BOE Meeting - November 13th, 2024 - Lynbrook Public Schools

001good evening welcome to the monthly November meeting November 13th of the limber Board of Education we'll begin with a pledge to the flag if we could all rise Mr pesi will lead us in the pledge States should that seat roll call all are present tonight by Mr Murray who is out ill if there are no changes may have a motion to accept the minutes of the October 20 October 9th 2024 monthly meeting I can look over here now Kelly second miss argona all in favor um Miss cun's art gallery please the burn ciderman Gallery is proud to present the limber High School National Art honor society's gifted 2024 online Art Auction show this year's online Art Auction features stunning fall Landscapes painted by over 30 talented nahs members each artwork captures the beauty of autumn

002showcasing vibrant colors and a unique perspective from our student artists funds raised from the auction will go towards purchasing Target gift cards which will be distributed to limr families in need during the holiday season this initiative not only highlights the creativity of our students but also strengthens our community ensuring that everyone can enjoy a brighter holiday bidding opened this morning at 9:00 a.m. each artwork in the gallery has a QR code located on the bottom right corner which can be scanned to place a bid the auction will be open from now until November 30th at 9: p.m. if you'd like to support us further you can make also make donations by scanning the Donate here signs on the front of the gallery thank you for your support and happy bidding thank you thank you Mr

003cuns Dr Lynch presentations thank you Mr Belmont uh before we start the presentations I want to mention something about the art gallery over at Atlantic Avenue tonight we had our first ever um the kids from the uh middle schools had done their art and we invited their so it's on display at Atlantic Avenue so we invited their parents into a Suare tonight so they had not quite champagne but they had water and cookies and uh people got to take pictures with their kids uh artwork and I think people really enjoyed it so thank Mrs Schaefer for putting that new initiative together and maybe people in this audience right now may get an invitation goinging forward so it's great all right so we are proud to announce that we have a Coca-Cola scholar semifinalist what is

004a Coca-Cola scholar semi-finalist so uh this is a program that is based on academic e Excellence leadership and Service uh at this point there are only 1,300 kids recognized out of 150,000 applicants and one of them is our very own Katie gotle [Applause] than all right we're proud to honor another student tonight so what is the heart of a giant award so USA Football has a program in uh cooperation with the hospital for special s surgery and they honor student athletes who are of extraordinary character and are of extraordinary leadership abilities and uh what happens is you have a massive vote and I know everybody in this audience knows this because I can't tell you how many times I voted but uh we uh all got around and now we actually have a semifinalist in

005our midst which means that uh he is on his way to possibly I mean he's definitely going to be at Giant stadium and he's definitely going to be at the at the game introduced but he could move on to be in absolute violence so we're going to introduce tonight Omar McAn [Applause] is it is it video good or if it's not it will be all right so if you have an opportunity to look at the video that was put together on om Mar's behalf that was part of the process the video itself is extremely impressive and it'll be impressive to see what what the coaches say about him we have a great coaching staff it's just one of the reasons why Sports is such a vital part of our Lives it the lessons our kids

006learn but take the time to listen to what his teammates have to say about him that's the most insightful thing to see what 15 16 and 17 year olds how empathetic they are how they understand each other it's extremely impressive it's a great credit to you Omar to your father for that whole process but take the time to the few minutes to see it listen to it and hear what his teammates have to say and congratulations again and good [Applause] luck all right and we have some big announcements regarding AP Scholars so an AP scholar means that you got a three or higher on three or more exams an AP with honors mean that you got a 3.25 on all exams and a three or more on four exams and an AP with distinction means

007you get a 3.5 on all taken a three or more and a five on five of these exams so we are proud to announce that we have 57 AP Scholars 18 AP Scholars with distinction and 41 uh excuse me 18 AP Scholars with honor and 41 AP Scholars with distinction bringing the total to6 AP Scholars at the district [Applause] pretty good right I think you want the board to move to the front row us [Music] thank you so much app okay good evening everyone my name is Barry Wier I'm here with the um fantastically talented cast of Greece we are opening next week right here at the high school performances are Thursday Friday and Saturday night of next week but I recommend you get your tickets quickly because they are going fast there's only a

008few left there's our QR codes hanging around the building um or you can see us for the website we will be performing the opening number of the show which I I won't explain because you probably already know gree uh this is summer nights which kind of sets up the story and uh if you're a great audience we'll maybe throw in one additional number as well so please enjoy the cast of Greece [Music] have me a [Music] BL I met a girl crazy for me metap cutest can be Sumer drifting away night [Music] under [Music] the a he got hold got [Applause] [Music] me a [Music] that's where it is so I told her we still be [Music] friends wonder what she's doing now Summer Dreams [Music] oh those [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I got [Music]

009andol the power that you're supplying is electrified electrified Electrify [Music] better better my heart nothing [Music] [Applause] nothing if you're filed with affection you're too shy to convey meditate in [Music] my [Music] feel are you sure cuz I'm de inside you're the one I want you [Music] are I want [Music] you yes [Music] [Applause] so I have one I I know something that I wanted to share with the audience I got to ask the kids I saw a video today that was one of so those of you who are of my generation okay so uh this was a very important movie for us of if you're of a certain age uh and these kids had a zoom call with the one and only DD conon and she could not have been a more adorable at

01073 years old she like acts like a teenager it was just incredible so if we could just what was it like talking to the actual ddcon uh kind of some of the stuff that she talked you through I thought she answered some of your questions really well said you wanted to just kind of pass um for me personally I think it was very special speaking to her because I am playing Frenchie in the show so yeah so getting to speak to the original iconic Frenchie was such a special experience and I felt like I really connected with her as for the rest of us she gave such great advice and I think her positive energy just really radiated and like connected with us and I think that's why we're able to do such a good

011preliminary performance tonight any else to add something sure so I introduced myself and she's like oh well what's your name and she kind of gave everyone a chance to speak which was really like refreshing because like you'd expect people who obviously like she's really important in the industry like has impacted so many people it's like not really like you wouldn't expect her to be so like kind and like refreshing to talk to which was really like inspirational so that's was cool um honestly she was really adorable when we St weo together she was like bing along it was so sweet and um also she had like a really positive attitude about everything she was like really she was smiling a lot and it was just really nice to see her be so positive about everything

012anyone else did you want to say something um so speaking to her was definitely very like mind openening like earlier in the week we went to see The Outsiders in concert choir and it's just been like a very emotional week so I've been an emotional mess so I guess talking to her like she said nothing sad at all but like just seeing how happy and joyful she was and like kind and caring and helpful like I literally was like almost crying and everyone was like why are crime like we're singing We Go Together and I'm like mid like SOB looking at Ryan like she was just phenomenal like I love her so [Applause] much e e I don't know about you Mr Belmont but I can't wait to discuss regionalization that's definitely going to be

013the highlight it's going to be the highlight of this meeting I think so this was that's not even next uh report from trustees uh Mr Luna PTA Le on so the PTA just wanted the PTA just wanted me to pass along there thanks for everyone who came out and attended the parent University and also for those who supported the fly by the owls 5 5K recently uh both events were really well attended and I've heard nothing but great reports from those who did attend it was very fun great experience um as always PTA scholarship Drive is taking donations year year round it's a good cause if anyone wants to donate reach out to the PTA rep in your building or contact the Council of ptas for more information thank you Mrs Kelly so the Dei

014diversity Council met on October 24th after our initial introductions there were three presentations about the profile of the owl the nisba or New York State School boards Association report and the New York State education department report profile of the Al focused on the community's thoughts related to diversity and the latter two presentations focused on the definitions of diversity equity and inclusion and the efforts that must include all students the buildings reported various happenings and inclusive efforts such as building welcoming activities peer leadership activities collaborations between buildings cultural activities overall wellness and unity week activities finally there was an open discussion regarding how to better include families in District activities and future meeting dates were announced you've done that so well do you want to talk about adult education so our adult education committee met this

015afternoon I think we had a really good first meeting for the year we discussed a first we looked at a comparison of last year's course offerings and enrollment to where we are currently we talked about potential ideas for new courses in the springtime the possibility of moving to online registration down the road we also are looking to see what the community's feedback would be on the QR code and the postcards that were used because there were a just a slight dip in enrollment and we want to see did that QR code have anything to do with it but all in all I think it was a great first discussion and we're looking forward to see how the courses for The Fall season go anything else from any other the board members Mrs Dino sure I

016just wanted to mention that I attended the parent University and it was so well attended and it's um just a great opportunity to see the partnership that we have with um the northwell and we all know how hard it is when you need need to get an appointment um for mental health services and you know it's a resource that you can take advantage of there are some links on the website that if you need you can look and there will be other things that are offered as well and it's something we really should all take advantage of because there are so many services and like online courses this was about an anxious child and we know that so many more children are anxious today and there are some resources and some webinars that you can

017watch in your own time um if you weren't able to come that day I'll say what was very impressive about her presentation was if you have an anxious child or any of those issues she wasn't about telling you oh plate that child give to that child she did a great job of in essence telling you that you can't do that that there's coping mechanism so in simplest forms your kid says they don't want to go to school she wasn't about saying oh keep the kid home she was giving you coping mechanism and tools to get your kid back to school to get them there we want to be I just thought was pretty refreshing approach to some of the other aspects we've heard so that was great anything else from any other board members uh

018this past week I attended at Waverly Park the V the annual Veterans Day presentation that they have every year um it's really an incredibly touching uh really nice presentation Waverly does a great job um they had a a number of members of the Armed Forces who were related to children in the school come and they honored them and it was just a really nice touching event um I I go most Years miss dinino was with me there I think we all thought it was really Burman was there as well I think we all really enjoyed ourselves so just a shout out to Waverly Park on that and and Marian Street and West End they were actually all three elementary schools did Veterans days it was it was really similar similar programs was great anything else

019on the board right moving on with the meeting we're going to be talking about uh Nic updates with the blue ribbon commission as well as state aid we'll start with just as a show fans who's here to talk about regionalization in the in the audience listen I me just to hear about it yeah I just wanted to see a part about it so as you're aware there's there's several big issues coming out of Albany um we've been involved in that topic of regionalization horrible name for what it is uh Dr Lynch has attended meetings and webinars along with other board members but I'll turn over to Dr Lynch now to hopefully be brief direct comprehensive explanation of what's going on thank you Mr Belmont so um to say that regionalization came as a surprise to

020superintendence would be an understatement so I will just kind of say where uh what how I learned about it um I woke up on a Friday morning and for those of you know I get in at an insanely early time and one of my things that I do every morning is every once a week I go into the state portal to make sure you know I don't owe anything to the state and there was this new survey that had to be reported and you know I had read roughly that something was going on with regionalization and I kind of click on it and I see a 44-page report that has to be filled out by November 1st so I called Dr bcas I'm like have you heard about this and he's like no and I

021had got literally picked up the phone and called other superintendent I said have you guys heard about this like yeah we're you know we're going to talk about so what apparently it happened is over the summer the the the the regions passed an emergency regulation that basically required districts uh to fill out a survey and to participate in what they're calling convening so that's kind of what we have to do those are the the requirements that are set on me so Dr Bas and I went actually Dr Bas don't you love when superintendent say things like Dr Bas and I and it's really he who did all the work I really like that about this new job uh Dr balus filled out this 44-page report and I read it and it's you know uh and

022so we haven't submitted it to the state yet um and if eventually we started to hear Rumblings about really the questions that were coming out of of school boards uh that were asking the question why an emergency regulation why now and what really what is this all about um I will say that what alarmed me so and I think the board has some definite opinions on this I'm just talking about my reaction to this um so I did I attended every meeting I attended every webinar uh several board members attended these webinars so what I understand what the big public discussion about is and I think the board is going to have some interesting discussion about local control but my concern is the reason the state said why they put together this as an emergency

023regul reg regulation is because they were assuming state aid was going to be drastically cut so if you remember in in uh in September we had an empty audience literally an empty audience and we painted a leak Bleak picture of next year's budget and all this did is they said listen we needed to have this data from you because we need to Advocate on your behalf to get this budget um get services to schools so as a former business official and a superintendent who's trying to balance a budget that really concerned me and I was really saying now we have to really even look hotter at some of these things and at simultaneously the new Regent diploma standards come come out and there's some talk about Foundation Aid and then literally you started to hear

024it Bubble Up from other communities our board I have to tell you you know I I always they do so much work that you don't see so I just need to let you know that and they they're only allowed to talk once a month or twice a month so they can only discuss a topic when they are constituted as a board so I think they've been kind of thinking and reading and and participating and uh I think this is really the chance that uh I would like to turn it right back to you guys to say I think uh you've been reflecting on these things and I think we'd be curious to hear your thoughts on the matter all right since I'm usually shy about speaking I'll just uh go first um just so everyone

025understands what regionalization is because it's a term that gets thrown around without a definition if you look at the statute actually there's no definition included but what they're talking about in regionalization is having districts that are in the same region regionalization share certain Services now in in concept that's not a bad goal right if we offer something that another District doesn't if there's a way for districts to combine or to combine a need and meet that need together you know whether it's Transportation uh bosies that's a good goal there's nothing wrong with that however what regionalization a lot of people are worried about and I've read pretty much every single thing that's come out on this is that this is a first step of many towards taking away local control and instead of having the

026lindbrook school district the East Rockaway School District the Malin School District we would have the Nassau County School District just like New York City has that's a real concern because this legislation is being passed or it's already been passed as an emergency legislation there's no emergency secondarily it's being put in as mandatory so there was there was language out of New York state or there was certain webinars and certain statements made that this is not going to be mandatory it's going to be optional there's going to be an opt out if you read the actual legislation this is 100% mandatory there is no way to opt out of it every district is subject to this and there's no emergency what's the emergency is New York state has come out and said we're going to cut

027your foundation Aid so we're going to gut your budget we're creating an emergency and here's the solution we have emergency legislation it's really the one of the greatest bait and switch type things I've seen right we're going to set your house on fire and now we're going to pass a legislation as to how to put out that fire well why did you just not set it on fire in the first place so the state is already threatening to cut Foundation Aid and this is their solution The Simple Solution would be not to cut Foundation Aid because every District on the island relies on it so I have a ton of concerns about this and I think you know I've spoken with a number of people on school boards at other districts um people in the

028administration this is something that every District on Long Island is concerned about it's especially a concern for a district like ours that has two feet features one we AB but other districts that may not have as many services including Queens we are a border Long Island District that is very close to the Queen's border under the statute if you really read it and dig deep into it it's possible that we could have kids from Queens coming here because we offer so many things that the New York City Schools don't and it's just a two-mile ride down into Queens it's it's not out of the out of contention that that could happen here the other feature that we have is that and I a little boast for lindbrook we are doing things better I believe and

029we offer certainly more than some of the surrounding districts may offer which means we are a have district and have not districts will be now getting stuff from us we're going to give more than we're going to get so to me this is a real real real concern and it should really worry everyone out there because ultimately if we lose local control and we lose having school boards and we have we lose the character of this district and become part of the Nassau County School District we're not going to be lbook anymore uh and just to add to what Mr Lun said the the language in this proposal is left very vague on purpose that that's how they get to twist and do what they'd like to do after you know we're forced to do

030what they want us to do um we've been told by state officials that it's optional but the language within the proposal does not back that up in the least so this is 100% a concern it's 100% something we need to take a strong stand against because part of the reason why we're in this community is for the districts and for us to just be forced to share all our Resources with anybody who comes along it it doesn't seem like what we signed off for when we bought homes in this District to add on to what Mr peski said um it kind of lacks information like there's a lot of information out there but it kind of lacks substance I attended the webinar and I I felt like there was no substance to the webinar they

031told you what regionalization is why they want to do it but they didn't really go into the how they didn't go into how who's paying for what and it just never went into the details of it so for me it's very wishy-washy kind of feels rushed fly by the seat of their pants I just don't think it's a great idea I also ended the webinar and I also sat through a meeting um where it was discussed a little bit by net and I've left with more questions than when I started the meetings um this you know I feel like we've had reasons not to trust before and this is giving us even more and I think that as a board we need to do something together to show that we're not trusting this so you

032know I don't think we can just sit back and I just want to add you know you know it sounds great to combining resources but we do have the opportunity to do that now if necessary correct without having regionalization right if they said you know we're going to all work together to bid on cheaper busing for everybody that's wonderful but if they're going to say now you're going to take 20 students from another district and you have no other options that's a whole different story well but but and I think Miss aragona hit on a really important point we can already do this on our own and we do do this I mean I Dr burman's shaking her head cuz she knows well she's nodding her head not shaking her head she's nodding her head

033because she knows she already does this in terms of matching up Transportation matching up resources we do this we do it through bosis and we do it on our own with local districts so we don't need mandatory legislation to achieve the goal of of districts working together to cut cost great goal you know I think one of the points that you know Mr peski said is it's p Bill not pesi just so you know um that Mr well aware of the proper pronunciation you've known him longer than I have so um no but one of the points that Mr peski raised was is a really important one it's not what we signed up for when we all bought homes in this District we're paying very high taxes we know that right nobody's happy about the

034taxes on Long Island but our taxes are very high in exchange for that we get a lot in our schools we have great teachers we have great Services we have great classes uh great Sports programs it really would be inherently unfair for us to continue paying these high same Skyhigh taxes and to be subsidizing neighboring districts that are paying half the taxes we are not getting the services so we're going to continue to pay 15 20 $25,000 per house for taxes when someone who's paying $111,000 in another District because they chose to move there is now just going to come to lindbrook and get these Services it's not only bad for the schools it's also going to be devastating for home values across Long Island in an area like ours which tend to be on

035the higher end of things and it makes you think about the whole Blue Ribbon plan with you know when we're looking at different offerings and different Pathways is this all tied together and is this what they're thinking and is this their sneaky plan and to kind of join on to what Mrs denino just said here's my concern one the first concern is the timeline this was initially put out with an 18 months to 3 years timeline last spring people thought they had time we'll discuss it you get together with your neighboring superintendents neighboring districts even other areas then they truncated that to six months during the same time frame where they brought it down to six months they put forth our new graduation measures which will revolutionize by the time now correct me if I'm

036wrong our seventh graders will be the first cohort to be under those new graduation 2026 is the last class under the old the one that we all grew up in then it's a phase in starting from there it hits kind of a perfect storm with the current seventh graders and then Allin brand new system by the current fourth graders so a brand new system where we have to revamp what we do how we you know how we gauge education all the while threatening very strongly to cut our financial uh Foundation Aid so districts have to figure out how to do more with far less and now you're going to tell us scrap the model we've been using you're no longer an independent school district it's absolute lunacy so they're all better spoken than me but

037I told you I wouldn't hide what I feel and that's what I feel and just one point I want to add we're all talking about Albany did this New York state did that this is not a political issue this is not a republican Democrat issue this is not a uh whether you love or hate the current governor or or anyone else in Al this is an issue it's not a political issue it's not it should not be looked at in that regard at all because you have a broad mix of districts some of which lean left some of which lean right the thing they can all agree on this is a disaster wellow I'm not getting into debate I think it's totally a political issue because I think whoever your government makes these decisions I

038think unfunded mandates I think rization I think getting involved in local school districts is a political issue and I think certain political parties choose to be more involved but your conern Dr Lynch now will give you some insight on what's actually taking place with what we have to do or not do understand and I am no fan of SED I mean federal government wants to get rid of the federal education department I'm very happy to get rid of the State education department you know we've been saying for 20 years I've been this board it's always the same thing things we do here have to get approved by them unfunded mandates the first thing they should have talked about this whole thing came out of their concern about the fiscal condition of of the state and

039what they thought was going to happen with the economy and the money they were not going to have the first thing they should done was got rid of unfunded mandates and you can Google I won't take that's the first thing they could have done get rid of unfunded mandates and see how much extra money you have so that's the first thing so Dr Lynch will talk about that now as far as what the things are but again they never said they were doing that the only politician who came out yesterday and said anything about it was when they came up with this they're going to tell you what came out of their financial they didn't say they were going to take our districts and combine them and do that but the wording is so poorly

040done and so vague it wasn't clear what they were going to do so you have to be nervous about the fact that what were they really going to try and do understand how difficult it would be legally for them to do that they don't really have the authority to do that and at least one politician because none of our local one said anything um I even know the guy Charles aan came out yesterday with a letter to all Nasa County superintendant and simply said there is no such danger there is no such threat because that's really where the answer lies we can get as excited as we want we could write letters you could sue who you want but our legislature our state senators and State Assembly the ones you elect are the ones that

041decide whether any of this is going to happen or not and if Dr Lynch you can explain a little bit about what was ask and what we're providing yes so I think it's very clear so this is um just an interesting thing about the office of superintendent these people hire and fire me you have to understand that on your behalf so I report to a board of education but at the same time superintendents are a sworn officer of the state so that when I am directed by the commissioner of Education to do things I am therefore obliged to do things on behalf that I'm directed to so my read and counselor you can correct me if I'm wrong my read is that I am under two legal obligations at this time one by December 6th

042that report that Dr B has filled out I need to submit and certify that and send it to Albany and then there will be what are called convenings so they're going to be meetings with our local bosies and I have to attend I don't have to speak I don't have to give a plan I don't have to participate in a plan I have to just be part of a convening so I think those are the two things that I perceive myself as a superintendent have been required of me and those are the things that are very clear I have to say this District in particular um NASA bosis has always been a great part in rars Mr Looney you sit on their board with for on our behalf uh we do over $5 million of

043business with bosis every year we send kids to their schools we participate in their bids they help us when I pick up the phone they ow so they've been kind of put as the middle land quite frankly if Larry wants me to come over for a meeting I'll go over for a meeting I think that's really kind of what I'm looking at it as this point however at that you know that does not mean that my board and my community don't have other concerns but I think the submission of data is important and the and to participate in the process you know I don't see I don't see what benefit it does to not participate in the things that we've been asked to do quite you know patently yeah I mean obviously everyone should chime

044in but my personal view is yes you you've been ordered to do certain things what you're being asked to do right now is just give data and attend meetings there is no harm in giving data and attending meetings and I don't think it would be fair of us to ask you to go against what you're being directed to do by a body that you have to report to so my personal opinion is yes do those things it's not going to stop the process if Lind Brook's superintendent is the hold out that doesn't show up at the meeting if it could I would feel otherwise but I think we do that and just continue to monitor it and report back to us and get like you've been doing and us as much information as you can

045discern from both the people who are speaking and the people in the audience who may have concerns that you can discern from those people Dr lyce when you reference this 44-page report I'm assuming it contains data yeah that is one thing that was in the superintendent Circle in the assistant super it's data they had already so basically what Jerry had to do is he had to look at a report from the state and type a figure into this report so that's literally what most of your time was spent doing was regurgitating data that they had already correct they owned everything and basically we had two reports run and uh we had to basically re-enter the same data that we pushed up to them in the past so and we thank our we thank our Bose's

046partners for actually running the reports for us to make it very user friendly so is this data we could share could it possibly be put on absolutely one Hallmark of this board and this Administration and I think our PTA Partners will tell you is you know when you look at our our reports we are transparent with our community so I think that there is no harm in US posting this data on our website so our community knows exactly what was submitted to the state of New York and you will be completely understanding exactly what will happen and I will come back every meeting and we could keep this as a standing item and I'll report back what I'm hearing I think that's a a i there's no ever any harm in transparency that's just kind

047of the way we've always done business here thank you and and for those of you that may be getting emails or listening to media from other school districts and those who paid attention for the last four or five years we did this is very similar to what happened with covid right people were threatening to sue the state they're telling districts not to send in their information and lmbr always did what they were supposed to do and those districts were no different than us we always have made our Administration this board has always made the smartest most common sense decisions that kept us out of linac kept us out of litigation and kept us moving forward throughout the whole thing things so if you are getting information from other places please attend these meetings and you'll

048have the most accurate information available to you kind of going off of that being do we want to do something like write a letter in opposition to this or do we kind of just want to I think we should write a letter and I also think that it would be helpful um and I think that it should go to the Regents and also all of the elected officials I think that they all should be included and I think maybe if we make a template so that the community can join in in writing their own letters to help us any letter our politicians shouldn't get letters they should be told and asked what's your position on this because every time we ask them something of course they just nod and move on their way they don't

049even address the issue who was at the legislative form we just had a legislative form we could set up a meeting and all go to unless there's a public and cameras there what they tell us the me won't matter what they need to do is come out and say yes this is ridiculous we not going to consolidate your school district and I'll do everything I can not to make that happen that's a simple email for them to answer on that question which they don't do but you want to send a letter we can come up with a letter do the board want is there consensus the board wants to send a letter to SD yeah there we go Mrs didn't you know you'll draft that with your help yes there's enough people on this board

050that'll get drafted um but I I think Mr denino had a really good idea that in addition to just the board sending a a letter which is a great idea and we should because other districts are doing it and we should lend our support I can't believe I'm going to quote Billy but it it is really about the elected officials who are out there because they are the people who can really make a a difference here so instead of us writing which we should do also people really do need to reach out to their elected officials Republican Democrat independent doesn't matter Express how you feel about this issue this specific issue because this probably touches more people directly than a lot of other things that happen in Albany and we really should let them know

051how we feel about it moving on to we good you got something else on this one well there we're still on the old business I still got do do you want to hit the blue we still got to hit blue so just we kind of like been tangentially talking about the same items so in the same week that uh the state did the the regions met on last Monday uh and they actually were presented the plan for the Blue Ribbon commission as to the the phase in of this program which uh Mrs Kelly and I were just talking about so uh we we basically what they they've talked about it's going to happen in a couple of steps so as I said the class of 2026 will be the last class under the old regime

052uh and then what will start to happen is it will start to um slowly but surely uh decrease the credit requirements they will start to I like this phrase decouple the regions from graduation requirements so right now there are two ways that you have to get out of high school you have to attend school and you have to pass Regents they're going to take away the have to pass Regents requirement and make it just attend school uh in addition they're going to be creating a single diploma where right now we have uh multiple diplomas there'll be one diploma some with uh distinctions some with different seals on it um actually I'm very proud of the work that we're doing here at lindbrook high school um one of the things that every district has to do

053now is adopt the profile of The Graduate check we kind of did that last year um we have to start to talk about revamping uh curriculum we're kind of undergoing that um and then what's the one thing that I thought was really interesting is eventually though it's heading to what's called uh a single transcript so no longer will you have a lindbrook high school transcript you will have a state of New York transcript and why that gets to be um a little bit concerning to me um and I don't know whether the kids would care about this but we can no longer require something like right lab we can no longer require something like community service anything that was particular to us we we we can still offer it we can still say hey kids

054community service is a great thing to do but we cannot make it a uh requirement for graduation so it's all moving towards that that single transfer but it could get its own seal if you get that you can yes and and that is what we're moving to so uh you know there are some great ideas that I think the high school will be un uh unveiling uh we can certainly have a seal of community Readiness and kidss who do service get a seal we could have a seal of dramatic arts and all the kids that up here you know so I don't want to think that this is it's just a very different way of doing things it's kind of saying you know what the Regents will say um the system that we're currently using

055was invented in 1904 for a an industrializing Society you just saw them up here singing and dancing this is an Information Society how do we design a education system and we are already kind of in this work it's about focusing not on those of you who are old like me teachers taught classes we were taught in groups of 30 now it's about teaching the kid what does this kid need I think the parents out there are like yeah that's that's a great idea and then we would start to maybe uh great opportunities uh uh kids learn a certain Adobe suite and we can say they are Adobe certified so there's lots of good that can come out of this but it's just going it's it's it's on a pathway to a uh to a very

056different style of Education it does really look like they're taking the individuality out of each district though uh so I think this would be the I think depending on how well we do it and we're at a we're at a crossroad I have confidence in this District in our Administration and in our teachers is that if we say I I don't think you know me I'm not ready to give up owdom I will be the last person that gives up owdom we know what this thing of ours is and if we don't embed that in our curriculum and we seal it we may have a seal of The Owl and the Seal of the owl says these are kids who are good and kind and rake leaves for old people and do all the things

057that this community has always valued and I think as you've been all saying why do people move here because you don't yes we have an awesome drama program we got an awesome uh sports program we have an awesome academic program we got great kids I always say to every parent out there you do children well in this district and I think that thing we don't want I'm I'm G to die on that Hill I'm going to tell you that you know I'm the guy that's going to die on that Hill that we will continue to be the owls um one way or the other that that has to be seem so much like the regionalization is tied to that yeah I mean saying it like that makes when you hear regionalization and what all the

058people are saying is the concern that this is like a stealth way of combining districts and now oh look at this coincidentally we're going to have a New York state diploma instead of a lybrook diploma eventually you kind of you start to see the pattern forming here right I mean I understood when I read or heard on some seminar that they said you know you could move in junior year and go from this District to that district and it doesn't matter and your diploma would be your diploma but you could do that now today yeah so to me that's both anything I hit it all sure so just to give people a sense of things in order quickly here so for this school year the first big change is that there will be an exemption

059we're not really sure exactly what it's going to look like but for the regions exams if you have a major life event you may be exempt from your regions exams in the past if you missed the June region you had to retake in August January whatever it may be there will be some flexibility in 2627 so two school years from now everyone will be required to offer financial literacy and climate education details to hopefully be shared next school year what that would look like uh 2728 all ninth graders would be required to take one CTE credit so that's one of your Career Technical education credits that's when the uh Regions exam start to Sunset and that one diploma that Dr Lynch was talking about comes into play and 2930 is when it all uh comes

060in so that's your new system your new transcripts your learning standards and uh when the portrait of The Graduate matters so back to what Dr Lynch said before right now we have two different checklists to graduate high school you have credits and you have exams in the future you're going to have learning standards and your profile of your graduate and how you meet those standards is up for discussion you know hopefully uh we'll get more clarity next school year is what they're saying thank you say when you say climate education is that so they know that when it's cold out they should wear a hat and they'll dress properly or what do you I would assume that's going to be more about your global climate change that would be my assumption but again I don't

061have they're not going to fund that right that's something we have to fund and do ourselves I would assume again that is the case but we will see it's a Tob continu and I just want to assure you I think our science department kind of already teaches certain certain scientific facts that's just what scientists do I think I'm the only one up here who will have a child going through that new profile 20 32 did you did we do state you want to hit State I do so what I don't want lost in this conversation because I think sometimes it could be like um w w like we looking up look over here look over here look over here Foundation Aid the one thing I have heard clearly is they're not going to be giving

062us the money that we need to properly fund the budget next year and we I have to say uh Mrs aragona and Mrs denino we attended a legislative Forum at malver high school yesterday only two legislators attended and and a staff member of another one um so yes our our new assembly woman assembly when elect Griffin was there um that meeting was originally scheduled before the election right correct and why would they show up there yeah so uh the one so the one thing they made clear and I'm going to talk to our you know your PTA partners are here we need to make our so my concern is everyone in this corner of Nassau County where what's called mid wealth districts I think mid wealth districts could be in real Jeopardy we know that

063we're the dead 50% we're half half of the county is richer than us and half of the P county is poorer than us and our Aid has always been adjusted to that what is happening though where did school security come from and how so this Foundation Aid formula is from 2007 using data from 2007 you tell me what lindbrook high school looked like in 2007 because I don't know I wasn't here that's how long ago it was we're now spending $700,000 a year in school security that's we never had to do before we are seeing as you saw Mr pre well there was no one in the audience but Mr press gave something on on September 25th which showed the skyrocketing costs of special education and I'm proud to say we are building programs here

064we're not necessarily sending kids out but guess what those are expensive programs to run because of the of the ratios that have to be provided that's nowhere in the formula we are servicing more L's English language Learners than we haven't had that is not in the formula so there's so much that is not accounted for and on December 1st after all of this stuff they are going to release a new Foundation Aid formula we have no idea which way that's going to cut so we are going to need and I I i' se sound like the boy who cried wolf we really need pta's support we really need people to go to Albany we may need bus loads to go to Albany we may need to land in front of uh of uh assemblywoman Griffin's

065office and and uh Senate of Ken area Fitzpatrick's office we may need to do a mobilization that says we need this to to to just because otherwise it mean I don't want to paint a horrible picture here kids but it's it's about cutting programs that's what I'm talking about is cutting programs and we have been so good about not doing that um that we need to just make sure because you know as I said at The Forum the other day we can either raise your taxes oh no we can't because we can only do that to 2% we can use our reserves oh no we can't because there's a bunch of rules around them that they only let us use them when we want to use them or we depend on fa on state aid

066oh no we can't because we're now going to change the formula for midwe districts show me where the money's coming from that's what I'm concerned about and if I sound like I'm you know I hope I think I told the board this I hope I'm crying wolf I hope you all laugh at me and say haha you jerk you had it all wrong I don't think I'm wrong that's my my thought so if you're wrong we would never speak to you that way we would never speak to you that way even if you're not you Mr belman not publicly can I say a few things I've been going to Albany for years to fight for foundation Aid um and Lobby on that you know that's a big thing as a teacher that we go and

067Lobby on every year and you know they finally did made it um gave us a lot more to then now cut it back and re-evaluate which is looking um so Doom and Gloom but we have to keep in mind as we've said before about those unfunded mandates and one of the things that came out um a couple of things that came out from the Forum that we were at the other day besides the poor attendance of the legislators there um was um a couple of things the unfunded mandates the security we did say that the elected officials should really come into our buildings and see the specialed programs that we have here and how wonderful they are but the cost that comes along they should see the security measures and the cost that comes along

068so they really know what they're talking about because I know from when we go to Lobby it's the stories so when they're talking to the governor they need to you know portray that message and let her know that um in addition another big issue on Long Island is going to be the charter schools it's starting to affect us but they are go they are looking and putting in to get more and more charter schools here they do not have the same oversight as we do in the public schools and yet they are taking the same money and that is a real real concern for us that we all have to be cognizant of and it affects our funding and we have to watch that the person up in Sunni who approves those is John King

069the same person we had issues with with the testing all those years ago I don't know why he keeps going up in his position but you know he's wreaking havoc on the education world over and over so that's something we have to be aware of and just watch how those Charters impact us and the over sight of that and I would be remiss because I do want to piggy back on Mrs Deno so I see Mr kenberg is being hidden behind the podium here and our LT our our PTA partners and our LTA Partners uh we're on the same page on this one and I think they this is a really great collaboration I just want to kind of add on to what Dr Lynch said um even one of the elected officials at The

070Forum kept saying it's so important we write letters we show up because the more people that advocate for the fact that we need more money it's you know we have to show up in numbers and let them know like what the schools need because well a only two three of them showed up but we we need a bigger pres a presence moving on um so we have a the law got changed as of July 202 five we have to have student participation on the school boards if you attended last month you knew we discussed that uh Mr Cornell's AP government class would like to present their thoughts on the topic regarding uh how we should handle that and who should be part of it so they've asked to come in next month to do that

071so we will give them privilege of the floor next month to discuss that um I just remembered under I would have been remiss s s's not here am I so Mr Brer actually I had my 20th High School reunion uh two weeks ago go and Mr brush came I'm lying it was my 40th high school reunion but nobody really nodded their head so I feel good about that but I just wanted to say I should should have done it when he was here so I apologize but Mr brush was great he came in on a Saturday and as they do for every un Union class if you have your union they will give you a tour of the high school so obviously many of my classmates who had come back and not had not been

072here in decades so it was nice of Mr BR and Mr Sosi I know you worked with some of my classmates to arrang that so thank you both for that uh under new business Dr Lynch superintendent report thank you Mr uh so we have our three board goals and I'm going to update you on those so our first Bo board goal was to uh impact the profile of the owl and make it an operational reality in the school uh so I'm happy to say we had a uh superintendent conference day where we reflected on the profile of the owl and we started to actually have departments and the grade levels do some work surrounding it so we had such great topics so our our C you know some of the stuff I thought was great

073you know so kindergarten teachers and our first grade teachers started to talk about bringing play back into the curriculum and I just think that would be was such a good thing to look at uh we had our our higher level Elementary people looking at the impact of AI on on the uh on education uh we had our our occupational therapist and our speech therapists and and our and our social workers and our and our uh uh guidance counselors and psychologists get together and do some articulation surrounding what needs to happen uh for for the kids and then at the secondary level each of our departments broke off um I actually led the the the one with the English Department and we discussed about what the future of writing should look like not just in English

074but across the curriculum and uh I we had some really great professional dialogue uh surrounding that uh we had more work with AI at uh at the at the secondary level we had our art are so part of this new graduation uh uh standards is to do more interdisciplinary work so our art teachers and our social studies teachers went to the Met together to talk about how to take uh certain art works and embed it into the history curriculum um so that's just the stuff I'm thinking of so we we're starting to do the the work of the of the profile of the owl it was a very robust program I thank everyone thank Dr BX I help thank Mr Sosi the principes uh really and the department chair people uh and the teachers who

075were just really uh we we we we set the stage on superintendent's conference day I have a working philosoph ophy that teacher empowerment is the answer to all our curricular issues and we started to ask for Teacher empowerment and and we started to get to the point where teachers started to say here's what we need to do here's how we need to raise the bar and I love this expression that came almost organically from the teachers but we've kind of capitalized it the idea of productive struggle that learning involves raising a bar and struggling a little bit you almost not that I'm the great weight lifter but imagine I if I were okay you know how you just kind of want to Tire the muscle out just enough same thing with the brain you want

076to tire it out just enough and then to be able to have our social workers and our and our psychologists hand in hand make sure that you know that can hurt sometimes you know sometimes you know kids like to be perfect and they need may need to reflect on that so that all kind of has been going on and will continue to go on so that was goal one goal two is to create a multi-tier system of supports when it comes to social emotional learning uh that's a lot of blah blah blah which means we just want to make sure we know what all kids get in terms of social emotional learning what targeted kids get and then what what uh highly targeted kids get so we've been talking about that and we were proud

077to roll out in with the uh school and Community Committee so members of our PTA are out there who are are partners with this we launch we did a major launch of the northwell program so we were able to we thank PTA for for PTA University fascinating night to have a psychologist here from northwell for free or not for free for the price that we pay for the for our entrance fee um and then really we were able to launch a website uh which if you haven't seen it yet please see it the fact that you know while you know you we think the best way for your kid to get mental health support is to start with your your school staff but now everyone everyone in this room has access to a crisis center

078in Rockville Center that you just need to call them up and say my kid goes to the lindbrook schools I need help with this and they will help you out and just one thing we need to mention that that's for everybody in the community including our non-public school kids so that's just something that people should uh we should get out there so I thank uh our our our school and Community Committee for the feedback on the website we started with one that um was kind of boring and kind of factual and so we had to Jazz it up a little bit to look at it from a parent perspective to say all right my kids in crisis what do I need how could I don't have time to go through a bunch of PDF Flyers

079to find out stuff when my kid needs help so we tried to make it as userfriendly as possible you know us we're open to feedback if you think there's something we can change we'll be happy to change so that was goal two and goal three Mr mcdermit Communications is meeting next Monday so we'll be moving forward with that I think that will be um a new website is coming that's H winter is coming the new website is coming uh and then I'm going to turn it over to Dr Bas for the Elementary report card thank you Dr Lynch all right popping up so uh we had done work prior to covid about trying to change our report card and give out a little bit more information both numerical and in the comment sections uh the

080communication committee during covid met a lot about trying to change the way that we communicate with our families and those conversations uh after covid led to our adoption of parents Square the two conversations at some point merged so that uh we are going to be bringing out our new report card through parents Square so what is that going to mean for people that want to uh view their report cards you will receive a text message with a direct link so if you click on the text message that will take you directly to your child's report card if you did not opt into text messaging uh using parent Square it is pretty easy if you did download the app there's a little icon at the bottom it says alerts uh it will highlight with a little

081red number there depending on how many children you have you'll have that many alerts uh if you click on the alert icon at the bottom of your cell phone you will be getting a document that says view document which will put you to a PDF of your child's report card there may be a little bit of confusion this is what I wanted to make sure people did here if you have uh multiple students in the district this is a way that we are pushing out the Elementary report cards if you happen to be in the high school with your high school kids account you may need to switch the school to get to the correct alert so if you are looking and wait a second where's my kids report card you may not be in

082the correct School change it in the drop- down menu to the elementary child school and you should be able to view the document once you click on it you will see things that uh like I said are new features so one of the uh parts of the report card as we talked about with the profile of the owl we will be talking about soft skills so it's not going to be just academics anymore there will be more specificity which means that there will be more categories that students will be judged in and personalized feedback where there will be comments from teachers not only the classroom teacher typing and everything for the entire building but each of the uh generalists who are working with your student will have an opportunity to uh comment as well so

083what does the report car look like uh this is Dr buus is fake child so the school and the grades and the principls make no sense the teacher happens to be our data person Mrs steart Johnson helped build this basically pixel by pixel so I thank her for her work here but uh her name is in as my child's teacher so mini test student uh attends the Kindergarten Center with principal Ganan in 8th grade so obviously none of this information is correct but it does show what the formatting looks like so if you need an explanation of levels that's the first thing you will see if you scroll down you'll see all different components of the report card starting with the attendance and uh some of the soft skills working your way through all of

084the academics at the very end if your child receives Support Services there will be uh comments for any of the General Ed supports and any of these special ed supports would come in a separate document but uh really the report card does uh scroll very nicely if you are not a fan of technology or you just prefer to have a hard copy in your hands please just contact the school and they'll be able to provide one of those as well thank you and you'll be putting out a parent Square so that the whole District knows about this correct we will be putting out a parent Square uh sometime before the end of the week so that everybody knows that this is coming you know obviously this would not happen until the end of the marking

085period but we did want to let people know about it sooner rather than later so they would not be shocked have a big portion of our parents downloaded the app and they're like they're using it we have yeah we have like a 98% reach oh that's great yeah it's been remarkable yeah and Mr press capital padrick thank you Dr Lynch um just some quick updates on what's been going on um for those who were at homecoming you may have seen the new concrete ramps concrete very exciting things put some new concrete ramps there um primarily to uh make uh the field area a little bit more accessible um what you may have seen is there were no railings there we were waiting on those to come in so those finally came in so all the

086work at Maran Street um is now complete the lights are functional um and everything is good there um we are uh we've just received today actually the plans for the next part of our Capital project so that's the restrooms here at the high school restrooms at um admin and some repointing work uh over at Maran street so those will be reviewed and we'll get them signed and we'll get them up to almany um one of the concerns we have and somebody maybe want to um distract Mr Belmont um the review time up at the state these days for capital projects is about nine months um which is utterly ridiculous um but that is what it is as of today I checked the SD website um what that means at this point is when we get

087these plans submitted we're probably not going to get an answer until August which means we miss the entire summer uh they the state has reinstituted a third party review I don't know if anyone recalls that it was a process that was in place a few years ago that went away um where districts could pay for a fee um s would Outsource the review process to architectural firms um it speeds up the process considerably uh we are seriously uh interested in doing that the cost of doing it would be about $113,000 um the cost of not doing it would mean we'd probably have to wait another summer Before we or another year before we could bid this out and with the rates of inflation that we're seeing in construction it will cost us a lot more

088than $133,000 um at that point in time so we are recommending that we do third party review um to get this review done we don't know they haven't told us how long that process is but it we've been told it's considerably faster because SED is short staffed but if they can bring in outside architectural firms to do this um and I actually did this I'm not sure if this has been done here we did it for the um the HVAC yeah and I did it in my previous district and the response was much much quicker uh so that is our recommendation so these projects would be the doors for West End and Marian Street and the Laboratories here it's not the doors have already been but oh okay Laboratories that was it's the yeah it's

089the Laboratories here at admin and the repointing so while it is infuriating and just to add while we're going to pile on on nicd you know the fact that it's going to cost us $133,000 to get the work done do we have I just we don't want to do that expense without checking with you if that's I mean not withstanding the fact that after eight months or our other project was 18 months goods and labor could cost more but but do you understand that like you approved that project we hired like real professionals like Architects people that do that for a living to come up with those plans to do that project and then we send it up to Albany to sit there for eight months because they're short staffed just to come back and

090say you could do that project it's it's ridiculous but we keep talking about every meeting every year decades I've been doing this okay keep doing it we good that's it election was that was the time to make a difference was the election last week was the time to Hound those people on whatever your main issue was whatever your political issue was that was the time to go tell them to make a difference in it now we're we're chasing the eight ball again chasing them now to get money back so as we move on to new business if everyone could just take a second and just look at Mr brusher because he was not here when I gave him that compliment so he knows I said nice things about you Mr bran and you may not

091have seen it but this meeting is recorded So if you go back tonight and show the wife and kids they'll know some no one loves you under public comment can I just can I take I did forget I will be dead if I don't say this reminder our uh our Powderpuff uh game is this Saturday at Maran Street uh 1:15 to is the ceremony 2 o'clock is the uh actual game and that's to raise funds for breast cancer uh at this time if you'd like to make public comment you can come to the podium identify yourself and indicate to the board if you live in or out of district oh I can't see my name is CC far and I in Mrs posa's fourth grade class at West End I'm here today to talk to

092you about recycling in LM schools I have noticed that in West End there are not many recycling bins in the classrooms and there are none in the lunchroom I asked my friends at Maran and Waverly and they said the same thing at their schools too there are no recycling bins in the lunchrooms at any of our elementary schools my friends are in sixth grade at North and they say that there's a bin for plastic bottles in the lunchroom there but it's tucked in the corner cor and no one at the school has ever pointed it out or told them to use it my brother told me norf now has fruit seltzers at school that come in plastic bottles but everybody just throws the bottles away in the trash cans not the plastic recycling bin my

093brother and his friends also go to the Middle School tea nights and they say they're not allowed to bring their reusable water bottles there they have to bring plastic ones instead they showed me the tea Night Flyer and and it even says this on there why are we making lri owls by single use Plastics my friend itself said that he doesn't think there's any recycling bins for plastic bottles in the lunchroom there at all so if there is one some of the kids don't even know that it exists I think that this needs to change at lunchtime every day in all of our schools many students get milk cardens and juice boxes why don't we have a recycling bins for these in the ele elementary schools also everyone who ordered lunch gets plastic gets a

094plastic Spork a plastic straw wrapped in a plastic bag and these things all get thrown in the trash every single day this is not okay many places in the United States have laws against plastic straws even in New York City and suff County this pla this plastic is going into our ocean killing marine life and creating microplastics in our food environments America report reported that every student who eats a school lunch every day produces about 67 pounds of waste in one year that means that at West End that West End students are producing about two and a half tons of lunchtime of lunchtime trash this year and that's just the kids who get the school lunch there are tons and tons of addition additional trash coming from the kids who bring their own lunch from

095home and the same thing is happening at all the other schools it's just going into the exact same bin every day we need to do better and we can do better in elementary school we learn about reducing reusing and recycling every April around Earth Day I think this is something that needs to happen all year round limber students need to learn Habits Like recycling When We're Young before it's too late if we start to build these habits in kindergarten and Elementary School by the time we get to the middle schools we won't even need reminders anymore because it will just be something that we do no one will have to point out the recycling bin in the lunchroom because we'll be looking for it the good news is that there's already a plastic recycling bin

096in the lunchroom at North and I've seen that there's also one here in the high school so if it's already happening at two of our Lim Brook schools I hope that means that we can make it happened at all of them I made a chart of some of my ideas for how limrick elementary schools and middle schools can become more environmentally friendly at lunchtime and I have copies for all of you I hope you will take time to think about this please thank you for listening so be before you hand this to us because this is recorded what over here right here me that's me what what's your name again Cece and what grade are you in fourth fourth so if you were on the ballot last week I would have voted for you so

097most people come up here and tell us about a problem and just leave it like that and the way you fix things in life is to talk about a problem and then identify the solution for it so that was extremely impressive extremely well presented and I agree with everything you say and I put it on Dr Lich to implement it so and I'm going to put it on Mr Seda over there who I already eyeballed him so I I'll get so I have to say there are two things I can that we can do immediately so recycling bins Jim are fairly easy that that that one we can fix and I think you're totally right so that's something that we could get sooner rather than later but there's one thing that you mentioned that's just

098a little bit more complicated so I want to be very upfront with you as to why it's a little more complicated when it comes to the the the forks and the knives uh you you're absolutely right you're 100% but we partner with another company and they do the forks and the knives and so it's part of a business deal so we would need to make that part of our next business deal with them so we can't do that immediately that has to come up you know like with a business contract so when the business contract comes up we can address that with them but Mr SATA everything else pretty much and then and don't worry Mr Feld will be getting a call about reusable bottles at the teen center I don't know what's going on

099there but we'll uh we'll take a look but yes you did a great job and you made a lot of sense to me made a lot of sense a lot of sense thank you CC [Applause] hi everybody I V Riley um well today is World kindness day I that's a tough act to follow I'm just goingon to say I was going to say without before you say anything today is World kindness day and it's the EAS thing in the world right now for me to do an act of kindness by just saying how CeCe is specifically the portrait of the apple right like she is what lindbrook produces and what lindbrook is proud of so um thank you CCE that was a great presentation and one of the reasons that PTA is always advocating for

100our kids because we have kids like that and she wins all these Awards um through PTA and and and in the school and whatever because um you know limra gets our kids to think differently and it's just something we're we're really proud of so as I stand up today as uh the legislative chair of LM Brook High School PTA um I want to um switch hats for one second and put on my Council cap and thank everybody who attended parent University for the first time it's a brand new um you know um Journey that we're going on we're trying to change it up and get more involved we're actually kind of going with instead of a parent University kind of thing where parents are being schooled we're trying to make it more into a um

101family and Community engagement Academy where people feel like they can come and they can learn and they can relate to each other and be more Community inclusive so we get some really great um response as far as how many people showed up to our first parent University of the year um our um excuse me I haven't been feeling well so I apologize but our um first event of the year um our collaboration with northwell and with Mrs Bryce who has just is such a fabulous addition to this school district and we you know at PTA we are we are seeing how much she is going to be bringing to our students and we are just really proud that we can work with her so our new collaboration which we're saying is PTA and the school

102district district and um and northwell health and we're even pulling out SEPTA as a separate part of that because they do so many great things and their on their own schedule so we want this to be a huge collaboration so I just want to say that um what we notice is that families really are interested in being engaged and they are they're going to show up if we give them what you know what we have to offer we already have these resources and with our new partnership with northwell that's um going in the right direction so thank you everybody for um for your support on that um and just to put it out there because you asked for it Dr Lynch if you are ever in need of the number for the Rockville Center office

103to get urgent care for um your mental health challenge um student then you can call 516 9271 1630 I'm just putting it on the record because it's all over the website now it's everywhere but we can't say it enough because we don't ever want to have to look for that phone number when we need it um so this weekend I am going to um the New York State PTA convention um as a delegate for um lindbrook high school and I wanted to mention that I um PTA is in the learning stages of this informational um Gathering about re regionalization I think that's the easiest way to put it I did contact our local reps a couple of weeks ago but it was right in the middle of um ction craziness so I haven't heard back

104from them but I will be following up with them um and I agree that lindbrook should be proactive um and that's why we're here and I can't really see behind me because everybody sits on the sides but there's a lot of people here from PTA who are here just to listen because we really want to know what we can do to be proactive because um like you said we are afraid of local control being removed or redirected um because we know that Foundation Aid is so critical and we've been fighting for it for years we do have a really strong um um legislative committee through PTA that even though it's kind of starts through Council and the high school we have people from some of our strongest PTA leaders are on that committee and we

105meet with um reps often and Mr deino comes with us all the time as well um so we just want to make sure that um it's known that we are in this same fight with you we are looking to collaborate and we appreciate that we can now choose to collaborate with other districts for resources and with bosis um but without being told that we have to do it and how to do it um and again it is a very political issue questionably how that's going to work out we're not concerned with we're just concerned what is best for our children and to make sure that we keep our money in LMR schools where it needs to be since we're the ones paying our taxes and you know standing up here advocating for our kids to

106get what they need and lindbrook has put in a lot of time and effort and energy in doing this right so we're going to be behind you um 100% whatever this Board of Ed um you know decides we will hopefully be on the same page and we will be able to support in any way um I do agree with that whole statement that everybody was saying that we just need more people to come out and when we send out um letters and say please send an email to your your your Congressman your your state senator your assembly rep that we continue to look at those make a phone call even if the question is what is your opinion on this which is really what my question was to my reps when I emailed them a

107few weeks ago I just want to know what their opinion is so I know if I want to help them or let them know that I disagree right and again we're just knew into this to give an opinion um but I do want to mention that this is my second year um as a parent Committee Member of the Blue Ribbon commission and um I want to mention that commissioner Rosa and Chancellor young are on every single committee meeting that we've held and never did I ever hear anything um about the uh the region sunsetting in fact everybody was kind of opposite of that so I find it really interesting how we we are part of the process but are we um and I leave it there but I want to hope that we continue to

108keep our high standards that we set at lindbrook and I have heard nothing but that from this board and from from Administration tonight that we plan to continue to do what we do and make our owls our owls um and I think it would be very safe to say PTA is 100% behind you in keeping where we are I do want to answer one question the question about climate education refers to um programming um or rules require uh referring toal and Dasa and school safety but doesn't res refer to security measures that we put in place because we have to have our security plans for the state right so the question before I think Mr Belmont had asked was what is climate really what does it mean really and it has nothing to do with

109our security like you said Dr Lynch they're not paying for our security they just want to know that children feel safe and I don't know what that actually means in the terms of having it be part of what our new curriculum is going to be and I am eager to hear this weekend from New York State Department of Education about it Dr BL can correctly I'm wrong like so I think you're referring to the climate survey which is part of the seal side which is how kids feel and this this regulation is about climate study the scientific phenomena I'm not really sure to be honest now now that you're mentioning it I going toy that that's I read information was very sketchy and we kind of put it correctly May correctly that's really that would

110be really kind of interesting so lucky for me it's right in front of me that's but it is about um the um the school culture and climate uh the school climate and safety when you're talking about um the different uh where they said the things that they want to have all students be able to pass I don't even know what well I'm happy to say that's kind of included in goal too that's that is what the is about Fin financial literacy climate education was the question that came up in a statement earlier I wrote it down but um yeah if you look in the um student Support Services on the New York State education department that's what it comes out as and it goes to the climate and to that survey right so that I

111guess we just feel safe in our schools that's what they're trying to get I don't know that's the whole thing is is nobody really knows so I'm hoping that when we see um uh commissioner Rosa and her people this weekend at convention they will tell us something because I I attended um that same event that many of you attended and afterwards I I watched it and and I have the and it's the fact versus fiction and I think the fact versus fiction is a little funky um and I don't know if it's really accurate so I would just say as a PTA we're watching this very closely and we are going to depend on our Board of Education elected um officials to watch it very closely as well and to help us to understand this

112process and what we can do to support everyone okay thank you yeah and and Ivy I think you rais a good point this is is an opportunity for the board and the administration and the PTA and the LTA and everybody to work together because I think we're all United in this call here since you mentioned the LTA I figured I'd come on down Craig kenberg president lber Teachers Association every once in a while uh an issue or issues comes along in which we are all in line um the teachers union the PTA District administration the board everybody um and Dr Lynch when you mentioned uh a bus trip to Albany it brought back some memories yeah 2013 I organized a b a bus trip um I was President back then too we filled a bus

113and it was teachers and it was board members um learned Alice Marie bre H's biography I sat next to her on a chair up there it was awesome it was awesome we shared we were bus buddies yeah um and uh and and we filled the bus you were there oh yeah yeah yeah Mrs Zoe were you there we went to uh we went to Albany for uh I think we went to skos right so um at the time the issue it was a a combination of issues at the time and it kind of feels like we're dealing with the same kind of thing right now now at the time it was the tax cap and epr and the over testing and um you know students more than a test score and that whole thing I

114mean that's right and we had this this whole um mix uh of issues um and now um as you're going through everything before with um the graduation measure and the regionalization and all that stuff it kind of feels like here we are again it's different issues but it's it's the same song and dance to a slightly different tune and um I think we are once again all in line the board Administration um LTA PTA so um if anyone here is interested in a bus trip hey you know let's do it let's fill the bus uh you mentioned before writing a letter for from the board uh the ltaa would be happy to participate with you and do a joint letter if you're all into that I think that's a great idea great thank you um

115you know we stand here in Advocate and sometimes we talk we look at things from slightly different perspectives but um CC right I mean unbelievable right um as an educator like I mean you just kind of love seeing that um a problem solver she brought a steps tool right like problem solving on on all levels love that so um this is why we do what we do sometimes we look at things from a slightly different point of view but it's about advocating so we can have our local control to be able to provide the services that we want to be able to provide for the students of limber work and uh with this whole regionalization thing it got uh crazy it's still quite the storm out there uh um Mrs denino mentioned uh a meeting

116a couple meetings that she attended I uh too have attended a couple of those meetings we're at some of these same meetings um I've stood up at a couple of those meetings to try to put pressure on our um state union representatives to get the state to walk some of this stuff back um and some of the frequently Asked uh the state Ed put out uh an FAQ uh and those frequently asked questions their responses seem to walk some of that stuff back a little bit um I hope when they come out with additional regulations or whatever they're going to come out with in January uh I hope they um Don't Force us to do anything because us being able to maintain our local control we're all on the same page there so um in

117any way that the LTA can be an ally to do this uh we're here thank you appreciate it thank you seeing nothing else from the audience hi it's mayor bre Stalter I am a resident um I wanted to say I think you found somebody who can teach your climate class see probably or at least maybe be the student board member um but um I also I'm here to actually say thank you to the district on the board and everyone who supported our fly with the owls 5K for the um ptaa scholarship funds it was an amazing day and it could only have been made possible with the help of the district The Village the fire department I mean it was just really a true Community effort and we really appreciate it and we hope to

118see more of you next year doing the walk uh walk or run whatever you whatever you choose I walked but um we just really want to say thank you thank you great seeing nothing else moving on with the meeting we have two donations this evening the board gratefully acknowledges accepts 2411 G1 a donation of materials in the amount of $500 from Friends of limric music to be used for outfitting the dressing rooms in the LMR High School theater with hooks storage cubes shelving and fans also a donation of dictionaries valued at approximately $1,200 for every third grader who attends lmbr public schools from the New York Elks Lodge number one consent agenda I'd like to ask for consent agenda on resolutions 2411 C1 through 2411 C5 2411 nc1 through 2411 nc13 n 2411 G1 through

1192411 G29 may have a motion Please Mr peski second Mr lunar all in favor pass we have a motion to accept the consent agenda Mrs Deno second Mr Aron all in favor that's it everyone be safe our next meeting is on December 11th for