001Great evening and welcome to our board of education meeting for the enlarge city school district tonight um November 21st uh 2025. live. Um, tonight we are going to start tonight we're going to be having a workshop meeting and I want to call to order our meeting. Um, this agenda was prepared in advance of tonight's meeting. The final agenda for tonight's meeting is subject to change at any time of the meeting. Any changes will be noted at the time they are made and again after the meeting on the public board minutes which are available on the district's website. We would like to remind everyone that translation and interpretation services are available during this meeting. If you need assistance, please let us know. and we will be happy to accommodate you. led by Mr. Rhett who is
002not at his seat. Um Andrew is going to lead the pledge of allegiance tonight for us. Thank you. >> Mr. Perino, do you have any moments of silence you'd like to >> No, thank you. >> Thank you. The mission of the Enlarge City School District by Dr. De Jesus. We strive to provide fiscally sound educational opportunities in a safe environment that continuously support our diverse student population. We will enable all students to graduate, to reach their full potential, to become lifelong learners, and to be competitive, productive members of society. >> May I have a motion to approve the agenda? >> Roll call. >> Thank [snorts] you. >> Dr. De Jesus, >> Mr. Estrada, >> here. >> Mr. Moore, >> Mr. Parino, >> here. >> Mr. Brett >> here. >> Miss Romero >> here. >> Miss
003Tobias >> here. >> Freddy Williams >> here. >> Pastor Williams >> here. >> Thank you. Now, may I have a motion to approve the agenda as presented? >> Okay. Can we now >> Oh, okay. Go ahead. I'd like to add >> uh so I'd like uh to amend the agenda to include an item under action items 8 I it would be and it would be for um a vote on the return of the superintendent of schools Uh Amy, create him as a date of December 1st. >> December 1st. >> Yes. >> Can we have um roll call? So this roll call for >> Yeah. Point of information. We would now make uh um for parliamentary procedure. We would now have a vote on the amended agenda. >> Agenda. >> You going to go around? [snorts]
004>> You have a first and a second. >> Yeah. I was a first and pastor was a second. So it just be discussion and vote. We want to do a roll call for the amendment >> and any discussion >> or any discussion. >> I'm I'm okay with the discussion. >> Okay. >> All right. So, we're gonna we're now going to turn the meeting over to our district clerk. >> He's discussion. >> Yeah. >> For the amendment. >> Okay. Go ahead, Andrew. I'm sorry about that. >> I just want to say I'm I will be voting no on on the amendment of the agenda. um just because we have as a board have not taken the necessary steps to make sure that we have our plan in place before that action can be taken. So at
005that this time I'm not going to be voting actually I'm going to be voting no but I'm not approving the change of the of the agenda. >> Thank you Mr. Moore. Any further discussion? All in favor? >> I can I do a roll call, please? Okay. Dr. De Jesus for the amendment of the agenda. >> Yes. >> Everyone use your mics, please. >> Mr. Strata. >> Yes. >> Mr. Mr. Moore. >> Mr. Parino. >> Yes. >> Mr. Rhett. >> Yes. >> Miss Romero. >> Yes. >> Miss Tobias. >> Yes. >> Mr. Freddy Williams. >> No. >> Pastor Williams. >> Yes. >> So, the motion passes 72. >> Thank you. We're going to move along >> and the agenda. >> Yes. Um, we're going to turn the meeting over to our district clerk. >> I'm sorry,
006President Romero. Now, we have to actually vote on the agenda. The amended agenda. >> Great. Let's vote on the agenda. This is my first meeting. [laughter] >> You're fine. You're fine. We're here to help. >> It took me many years. So, >> I mean, yeah. 20. [laughter] >> Can we We're now going to vote on the agenda. We need a first and second. So moved. >> All those in favor? >> I >> Okay. Any oppose? >> Me. >> Post. >> We are now going to turn the meeting over to the district clerk for election and oath of the vice president of the board of education. Good evening everyone. Um, the nominations are now open for the position of vice president of the board of education for the 2526 school term. Um, may I have a
007nomination? >> Yes. >> Like to nominate Mr. Freddy Williams for vice president. >> May I have a second? >> Second. Is there any discussion or any other nominations? Okay, hearing none, I will begin the roll call. Please state yes or no for uh vice president for the role of vice president of Freddy Williams. So, Dr. De Jesus, >> yes. >> Mr. Estrada, >> yes. >> Mr. Moore, >> yes. >> Mr. Parino. >> Yes. >> Mr. Rhett, >> yes. >> Miss Romero, >> yes. >> Miss Tobias, >> Mr. Freddy Williams, >> and Pastor Williams. Be it resolved that the board of education of the Enlarged City School District of Middletown hereby appoints Mr. Freddy Williams as vice president of the board of education. [applause] I'll now administer your oath. Please step forward. >> Please raise your
008right hand and repeat after me. I do solemnly swear >> I do solemnly swear >> that I will support the Constitution of the United States >> I will support the Constitution of the United States >> and the Constitution of the State of New York >> and the Constitution of the State of New York >> and that I will faithfully discharge >> and I will faithfully discharge >> the duties of the office >> of school board vice president >> according to the best of my ability. >> Congratulations. >> Thank you. No, we could >> President uh Romero. Thank you. >> Thank you, Crystal. Congratulations, Mr. Williams. [snorts] We are now going to move forward to our action items. Um I need approval of personnel. Do we have any approval of personnel memorandums? None at this time
009>> for administrative. >> Okay. I'm going to need approval of personnel memorandum 12B numbers 1 through 19. May I have a motion? >> So move. >> May I have a second? Mr. Parino, Mr. Red. Second. All in favor? >> Any discussion? Okay. All in favor? >> Any opposed? A motion passes. Can I have approval of personnel memorandum 12 C numbers 1 through 11? [clears throat] May I have a motion to approve personnel memorandum 12 C numbers 1 through 11 as presented? >> So move. >> Can I have a second? >> Second. >> Any discussion? All in favor? And any opposed? Motion passes. May I have a motion to approve financial memorandums number 13D, numbers 1 through 5 as presented? May I have a motion? >> So move. >> May I have a second? Any discussion?
010All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion passes. May I have a motion to approve special services memorandum 11E numbers one and two as presented. >> So move. >> So Ed and Mr. Parino. Any discussion? All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion passes. May I have a motion to approve change orders 8F number one as presented? >> So move. I have a second. Any discussion? All in favor? >> And any opposed? May I have a motion to approve the memorandum of understanding for creating healthy schools and communities as presented? >> Can I have a second? >> Second on up. >> Any discussion? >> Yes. Could I have an explanation, please, of what creating healthy schools and communities? >> Yes. So, we received the invitation uh earlier this week from the Orange County
011Department of Health to join a grant. So, they partner with six other districts currently. They're going to support initiatives for movement and nutrition in our schools. So, it's a grant doesn't cost us anything. >> Good. >> They just need a quick turnaround on theou. >> Thank you. Any other discussion? >> Okay. All in favor? >> Um or anyone opposed? Motion passes. We're going to now go to the the orange also's administrative budget vote. The date has been changed. Therefore, we're going to need to change the meeting date. Um, Superintendent Camille, can you please explain? >> Yes. Uh, see, so the schedule the vote I'm sorry, the uh Bosey's vote date was changed. It was moved up. So, we need to modify our board meeting. We had a board meeting scheduled for April 23rd. It's just
012moving it to April 21st to meet the deadline for the Boseies vote. >> Thank you. Um, can I have a motion? >> So, move on that. >> Can I have a second? >> Second. >> Any discussion? >> Yeah, I just wanted to provide some clarification since I sit on the Boseis board. The the date of the um >> the budget votes for everybody. Military ballots have to be out by regulatory a certain time frame. And that would have moved the um the last discussion for school boards to have about their own budgets to April 21st. Bosey's budget was scheduled for April 24th. So because Boseies didn't want local components to have to have two meetings in the same week, it moved its schedule to coincide with other component districts, including ours. Any further discussion? All
013in favor? >> Any opposed? >> Can I have a motion to vote on the return of Amy Creden? >> So move >> as of December 1st. >> Any discussion? >> Yes. Like I stated before, it's very important that us as a board take the necessary steps that we all agreed upon um several weeks ago on creating a solid and and solid plan to make sure that we make sure this transition to have uh Miss Creedon return on a safe sound and as far as a sound where we are as a community take this take the necessary steps that we agreed upon and what we have stood on with our integrity to be able to make sure that we do the right thing. Um, this immediate rush now to go back on December 1st was not
014agreed upon by this entire collective board. It was stated it was stated out of of a a meeting earlier today. So, at this point, I do not feel this time period is is is sound. We have not even gotten to the discussion of where we all agreed upon what was needed to take place. So with that being said, uh my vote will be no at this time. >> Any other discussion? >> Um so I agree with adding the item to the agenda. I'm not in agreement with the return date of December 1st. um for some of the same reasons that Mr. Moore just mentioned that we have there there were there were things discussed that we wanted to put in place that are not in place. There's no there's no contingent plan as of today.
015So I'm not in agreement with the December 1st date. >> Thank you Dr. De Jesus. >> Mr. Parino >> Mr. Bino. >> Thank you. Uh, President Romero. Yeah, I'm I will be voting yes on that. Uh, it's been going on three months now. I believe the uh motion that Mr. Sharda said with professional development. It doesn't necessarily have to take place uh uh when uh Mrs. Cedon returns. Uh Mrs. Creden was uh against the advice of our council. Uh we granted the leave against the advice of council. Also uh there were a number of studies investigations. Miss Cedum was cleared by an independent investigator of any wrongdoing. Uh that's another uh another point. uh she has made very valuable contributions to the district. Any items that uh uh need to be discussed with Mrs. Creeding
016can be discussed by individual members or by the entire board. So I will be voting yes on that. Thank you. >> Any further discussion? >> Yes. Um, I wasn't going to say much, but uh I'm in um >> it's on >> I'm I'm in agreement with with the return date. Um I disagree um I disagree with the notion that we as a board agreed. >> Um I have to disagree with that. I mean, of of course it's all perception. Um, we agreed in concept to certain aspects of it of of the of the plan, but we did not agree that the plan was the plan. We also agreed to do our due diligence in reaching out. That attempt was made and and we received a response to that aspect of it. I think that it's
017prudent for us at this particular stage to lock down and complete complete what we said we were going to do in fact in fact of coming forward with uh with the concept of the plan with the PD that's a part of the plan with the different things of that nature. So, um, I'll be voting yes, but I will I would encourage us that from this point from this point forward that we that we stay diligent to making sure that um uh we're we're on point uh with the date we are we are entering into uh December. We're entering into the budget season. We're entering into uh the winter months, the Thanksgiving break and the Christmas break. Um and much of uh much of the feeling and I say that very generally because I do not
018speak for everybody but I can speak for uh the segment of individuals that I do is looking for an answer and a resolution um to this to this um particular situation that we find ourselves in. the uncertainty of everything has been very um confusing um to our to our community. And again, I don't speak for the entire community. Um but I I do I do think that it's important for us to to do due diligence. I'm not in disagreement with with with having a plan. And I'm not in disagreement with with um moving forward, but I am in I am uh in disagreement with the fact that we that we the notion that we said and if I'm mistaken, please excuse me, but the notion that we said um that this board agreed on it.
019We did not we did not. We we agreed in concept and and and I and I appreciate the concept of it. Yeah, we need to go forward, but we need to move and we need to make it happen. So, thank you. Thank you. Any further discussion? >> Yes, I have to agree 100% with [clears throat] Pastor Williams, with Mr. Parino. I do not remember at that meeting uh that we came in total agreement to a plan. I know that a plan was apparently proposed by one board member with specific dates and recommended uh help sources. I'm going to label them as, but that was not a complete agreement by everyone. Um, and I believe if I'm, and please correct me if I'm wrong, I believe that we agreed that there would be some counseling, but
020that was to the extent of it and there was no further [clears throat] discussion. It was a long meeting that night. There was many opinions that were expressed, but um I think we need to do our due diligent and as pastor said, we need to move in an affirmative way right now. >> Thank you. Any further discussion? >> Mr. Estrada, Mr. more. >> I just want to clarify what what I said earlier as far as when it comes to the the plan. We agreed on having something in place and we have not totally agreed as a board on what that would look like. So that's the reason why I'm taking the stance of not accepting to vote on this favors for it to happen because we have not collectively come to that agreement and that's
021why so Mr. Estrada. >> So, my reasoning for bringing this up this evening and having a start date of December 1st is for a variety of different reasons. One, the superintendent of schools any suggestion that we were rushing to judgment, she's been out for three months. Um, this board had a conversation two weeks ago about what her return would look like. Um, there were a lot of items discussed at that moment in time. We came out of that meeting with an idea of how we wanted to do it. And for those two weeks, this board has dragged its feet. It's done nothing to forward any sort of suggestion of what a plan would look like. two weeks ago, December 1st looked like, yeah, that's that's a good amount of time to do some of the
022stuff that we were looking to do. But because this board dragged its feet during that time frame and didn't schedule another meeting, you know, I understand that everybody's got different things to do, but you know, we signed up for this duty, right? We didn't sign up not to do our jobs here as trustees and it is important. We should have called another meeting. If if if everybody came with an indecision at that meeting, then we should have called another meeting. Instead, we let two weeks go by for nothing. We have entered now a budget season, right? We even had conversations. Some of our central office persons have said, "If she's coming back, please bring her back now because we're entering the budget season. We need if if you do not bring her back on December
0231st, when is when are you bringing her back?" Because two weeks after that, we all go on break for the holidays. Now you're talking January. And we all acknowledged at this table, even the superintendent of schools has acknowledged there needs to be a transition period. So, is that transition period happening in 2026 or do you take advantage on December 1st and use those three weeks to rebuild trust between the board and the superintendent to rebuild trust between the superintendent and her staff and to rebuild trust between this board and this community. The longer you wait does not fix the problem. It exacerbates the problem. the idea of doing professional development. We all do professional. I'm sure that if you talk to the superintendent of schools, if the president and our new vice president sit down
024with the superintendent in school of schools and says, "We'd like you to do this as far as professional development is concerned." She would accept it with open arms. You know why? Because we all know her as somebody who's continually educating herself. We did professional development a couple of weeks ago, all of us, when we went down to the news to the schoolboard conference. It's part of life. Now, does she have to be out to do the professional development? No. What? What? The only reason to keep her out, this is my opinion only, the only reason to keep her out is either you don't trust that she's going to do the professional development or you're waiting for something else to drop, but there's no reason to delay that. She can do professional development while she is
025still the superintendent of schools. We can meet with whoever we want while that's going to happen. And if she doesn't do stuff that you don't want, there's a process in place. It's called the evaluation. We do it each and every year. If we're not happy with a direction that something's going, that's when you should take account for it. That's why you have evaluations and you give the superintendent a raise or you don't extend a year or you don't based on that evaluation. There's there's something in there for us to hold her accountable, but you can't begin to hold her accountable if she's home getting paid. We've dropped the ball. This is our fault. It's not her fault. It's not the community's fault. This is our fault for dragging our feet. And now we need to
026rectify it. We should not hold the rest of the community hostage, our staff hostage, our students hostage, and the superintendent of schools hostage because we as nine people can't come together and make a decision. And that's what it looks like to everybody out there that we can't make a decision. That's why I asked for this board now because if we if we don't take action now, when are we going to do it? Next week's Thanksgiving. Nobody's going to be around. Our next scheduled public board meeting is not until December 18th, I believe. Right. >> December 11th and then we all go on break right after that. So, when is it going to happen? Now is the time for it to happen. >> Any other discussion? >> Yeah, absolutely. Um, at this time period, I know
027we do have another board meeting come up with December 18th. Um, I'm not in favor of December 1st if it is the beginning of the school year of the new year. I would probably propose that date as of January 1st, which gives us an opportunity to finally sit down and not drag our feet. And let's put us on record. Uh, reason why a lot of this delay went down is because we had a lot of situations internally that we were dealing with. And let's not this is, you know, call it what it is. We had a lot of stuff in they had been done. That's the reason why the change in our leadership has taken place. Right? So not that we dragged our feet is that we had a lot of internal conflict that has
028caused this to be delayed. Right? So it's not that the community or we are having yes we had situations where has caused this to delay but it's not something that we weren't trying to address that have put us in this position to make it extend this far. So at this time period we should be wise and how we actually move and it looked to probably suggest a date as January 1st. >> Point of order, please. >> I'm talking. I did not interrupt anyone else that talked and that's rude. >> Just go. Just go. >> That is rude. >> Point of order. I did not interrupt. Um >> we're going to be moving into [clears throat] workshop at which time we can further discuss. Andrew, if you can please finish your thoughts. Thank you. This is
029the problem that we have now, right now with the board and now we're in public session. So if the public wants to see the reason why we have conflict, that was our perfect example what it was. >> Thank you, Andrew. Um, I think we should move forward with voting. >> Um, I have something to say. >> Um, we have a roll call. Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. >> Yeah, there's a lot of frustration here. You know, there's a lot of immaturity and as a board, we are not working together. there's a lot of internal conflict and things need to be resolved. So I mean at this point right now this rush you know these long wonderful stories about what should happen and why it should be happening you know before December 1st. I mean we still
030have a lot of cleaning up to do ourselves. So at the end of the day, we proposed an ideal of some type of um professional development or some type of cause of action in moving forward to bringing back the superintendent. We have not done that. You know why? Because there's this internal thing going on. There's confusion. There's um changing of the guard and leadership. And so I still don't understand why the rush is I mean at the end of the day we still have u we have a December 13th I believe >> 11th 11th >> December 11th you know between that time and now um we haven't been dragging our feet. I resent that. I mean, maybe you've been dragging your feet because you've been dealing with some situations and trying to um you know,
031um clear up some relationships with the board and members so that we can all be on the same page. But that's what this is all about. There's a collective effort and I've always said it's a shared governance that has not been happening. We are not working collectively. And then now you want to make a decision on something that we started and you want to move forward and come up with December 3rd as the date to make a decision. I don't work like that. That don't make sense to me. >> Okay. Thank you, Miss Sret. Can we move to a roll call, please? >> Dr. De Jesus. >> No. >> Mr. Estrada? >> Yes. >> Mr. Moore? >> No. >> Mr. Mr. Perino, >> yes. >> Mr. Rhett, >> no. >> Miss Romero, >> it's going
032to be a no. And it's because we received new information tonight that as a board we were not aware of. And my answer will be no for the return date of December 1st. Although I am very hopeful for tonight's tonight's workshop and I'm hoping that collectively we can agree on a return date. So my answer is no right now. >> Miss Tobias. Yes, >> Mr. Freddy Williams. >> No, >> Pastor Williams. >> Yes. >> Motion fails. May I have um I can I we move forward and may I have a motion to approve the adjournment of this meeting and move to our board workshop? Can I have a motion? >> Can I have a second? >> All in favor? Thank you. >> Great evening everyone. Thank you for joining our meeting today.