics or sports in general and the transmission of covid19 my son has been playing sports since he was three there are some he isn't so great at but he does really well with football and basketball it gives him something to look forward to that's just for him no teachers grades or parents pushing him the way a coach pushes kids is a different kind of push it's a stressless push it helps teach them how to be a team player
023how to better how to be better in all aspects of life how to be better than they were a day month or even a year ago to see how happy and excited he was when he thought he was going to be able to play nearly brought tears to my eyes i haven't seen him that excited and i can't remember and then to have it all ripped away completely broke my heart along with his it's tough enough to try to help with the lack of motivation and depression from this whole pandemic thing and this is just going to set the kids back even further the middle school modified kids should not be left out of anything i am begging you please let the kids play time's up okay okay i have to let's do a little
024switch here okay um this one is from jamie spots as a parent of a middle school seventh grader at bailey why can't the maroon and gold cohorts attending in person be combined so they can get four days of in-person classes my son has at most three kids in all his classes and i know it's the same situation for the other cohort seems like only elementary students were thought about and not the older kids i know many middle school kids who are struggling mentally socially and academically why not let the kids that want to go in person four days go back many of them are struggling is this something that can happen i know many other states and private schools that have all their students attending in person five days a week and it has been
025successful and this last one is from christine riley good evening this is an inquiry about the district's decision to begin chipping away at spring break if additional snow days are needed after today i know other districts in the area who have exhausted their a lot of days and are now pivoting to remote instruction if more emergency closing days are needed for example saugerties held their first remote instruction day today this approach is important because it will allow spring break to remain fully intact as we all know this has been a difficult year for everyone on many different levels my concern about spring break is for the children especially the older ones who are working hard despite the very limited social interactions workloads that are at times grueling and class experiences that are awkward and lacking
026in engagement many children are stressed and depressed while some community members might argue that there have been a lot of breaks due to emergency closings i would argue that there have hardly been any breaks for my high schooler there they have been opportunities to catch up on work that would otherwise have been late and not for lack of effort a week off that the children can count on will give them the stamina they need to push through the next several weeks knowing there's respite on the other side when they return from break they will likely feel rested maybe even rejuvenated especially if the weather is nice and they will be able to give that final push to the end of the year i'm asking that their emotional health be considered here this has been a
027very challenging year and knowing a nice break is coming can really help thank you i think that's all of them thank you karen um just let me say there was a letter that came in this morning at 11 a.m an email from betsy sheffield the same sentiment about spring break as the last letter that you read asking if there was some way to use snow day's remote learning to preserve the spring break um and i don't know if that was since we delayed the meeting by a day of our deadline for some of those other ones came in today okay anyway yeah and uh they they had to say in the subject matter that it was for um being read at the board meeting because otherwise you do get other letters in in your email
028but not to be read okay so we'll just have to make we'll make that clear at each meeting that for subsequent meetings it needs to specifically say that uh your your correspondence is for uh public participation at the next meeting right and it has to be in by noon of the day of the meeting is that right yes that's what we have put out okay thank you um okay the next um superintendent's report is the next uh agenda item um we have three three items on the agenda uh on that part of the agenda so i'll turn it over to dr patelino thank you mr shaughnessy uh just uh so three three items relatively um brief uh just a quick hybrid remote learning update and i know we've been doing this a lot and um
029we've been um we've been you know we have about about a five week uh streak going even though we have several snow days and such where we've been able to continue to maintain our hybrid learning program our quarantine numbers for faculty and staff are way down our quarantine number for our students our way down as i've informed the board so we've been able to keep moving forward uh we we did have some concerns regarding the vaccinations obviously the second vaccination is a concern for many people but we were able to continue to maintain our hybrid model and keep kids coming to keep students coming to school we we are we have added as i mentioned in our last board meeting we've added more english language learners and students with disabilities to our to our secondary
030program and we are starting to phase in english language learners and students with disabilities into our elementary program our elementary expansion is still kind of a work in progress and it's it's we're taking small steps starting with the english language learners and the students with disabilities we also at the secondary level have been able to bring in some of our students who are um who are struggling who are who are at risk that we'd be able to bring in a few more days a week so we're really slowly expanding i know people don't see that um out there that much unless it's your student but we're slowly expanding the number of students who come in to come into our buildings and and working toward getting more and more students there and for more periods of
031time so um as we get closer to our elementary um you know any changes in our elementary obviously i'll be reporting to the board but my my feeling it right now i'm working with dr felicelle and her team we're a few weeks out from that from that reality even though they are they are working very hard at it um the big question around town i guess and around schools and everyone who's i've spoken to seems mostly concerned with the issue of snow days obviously we used our last snow day today and people are concerned about spring break and how we would work with a remote model moving forward just to be clear today is our last snow day so any snow day after this we would have to look to either remove days from our
032spring break or look at a remote model and i know a lot of people like to point to other districts and they're moving to their remote models here there or everywhere else but i also want to point out that most those districts have fewer employees than we have in our high school most those districts don't have five unions most of those districts don't have the uh the issues we have with working with our people to make sure that we have agreements with everyone involved in this of how we are going to work in a remote model it's not just teachers it's not just teachers assistants it's clerical it's food service it's custodians it's it's maintenance you know so it goes far beyond just uh just you know a remote learning environment for teachers but we're
033working on that we don't want to remove uh spring break from our students either that's not a goal obviously we did that last year in a in kind of a panic situation as you all remember but it's a little it's a there's a little bit more um complexity to it for us and who would have known uh i guess we should have known that in the last 12 months the things that have come up that we would use all of our snow days i don't think we've used all of our snow days in five or six years so um we're working on that we're working hard to make sure that we understand some of the points behind the parent concerns with with spring break and having that that short period of time for our students
034to kind of take a breath um step back get away from the computer maybe the weather will even be nicer than and they can do something so we're working on that and we will have something out man by the beginning of next week um as far as our planning is is around that um but other than that we don't have i don't have a lot to report on hybrid learning our tech was working very well uh you know our attendance is still an issue we continue to monitor our attendance every day but our attendance overall is good but our attendance of people actually coming in is is the thing we're working on so that's how we're using that data to decide how many students we can get in who want to come into the buildings
035so it's um a lot going on a lot of but a lot of um kind of moving pieces but i see already dr jacobus has her hands up so i'll i'll answer her question hopefully thank you dr patelino um i'm really glad to hear that we have increased in our ell students our um students with special needs at the secondary level and that's rolling down to the elementary level i think that's great you mentioned that we're bringing in um i think you you said at-risk kids also and i'm wondering two things i'm wondering first of all how we're identifying those students and second of all um whether it's working are those students coming in for more days a week and are they are we seeing more engagement because of that we are we are seeing
036more students come in we're really looking at asking our teachers and our building level administrators to you know identify who are some students that could come in more days a week that are not that are not our our l students or our students with disabilities so uh you know i don't have a lot of data we just started doing that i mean we just just kind of um as i said you know we're going slowly when you're a dark room you take small steps so we're taking we're taking small steps and then bringing back students as we can and as we see um you know the space and the and the um availability of cl availability of teachers is there um but i don't have data on and how successful we've been as far as
037that's concerned but i can get that to the board for the next meeting okay i mean i'd love to see kind of if that's how that's really working and then i'll say that my experience with my children is that on days that they go in it's very there's are not a lot of other kids in classes with them so um i know you've been thinking about um ways to get kid kids who want to be in and i'm i'm encouraged to hear that that's still an effort and something that you're still working on yeah you know i think the problem we're having is it's shot in the dark um you know when we don't have people who you know as i've said in the past you know declare that they are remote and maybe they'll
038come on monday but not on tuesday and maybe not next week and the week after if we start filling their spots with other students and then they show up we can't turn them away if they get on the bus we can't tell them they can't get on the bus so so our planning is really around people committing or at least informing us to you know i'm going to be remote my child is going to be remote then we know what space we have there are there are a lot of situations where we're not getting that information even though we've asked multiple times if you're not coming in please let us know so someone else could come um you know i can have 22 kids on a bus period so i have to i have to
039pretend that the 22 students who said they're going to take that bus are getting on that bus because if something happens and they do and i've overloaded it i'm leaving someone sitting on the side of the road um you know we and we know we're not going to do that so you know it's just it's a constant kind of analysis of the attendance data analysis of of the in-person attendance data that we do i work with dr felicello and miss bonville basically daily asking them you know and are building principles how many how many bodies do you have in the building right now how many are you supposed to have in the building how many students got off that bus um and i know our building principle isn't doing their best to get us that
040information um it's it's difficult but we're not getting that that kind of back and forth feedback um from families thank you mr i shaunsi two questions i think um one of them is um i read the the newly revised guidelines from the cdc over the weekend and um they had a um a link to a to their uh county-wide dashboard and the positivity rate that they claim for ulster county is over five percent and i've seen emails come in saying that the positivity rate is under four percent do you have any information as to how to reconcile that i i don't i think that there's obviously there's um you know through this whole process there's there's communication gaps between the district and the county the county and the state and then the state and the
041cdc uh you know we're watching every day and i think i report to the board pretty much weekly um you know our our our infection rate in ulster county uh we're seeing it you know below five percent um for a rolling seven day average over the last seven days uh so you know nothing nothing is happening in real time right now even when you look at it i know we've you've all heard probably from our um you know people in our community saying well how come we're not finding out about certain um you know positive cases in our districts in a certain amount of time because it doesn't happen in real time we can't report till we have confirmed we can't we don't get confirmed until the county gets to it the county's overwhelmed so
042so in the real time for some of this data just it just isn't there but we are we are below that five percent um you know i think and you know that puts us in that kind of yellow slash green zone in the new cdc guidelines okay another question do you have any information uh about the about the prevalence of uh the uk and south africa variants in ulster county i think i've heard at least the uk variant there's been at least one case of that and there's predictions that that in three or four weeks that that might be the the prevalent uh variant of the disease uh where it where it's present now as of this week the information i have from my communication with the ulster county department of health is we've they've
043determined that there was one case of the uk variant in ulster county okay okay those are my questions mr spicer you're muted there we go uh dr patalino are we having any connectivity issues are all the children we need to get online for classes able to get online our connectivity issues actually our connectivity has been great except for where it's not that's a terrible answer right you know i mean there are certain parts of our community where we just don't have good connectivity we have and you all know this we we did purchase you know a number you know in the hundreds of hot spots for students um so we are you know students who can use those hot spots but again our hot spot is only good as the cell phone service that is
044in that area so if you have a hi if you have a hot spot and you're in hurley anyone who lives in hurley knows it's not doing any good because this cell service in in hurley is is not very good um but we we've i know that uh mr tomczyk and his team have been identifying dead zones have been identified students who have had connectivity problems and they've been working rather through spectrum um or through getting them hot spots with that that work to make that happen so we i'm really proud of the work that we've done around making sure students get connectivity and and uh kind of um dogged tenacity that our community that our i.t uh team has taken up i mean they have i know i mean i talked to mr thompson
045you know every couple of days and i know five people call him and he's he's going to houses he's going to neighborhoods he's looking to see what they can do to to make sure that they have the connectivity where they need to have it so um i think we've done a really really good job are we perfect no way i mean we're not perfect we obviously want to do better um but we're working with spectrum and our guys are out there on the street looking to see how they can get connectivity so we've been pretty pleased with um the performance of our network as well as our ability to get connectivity to students who need it thank you dr collins thanks i also spent some time looking over the um cdc guidelines and it's i
046think i kind of know the answer to this question but i want to ask it anyway because i'm curious about the fact that they are in some ways less strict than the current state guidelines and i'm i'm wondering at what point are we expecting the state to follow suit or can we begin planning um assuming that the cdc guidelines are our new future i'm thinking about trying to get more students in school and the current community rates as as they decline it suggests that some of the social distancing rules some of those things are a little bit more up for interpretation given what's happening in a very local community so i'm curious at what point we can or if your team is already beginning to think that way or are we not expecting the state
047to follow suit or do you have any information there's a lag there's a lag there's a lag between the cdc and the state and and we all know that just from watching the news with it there's also there's a lag in what is approved by the cdc and then or recommend it i should say by the cdc and then what is adopted by the state and then the county um so you know it it's some things they grab on and they move it takes a little bit of time other things they won't do i mean we've had this and superintendents in our county have had these conversations with the department of health and there's certain things and i and i understand their positions in many of these places certain things are just not going to
048make the changes we did today or yesterday get some new guidance and i think i shared that with the board yesterday some new guys from the from the ulster county department that did give in some of the areas that the cdc had recommended but if you look at the areas where the ulster county department of health really underneath the new york state department of health gave those were those were things that cdc talked about weeks ago so there is that there is that lag i think that they will i think that the county and the state will come around and make some of those changes so we can make some of these improvements and how we um bring students in and deliver education but again there's a lag um you know the um and again
049i i referenced that the document that i think i sent to everybody i know i sent to everyone yesterday um many of those many of those things that the state and the county are now saying it's okay to do those are things cdc said we're okay to do weeks ago so there was a lag thank you doc mrs jordan thank you i was just wondering um regarding the comment about the unmasking during snacks and lunch if um the schools had the ability to um just evaluate what their concerns were in the classrooms and come up with solutions that they think are acceptable that would enhance the health of everybody because i just i don't think that we can tell every teacher in the district what they need when we don't know what their classrooms are
050looking like necessarily but i would encourage um that idea of a quiet lunch and then maybe the kids can re-mask and chat and sing but safely because i do know that i have heard that as a concern before that you know we're asking them to mask but when they're eating and and laughing and talking because of course they're children and they want that more than anything that free time but i just would encourage us to support those efforts in the school buildings and classrooms to accommodate the safety and the mental health outlet multiple answers to that this is jordan um first the you know we do you know one of the things that that we're trying that we try to do in going back to you know state guidelines cdc guidelines department health guys school
051district guidelines we do try to break that down and have you know building and school and school classroom autonomy for the teacher and the building administrator who know what's going on in their building and let them do the things when's the right mask rig what classes and you and you know we know that from being in schools most of us you know there's every classroom has different personality and some classrooms will sit there and they won't say a word and they'll eat and they'll put their mass on and other classrooms are very boisterous and they're moving around um so we we do give autonomy to our to our teachers and to our building level administrators to you know put in place the things that they that they think are best um and ways that they
052can kind of resolve that um or or prevent i should say that the other thing is you know luckily um spring's coming so so we can get students outside for those mask breaks more often students can be outdoors you know and we're talking right now and i know mostly at this elementary level not necessarily at the secondary level just because of size but um you know talking about what what does lunch look like outside you know for for the spring and can that take away some of those eating issues that were brought up there um so we're we're looking at so many different ways to to tackle that problem those issues but i will say we have communicated about proper um mask wearing we have communicated about how about hash hand washing we have communicated
053about proper social distancing and how to work on how to follow the guidelines we continue to do that we actually you know almost hammer on that ad nauseam to to our our people of how to do that to say that we're not doing that is not true and i think looking at the level or the evidence of student to student spread in our school district and even the positive even the numbers of positive students in our school district of students who show up in person it's very small so we are doing our job in the classrooms we are doing our jobs in the buildings we are doing our jobs in the district to prevent the spread of of covet 19 from student to student it shows in the data it's very clear the the other
054question i had that i think there has been some misunderstanding about is the masking on the bus and so could you just remind um families of what that application is yeah i mean the thing is here here it is you know it's one of those double-edged storage right we were told you know students should wear their masks on the bus can we force it the guidelines say no they say if a student for whatever reason cannot live with that mask on on the bus then we can't we can't deny them transportation but again working with parents working with the students letting them know the importance of that mask let them know the importance of being a member of a community which is i'm responsible for you you're responsible for me um but i continue to
055point and i hate to you know say the same thing over and over again um but we look at the numbers the number of student-to-students spread whether it's in the bus whether it's on the cafeteria or in the classroom is minimal uh you know so we're our students are doing the right thing our teachers are helping them do the right thing our administrators are applying our rules and the guidelines up properly so um you know i'm really i'm really pleased and impressed and you know when i read that letter i wanted to bring that person into kingston high school for lunch because quite honestly it was depressing going into kingston high school for lunch seeing those students sitting at desks facing forward eating their masks on and and literally putting their masks back on immediately
056when they were done eating um and they should do that i understand that but we're all used to walking into a high school and seeing a very active um you know cafeteria so our students are doing what they're supposed to do and the data the data shows that thank you matt dr collins i had a question actually about snow days um i well i do we have first no to have snow days yeah well or ice lots of it um we heard letters tonight during tonight's meeting mostly from parents wanting to protect snow days but we've also received some some letters um that expressed the opposite sentiment but also are talking about the unfortunate coincidence of many of those snow days falling on mondays and tuesdays which does impact one group of students more than
057the others and so i just wondered if i assume that maybe this is part of your discussions that if you end up bringing students back during spring break if it might be the monday tuesday group um who in some ways could recoup some of those in-person days that they lost to snow days i don't know which order of days comes first when you start to bring them back during spring break but i just wonder if that was one way we might be able to to help those that group well i purposely called the snow day today so that the gold students would have snow day and trying to even those numbers out but yeah i mean it's just you know it's um it's just a luck of the draw right that we have the the
058all of our snow i mean i think every snow day is falling on a tuesday or it seems or monday or a tuesday but tuesday seems to be the the high time for for snow days but yes we're looking at that actually i miss i've asked mr verge to you know back back when we first started there was a lot of concern from parents who were in the maroon group who were concerned that most holidays fall at the beginning of the week and we went through and we did the whole did the whole year calendar and actually that's a myth it's not true um when you when you when you map out all of the holidays and all the days off it's actually not um you know a significant difference but now i mean i
059can't deny this this is this is this is true so mr verge i've asked him to go through and um kind of analyze the calendar where we are and how we could possibly make some changes as the calendar goes forward to get those maroon kids those two i mean it's basically and i think the parent did a good job that sent that letter with her with her math and i mean it's just really it's half i mean it's basically half so we're going to work on that moving forward yeah you might want to wait until through march if i remember correctly a few years ago we've had like some pretty big snowstorms in march so they may all be on wednesday thursdays and even it out for you but that's true but i think i've
060decided there'll be no more this year thank you thank you okay um i'll move on to the next topic and i don't know mrs siri can we can we put up the i believe we can well then we please hold i believe that we can can you see that i can okay thank you mr siri okay so um we're going forward with our our second century project and we're starting out obviously with our miller and jfk work uh not huge amounts of change um since the last time we spoke about this but there's a lot of smaller things going on and i'm gonna let karen um move forward with the picture so you can see some things you saw this last time that you know the panels going up um in the in the miller
061um auditorium and you can see on the top the lighting i think we talked about that last time continue that and in the back if you look at the back there you see that kind of rock climbing looking wall is the acoustic panels getting the floor done you'll see in a minute we're already past that finishing up that floor okay so there's the boxes have chairs in them and you can see there's part of the sides of the chairs and this is the implant this is the installation of the chairs going in you know the first parts of it continue the installation of the chairs more so if you go back one or can you go back one this is here thank you so again these are the sides of the chairs you see the
062the the backs and the seats are actually i think they're in now um but as of this picture that they've been setting them up so if we remember going back months and months and months ago um we made a decision as a board um to that those were the those are the chairs that we wanted and those were the side pieces so that's that's the side you see when you come down the aisle um kind of a very theater looking design okay okay kingston high school and my favorite thing to say right now is kingston high school is almost done um we're we're very close to don so so it's really getting exciting um if you and again i think mr shearer talked about it at our uh last uh facilities made that maybe we
063need to go in and get a tour in the next couple of uh the next month or so if you want to move on the next slide again we know the completions there we have spring 2021 for both the music being the first and second floor west and then that really will finish it up except for the punch list music wing continues to improve and to to progress so there's a lot of these pictures of the music wing because those are things that that's that's really where the the high intensity work is going on right now fax rooms huge improvement again ceilings all over the all over the um the west of maine new ceilings new ventilation outside at the at the music wing you all know you've all been by there that was a
064an area in need of serious work new bct flooring throughout the building carpet installation in the offices new lockers are all in or marker boards that go up in all our school or classrooms you see the wiring hanging down there okay there's our vice principal's office so she will be out of the area she is now second floor corridor is just about done new doors you can see new doors um that fit in with the the you know the age of our building so it's in the woodwork there so it's new doors but they look like they belong and that's it right now but i think the next time we meet probably in two weeks we'll see some drastic changes and very close to done at kingston high school any questions i'm sorry mr sure
065i know that was probably most of your report doctors go with i'm sorry i couldn't tell if you could see my hand up i don't have a question i just um i'm just so impressed with the work at kingston high school it's amazing and just hear the words it's almost finished you know when we passed that that referendum back in 2013 the end of 2013 was such a joyous moment and now to see it all come to fruition is just so gratifying and um and it's it's really just a tremendous feat and it's just been it's been so well done and it's so wonderful to see and then i just loved seeing that miller auditorium and so beautiful i can't wait to go and watch i can't wait to see the first drama performance there
066which hopefully will be um in the next year it looks great and you see that i mean as you go through kingston high school and especially you know it's one thing to look at the new salzman wings that were built from the ground up that look at the 100 year old maine and what they've been able to do in there and keep the the spirit of the building but while renovating it all and don't want to um you also don't want to kind of brush over the patients and the um and just how flexible our faculty staff and administration and students have been in that building over the last several years as they move from side to side from back and forth and in that building um while we've done this so you know their
067their flexibility and patience is is is as important as the bricks and mortar that made that building any other questions so i'd just like to comment that uh i'm really impressed with the miller auditorium the the renovation the restoration of maine and the exterior of maine also is just so beautiful now uh with all the veggie the vegetation that was hiding it is removed and you know it's just really a classic beautiful building and when you get into the middle of auditorium and see the new opportunities with the lighting in there you're gonna it's it's really it's really impressive mr spicer am i on yes yes i as as most of you know i sat in the audience and and watched you all do the the planning and financing of of this whole of all
068these renovations so it's kind of exciting to to be on the tail end where i can attend the ribbon cutting ceremonies for all the hard work that you guys did that i got to observe so it it is exciting and uh and and all of you should be so proud because outstanding uh projects like this long term projects like this take a lot of work a lot of work and i just want to say is it remember the audience thank you all so much this year i have to say um the architects and the construction firm have been wonderful to work with and mr clapper has been a godsend you know he's worked very closely with them i'd also like to thank the administration dr patolino was actually visionary at the beginning and did the
069hard work of attending all of the community meetings to convince the public this was an excellent idea a gift to the future and i have had the privilege of working with them all along and it is such a pleasure to see it nearing completion now okay thank you everyone uh we have one more item on the super tense report and i know this is kind of one of those items that's been passed over for probably almost two months now um and it is the draft of our communications plan that i submitted to the board a while ago um and again we we know and we know better than ever um now during kovid that our ability to communicate from a district in school and even classroom level is extremely important for our for our families
070more so than like i said more so than ever it's always important but now it's become you know just critical uh critical for our students improvement in their students education as well as getting the information we need parents to have out there so we decided back over the summer that we should kind of pull together um all the things that we've been doing look at look at them and really codify them into a communications plan so we put this draft together and i've submitted to the board for your review and questions and concerns and we'll um so i'm just gonna take any questions on this at this point and like i said this is a not only is this a draft but and i hate this term but this is a living document it will
071change as times change um but we're uh you know i think just having this and having it in our hands of our building level administrators our teachers um and across the district will help us communicate more effectively and kind of more consistently you know there's a lot of ways to communicate um but we're trying to kind of streamline that so people know where to go to get information about the kingston city school district um and where not to go to get information with the king city school district that was one of the goals here as well as providing you know equity and equity in our communication and clarity in our communication and transparency and how we operate our district so um just open the floor to questions and i'm sure there'll be some is sheer
072um thank you i have a lot of questions but i'm only going to confine myself to one and maybe follow up now because i'm sure a lot of us have the same questions in reviewing it and talking about um goals and objectives there is a reference made to developing communication professional development and uh it was to include the staff but i was wondering if the board would be welcome to uh perhaps audit that professional development and and actually attend those sessions uh because i think it's important that we be on the same page and support the district goals for that um and uh as a follow-up i i was wondering when you talk about internal communications uh are we talking about just administration or are we talking about administration and faculty and staff everybody we're
073talking about everyone that that really is to everyone uh you know the internal communication piece and again you know one of the the lessons that we're learning throughout this process especially around the vaccinations is the internal communications is extremely important and extremely difficult and filled with a lot of potholes but we're kind of working our way through that but now that the internal is you know across the district um you know as much as knowing um do we have every do we have a way to communicate everywhere do we know how everyone in our community our district can communicate you know it's a very different thing to communicate with the the teachers um than it is to communicate with some of my maintenance people you know we we have to make sure that that you
074know i i it's kind of like teaching in a classroom right where you know the student doesn't learn the way you teach you teach the way a student learns so you know people don't we don't people learn to communicate the way we want them to we need to learn how they communicate and communicate to them in the way it's most effective for them so those are you know some of the things but i do want to go back to what you're saying about the professional development and i and i think i speak for mr virgin miss bonville and and dr felicia when it says any professional development whether it be on communications and i know some had some concerns or some questions about our um our social emotional learning and our cultural um our cultural
075responsive education trainings if we have any trainings that we offer to our faculty and staff the board is more than welcome to be to participate and to attend so yes thank you dr jacobs thank you um i also have a bunch of questions but i'll restrict myself to one for and maybe follow up as mrs joer said for now and assuming that other people will ask other questions too um i appreciate the communication plan because i think we've really it's really been necessary and we've obviously dedicated a lot of resources to communications in terms of personnel and an updated website um and i especially appreciate in this plan that it's really hits on a lot of pretty much all i think the really important stakeholders and i think that's an important factor um one thing
076i'd ask about and that i think may be missing is just very um is is like roles and responsibilities and who who does what so things simple things like who's in charge of communications for the district for the school for a school for a um like how to how does that work who drafts communication who edits it and proofreads it before it goes out who makes sure that the communication that goes out then is the same that that information is then uploaded to the website so that there's consistency between what you know what you're getting in your email and then what you're going to see on the website like so just those kinds of things that are um you know the nitty gritty um i think we need to spell those things out for the
077district and then by school yeah for the students and i know i've had this conversation with several of you and several administrators you know the problem with communications right now is there's so much of it there's so much opportunity for it you can communicate on your facebook you can communicate using a hundred different you know uh app based communication devices so sometimes a teacher or even an administrator or or some other employee will communicate something on it on a platform that's not ours and it will be seen as as the district's communication and that's um you know that's hard to control and i i've had people say well can't you control that no i can't uh you know i get i can't control the day-to-day communication but i do i think that part of the
078communication is communicating to our community that this is where the information come from comes from it doesn't come from facebook it doesn't come from you know uh classroom dojo it doesn't it comes from our website and your school you know those those that have pieces of communication i think we really need to drive home letting people know is if you want to know what's going on this is where to go don't listen to this don't don't go onto the you know some you know facebook page that has happens that have kcsd in it because they're not telling you the information from the district but but we can't restrict that all we can do is try to continue to reinforce this is where the real information is but um yeah it's hard and that has to
079be but then that has to be consistent so some schools do use facebook more than others some schools um you know and then some classes when i say class i mean like the senior class or or the sophomore class we'll use the website or the facebook it's different so it can be confusing so i think that just in a as a parent so like in a communications plan i completely understand how how we get there but i think a communication plan needs to kind of lay out where you know what the steps are and who's responsible and where we where parents should look and where communities should look and students and should look for information dr collins thanks um yeah first of all one other thing i just wanted to mention is that i feel
080as though from the time i've been on the board i've already seen um a lot of improvement in many aspects of communication i just wanted to state that that the website has shifted and i've seen more spanish translation and there's been some really nice changes and um i'm appreciating that and i hope that this plan suggests that we'll continue to to build on what we're changing now to make it even better so i appreciate the effort that goes into this um similar to what dr jocobo said i i was struggling a little bit with figuring out where the um the points of action were and who the people that sort of were going to be the centers of action for each one of these points but similar to that um i was i think one
081thing that might benefit a plan like this would be to specify outcomes a little bit more um in the sense that i had a hard time differentiating um what has been what exists from what you plan to do so for example in a strategy that might be increasing visibility at schools and community events um i wasn't sure who that was for and what that actually looks like is it can we assess whether we as a district have done better at that in a year or two or three because i'm not sure what you know it's not quantified or i don't know it's if it's specific enough to change it and so i wonder if there's any way for some of these to really point to a product in addition to the pathway um it won't
082be possible for all of them but um i wonder if it would help us better assess as a district whether we're actually meeting those goals no i think you're right i think evaluation of everything we do is important so being able to put a plan together and then evaluate whether it works and make make changes in you know midstream where we're seeing it's not working as important so those are good points mrs jordan you're muted you're still muted you're muted miss jordan you just told me it's still muted you're still muted mrs jordan i think camille can on mute okay i found it i was i was looking at the document and i couldn't get back to the screen okay now i'll try to remember the document i was saying that i'm really impressed by
083the level of um just dedication to this communications plan it is almost overwhelming to me and the concern i have is not to as you said earlier in your comments we don't want to overwhelm people with so much communication that some of it is not necessary but i think it's really important that we learn to prioritize not only do what um dr jacobowitz and dr collins suggested in terms of who does what but also ensure that what we're putting out there on our website is necessary because i know myself when we're inundated with so many emails it's i often will miss something that's important um because i it just gets kind of in that list so that was one of the concerns i had is how can we ensure that we take away what we
084don't need anymore you know is there going to be a constant culling of that that was one thought that came to me the other was when we were talking about identifying and celebrating students and faculty and staff and whoever we might celebrate i just want to make sure that we're consistently doing it in a way that everybody is recognizing people for with the same kind of lens because otherwise it can be very unequal and i hate to miss out on celebrating all of the excellence so um i just want to make sure that there's some parameters so that everybody's doing the same thing in all of the buildings yeah multiple multiple ways to celebrate different things that our faculty staff and and do and students i should say too is what we're looking at and
085i know i i understand exactly where you're coming from and you all know i mean we used to do 12 months ago we did a lot more of this than we than we have been now being able to have principals give their give their reports and show the great things that their their faculty and staff and students are doing and that was a kind of a recognition and i'm not talking about you know giving someone an award we're talking about just seeing what's going on and and you know and recognizing the efforts and the and the great things that are going on our school without necessarily saying this individual or that individual um you know that video i miss those video presentations of the kids and the adults interacting to me that is the celebration
086that is and i'm just not interested in putting um gold stars on anybody's forehead because i think that we would run out of gold stars and i don't know the idea of of you know trying to decide what we communicate and how we communicate and what we pull off that is something we have been working on and you know it doesn't matter what you take off that is going to be the one group of people that one person who's angry that you took that off um instead of you know but we know and and we we're very very deliberate and i know mrs siri and ms schufeld are very deliberate and making sure that we don't put too many things in one of our email blasts or you know that we're trying to try to
087eliminate those things even and i know i i try to do it even when i communicate with all of you and put things in one email on you know one day of the week instead of bombarding you with single you know emails and i know i still do that and we all do that because we're victims of social media where i'm you know we're afraid that i'm afraid that you'll find out something from someone else other than me before before you know i can tell you or we're worried that the community will find out about something before we can get it out on our website so sometimes we do fall victim to that but yes we are we're looking to see how we can you know make sure direct people to the information they want
088but not bombard them especially especially with the the email blasts and the text that that that just gets to be white noise after a while for people if it's not important thank you mr shaun so i just wanted to pass along uh to all to everyone a communication trick that dr patalino gave to mr spicer and i at our agenda meeting on friday which is that you can toggle your mute just by pressing your space bar as long as your cursor is within the the frame of the of the of the teams window so just pressing toggle pressing the space bar will toggle your mute off and on so i'm going to unmute myself just now by pressing the space bar just muted himself dr jacob woods he's right that works yes that's excellent okay
089great that's a good communications tool all right i am so glad to hear this conversation about um recognition and how we might do that in a because i when i read this part about recognizing outstanding parents at board of ed meetings i was like i don't know how we're going to do that but if we think about the ways that we um celebrated you know when when uh principals would get up and do their presentations and they talk about the drama program and then those kinds of ways to celebrate students and then we certainly can celebrate parents as part of that too i just didn't want us to get stuck in a like how are we going to identify outstanding parents and that would be difficult because we have so many um but we also
090have parents who are involved in many different kinds of activities in many ways so i can imagine that if you know it's it's an elementary school turn to pres to present then maybe they want to give a shout out and thanks to all the parents who've been readers in their kindergarten group for that year so there are different ways that we can identify groups of parents who've been working for our school district and there are many who give many many hours so my other concern my other question actually or a comment really is at the very toward the end there's a communication matrix um which i think is really helpful um one thing that i think needs some clarity and i guess maybe this is a question for you right now um is that when
091we talk about the stakeholder audience students and parents and families are in the same group so it's a little bit unclear to me what to it what to expect so it says for example principles messages i'll get one weekly through teams and weekly emails text and phone calls i'm not sure if that's if is that for students is that for families and then the same thing from the teacher it says daily teens i'm assuming that i'm not going to get a daily team's message from my teacher um although i'm open to that if they want to talk to me every day but um so if we could just separate that i think it would just make it a little bit clearer and then again there are some things that we have done in the past
092and maybe this speaks a little bit to what dr collins was saying earlier um that i think we should figure out whether they worked or not before we decide to do them because it's a lot of this is a lot of work so are we gonna do weekly newsletter in addition to a video weekly video update does it make sense to do both how are the video updates going right now i'm not i don't even know how many we have going around the district do people really listen to them like you know let's let's our principles are so busy that let's make sure that we're that it's a good use of their time i can also imagine though that some principles are really good at the video update and like that's their thing and that's
093good for them and others would just really prefer to do a newsletter and i think we should have that kind of flexibility as long as we're getting the same kind of information out and i think you know going back to what i was saying about the living document piece you know in our time putting this together between then and now you know principals have learned our principles have learned new ways to communicate using our teams and you knew creative ways that they're doing things so we need to bring them in and say hold it what are you doing you know because there are so many different things going on and using the tools that we gave them like teams i mean we have some of our principals who are unbelievable communicators with teams others who
094are great with their weekly messages like you said um we need to kind of harness all that and really important piece that i don't know has anything to do with the communications plan but i'm just gonna say it anyway a really important piece is that we don't lose that when when we move back to normalcy that level of communication that then that level of creativity and communicating with families and students that are that are building level uh people have been able to do um but yeah i i hear what you're saying well i mean you're raising a really good point which is that right now we're in a certain mode of communications and parents have access to teachers in a way that we really didn't have before and so and we've accessed information about our
095kids in the way that we didn't have for those those weekly emails that we get on sunday which my children dread and you know like being able to look at the grade thing and the portal so we there is going to have to be some deliberate thought about how we transition back when we transition back what is the communication going to look like what are what should parents expect and what are we going to be able to do six months from now we're going to be looking at this all over again with with maybe dr collins i too like the space bar trick i didn't know that um but i still have to look up to take my hand down is there a shortcut for that no okay one just curious um yeah speaking to
096some of the comments i've always made i also had some um thoughts about the timeline and some questions around to the shift that will happen as we move back hopefully sooner rather than later out of triage sort of pandemic mode um and in one very specific example of a some confusion i had around a timeline was there's one particular place in the plan where it was when we were talking about when you're talking about students and parents where there's future strategic goals under a set of strategies and and i wasn't sure um why that was separated out in terms of timeline but it was referring to parent and student representation and reporting at boe meetings and so i was kind of curious around if you could just speak more about that and maybe how that
097differs in its timeline relative to everything else or um yeah what kind of i i know that there are um parents and students who would have a lot to say so i'm curious what your thoughts are around that i think they kind of looking at the future kind of out there on how we're dealing with that was really about where we are right now um and look at how would we do that when we got back to our normal board type um you know meetings and communications with with the with our you know our students in our in our community um but i mean i think we can we can maybe flesh that out and make that a little more clear is that um something that have we had district representatives that sort of report
098at meetings before is this um that are part of a community like this or how would they be selected i'm just kind of curious about this we haven't necessarily we have had a parent group again we did not we haven't met outside of not our reopening group or our board our board superintendent advisory team we have we had a parent group um for years and years we had district 5 parents council then we moved to a parent group which was a representative from every pto in the district um but they didn't necessarily report out to the board which they did you know we had board members uh mrs lau was miss loud was one of the board members that was on that um on that committee so we did have board members there who then
099would report out to the board but having them particularly do that we didn't do that but maybe that's something we want to think about you know as we move as we move forward anybody else so will we will the plan be updated and we'll get to see another version of it or or what's the next step yeah again like i said this is a living kind of document and we're sharing it uh we're gonna share it with after sharing with you i've already shared with my cabinet we'll share with our building principles actually we're supposed to share with them today but we didn't have a our principles we're going to share with our building principles and open that up for conversation as well and then make our tweaks to it and be ready to you
100know have it again it's going to continue to to grow but we need to implement that at some point so we had again presenting it to you presenting to our to my cabinet presenting the building principles getting all the feedback putting it into a final document to be you know to move forward within the next month or so okay just another plug for responsibilities and who's in charge of making sure things are consistent and proofread and all that kind of stuff i i designate you i could do it i'm not bad at it actually you're great at it okay so that concludes the super intense report mr toggle does he know he's muted you're muted for some reason i got some other screen that some warning message that came up on a panel inside my
101screen and i couldn't figure out what was going on so that's behind me i hope uh for all of our sakes um next item on the agenda is we our board of education section and uh we have a report from the policy committee uh mrs jordan yes we will be putting forward a new policy tonight or the adoption of policy 9700 professional and staff learning it was previously in a first reading and now it's up for adoption whereas the kingston city school district has contracted with nisba as consultants to the board of education for the review amendment and adoption of its policy manuals and whereas the subcommittee of the board in consultation with nisba and legal counsel have prepared the following policy for amendment and adoption now therefore be resolved that the board of education
102adopts the following amended policy 9700 professional and staff learning is there a motion to well you've made the motion this is mrs seconds um any discussion all in favor either say i or raise your hand i hi i haven't heard from mr lamb i don't believe i said i oh okay so i think that's um that's every one any uh any opposit anyone opposed say nay so i think it was unanimously adopted i don't have that i don't have a full panel on my screen for some reason um and the next board meet the next policy committee meeting is the first friday in march and i think that's the fifth if i'm correct maybe and um at 9 30 and i want to thank mrs shearer for chairing our past policy committee we had a
103visitor and so um i i was otherwise engaged and she was kind enough to chair and did a wonderful job we had a long discussion about some very um interesting policies that we wanted to make sure the wording was just right and that's why you don't have more policies in the first reading but you will next month mr shira did you want to add anything no i i liked the guest very much it was very pleasant we had public participation yes okay the next uh report is from the facilities committee mrs sheer thank you um i'll condense it because you've had a slideshow already the facilities committee met on um january i'm sorry february 10th and uh first order of business was to approve the minutes of january 13th facilities meeting and they are in
104the board library this evening um following that we had updates on the khs second century project and the current five-year capital improvement plan so specifically the west wing of the high school the only additions i have to that are the following there will be an outdoor space outside of the former tobin weston in in its former town wisdom footprint of about 20 feet by 25 feet developed with benches a place to sit and contemplate the changes there we did talk a little bit about future landscaping and um you saw the slides for the other things the area that was vacated in the building by the removal of the oil tanks is being repurposed because we need storage everywhere um in in terms of miller the seating should actually be finished that was begun on the
10515th should have been finished up today i don't know whether they did they usually do work even when when it's snowing so um they may have finished up today or may not have but it will be finished shortly um the khs pool status was brought up um we know that there's been a leak three companies were responding to a request to evaluate and the um contract for that has been awarded to weston samson which is a company out of albany so they will spend some time evaluating the situation to pull make a recommendation to the district for repair um the presentation of the proposed new five-year capital improvement plan we had hoped it would be in february however uh there was some difficulty with accessing the portal because the architect working with us is also
106working with other districts and and the facilities management office would not grant her access for that many districts so now uh that that's been rectified and we will have a presentation to the board on march 17th and um that will be wonderful the um projects completed by district maintenance personnel since december since our fall inspections have been added to the report that is housed in the deputy superintendent's office and um there is also a copy of that in your libraries for this evening it's by school the maintenance staff has done quite a bit since the inspections ended the end of october so you'll see a couple pages and we intend to include that kind of an update each month at the facilities report the next meeting uh will be held march 10th i believe it'll
107be a teams meeting but we'll keep everybody informed any questions i i i reviewed the update memo and i was very impressed with it thank you you're welcome that concludes my report are any any questions from other board members okay hearing none we will move on to teaching and learning dr jacobowitz okay my toggle didn't work that time i'm just saying but um i think you all can hear me now so um the teaching and learning committee met on february 4th the focus of this meeting really was about tackling disproportionality and access to accelerated classes we focused first on the middle school honors classes and classes that you can take in the middle school for high school credit so data from the past few years is showing evidence of disproportionality in the middle school of
108students who are taking accelerated classes and classes for high school credit by race and by special education status so we were had a very long conversation very long conversation about that um we identified several reasons or some things that might be causing this disproportionality um first and foremost really was that the schedule sometimes makes it so that services that are provided to special education students conflict with accelerated classes um sometimes students and parents are unaware that their students can receive high school credit that there are those opportunities at the middle school level um and then there's a larger issue of in some cases students not being well prepared for engagement with accelerated core academic and art classes um so we talked about some action steps that could be taken in regard to this um the
109first thing that we discussed was revising the scheduling process to accommodate special needs students and students of color who also qualify for accelerated courses first so and to build a schedule around those students so as i understand it we had a long conversation about how scheduling works the schedule has to be created around some around some facet of the around some group of students or around some classes and so what we discussed was creating having special needs students and students of color kind of at the center of that process so that we're scheduling around them so that they can have access to the accelerated courses and we can address some of this disproportionality and i'm hoping that that can be put into place really beginning with the scheduling for next year we talked about creating
110informational material for parents and students about accelerated credit opportunities in the middle school so that people students and and parents know what those opportunities are we talked a lot about the instrumental music program we talked about maybe or the possibility of beginning instrumental music earlier in the elementary schools to give students an extra year so that they're just a little bit more proficient when they come into the middle school with the hopes that then they might be more inclined to stick with the instrument through middle school and then we talked about the ongoing issue of working with students in younger grades on core academics so that it enables their participation in accelerated classes by the time they get to eighth grade um then we moved on to a discussion about high school honors classes so
111we discussed ways to expand access to honors classes at the high school and we talked about following a model that's been implemented in other schools in which students can opt into honors level work so in this model all classes offer both grade level and honors level coursework and students choose their level of participation um there would be on-ramps and off-ramps built into the model in case students feel overwhelmed or maybe underwhelmed by their initial choice um and so that they could come they could um come in or out early in the year if they felt that they had made the wrong choice for themselves so we're really excited about this because it opens up access to honors classes so we will pilot this model in ninth grade humanity classes so history and ela beginning in
112the 2022-2023 school year so i i just want to be clear that with this model kingston high school will continue to offer the wide range of grade level and honors opportunities that it always has and this approach will increase access to honors levels coursework and not decrease it so i just want to be clear about that um i know they're still working out the details of this but as it stands right now this was something that that i was thinking about as a parent of high school students if a student chooses the honors coursework in a class that student's transcript will show participation in an honors class so a college when they're looking at the transcript will still see participation in honors and in addition the honors coursework would be weighted towards a final gpa
113in the same way that it is now so just want to be clear about those two things those two things have implications for students and for college applications and so those things will remain the same um so there's obviously going to be a lot of professional development that has to go into making this happen into supporting teachers and and helping teachers support students through this new process but i think it's a really exciting way to increase our access to honors classes and to empower students in to becoming honor students who may have thought that they kind of missed out on an opportunity um we talked we then moved on to the middle school schedule but we had spent so much time on everything else that we didn't really have a ton of time to talk
114about this but um we've had some recent changes to middle school offerings we're phasing out french so right now french is only being offered in the eighth grade we there's no more flex which stood for something foreign language exploration i think um given that it's really only spanish that we'll be offering in the middle school at this point we have an accelerated math class in seventh grade there's biology and science in eighth grade there's a new class called self and cultural exploration which integrates core academics with sel um i've actually spoken to a few students who are in that and they're very they're loving it and actually a few teachers and they just say it's a great class i'm really excited about that um we will soon have a new report card at the middle
115level and we will hopefully get a chance to see that soon um our next meeting is march 11th at 9 30. are there any comments or questions or and from the tnl team if i got anything wrong you should step in and correct me the towel doesn't work on my computer puts me in another screen however did you say we're phasing out french so the only foreign language we're going to offer is spanish then all right thank you uh mr shaughnessy yes i just want to make sure that i understand correctly of the honors program that's going to be introduced in 22 23 school year so this will be there will be no prerequisites it'll be a student selected is that correct i mean they will make a decision and they won't be turned down
116on the basis of not having some credential or recommendation or or whatever is that correct yes that's right i think that's wonderful it's great and if a student opts into honors and they and you know it becomes it's october and they feel overwhelmed then they can work with a teacher to either get extra support to continue their time there or they can um go into back into the grade level work but remain in the same classroom so both classes both levels will be will be taught in the same classroom yes i think that's wonderful too congratulations yeah it's a big credit to our tnl team and i know that there's a team at the high school that's been working hard on this also so um it's a big credit to all of them great um
117any other questions okay thank you thank you dr jacobowitz oh wait mr spicer has a question oh okay mr spicer you're muted not about tnl it was something else following tnl okay if you want me to go ahead okay go ahead is this the sro advisory committee yeah it's a bit of a breach of protocol because i'm not on the agenda but seeing how we had to forego our meeting on tuesday i would like to make a short report if it's okay is there any objection proceed well like i said i i didn't have an sro advisory committee report for this board meeting but i need to let our community know that our next meeting was changed to this coming tuesday february 23rd at 5 pm i also want to express my gratitude to val
118dwyer and the entire board for the collaborative effort in producing and delivering a coherent message into the record of the kingston city policing tax force task force report our support of the task force efforts letting the community know how seriously we take and act on their concerns was a vital addition to to to this meeting and for our constituents and i'm also grateful for all of our efforts uh in in putting that together and lastly i want i i would like to take a chance to welcome ashley knox as our newest member of the sro committee we're grateful for her service thank you everyone thank you mr spicer okay now um are there any questions to mr spicer about that report okay hearing none uh put your hand down mr spicer and we'll move on
119to um the consent agenda are there any resolutions that a member would like to uh remove from the consent agenda second opportunity any any uh resolution to remove from the consent agenda okay hearing none i ask for a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved second okay there's first second and third so we're well covered are there any questions about any item on the consent agenda okay hearing no questions all those in favor of the consent agenda please say aye or raise your hand i i any opposed say nay or raise your hand or put your thumb down i guess is the way they do it at common council thumb up and thumb down okay i think it's been proved uh i've been approved unanimously and we do have um two donations on on
120that we just approve we just accepted so this will be an opportunity for dr collins again thank you um that's right we have two donations um the first comes to us from corey waters llc which is an affiliate of scenic hudson land trust they have donated to kingston city school district 78 412 this is a one-time contribution um it comes as a consequence of them purchasing land that used to be tax bearing and um so because we will no longer collect taxes on that land they have gifted us with approximately 50 percent of the estimated 2021 kingston city school district taxes so we are grateful for that and want to express our gratitude the second donation comes to us from kohl's kingston and they have donated to our pre-k program 32 stuffed animals and 35
121curious george books so we are very grateful to the kohl's school for their donation thank you um dr patelino did you want to say something about the donation from corey's tory waters llc oh i just think it's worth i think it's worth uh the board being aware that this is a this is a purchase of property that was previously taxable as dr collins mentioned it's a project so it's a little over five million dollars worth of property that was that was now moved into a um a uh a non-taxing situation so close to two hundred thousand dollars of taxable land it will not now no longer be taxed in the king city school district so that two hundred thousand dollars or so will be um distributed or shifted as we like to say to the
122other taxpayers in our community so these are these are you know we talk a lot about pilots and different ways that that things change as far as our taxation is concerned in our ability to collect money or the tax shifts we have in our school district and this is one that pretty much it goes over the radar while we appreciate half of one year's taxes that was donated that's half of one year's taxes of 200 000 that grows at a percentage every year forever that will never come into the kingston city school district again which will be taken up by the rest of the kingston city school district um taxpayers the shift will be on to them so i think these are these are things that again this is federal law there's nothing we can
123do about it but these are the kind of things that happen regularly with very little fanfare unlike your pilot programs that have a lot of different letters and articles in the newspaper and all of these things happen right under our nose and no one no one really even discusses or talks about them so um you know we're looking at a significant shift in taxes to the local taxpayers by this transfer or purchase of five million dollars worth of property in in kingston and the town of ulster [Music] and if it hadn't been for the donation it probably wouldn't even come up at a board meeting under the radar uh one question is what will happen what what account will this donation go into uh mr olsen would you like to answer that well a donation
124of this type is just a is a revenue uh for the school so it's not going to offset anything it'll just be uh a revenue this year and so if it's not going to go into our our right to become part of fund balance fund balance okay and uh i just so just two two more comments i'd like to make so corey waters llc is a subsidiary of scenic hudson and this land was one time owned by avr corporation from westchester and that's that was the proposal it straddles kingston and the town of ulster along the waterfront and that was where the proposal was in the early 2000s for a 1500 unit housing development that never came to fruition so we would have had taxes at some point from that but now we don't have
125anything in the going forward okay enough about that i guess old business uh new business up any any items of new business so i have one i i sent a a a survey out to the board members uh this afternoon i had gotten an email yesterday from uh nisba and they had a um a survey for diversity equity and inclusion initiatives and it was a survey monkey and when i looked at it i didn't feel that i should well it was an interesting survey i didn't feel i had all the answers to it and so uh uh i'd like to find some way to get participation from all the board members uh on on answers and then we and then i can go back and and submit it through the surveymonkey but maybe we can
126we can do that um at our next board meeting uh i don't or it it won't it won't take very long but i just i for some reason my i was sort of brain dead when i looked at it and i and i didn't want to respond inappropriately or incompletely so that's why i sent it out to all of you to review [Applause] so that's my that's my item of new business uh if there's no other we'll then move to um board member comments i believe that's the next item on it isn't it [Music] board member announcements mrs jordan thank you um i appreciated that uh dr patalino had such a warm relationship with may stark so i'm glad that he mentioned her but i just wanted to say a word about bill yosh he
127was really a an amazing teacher a beloved man at the high school and um i know many of the board members wouldn't know him but i think a lot of our community members parents probably had him as an english teacher and i think that he was just remarkably low-key remarkably kind and i just believe he was the gold standard of of teachers and um i just think that the universe lost the light and so i just wanted to thank him for all of his service and his humanity he's just a remarkable person and so my uh love goes to all of the people who had him as a teacher because i think that he he made a very gentle mark on everybody's soul so thank you thank you oh is there any other hand up
128any other board member announcement yeah mr shaughnessy my my hand is up okay um that was a beautiful tribute this is jordan i'm sorry that i didn't know him but happy to know him for a few moments through you um maybe i'm not sure this is a board member announcement and i probably should have said this under new business but um we're as we kind of round the corner into spring and we're nearing the end of the year i'm hoping that the senior team at the high school is starting to think about the end of year things for seniors and they've as you know they've already missed so much they've already they've lost their homecoming and all those fall things that um and winter things that seniors normally have so i'm hoping that we're starting
129to talk about what graduation might look like what prom might look like you know any kinds of ceremonies that i don't even know i mean i have a senior but i don't even know what all those things would be um but if the high school team is starting to think about that and maybe can start to communicate with with parents and i don't know if there are any ways we can think about celebrating this class that lost the end of their junior year and their senior year um in a way that's kind of that's special thank you so i was thinking uh in recent recent day maybe even today uh if there would be any possibility of having a some kind of theatrical or musical production uh outdoors at the stadium later on in the
130spring i don't think we're going to be able to have anything uh in the auditorium um march was the traditional date for a musical theater production i'll just pass that out as an idea okay we're working on multiple things from the senior class to just all all different events that all students have missed so all those things are being discussed um and have been being discussed we're coming up with some hopefully some new and different ideas to help celebrate the class of 2020 but also recognize all the other students you know and you know whether it be sports or arts or music or drama so we're we're trying to figure out how we can roll into the spring and do a little bit of something for everyone and then of course honor our class of
1312021 so our next board meeting uh is uh march 3rd uh we will consider uh high risk fall sports at that meeting um uh regardless of uh in the meantime those sports teams will will have their practices so that they're if they are approved they will be ready to participate in their scholastically and it's not approved they'll be able to continue continue their practices and uh i just want to assure the community that um the board will make a decision based on recommendations from experts it's not it's not a personal decision that we will make and uh with that i'll entertain a motion for adjournment some move second second okay all in favor say aye aye thank you for participating and uh stay well and see you no later than two weeks or maybe actually
13213 days and it's only 30 days until spring now [Laughter] so that's something to look forward to march 20th okay good night all right good night everyone have a good evening good night