001good evening everybody i'd like to take this opportunity to call to order the february 3rd 2022 first public hearing storm water management plan and from there we will go into our a regular meeting excuse me i call that uh public hearing to order now i'm going to ask um mrs houston if you would lead us in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you uh roll call mrs clark mrs blumenow mr cresenzo mr gomez here mrs hewson here mr purino mr biasin mr freddie williams pastor williams here mr mitchell williams yeah thank you thank you at this time i'm going to turn into the hands of
002mr bartlett our our director of buildings and grounds and he is going to make the presentation at this time mr bartlett good evening thank you pastor and board members tonight's public hearing is is for our storm water management plan our district is required to maintain a storm water management plan and for and this is our public hearing for informational purposes our storm water is the water that runs off from our properties from snow and in rain events from the roofs the parking lots and the sidewalks throughout the year we are required to monitor the water that leaves the school district sites to ensure there are no pollutants and to make sure the systems are operating as designed the plan is available to the public during regular business hours at the buildings and grounds office at
003223 wisner avenue it's also on the school district's website at middletownschooldistrict.org under facilities management there you'll find a number of tips for the community on how to prevent pollution and also explains the importance of not interfering with the storm water structures and the flow of the water off the sites there's also information about how we handle the storm waters during construction sites at construction sites and we currently have three active permits from this past summer's improvement projects at presidential park mon hagen middle school and maple hill annex as i mentioned the plan is available for the public if anyone has any questions they can contact the buildings and grounds department at 223 wisner avenue and the phone number there is nine 326-1194 are there any questions any questions from anybody uh none from if not
004from the board i will open it up for uh the public for comments as it relates to this particular storm water management plan if not thank you mr barley greatly appreciate it uh now i'd like to have a motion to adjourn from the public hearing so moved been moved and seconded had a couple of moves uh all in favor opposed so passes i now call to order uh the regular the february 3rd 2022 regular meeting of the enlarged city school district of middletown i'm going to ask uh at this time mr perrino if you would lead us in the pledge of allegiance and then i'm going to ask everybody if they would uh please indulge us and remain standing for a few moments of silence after the pledge of allegiance thank you pastor williams i
005pledge allegiance [Music] moment of silence mr perrino thank you again pastor williams the first moment of science this evening is for mrs evelyn issacs mrs issacs passed away i believe this morning when i think of mr mrs issacs i think of an elementary teacher an administrator and a board member actually evelyn joined the district in with an assignment at the liberty street school in 1967 she left the district to become an administrator elementary administrator principal with monroe woodbury however she returned to the district as a member of the middletown board of education serving from 2008 to 2013. and my dad the izex family has a long time middletown family great roots in the community evelyn's son fred taught in the district for approximately 30 years english and television production and i worked with happened to
006work with fred in the area of television production and i i do know fred her other son robert a respected attorney unfortunately passed away suddenly evelyn's daughter-in-law judy is ex taught for many years as a social science instructor in the middle schools now concerning ev my mom who taught for 40 years in the district worked with evelyn on a number of committees and she found that evelyn was committed to education she often remarked on that she also maintained that evelyn would work until the job was finished without an eye to the clock and she further said that mrs issacs could reach the most let's say learning reluctant student as a board member evelyn was always well prepared and not afraid to ask the hard questions i'm proud to say that i commuted with mary wagner
007and evelyn isaac samaria is no longer with us great teacher in the district to suny at newport in pursuit of our certificate event studies and administration and supervision and i found both evelyn and mary not only very helpful but just a lot of fun to be within a ride back and forth when we carpooled i might add also that evelyn served on a number of community activities i believe she was a member of the women's university club among other items the second moment of silence this evening is for mrs arthur wilcox mrs wilcox the mother of bill wilcox and bill ran the printing operation of the district for many many years she's also she was all she's also was a member of son pete wilcox and pete wilcox is the assistant superintendent for buildings and
008grounds actually mrs mrs wilcox graduated from middletown high school again a family like the issac's family has long roots in the community and at middletown high school mrs wilcox served as the award road director for various plays and musicals she was an expert seamstress she began her career working for a well-known local establishment called miss swank and i vaguely remember that not i don't remember too much but i remember that was a very expensive operation if you went there she then started actually her own business shirley's sewing service and contracted with sears to their to do their upholstery repair repair she served the community as a sunday school teacher at the north congregational church and also at the first presbyterian church [Music] she was also a member of the town of walk hill seniors and
009the slate hill pacers and just an interesting note on this a bit of information my mom had mrs wilcox as one of her first students and she always remarked what a wonderful student mrs wilcox was she was devoted to family and the community and again another person that contributed and will be missed the third moment of science this evening is for jessica marie kosh and miss kosh served not only as a special education [Music] in the special education department i believe she was a teacher assistant in that department but she also served in the food service department as a food that's full-time and part-time i only knew mrs cosh in passing but from what i understand she had a great personality she was respected by both the both staff and students and she was easy
010to work with the final moment of science this evening nothing connected with the middletown school district not directly but i want to do a moment of signs for the two officers in new york city who were killed jason rivera and wilbur moore in the line of duty they were murdered just doing their job and i like the quote from the eulogy delivered by uh katrina moore the widow of wilbur mora it hurts me to know that two exemplary young men like officers officer jason rivera and wilbert moore were taken before their time two young men who wanted to make a difference and a change in their city with their service and sacrifice this goes under the classification of why bad things happen to good people and you know i've been trying to figure that out
011for years and i still haven't figured it out i quite figured it out so please remember all the people that were mentioned in the moments of silence in your thoughts and prayers thank you very much thank you mr perino i think that it's off it's often very important that we take time um even during our our meetings and these are uh business meetings but to always remember uh remember and to respect those who have impacted our district and and even their family members and so um when we do that those that have impacted our community uh so i thank you um mr perino for all these being so diligent um in doing that from uh for for many years thank you thank you so much uh let's move on uh our mission of the enlarged
012city school district of middletown mr gomez if you could please read that yeah thank you we strive to provide fiscally sound education 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 thank you mr gomez uh roll call again mrs clark mrs blumenau mr cresenzo mr gomez here mrs hewson mr perrino mr biasin mr freddie williams pastor williams here mr mitchell williams yeah thank you thank you thank you mrs clark um also just as a point of information let's continue to keep uh mr bison and our thoughts she's not here again tonight uh as you know she's she's still grieving and we we recognized uh the passing of her
013her longtime partner and so uh i talked to her yesterday uh she hopes to be at our next meeting but i did tell her take her time take her time uh this this will this will keep going um but it's important for her it's important for her to to uh heal so we remember her in our thoughts uh i need a motion please i'd like to entertain a motion for the approval of our agenda tonight it's all moved moved and seconded any discussion all in favor opposed it so passes i'd like to uh entertain a motion now for the approval of our regular minutes from our january 20th 2022 meeting don't move mood and seconded any discussion seeing none all in favor all right opposed is so passes uh moving on to our personnel action
014items uh i'd like to entertain a motion for the approval of personnel memorandum 16a instructional show move make it a second second thank you thank you any discussion all in favor all right opposed it so passes uh like uh a motion for the approval of personnel memorandum 16b non-instructional move moved and seconded uh any discussion all in favor aye opposed it so passes uh i'd like a motion for approval of moa between ecsdm and employee number 03053 please pastor williams may i approach mrs clark before that motion is made if i just have to clarify a number on here you have to clarify something a number um employee number there's two different action items uh uh i don't i don't want to do that in the public if it's i'll give you i'll give you
015a few seconds to clarify i appreciate that we can we can still take the motion and and that this that would be a part of your of your discussion can i have a motion for this please approval of moa between ecs dm and employee number zero three zero five three i have a motion please may have a second is there a second second thank you all right uh there is no discussion on this other than other than uh the clarification uh all in favor aye aye opposed this surpasses i'd like a motion now for the approval of moa between ecsdm and employee number zero one three six nine so move second moved and seconded any discussion all in favor can we take a roll call on this one uh i don't think it's necessary to
016take a roll call but we can we can okay that's fine all right uh uh we're we're going to do a roll call response uh mrs clark if you could please mrs blumenau hi mr gomez me mrs hewson nay mr perrino hi mr freddie williams pastor williams aye mr mitchell williams aye [Music] motion passes motion so passes thank you uh moving on to our recognitions um and community reports what we want to do do i have do i have everything here is it here well what we want to do is it oh i'm sorry that's uh charge it to to my left and ginkgo um we want we want to take this opportunity to recognize um to recognize uh an integral part of our of our district and uh they have worked diligently uh throughout
017the last the last two years always have but uh uh worked extremely diligently throughout the last two years and uh it's been a labor of love it has not just been a labor of for work um it's a lot easier to do things when you love what you do and so uh we have we want to recognize our food service uh department uh we have a letter here from the no kid hungary new york and uh i'll read the letter and then we'll and then we'll go from there uh dear superintendent uh my name is rachel sabella and i am the director of no kid hungry new york as the end of another tremendously difficult year approaches i want to send a note of thanks and celebration for the hard-working professionals in your school cafeterias
018school nutrition professionals work tirelessly to make a difference in the lives of every child they prepare healthy meals for new york students adhere to strict nutrition standards and plan around usda waivers all admits a national pandemic over the last two years no kid hungry new york has had the privilege of partnering with your school nutrition professionals and we are grateful to support their efforts i am continuously in all of school nutrition professionals and your team inspires me i commend the work of the enlarged city school district of middletown's food and nutrition staff under the direction of deborah dunleavy as they work to ensure all kids have access to the food they need to grow and thrive thank you for all your work keeping kids in your district healthy and nourished i wish you and your
019staff all the best and we look forward to working with you in the new year gratefully rachel sabella director of no kid hungry new york uh and just about no kid hungry new york no this is their this is their statement no kid no child i said kid i was thinking about mine no child should go hungry in america but in the wake of the coronavius pandemic one in five kids in new york could face hunger no kid hungry new york is working to end childhood hunger by helping launch and improve programs that give all kids the healthy food they need to thrive this is a problem we know how to solve no kid hungry new york is a campaign of share our strength an organization committed to ending hunger and poverty and so we
020want to take this time to bring deb and uh and and the team she's got some of the team is here with her uh to come up to the front uh this letter also uh come if you come to the podium that this letter also says dear miss dunleavy i am writing to thank you for your generous assistance last month while we experienced a staff shortage this is from arch hostel boces they recognize they recognize you too i am writing to thank you for your generous assistance last month while it's why we experienced a staff shortage you and lauren were pivotal in making this happen for us your selfless willing willingness to assist us in very much is very much appreciated and not easily forgotten it is that kind of flexibility and dedication that any
021administrator would be proud of and my team truly appreciates the support that comes from mark p coleman the director of operations for orange ulster boces and so i'm gonna come real quick give you this certificate of appreciation from the enlarged no kid hungry new york certificate of appreciation the large city school district from middletown school nutrition department in recognition of your sincere appreciation for your commitment to hunger relief and your determination to get the kids the nutritious meals they need thank you for all you do for kids and their families that's from no kid hungry is signed again by rachel sabella the director of no kid hungry new york and lisa davis the senior vice president of no kid hungry campaign congratulations you guys thank you awesome [Applause] i just want to share that um
022dad told me many years ago if you if you work at a job that you like it's not work it's love so behind me stands a group that represents um our first responders everyone here stood behind us and with us on march 16th and have reported faithfully in an effort to keep our children on their path to their education and i'm extremely humbled to be part of this group so thank you get get get a good picture of him kevin get a good picture yeah you gotta i i want to say why why uh why kevin has taken taking the picture i want to say i had um the great opportunity at the beginning of the pandemic to um really work closely with many of those in the uh in the nutrition department i like
023i like that better than food service i like i like that but uh had the opportunity to work very closely with them even as we were distributing distributing meals to the to the community uh we would get out on the bus and they were working so diligently and working so hard so again congratulations you guys all rock good job thank you uh moving on moving on uh our recognition and community reports from our board members i'm i'm going to i'll go mr houston thank you pastor williams um i have quite a few um announcements but i'll try to make them quick um one refer um one in particular has to do with our school mission statement um there are certain words that stand out to me in the mission of the enlarged city school district
024of middletown one is that we continuously support enabling students to graduate and to reach their full potential and become lifelong learners and of course all of the components of the mission statement are important but i think those stand out to me and it's black history month and i have a short poem written by langston hughes who was an american poet social activist novelist playwright and columnist he was one of the earliest innovation innovators of the new the then new library system form of jazz poetry hughes is best known for his work during the harlem renaissance he famously wrote about the period that harlem was in vogue but he writes one sad poem in it i just want to say that i think it it goes along with our mission statement that we don't want any
025dreams to be deferred [Music] this is the poem or part of it what happens to a dream deferred does it dry up like a raisin in the sun or fester like a sore and then run does it stink like rotten meat or crust and sugar over like a syrupy sweet maybe it just sags like a heavy load or does it explode i have to say that our mission statement is working against that sadness that has been felt in history and wanted to mention that poem it just stood out to me i have some other announcements that i'd like to acknowledge world read aloud day was this week we can thank our humanities department ms bowler and miss coons i know at carter elementary miss jensen was encouraging literacy as well as our other schools i
026was speaking with mrs creeden about that and i want to commend them for encouraging there's a perfect example of encouraging literacy i also want to acknowledge mr brinson mr max brinson mrs creden brought to our attention that he i'll just read from her email but each year the rit outstanding undergraduate scholar awards ceremony honors a select group of students who have completed at least 83 credit hours of study and earned a cumulative grade point average of at least 3.85 for all work completed at the university as of the previous spring term as part of this celebration scholars are asked to identify a high school or community college teacher who had a profound influence on their academic development and has been an inspiration in their life timothy neiper a 2017 graduate from middletown high school selected
027mr brinson a teacher at middletown high as his influential person and mrs creden mentions this is a truly extraordinary distinction many corrupt congratulations are deserved for mr branson as he is an amazing educator so i just congratulate mr brinson i would like to also congratulate our local activist and community personality uh her her name is muchi but carolyn merchant she recently i know she has children in our district and has spoken at many of our board meetings and she recently got a tv show on our internet show i'm not sure what we call it these days uh but a contract with hip hop tv for the moochie show so congratulations moochie and also i want to just mention someone who didn't expect to be acknowledged but tonight i was stopping by a local dollar tree
028where i was purchasing some quick items and the person in front of me in line had the belt covered with candy i'm sorry for the time candy and and different school supplies for their their their classroom as well as another another teacher's classroom in one of our two of our different schools and i i just introduced myself to her so chrissy i know that you're out there and if you happen to watch the board meeting um i think that it's nice to acknowledge that our faculty members go above and beyond to spend even their own hard-earned money on their students because they love their students and i think that's a beautiful thing that's all i have this evening thank you thank you mrs houston mr gomez okay thank you very much mr president uh at
029this time we have a number of our many students participating in what is an annual event in new york state the model state assembly which is being hosted by the angelo del toro puerto rican hispanic youth leadership institute in conjunction with the new york state assembly of state senate and what this does is students are selected from school throughout new york state and they get to play the role of member of the state assembly college students do the state senate and they get to debate actually discuss and debate actual bills before either the assembly or the senate number of hot topic issues and they have to prepare themselves as assembly members or student senators with respect and take into consideration the district's demographics the concerns of the different constituents and it's a wonderful experience in
030civic government and public service and i know for a fact many of some of our students here have been working diligently on some of these topics some of these issues and i want to just commend them do a big shout out to them you know maybe we could have models uh common council someday now in the future a great idea yeah so i commend our kids and our teachers i believe mrs bratt if i'm not mistaken i mean i received the letter or the email uh what's the what's over uh seeing part of this program so i think it's a great initiative and hope to see more of in the years to come thank you mr gomez mr purino thank you president uh williams this month february of course is black history month and our
031buildings and our staff members and our media people they're doing an excellent job and before i get to that i just want to compliment our njotc unit they did a marvelous job this past week in the passing review which is a drill event and a ceremony together and it's the most significant uh event for them one of the most significant events for them of the year because a good report will enable the uh unit to submit names for uh various military scholarships and so they did a wonderful job uh keith strickland the chief and tom willard both do an excellent excellent work with the students in the unit so if you want to see them in action because they've done as much as 5 000 hours of community service in a in a normal year
032without the pandemic uh the elks this sunday the pancake breakfast from eight to twelve uh they will be there and uh uh mrs uh principal williams from the high school we've invited uh her to come since it's some members of her unit and the family to uh the williams family to attend if they'd like so that takes care of that i'm going to use the rest of the time to begin talking about black history month and just a bit of philosophy it's wonderful to have as designated as this and it's also wonderful to have hispanic heritage month but you know [Music] our staff a strong staff they incorporate the works of black americans and hispanic americans into their units throughout the year and this is the way the way it should be so let's start
033off with middletown high school emily landrigan and and her staff in the various buildings are doing an excellent job and they put up a display in the library featuring books by black authors there are quotes of prominent black men and women read daily in the morning announcements the library staff the media center staff works closely with english teachers during the month to create various research products that the students dive into during black history month uh students research music art literature culture and the history of black the black history month itself so you can see some of that if you look around we're not joking it's you can look around the media center so that's it uh twin towers uh i was going to start on that and it's very fitting that gordon dean the past
034principal of twin towers is here and they're carrying on your tradition gordon of celebrating black history month i will do this since it's not only a community report but it's also i would uh continue doing board roundtable for four minutes so i'm i'm done and i want to respect the four minutes because we expect the public to do this so we should do it thank you thank you mr perino mr williams um i just talk about a few events that's going to be happening in this month um it's going to present it by because it matters 24 7. which is which is it's so important because it's with anthony williams and yahya williams two administrators that's in the school district but they also do things in the community and i think that's great um they
035have a second annual virtual open mic on sunday february 20th from 1 pm to 3 p.m um middletown youth community lifting their voices in honor for black history the youth ages 14 to 24 you could pre-register to receive community swag bag for black history goodies um zoom link will be available also they have a youth cooking classes on february 15th and 16th i'm gonna sign my daughter up for that but we'll keep going located at the middletown police academy pre-registration required learn recipes for healthy eating choices from a world-traveled chef we also have a game night for the mp mbk event where mentors and mentees will be matched will also be a chance to highlight uh black men past and present in honor of black history month that's going to happen on game night thank
036you mr williams uh mr williams mr williams mr william good evening uh i just want to mention and highlight a couple of programs that are going on within the district um so we're at friday's 6 30 presidential park k through 4 there's basketball and skills cardio that's going on there and then sundays starting at 9 p.m k-4 basketball and skills cardio that's at willie carter also with a carter 11 30 we have a currently freshman jv and varsity scholars um doing a basketball workout um that's 11 30 12 30 starts our flag football skills and cardio workout that's at willy carter also that's three through eighth grade um and i have some names that i want to thank for help getting us all together mr mitchell williams kevin gleason dave coats anthony williams john merchant
037drew moore lashon williams and kevin witt and a bunch of other people those ones that stick out in my head right now um and the sponsors are 845 elite um lillytown youth sports because it matters and mhs athletics um also i think it's essential to get our kids out and get them productively busy working out you know especially in these times you know um i think it's essential uh and uh these up these programs give them the opportunity to do so more programs and events will roll out this spring and summer so i just want to thank middletown for the opportunity to get the gym space and get these kids moving around thank you mr williams um mrs blumena all right so i bel yup i believe but i do know next wednesday evening will
038be our winter graduation for our scholars so um you know very that winter graduation time look forward to those smaller more intimate graduation opportunities for our students and um i hope to wish our grads good luck as they move on um also wanted to share that pictures and catchers report um this uh let me see hold on one second i just had this notes here middletown little league in-person in-person registration is going on and saturday february 12th at the elks lodge by the ymca they'll be holding registration between 12 and 3. so as my colleagues have shared get out get your kids out there get them involved and sports are amazing opportunities for team building skills socialization and building friendships and memories that last so i encourage you to get out there and play that's
039all i have thank you uh mr blumenow uh i'll i'll be brief uh uh i always allow mr perino he's always so diligent um uh during this time to um make sure that uh we're aware of all of the different his uh black history month events uh that are happening within our district there are so many wonderful things and so um i'm going to decrease in in that area and he'll he'll be presenting some more and then of course at the next meeting we'll be presenting some more after that um in relation to black history month there's so many wonderful things that's going on in our community uh everyone has talked about some of the different programs and the different events that are happening during black history month uh and and i i i i
040want to to share something from the heart uh as it relates to relates to us marcus garvey writes this marcus garvey writes a people without the knowledge of their past history is like a tree without roots and it is so important for for all of us to know our history by black history month i celebrate and i'm grateful for it and i'm thankful that we have the opportunity during black history month to be able to celebrate uh black history i long for the day when we don't have to have a month when we'll understand that it's something to be celebrated because i celebrate it i celebrate it you know all year long because uh i don't ever stop being black and so uh i think it's important for us to have this time to celebrate
041i think it's important for us to to take advantage of it and to understand the real relevance of it but i will say that i do long for the day when we will not have to have a month set aside there are so many days that are set aside for celebration of everything you've got you've got um you know coffee day and you know somebody slap your mom a day and you know whatever whatever all kinds of different celebrations for during the uh during the year uh but i think i'm grateful uh i am grateful that uh black history is something that we can celebrate all the time and i look forward to the time when we don't have to relegate it to just a month and just a day but i'll take it i'll
042take it because it's rich and because it's relevant and because of people without knowledge of their past history is like a tree without roots and so we celebrate all all of our students we celebrate all of our ethnicities it takes all of us to come together in order for us to in order for us to to be successful and so we celebrate each other uh at this time thank you that's all i have um tonight and then uh mr perino is going to be presenting more a little bit later let's move on my computer started acting up on me thank you um our opportunity to address the board uh you have four minutes uh you can come uh you sign in there is a sheet at the at the podium for anyone who would like
043to address the board there's a sheet at the podium you may you may uh you may address the board at that time uh we we we will not have uh dialogue but uh somebody will reach back out to you uh within the district as to whatever it is that you would like to address us with the timers at four minutes and anybody would like to adjust the board at this time you're welcome to come to the podium if not then then we will move on thank you uh jerry kleiner alderman kleiner has something come on mr kleiner thank you guys good night thank you good evening thank you it's the first time i've been in the new media center so i had to find my way in thank you kevin for letting me in the
044door um very very impressive i i just uh i just wanted to um take a minute uh to recognize um black history month and uh in in that in my historical society vein um make sure that everyone knows that it's almost we've been doing this almost 100 years uh it's actually 96 years since um you know want to get his name right carter g woodson uh started with and he was a black historian and scholar and he started with uh black history week and it's evolved and then president ford actually recognized february as black history month so uh i'm glad to hear from mr perino i'm glad to hear all the events that have gone on in the school and are going on uh it's it's i think it's extremely important and i would like
045to given all the uh hoopla over critical race theory and other such nonsense culture war concepts that people i i like to give people little assignments in history and one is to understand the three-fifths compromise and if you don't know what it is i just say go look it up it made our constitution possible um the it's it's part of the agreement between the northern and southern states during the constitutional convention and it's something you should know you should also be familiar with the dred scott decision chief justice roger 20. and if you've never read that it was in 1857 and it it basically um did away with compromise 1850 that missouri compromised every compromise over free enslaved states and i i have some i have a paragraph from that decision i'm not going to
046read it tonight but i might come back and read it if people don't because it will turn your stomach and you can see the direct continuity in our history between the original constitutional convention and the debates over slavery and the civil war it's a very direct connection uh i do want to mention that if you haven't been on the website and someone may have brought this up before i did because i missed part of the meeting but um on the website the student art exhibit is amazing and i think tomorrow there's an actual virtual recognition of the and the awards the gold key and silver key and honorable mention awards but just wonderful artwork you should go on the website and and look at the art middletown black history you have the william a carter
047school and i think that every student should know who william a carter was and this past week pbs has been showing the documentary slavery by another name which tells the story of how in the jim crow period slavery was the prison system was used to kind of continue slavery and that was written by doug blackmon and mr carter and other members of the middletown end of naacp had doug blackmon here some probably about 10 years ago just before he received the polite surprise for that book to come to speak at our event willie carter was an amazing person and you should really understand who he was and what he did for the city thank you thank you mr kleiner anybody else at this time [Applause] if not are there any letters yes i have one
048letter from george st lawrence lawrence from d3 senior classic i am writing to express my gratitude to you and your staff for hosting the 2021 d3 senior classic collegiate all-american football game on december 4th 2021 at fowler field on behalf of our organization and from those who attended to those who watched from around the country i extend a well-deserved thank you in addition i would like to acknowledge the outstanding professional efforts of mr david coats director of athletics and mr kevin gleason events coordinator in ensuring the success of this national level event their dedication hard work and positive attitudes serve as an asset to your school district and motivated me to share my thoughts with you during my 36 years as a teacher coach and school administrator in orange county i have worked with many
049professionals but only a few as exceptional as david and kevin in closing if i may assist you in your continuing efforts to support the needs of the middletown and large school district please let me know sincerely george st lawrence thank you mrs clark we're going to move on to our district reports and presentations we have a special guest with us tonight the cornell cooperative extension is going to be making a presentation and our our our good friend uh former board uh former board president well thank you very much dr johnson is coming at this time dr johnson my name is still paul johnson i've appeared before you probably more times you could remember but this evening i appreciate that opportunity as always and this evening i actually stand before you as the very recent past
050president of cornell cooperative extension of orange county i just concluded my three-year term i have one year left as a director and our new slate of officers was ins was installed at our reorg meeting in january i'm going to join my colleague alderman kleiner and do a little time travel and tell you a little bit about cornwall cooperative extension the idea actually started in 1833 with a dr knapp in the state of texas who was the very first person to set aside a farm designated for agricultural education so that's where it began and then a guy named abraham lincoln in 1862 instituted the morrill act which actually started the concept of land-grant colleges fortunately for cornell ezra cornell set up the university in 1865 and by then cornell was designated as the land-grant college for
051the state of new york and the concept of the land-grant college was to put higher education in the hands of the people and every state was then appointed with land-grant college so that was followed by the hatch act i won't digress and tell you about that and the smith lever act in 1914 which basically put extension as a very formal program in the united states of america so today we represent 57 organizations 52 counties in the five boroughs of the city of new york we work under the umbrella of cornell university all of our employees which number between 40 and 50 actually are employees of the university and we work under the auspices of three colleges the college of human ecology the college of agriculture and life sciences my first alma mater and the college
052of veterinary medicine my second alma mater our mission is pretty simple we would like to enable people to improve their lives and communities by bringing local experience and research-based solutions together we have four components for cornell cooperative extension 4-h heart health hand and the other one our other our other division is agriculture another one is snap-ed your your nutritionists have left but snap-it also works very closely with the with the school community as well with the lunch programs and family and consumer science i am joined this evening by two of my esteemed colleagues now one of them is a guy named gordon dean so you think you know gordon but you may not know that he has served on our board this is his third year and he has been newly installed as the board
053secretary um so we appreciate i appreciate his being here this evening for moral support and i would now like to introduce caitlin o'brien representing family and consumer science we'll talk to you about one of our programs thank you very much [Applause] thank you i want to first thank you all for having me here tonight my name is caitlin o'brien and i coordinate the relatives as parents program but many folks in the community know it as rap i want to introduce the program by actually sharing a brief video with you that really highlights the spirit of our program and is told in parts in the voices of some of our caregivers and the youth that they care for and then we'll talk a little bit more about exactly what our program provides [Music] so [Music] caregivers
054are those who are willing to go beyond themselves to provide for the needs of others [Music] caregivers are an essential constant part of the village i love my caregiver because they take great care of me and do everything for me they take good care of us and have everything we need i love my caregiver because we go to the lake and must run in together we also do a spelling test together and make it fun [Music] caregivers are fortunate to be able to care for kids they keep us young and give us love [Music] thank you so that video is a compilation of some just basic information about rap but it was put together by an intern we had this summer named sophia hayes was actually a high school student i'm was able to take
055some of the information about our program as well as some of the feedback we received from some of our caregivers and the youth that they care for about what the value of the caregiver in their life was um and why they valued their role as a kinship caregiver um so we appreciate that it actually aired before a fun family event that we did at the warwick drive-in this summer as a commercial before we screened space jam for some of our families and so shout out to the warwick drive-in who offered their space to us for free for our families to come have a safe kovid friendly evening out but i want to get into a little bit more about what we are and what we do so who we are is the relatives as parents
056program we started in the 90s as a really grassroots-level program some folks identified a need in the community for parenting and support that was specific to folks who were relative caregivers grandparents aunts and uncles who were caring for family members through the variety of circumstances that might come to be so oftentimes it's through a mental health crisis of the primary caregivers in their lives their biological parents sometimes it's due to a death of a family member deportation at times incarceration and drug abuse or abuse and neglect the primary role of wrap is to really provide a supportive helpful environment which includes education and training to learn about parenting skills we offer a program called pasta which is parenting a second time around for folks who are kinship caregivers so often times it's grandparents who are
057caring for grandchildren or an aunt and uncle or sibling but the times may have changed since they originally raised children and so those parenting skills can feel really helpful in kind of a new world mutual peer support groups that happen monthly in two locations so one right here in the city of middletown as well as one in the new windsor newburgh area and when things are a little bit more open in the world we also have a peer-led rap chat that's facilitated by one of our peer mentors which i'll talk a little bit more about in a few moments we also make sure folks get referrals to appropriate services so we have really important partnerships with our local dss and our local services that can help folks with mental health needs legal needs and things
058like that kinship care locally so in new york state 150 000 kinship caregivers exist we were talking a little bit earlier paul and i about how some folks come through us through the pipeline of dss but there are lots of folks particularly in our communities that are caring for kids and they kind of fly under the radar because they haven't done so through a system but that they might be informally taking on children to care for them just stepping up feeling like that's part of their role as a loving family member 130 000 kids with grand families 4 000 kinship caregivers here in orange county 2500 grand families and at cornell cooperative extension we are currently serving approximately 200 families it's a little bit above that now 70 percent of which are grandparents so you
059can imagine some of the challenges these folks have faced particularly during the pandemic particularly being some of the most vulnerable folks in our community for the negative impacts of covet 19. what is kinship care so non-parents who provide full-time care for the children in their lives and take them into their home as the primary caregivers these caregivers may have full custody legal guardianship or provide informal custody often beginning as a temporary situation many kinship caregivers end up permanently raising these children so some folks may receive them as infants or in elementary or middle school and end up caring for them well into adulthood all the services that we offer at wrap are free to qualified kinship families really the only access point is we need to have a brief conversation about what their situation is
060so we can determine the best resources for them and then they're welcome to participate in all of these wonderful things that i'm about to describe so our coffee and conversation groups are this monthly support groups i talked about earlier in middletown those happen on the first tuesday of the month from 6 30 to 8 pm in new windsor and it happens on the second tuesday of the month from 6 30 to 8 pm the youth also become part of our 4-h program and they are simultaneously cared for while the adults are in their support group so they can have nice confidential supportive time with other caring adults and the kids can also have community and fun and learning experiences with youth in similar circumstances to themselves parenting education so there's a variety of parenting education
061programs offered at cornell cooperative extension our kinship families are welcome to all of them there are also some that are specifically tailored to folks who are kinship caregivers counseling services so we're able to refer folks to short-term individual counseling legal information referrals to appropriate legal resources and we actually are newly recipients of a grant that will help us to offer the first consultation for free for folks who qualify peer mentoring which is our trained adult peer mentors who are also kinship caregivers and who can provide sort of a lived experience level of support to folks that are going through similar circumstances as well as nutrition education we also offer beyond just our support groups lots of fun activities we do a winter holiday event a summer picnic intergenerational cooking classes and lots of other fun
062stuff during the pandemic that looked like a lot of zoom events just like everybody else in the world but we made it fun we sent folks board games we got on and did family game nights we did some cooking classes where we shipped folks the ingredients to make the meal i mean got on and talked about how to do that so we made it work we also provided our support groups virtually during that time we also have a caregiver resource library for folks who need a little bit of education or information about the dynamics of kinship caregiving as well as always exploring new ways to help meet the needs of our families like moments like this so that we can kind of get the word out that our program exists and folks can access the
063resources as i mentioned our support groups happen monthly we took two months while this peak in the covid pandemic was happening again to go virtual our hope is to return back to pers in person support groups very quickly and as soon as it's safe we were meeting in person for a nice chunk of time before we had to kind of switch back to this virtual format and i just want to take a moment to highlight our peer mentors who are the unsung heroes of the rap program um there are caregivers who have expertise through lived experience of what it is like to navigate the family court system the adoption process accessing resources who really reach out and provide additional support outside of paid staff like myself and really were an important connection during this pandemic
064to keeping folks feeling like they were not alone in this experience uh so essential so valued and some of the most wonderful people you'll ever meet in your entire life so i want to just thank you for the opportunity to talk a little bit more about the program that i love and to also welcome you to share this with any of the students or the families that you interact with um that we are here for support um and we'd love to see more of them walking through our doors thank you so much before before we finish it uh i just want to allow uh if any of the board members have any questions they'd like to to ask uh ask at this time uh you just if you have anybody has any questions they can
065ask the questions at this time i'm not going to go around and mr perrino way more of a comment that's tremendous work you're doing and then necessary necessary work i i can't think of any skill that is more important than the parenting and coping skills and if individuals have these skills i believe we have a lot less uh issues in the not only in the community but in the country so i knew you were doing a good job i didn't know the entire scope of the program so thank you for presenting this evening thank you for having me and i just to shout out um one of our other co-workers you look ivan stackleberg who i believe you've also heard from previously who does a lot of work around resilience but i appreciate the thank
066you for the work i'm doing but i just want to thank our caregivers because they're the ones that are making the difference in the lives of these kids and it's just like one caring loving adult that can change the whole trajectory of a child's life and i know you all know that so i'm preaching to the choir but um they really step up for kids who you know have experienced a great deal of trauma oftentimes and do all of this magic and really improve the outcomes of their lives so i just want to put it back on them thank you mr gomez yes thank you for i want to thank you for a great program you're doing and in addition to my service as a school board member i deal with many families within our
067area and my legal practice and that we have a growing number of uh children who are under the auspices of a caregiver they might have lost a parent and they find grandparents aunts uncle coming up to the plate and it's important that they have such a great network available for them so i want to commend you for your wonderful work thank you thank you anybody else i'll go mrs bloomer now and then mr williams thank you i just wanted to acknowledge uh cornell cooperative extension um and the rap program in in my career i work with jewish family service of orange county the um it's we're a social service agency and um have had our kids connect respite program and have had the privilege to know many parent many of our rap participants have also
068participated with kids connect and i want to commend the the grandparents and the relatives who seek out the support because raising kids in general as a parent can be challenging so being able to find the support within our own community is so valuable and and i encourage those who are in our community who haven't reached out to rap to do that because i've i've been able to attend a couple of meetings in the past and um and it's always so meaningful to see those relationships and the connections that these um that these caregivers can make so thank you so much thank you mr williams yeah i just want to commend you and your staff from the work that you're doing um for me just hearing it speaks directly to me as being someone i was
069raised by my grandparents my grandfather died when i was very young you know like 10 years old so you know my grandmom's trying to you need that help like paula was just saying and for to have a program that's actually speaking to that you know i just commend you because it's definitely needed just having somebody just to come and show that love and help with the direction so like you were saying um it's not just preachers required because some people know about it but not everybody's doing it right and you and y'all are doing it so i commend you for that thank you for my heart thank you mr williams uh uh so i i look at it this way i look at it this way um oh i'm sorry one more mister okay just
070real quick thank you um just listening and uh and and focusing on the program uh three words came into mind structure support and dependability and we want to thank you for that because those those are major major uh assets within the program that all the kids need so just want to thank you for that thank you [Music] i just would like to echo the sentiments of my colleagues and add that i absolutely love 4-h and i think it's wonderful that you're incorporating that as part of your program and thank you for the excellent presentation thank you and so uh and so i'll since i since i get to go last um i'll say this i think that this is so important for us to have to have this presentation here at this time because it's
071important for us to make sure that all of our community understands the the multitude of resources that are out there everybody's family dynamic is not the same and and we have to be able to to reach uh to everybody where they're at and reach them with the things that they need and and so this this program and this resource is so valuable not just to this district but to this entire community this entire state this entire nation um i i want to i want to suggest this i want to suggest this that perhaps i can facilitate an opportunity to do a similar presentation to the faith-based community um because i think that uh i think that it's very important as a pastor and uh and in my ecclesiastical duties around the nation and different parts
072of the world these are the dynamics that we see so much where uh where uh grandparents or other family members siblings have had to step in and they need to support because it's not easy many people don't know but i took in i took in my i took in my nieces for several years and i was young and i didn't have any idea what i was doing uh but uh thank thank god for you know support that came but this resource is so valuable and so i commend you and um whatever we can do to help to promote it and to and to even help facilitate whatever it is that you need from us please do not hesitate do not hesitate thank you guys so much thank you gordon thank you so much for coming
073tonight appreciate it [Applause] uh let's well we're going to i'm going to turn you into the hands of mrs creden and mr tuttle um for this this next uh next report and uh we'll go from there it's in your guys hands so this part this part is extremely important um that they're we're starting the budget process and i think that this this this is very part um important for us as we're moving into budget season um and i think that uh i think that uh we're going to learn a lot we're going to learn a lot and i think the community is going to learn a lot through this whole process so mike you're up all right good evening everyone good evening hard to believe it's been a year since we kicked off the last
074budget meeting but uh just reflecting back this is my sixth budget with the district so they don't get any easier but it's fun doing it so it's a great process it's one of my passions is always creating and building things and this is kind of one of those great things that go intertwined with each other so you can build for capacity and see what the results are so what we're going to start tonight is our administrative budget as you can see we have four major budgets that we look at the administrative we're going to switch it up a little bit this year normally we do the program second but we're going to do capital and benefits in february and then the program which is our biggest budget category we're going to do third and then
075we'll march 17th will be our big conversation about revenue uh the administrative component as i said as you look it's roughly about seven percent of our overall budget so um although you'll see a more significant increase in the actual overall budget in the administrative but when you have a small amount and you just add you know anything it's going to look like a bigger uh increase in the overall budget um so some of the things that we always look at every year when we call assumptions for budgeting these are the things so you know i'll give an analogy if you have a mortgage or you have rent or you have a car payment or any type of loan so before you even get up in the morning you owe money right before you work that
076day so that's how the district is we still owe money um and that is with the teacher retirement system the employee retirement system um so and what they charge us um it's an estimated rate uh this year uh will be about a little over 10 percent for the teachers retirement and the employees retirement will be a little over 16 percent our healthcare premiums um it usually averages about six percent increase um in the past year and a half you can imagine our uh costs of healthcare have gone up drastically so we're keeping an eye on that uh and then we're also battle facing the tax cap um we don't have the exact amount yet but it can't be more than two percent going to the community and then the consumer price index which seems to
077have skyrocketed and comes down and it's just really volatile right now we're gonna say it's about three percent average um so but it's been at highest at seven percent over the past year so those are some of the assumptions there uh we have another set uh both these services um they usually increase anywhere up to about five percent a year and that's for all their services the capital and rent the administrative costs and all their other services um that we spend uh quite quite a bit of money with them um the one thing uh we also have contractual services or salaries and those are usually average about five million dollars a year in increases so those those are one of the assumptions and this year's assumption which you probably have never seen in a school
078budget presentation as the foundation aid has increased over 21 percent which is kind of uh what we talked about at the fair funding and the senator promised it and she delivered so um we're going to have when the revenue discussion will be a very unique one then when we never really had in the district before so those are the assumptions we're dealing with budgeting uh and there's many more we just don't really have time to list them all so when we look at the overall administrative budget these are uh i we've identified the major components inside here right so we have the board of education uh we have a district clerk we have a district meeting we have central administration which is the superintendent's office the finance office ha and that consists of anywhere from
079like accounts payable the benefits department uh some of the payroll we also have auditing we have a treasurer we have a tax collector we have a purchasing department we have a legal fees which we that's may remain pretty static throughout the years in the budget we have a personnel department we have a records manager officer we have public information central printing and on and on you can see with the list but it's like a small city right we're running an operation that has a lot of components and moving parts this year we're looking at a 16.6 million dollar proposed budget uh in the administrative line uh that's up about 830 000 and with a little bit over 5 increase of the overall budget so the one thing i want to keep emphasizing right now as
080we're starting these are the proposed this is what we're looking at this is our first blush at what we think the administrative budget will look like some things will change one of the things i didn't put as an assumption is when the state will finalize their budget and that's when we get our final number those are the numbers we go off of further revenue so you know this is probably pretty consistent if you look at the next chart of what we've seen over the past five years and a majority of the administrative is contractual and then with some previously appointed positions in the administrative piece so um that's where that's why you're seeing a little bit increase over last year but if you go across the past five years it's pretty consistent um when we
081look at the admin budget so one of the things that board members have they have an itemized list of every category so it details how much we have in supplies professional development travel salaries equipment and professional contractual services so they they get that and that's what they can really review and go over and then um it's really detailed so here at the board meeting we just do a little bit of a snapshot of what will look like and then when we get to the revenue and present like what we think will be the final budget we'll have that pretty well itemized um one second come on anybody know a tech director i said you might know a tech director i'm sorry i'm kidding i'm just joking i don't know why it froze yeah there we
082go okay i probably went too fast okay i don't know all right there we go so that was about so what we're looking at for the calendar uh obviously tonight we had the administrative we're gonna switch it up for with capital benefits um and then we'll do the program in march and revenue in march and the board the big one for the board is april 21st we need to do a budget adoption and we'll have a public hearing and then the big thing for us is on the 19th is our vote um what we actually presented what we had the board is going to vote on later we actually went on a little sequence originally back in the fall we were going to start the budget presentations in the next meeting but because of the
083revenue and the foundation aid and we thought it was more important to get it going and start these conversations earlier you know have the superintendent speak about the next slide thank you mr tuttle so just making sure that um you know throughout since the month of october we've had an opportunity to engage with the community in a variety of different ways and it's been so helpful to us as we think about programs services shared services and processes that we're doing and so we wanted to take what we were doing with opportunities to engage with the community out one step further and really do it throughout the budget development process so um earlier in the year or in actually last year the conclusion of last year the board of trustees set out and um had a
084opportunity for the community to come together with a fair funding event and it was at that event that mr tuttle and i were sort of sparked to say that so many of the questions that were asked during that event about how a school district generates a budget and where does revenue come from and what is foundation aid and how does the school district figure out the per pupil spending it was these questions and then the responses and the dialogue that followed that sparked us to think that we have a lot of information to share during the budget development cycle which is what we're in right now and sometimes at a board meeting like this it can feel overwhelming and a lot of information to process and um so what we wanted to do was create
085some separate and unique events where we could engage with the community and so we've put together in early march an opportunity for the community to come in and meet with mr tuttle and i um and we're going to do a little bit of information sharing on what does the budget development process look like how does the district engage in that where do we start when do we start and what are all the components that we're considering and forecasting out as we generate a budget and then in mid-march we're going to do a more informal talk about it tuesday where members of the community can come in and sit with us and we will share specific components of the budget have some documentation for the members of the community to read and then ask some questions
086in a more small group intimate setting then as we round out march we're going to do a budget town hall and it would be at this time that prior to the town hall will put information out about the details of the event and offer the community opportunity to ask questions that then we would be prepared to respond to and then we'll create a place on the district website where all of the budget information is cataloged where we will respond to these questions so folks can read them and gain more insight and information and then throughout april we'll come back to the community and the formal meetings through the board of education process and then in may before the community gets set to vote on may 17th tuesday may 17th we will do a coffee and
087conversation that will be about the budget that is going to be presented to the community so something new that we're trying this year by taking in all of the different lenses that exist and the information sharing that we do and trying to make the information easier to digest clearer and the entire process very transparent so we're excited to engage in this and we hope that you set your calendars for these dates and consider joining us for one or more of the events thank you miss creeden uh i just had to make one um correction and the district clerk warned me it's may 17th tuesday may 17th it's a vote i don't know when i was changing the calendars unless i went the wrong way on the day end of the day um so just a
088little bit about this calendar and this is what we're having having the board approve tonight and starting it sooner uh rather than later um and one of the things i just wanted to mention we were talking about the process and so the when we start budgeting uh one of the things that's unique for us right we're we're planning for next year already like six months eight months ten months from now so that's why we we do a proposed budget and we try to get as close as we can to when we have to adopt it and we can you know put some final numbers on the paper um so going through that process we meet uh with all the building administrators directors uh superintendent assistant superintendent and we go through what you know what do
089they plan for what do they want to do next year and maybe two years from now and so a lot of times what we're doing and planning is it's almost a five-year plan that we're constantly thinking about how do we have enough money right in our reserves and stuff to keep us moving and that's why it's also important for union contracts to get resolved and so we can plan we know four three four five years out what the increases are and how many employees they have and what the increases will be so those things are kind of helpful to us and so it's not like we just sit down and say here's the budget right so we're once this season's over we're already on to the next year and planning you know what works what
090doesn't work so i just wanted to mention that um so what's up next is our next meeting on february 24th we'll talk about capital and benefits at that meeting and that'll be our second meeting uh of the budget does anybody have any questions yeah yeah i said your 17th yeah so um are they uh are there are there any questions any questions um i'll start i'll start with mr gomez because he looked like his hand was going there and then we'll go to mr carino yes well yes i just want to uh commend our administration just creating mr tuttle for this great uh idea and i'm very happy to see this like kind of like an offshoot from our fair funding town hall the budget-focused community engagement i think it it cements the belief in
091our district that we believe knowledge is power not just for our students but for our parents that our parents need to be empowered with the knowledge knowledge of how does our ship of state how does our school district financially run what our children learn and what is the direction we're going so i think this is a great step in the right direction and i'm happy to see that came out of a one event of one seed a tree with different branches is flourishing so great job thank you so much thank you mr gomez thank you mr gomez mr farino thank you yes i just like echo what uh kevin said i think it's good to give the public maximum input on the budget you did a terrific job last year with the uh with the
092budget and uh as you know i like to cut to the chase i'm bottom line here i like to see us come in when all said and done at a zero percent again this year and i'd like to see if possible a negative budget in other words if we could rebate a little back to the taxpayers just as a show of good faith i don't know if we can do it but uh with the increase in state of course with the increase in aid you also have the increase this year a great increase in inflation so electric is going up the gas for the uh the gas for the trucks and going up the cost of paper on on and on so i know you're going to balance that i know you're going to do
093a good job just one specific question the health plan indicate there's an increase in that how much are we saving mike did you calculate that from being on our own rather than yeah we've had numbers in the past so we haven't ever run any of the numbers or had our consultants do it in the past year since the covid because it would really inflate it you wouldn't it wouldn't be like a true trajectory of uh the savings but we've been somewhere between five and six million over the over the course of the since 2017. um it's really we really do well and one of the things that's always hard to predict in the health plan you know we're looking at next year is how many high medical risks do we have right some years we
094get up zero uh some years we have eight or ten and um it really becomes expensive but we've done a great the board has done a great job we have a reserve and we've done a great job of adopting a budget that manages the health care premiums for the employees the thing to know is we we haven't really increased the premiums i think we increased them one time since 2017 and they've been pretty static since so and that's one of the things we try to maintain for the staff so thank you mike okay thank you it's susan i like mr perrino's a sentiment of having a negative balance i think that's great i want to thank you for the presentation i like the approach you're taking to get insight from other community members i think
095that's fantastic i like the idea of getting more into the bits and pieces the more details about i still think and i know i'm not going to win on this issue but i'm going to say it for the record that i think that a zero-based budget is the best way as echoed by the sentiments last year by a grandma in the district it's hard to believe a year has passed since then but i i still would love to encourage my colleagues to explore the zero-based budget idea and um thank you anybody else mr williams um i just want to commend you on a presentation mike and amy um one of the things that uh sticks out for me is the coffee and convo thing the fact that you're inviting community members to sit down and
096explain different things as far as with the budget i think that's excellent and transparency and i think that's just important and what it is so i want to thank you for that presentation and what we have going for i think is great thank you thank you anybody else anybody else um so so i i think that um uh what's different about this year what's different about this year's is is the way that uh well not just the not just the increase in foundation aid but the way that the information is being shared out i think that it's always been an issue um within the community of really understanding how certain things are are handled and drafted um i think that i think that one of the things that sometimes people don't understand is that uh
097we're locked into a certain set of rules and things because basically we are a state we're a state you know state agency to a certain degree and so we're locked into a certain set of rules a certain set of standards that we have to do and there's certain things that we have to reach there's when it comes to budget there's always contractual increases and things that we have to deal with that's why and i heard what you said uh mike when you said that uh it's good to get the uh locked in on the uh on the bargaining units and those particular contracts so that we can plan out ahead and make sure that the district is financially healthy and stable not just for one year but going forward and this district has proven that
098over the years my first year coming on this board and i said i say this all the time my first year coming in this board i was like a deer caught headlights when it came to the budget uh but it's important for all of us and this is i admonish all of my um my fellow board members it's important for us to to make sure that we uh learn these processes and that we uh we have the information in front of us if you have questions you don't have to wait till now to ask those questions because the door is open to be able to go it might be a simple question just to get some clarification as to uh something you see on the line and so uh you know i i i think
099i admonish you to to take that opportunity over the course of the weeks and the months that we're going whatever comes up to make sure that we we ask those questions just to see just to get clarification if it's something that you don't understand because if we be honest we be honest it's almost impossible for us we're not the professionals in this matter but it's going to be almost impossible for us to understand every bit of it but that's why we have uh each other and that's why we have uh those that have the expertise in this to help us get clarification so that we can better understand uh what's going on and how things work and i think that this year is going to turn out to be a a um i'm not going
100to jump the gun like my like my colleagues have but i am optimistic i am very optimistic that this is going to be a budget that um uh this community and uh everybody uh that's involved will be very pleased with something that we're something that we uh have not experienced in a long time i don't know if anybody remember i know mr perrino remembers and um mr fresenzo and mrs blumenau remember the days of eight percent tax levies and things of that nature uh which was hard which was hard and even though we've got this quote unquote two percent tax cap whatever it is it's still got a whole lot of different parameters to it um i'm grateful that we were able even last year to come in at zero and we'll see what happens
101as we go along and hit all of these different pieces that we have to hit so mike um as always thank you good job um i think we're i think we're good anything else nope that's all i have yeah very good all right well thank you very much [Applause] let me put my glasses on see um let's move on to our action items uh i need a motion uh first i need a motion for approval of financial memorandum number 15. so move second moved and seconded any discussion all in favor all right opposed it so passes action item b motion i'd like to entertain a motion for approval of special services memorandum special services memorandum number 15. so moved moved and second seconded any discussion on this all in favor opposed it's so passes action
102item c um a motion for the approval of change orders please don't move moved and seconded for the discussion i'm going to ask mr bartlett if he come and uh give us a a brief synopsis of the change orders thank you we have five different change orders tonight the first is for credit for the unused balance of the contract allowance the next is to to provide additional shades and controls for the media center's west wall windows the next is to provide wood blocking and curves for the three duct penetrations at the connector canopy the next is to excavate and replace the existing valve box in the lower drop off loop on the lower level of the new media center edition and the last one is to paint the air diffusers in the media center's new
103studio thank you any questions yes sir the comment bill you got us another credit this month as we discussed so congratulations yes there is another credit on here money coming in is always appreciated around here i think absolutely thank you mr barley yes sir thank you we've heard the discussion all in favor all right opposed it's so passive um uh i'd like to entertain now a motion for the approval of our revised budget calendar as was presented just a few minutes ago during the district reports second moved and seconded any discussion all in favor opposed it surpasses thank you everybody uh committee reports uh i'll start off uh i i uh with the audit committee the audit committee i i uh uh uh as our as our uh chairman of the audit committee uh our
104vice president uh mr bison was out i i took uh chair of this of this last meeting as the president of the board and took care of this last meeting i want to thank those that were in attendance uh it was it was a brief meeting but it was uh it was very concise and what we had to deal with uh so i i am going to ask now for a motion for the approval of the minutes from the up from well these are the most this is a motion for the approval of the minutes from the october 6 2021 meeting so move john can i get a second thank you all in favor opposed it so passes thank you uh moving on any other committee reports tonight the fair funding committee will be meeting
105next tuesday before o'clock or 4 30. that's tuesday four o'clock tuesday january 8th at the district office thank you are there any other committee reports uh um i don't i don't know if this is a committee but i also want to talk during roundtable so i'll squeeze it in here excuse my voice uh i the reason i'm late is that i'm the liaison for this board of education to the orange ulster boces they're they're they're doing a facilities update and uh so i'm part of a focus group and um the way of boces works it's a public school but it's different it's under the auspices of the state education department what have you but they don't collect taxes their revenue comes in from tuition from all the component districts so it's difficult for them to
106float a large referendum to do repairs or build new buildings what have you so to give you a little insight of where they are i started working at boces in 1977 and i think it was maybe 83 they decided to put a very large addition i think was 250 classrooms absolutely definitely needed because the special education population was growing in leaps and bounds and they did it and this was manny axelrod the superintendent at the time was an incredibly powerful individual this was built at a time when the dormitory authority wasn't approving new construction and he pushed it through but the point of this well his little story um i was president of our teachers union for 12 years and uh he came to me and other people to ask for a focus group there
107are teachers and what have you to give input into what the um they would need in a new building and really work that well special ed has very special requirements um so when it was completed we stood in front of the building and they took a picture of mr axelrod myself and three members of the student body student council and a copy of all the bargaining unit contracts and put it in the side of the building where the date is the completion 1988 so that's kind of like a ipso facto mausoleum for me but um it's a time capsule so but the point of this is that's the last time they did any major components so that was 12 that was 30 some odd years ago almost 40 years ago they um have a campus
108at the old arden hill hospital where they've done some capital improvements so anyway buildings age i mean look what we've done here we've we've been ahead of the curve uh i believe every step of the way because we can float a referendum and you think about twin towers that's a huge project so what the purpose of this group that met today um they showed us like they did with us here with with twin towers uh the same kg kg and d the same architectural firm is going to do that work they showed us a good better and best oh boy the prices um the good was about 80 000 and the best was 100 excuse me um 80 million the best was 120 million so we don't know where we're going with that so their
109their problem now is that um it has to be approved by the component districts they have two options boards of education can vote for this but i think there are 18 component districts it has to be 100 if one if we voted no it doesn't happen they don't get the uh approved um so what they're going to do is go to the districts and have a vote just as we do on our budget and our referendums rather uh so i mean this this was our first meeting we only we only met for about an hour and a half um we've got a long way to go they want to secure the funding by october of this year so what we suggested was that they're going to need to do a huge program of um you
110know what is boces about i can understand our special education population we have a large population and many of them go to boces those parents understand what why boces is important to them and then they're the students that go to ctec and their parents understand what's important to them but it's the people in the middle that they don't know the value of a boces even though um they might hadn't their children not be might not be involved in a program we have services from boces that affects virtually every aspect of our of our program so it's going to be a heavy lift we're going to have quite a few meetings to figure out how this is going to happen but i can tell you now i retired 12 years ago and you kind of forget
111but and the axle rod building the wind built in 88 i spent most of my career there you kind of forget what it looked like but it's in need of repair just as not just actually in not as good a condition as twin towers a lot of wear and tear special education requirements there are a certain amount of square footage per student and because the rooms are relatively small the classrooms have to be small that creates a problem with students that need to go to their program there's a waiting list what have you so i'll be back to you i believe we're going to meet um probably at least once a month if not more than that and i'll be back to you with more information and um and i'm going to ask them to
112come in and they they're going to do it regardless we ask them to do a presentation to show you what needs to be done it's it's going to be a mammoth project so that's it thank you sir any other committee reports all right thank you uh we're gonna move on to our round table um we're gonna we're gonna uh utilize our four minutes and uh and and go from there and then after that we'll adjourn um mrs houston thank you last meeting i spoke about information cancel cancel culture censorship propaganda misinformation something being characterized by misinformation when it's really just a polar viewpoint and i i had decided to speak on that at the last minute and i'm not sure i was as clear as i would have liked to have been but i ended
113up getting contacted by a friend in the community an old friend and i wrote her a letter and i thought why don't i just share it with you omitting names because i think it'll clarify my point um hello old friend and thank you so much it's great to hear from you and i'm truly grateful for your support my speech at the last meeting was not exactly my best work i bumbled quite a bit on my topic in the round table regarding polar viewpoints misinformation information disorder discernment censorship cancel culture and propaganda it was quite painful to watch myself on the video if i'm being 100 truthful i think it came across as confusing but i hope the community members who were watching understood the basics of what i was talking about life choices and decision
114making do not happen in a vacuum and cannot be instructed through an app software the internet or video games children's eyes should not be focused on the virtual 24 7. it cannot solely be left to our educators to teach discernment and to teach our children that there are two sides to an argument and that there is more to life than a screen you and i started our careers at around the same time i remember back then that the educational honor society magazine put out this beautiful poem that i have never forgotten about virtual versus real life experiences it was titled the internet cannot teach and just a couple of snippets from that the internet cannot teach what it is like to pet a kitten make a snow angel see your breath on a cold day
115or to hold a newborn infant or to sit on your grandmother's lap with a photo album the people behind commercial virtualism certainly do not certainly do want to tell our children what to think rather than to teach real experiences and critical thinking this pandemic has caused a tidal wave of a plague of the words i used above it's not just our physical health that is in trouble in this new society i decided to speak on the topic at the last minute so if i count my um's and uh i may have won a world record i guess we cannot be our best selves all the time last month was a tough one for my family but i'm grateful for the positive things that have come about in both our personal lives and for our country
116i am passionate about truth transparency and freedom and i'm confident that god is hearing our prayers and that is certainly comforting to me i hope it comes through that i am rooting for all of our community to have what is best for everyone and not a particular narrative i really care about how these last two years have impacted the emotional health of our students teachers faculty and staff i spend more time reading my bible these days and we shut the tv and phones off i know my family is better off for it um and i was i was just going on with her about some personal things so i'm gonna skip over that but i i pray that your your year has been blessed uh with many beautiful experiences and that your days are filled
117with laughter and hugs even if they have to be air hugs right now i'm sorry um that i and this is to the community that i bumbled so much last meeting i was still recovering from what was uh going on in my personal life but i wanted to make it known that i don't think it's okay for society to have this new narrative that there's just one way i don't agree with it and i think we have to teach our children discernment in our homes and i've also been contacted by i'm switching gears now some other community members who have asked me to advocate publicly against governor hochul's tyrannical mandates so i have agreed to use my time this evening to speak on this issue and my primary reason is awareness and exercising my rate
118to free speech on behalf of those who are fearful of coming forward for fear of retribution in some way so i'm going to summarize because i know my time is running short but i would like to say for the record that um sometimes safety and feeling safe are two different things i want to emphasize that the health safety and emotional well-being of our students staff faculty and administration are extremely important to me as they are to all of you i have opened my eyes to see that just because something feels safe does not mean that it is and that it may be doing more harm than good so please know that face masks and the use of them are known to do or be the following decrease oxygen intake increase toxin inhalation shut down the
119immune system increase the risk of triggering virus from dominant retroviruses they're science the science is inaccurate the weave of the material in the masks are known to be the equivalent of a chain-link fence to a mosquito this seems more about control to me than safety they negatively impact communication between people hearing impaired individuals to provide one example among many are unable to receive what someone is saying to them when you see a baby in a shopping cart at the grocery store and you smile at them because i have a medical exemption i don't have to wear the mask but i'm also against the mask and i want to be very clear about that um i i love to see that child's face light up and i think it's important for their development and it's important
120for our students in the classroom i'll i will continue on this at the next meeting but i'll finish with this they decrease social connections there is no effectiveness study and proof that masks prevent or eliminate the spread of disease there are numerous studies that have shown evidence that masks collect germs including viruses bacteria and fungi and are like petri dishes and they are an environmental eye sore and pollutant and a threat to land fresh water and ocean wildlife and i do need to bring to your attention one other thing which i'll be very quickly quick quick about but the children's health defense new york chapter has put out something dated january 27 2022 that governor hoechel is sneaking through covid camps regulation and mandatory vax database bills and she basically can imprison anyone who she
121suspects is a public health threat without trial into a covid camp and and this is not a416 this is through the health regulations of the state of new york and the reason it was put out um by the children's health defense new york chapter is because it is going to impact children as well i'll stop there because i know i exceeded my time but i'll talk more at the next meeting thank you thank you mr gomez thank you mr president i just want to thank my colleague mr cressenza for his report on the on the boces i think it's important to understand that the our boces system doesn't just address the needs of our special needs children but also provides the opportunity for students to gain vocational skills and vocational training and i'm of the
122opinion that at this century moves along i think we're going to see especially at the secondary level uh education develop where children are our students are going to be open to not just to pursue a high undergraduate and education after leave high school but also to have the backup of having vocational training so that they'll have two options in their life and uh and i think it just highlights the importance of programs like boces that someday then in the future we have students that graduate with a high school degree but we're all which will also give them some kind of vocational standing to pursue different careers trades businesses while at the same time they could also pursue undergraduate studies i believe our school's already on the ball in that our district so i think it's
123very important that we support our boces and the county as a whole our county also gives you the importance in collaboration with our school district so good to hear the the great things happening there thank you mr gomez mr perino thank you president williams uh taryn when's our next board meeting what date 17th okay thank you the reason i asked that is that the national honor society two sessions they do a great job mallory yorman's and jennifer young hands and the society is making these valentines i don't know if you can get a camera on this but maybe next time for veterans and these are going to be distributed in the various veterans hospitals council point and so on in various veterans organizations it's it's a very nice gesture because and well appreciated by the
124vets so that's one thing i was going to start on talking more about black history month which i will do but i'm going to talk about one very famous black educator in this district jerry you open the door now i'm going to talk about bill carter okay bill carter was not only a colleague of mine but he was a friend and a neighbor i knew bill carter very well people called him willie he didn't like that he'd like to be called bill and he didn't begin his career as principal william a carter mechanics on he began his career as a physical education teacher in the district bill's wife ernestine both of them were outstanding district educators believe me i worked with them on committees and so on a positive role model for all students not
125only black students but white hispanic students he didn't care what color you were he was there for you he believed all students could learn all students he liked the mastery approach to education which said which says time is variable learning is constant because students do need some students need more time to master a subject and you know in that building it was it was mechanics on a course on a time he insisted on an orderly environment never looked the other way that's a good lesson today forced the code of conduct to the letter supported the staff he had the motto was if you remember school is a feeling you remember that schools are feeling he held daily programs in the gymnasium he had activities for the students and he discussed the day in addition to
126that i was very proud i might say that he ran a miniature golf course remember you had a miniature call of course in the dalton avenue that mall and dalton avenue where playtoggs used to be not in that building but uh near there and you know he instructed and he let the students who did not have the money to play for free and i must say bill and ernestine i can't say enough about and i was very happy to offer the resolution at a board meeting to change the name of the mechanics town school to the william a carter school he's gone but both of bill and ernestine will never be forgotten in this district thank you mr president out of time i made it thank you mr preno thank you thank you very much
127a professional golfer also yes he was he was a he was a he was a uh he was a golf golf professional golf pro yeah yeah absolutely uh mr williams okay i have two things um um yesterday they had their eighth and ninth grade transition and i just wanna just commend everybody who's involved in that um what's so important that i think is very important is that passing of the baton or that thread from middle school to high school and i think that um the staff is trying to do excellent or doing an excellent job with that i want to commend um interim principal for twin towers nicole brookins as well as the principal for mon hagen mr rodonia um as i heard last night was a huge success i also i really want to
128highlight as far as in the high school the kids who just stepped up just to try to make it uh to make the middle school kids and the parents feel comfortable about coming to our high school the chorus was there um singing jrotc was there as well as the orchestra which set a tone which was so important for them to come through because that's you want it to be smooth the passing that baton is passing that baton correctly is just so important so i just want to commend everybody who was involved um another and something else i wanted to talk about was just uh to highlight the community that's just been stepping up as far as working in our school district and working with the school district um i commend when amy sent out a
129call for community brokers just different people from the community just stepping up just to help out with the school uh like fazz ali and paul dazzle as well as freddie williams and raylens just kevin dorales and john merchant like i just want to acknowledge them because it's just somebody putting out a call and they just stepping up you know which is which is major for the school district as well as the community even as far as with the even hiring practices that would uh command jillian but she's putting out that um as far as not the application but as far as a way for you to get hired in the districts and it has the community very excited about trying to get hired as well as working in the school and being a part of
130the district to help our kids and that's what it's about for me and i'm very excited about all these things going on and i just want to commend everybody who's just stepping up and adding on and because it takes a village and that's just what it is and it seems like we're coming together i see it coming together and i'm very excited about it thank you mr williams [Music] thank you um i want to give a special thanks to uh mrs seeger and mrs grant for doing an amazing job with the my fifth grade mastery program at presidential park firstly and also um for the black live um sorry black history month project put forth uh by them which has me playing cameraman on the court with my son due to the fact he's picked
131lebron james to be the subject of his uh of his project um it's a really cool concept to get the kids engaged um it's not all sports it could be in any facet of black history and um the sediments i want to repeat of uh pastors that uh you know it shouldn't be subjected to this one month and in my family and in my upbringing it never was so um but i just wanted to um give them a shout out and uh some praise for the programs going on over there thank you thank you mr williams mr bloomer thank you um i want to acknowledge also february beginning of february obviously yesterday was the lunar new year and somehow at the beginning of the month because it's it it just got forgotten so today just
132at the table i just wanted to remind everybody that today is lunar new year and as i look around our media center each time we come in it's just more and more i'll just use the word warm when we first walked in here i remember just feeling that this was just this big cold beautiful you know beautiful but very kind of sterile feeling and just like any new room is it's um you know it took some time to start to warm up and feel the space and get used to it so just want to thank those who are making this space more welcoming and warm and it also is heart health month february is also heart health month so take care take good care of yourselves and that's really all i wanted to say oh
133thank you mr crescenzo speaking of that this uh media center was part of the presentation at boces today uh the architects as an example of what you can do when you really think the project through i'm i'm i'm going to apologize for moving quickly here um mr preno and i attended the naval rotc review earlier in the week and they did exceptionally well chief slanglin did an excellent job i think there were 115 cadets the uh marine major i thought he was from washington but he's actually up at rit came down and gave them outstanding uh grades they did just you know they the discipline the structure and everything is just amazing amazing the way it works so again i apologize for reading this fastly fastly quickly i subscribe to education weekly it's called edweek.org
134it's really fascinating they've got some really good articles here and here's an article about um the title is black history meet dr gladys west the black woman behind the gps technology um so it's it's short i'm just going to read it quickly dr gladys west what is a mathematician known for her contrib contributions to the mathematical modeling of the shape of the earth which is essential i didn't know to gps uh develop okay so uh she would finally be recognized for a very important work that led to the development of one of the most necessary tools we use in our everyday lives gps hired at the naval surface warfare center in dahlgren virginia dr west was only one of four black employees and the second black woman ever hired west worked as a programmer and
135analyzed satellite data she was able to utilize the satellite data to put together an altimeter models of the earth's shape with extreme precision they didn't have that before she did this she was then recommended to work as a project manager for this c-stat radar altimetry project the first satellite that could be remotely that could remotely sense the oceans through the mid 1970s and 80s dr west programmed the ibdm computer to provide extremely precise calculations to model the shape of the earth optimized for what has eventually become global positioning system gps orbit not only was dr west's technology the most instrumental in creation of gps like glasses fargo there would be no gps without dr west dr west retired in 1998 after working at the uh at dahlgren for 42 years a true hidden figure her
136contributions to gps were only rediscovered when a member of west alpha calper alpha kappa alpha sorority read a biography rest submitted west submitted at the alumni function on february 21st 2018 the virginia general assembly finally recognized dr gladys west for her contributions to the center aisle ceremony in december 2018 she was inducted into the air force space and missile pioneers hall of fame that's amazing all these little treasures out there that you can find um and unfortunately we wait till black history month to look for these things all right so um i'm gonna get a little serious here um i've been on the board of education for 11 years they weren't continuous years but 11 years altogether and during that time i've my philosophy whatever is that the board of education should not get involved
137with politics or religion for that matter we're a public entity we represent the public of many many religions and aspects and what have you during that time in the executive session um i stopped a um not a referendum but a proposal um that would have been very embarrassing very political very embarrassing to the district board of ed also i've defended lgbtq rights particularly the transgender rights in executive session we have a responsibility here um we're everyday people and we're just like anybody else sitting here sitting outside watching this on on video we're everyday people but we have a responsibility we're elected to this job and what we say matters it carries a little bit more weight than if i were talking in uh shoprite or something like that mrs houston you've you talked about accuracy
138and what have you um you really believe one one a couple of weeks ago you said something about vaccines for four-month-old babies that's not true um you talked about um well uh dr um what was his name alone he was so highly discredited that he no longer can publish in the journal of american medicine um there's a whole list of things that he's done wrong but one of them dr malone also falsely claimed that the fires are bio and tech and modernic vaccines could worsen covet 19 infections and that the food and drug administration had not granted full approval of the fisa vaccine in august of 2021 twitter permanently suspended his account and the british version of the journal of medicine also banned him forever publishing in there now do you really believe that hulkel
139is going to have a prison camp for people who aren't wearing masks or vaccinated that's a very dystopian 1984 type of uh are you asking me to answer that or are you asking me a return well i'm just i'm still talking generally because it was actually on the assembly floor so what i'm going to recommend i'm not calling mrs houston out on this but i firmly disagree with a lot of the things she says is that when you hear something here when you hear something from me when you hear what i just read about dr west look it up don't just go to one resource don't go to youtube which is probably one of the worst places to find any research but look it up go to the ama go to um yale university there
140are so many reputable places out there and compare and then draw your own conclusions there are nine members here don't take what we say as gospel if you have any doubts whatsoever research it look it up don't take it from one source that's what i have to say thank you uh so we're gonna we're gonna get to end the meeting but i i do want to i do want to um close with close with this uh mr purino uh talked about uh mr carter and uh mr carter uh mr carter mr william carter was a a good friend of our family down through the years um it was it was not it would not have been a surprise to go to the williams household in the 60s um or to the the carter household in
141the 60s and find that family be when i was a child playing scrabble uh and so uh certainly he was my principal from third grade through sixth grade and made great impact i happen to have played uh martin luther king senior in the in the schools of feeling program and so there are some great um great uh great memories great memories that have been established and many many of those in my generation in my years had uh mr carter during that time maybe i shouldn't maybe i shouldn't mention that maybe maybe all of the maybe all of the um maybe all of the uh thoughts maybe all of the memories were all good memories as you know back in that time they they uh they use that they use the paddle without any problem um
142so uh thank god i only got it once um but nevertheless um he did care and so um i'm glad that we could take that opportunity to remember him i actually had thought before you had mentioned and even when mr kleiner had mentioned uh mr carter i thought that i would put together a video presentation for the next board meeting uh that would highlight um some of the wonderful things that he'd done for this district as well as other um african-american administrators and teachers that we've had down through the years i know that it seems sometimes like it's disproportionate and it is it is disproportionate in the number of instructors and teachers that we've seen over the years but there have been some that have made great impact mr thorne from from truman moon and
143and so many others uh and so uh i think that perhaps um i'll get together with somebody and we'll put together a video presentation to recognize some of those some of those african-american african-american uh administrators and teachers that have made impact uh down through the years and so also i want to i just want to add this since i have a minute and 40 seconds left um i do want to make sure that um as we as we're as we're moving into the second month of this year um that we we move into this month with a with an optimistic outlook um we can continue we can continue to look backwards all we want but if we're continuing to try to turn around and look through the rear view mirror we're going to crash um
144the the the windshield is made for us to continue to look forward and to look ahead our rearview mirrors and our side view mirrors are meant for us to glance behind us to see uh how far we've come and to make sure that the past does not sneak up on us and so i want to make sure that and to admonish everybody let's continue to look forward let's continue to move forward let's continue to do what we've got to do it's not about us it's really not about any of us at the end of the day it's about the sum total of all of us and so uh i know that we have a difference of opinions and uh it's okay we don't agree uh everyone's entitled to their own opinion but everybody's not entitled
145to their own set of facts and so we have to understand that we show respect and we continue to move forward and uh and we do what's necessary because at the end of the day if it's not about the scholars as a sum total then we're in the wrong business and so uh i want to make sure that we we focus on what's positive and what's good and let me say this last uh everyone took a few seconds over their time and i'm gonna take just take 20 seconds um take a moment with everything that's serious in the world going on today i challenge each and every one of you you got your snow day tomorrow uh you got your snowy day but i challenge each and every one of you to find something to
146smile about and something to laugh about take some take take that frown turn it around make it a smile challenge you to go home watch something joke around goof around enjoy your families enjoy your friends enjoy what's going on and take a moment to let the air out of the ball let the air out and uh exhale and find out we will find out that life is worth living and so that's just my management to each and every one of you tonight uh that's here and to all of those that are watching and listening we go forward and we go forward with great hope with great hope and so thank you uh for everyone for coming out this evening and for uh your your participation and your contributions uh we're going to move on our
147next meeting is going to be february the 17th we will be back here same same that time same bat channel and we're going to come back ready to work and move forward thank you can i have a motion to adjourn please all in favor opposed nobody we are adjourned thank you and have a good evening enjoy your snow day on tomorrow you