001at this time i would like to call to order the september 2nd 2021 board of education meeting please rise for the pledge of allegiance mr carino would you please lead us [Music] 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 uh please stay standing mr perino has a moment of silence thank you so much first moment of silence this evening is for the 13 brave americans who lost their lives in kabul afghanistan and also for the innocent civilians you know if you're in the military once you raise your right hand you're at the discretion of the commanders and you don't know where the fate of fate of the wind will take you so god bless them
002we're not going to be back in session until september 23rd of course september 11th the the 20th anniversary of the terrible attack by al qaeda on the world trade center 2977 americans lost their lives again please remember them in your thoughts and prayers may we never forget their sacrifice another moment of sounds has been kind of a rough uh rough session emma darling emmer darling a graduate of mhs 1966. she was a teacher and a monitor at twin towers middle school for 30 years in mhs in her high school in the high school she was known as for her sparkling personality great singing voice she was a member of the a cappella choir during her tenure she worked very very hard with students she had she carried in today her job what her personality that
003she demonstrated in high school very diligent she knew how to approach students she could get students to do what they were supposed to do by her manner i work with emma and i can't say enough positive things about her the final moment of science this evening for clara cerrone claire ceron a principal teacher and then a principal at the academy avenue school which is now parks and recreation for the most part claire was very respected by her colleagues she in-serviced her colleagues in the new math i served on curriculum committees with claire and she was very she was demanding but she got her points across so all these people please remember them again in your thoughts and prayers thank you so much thank you mr perino [Music] mr gomez may i ask you to read
004the mission of the enlarged city school district of middletown yes we strive to provide fiscally sound educational opportunities in a safe environment that continues to 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 i need the roll call miss clark here here here here there's most in the audience can see pastor williams is not with us he is still under doctor's care and has our thoughts are with him and his family i need an approval of the agenda moved by mr perrino seconded by ms houston thank you okay may i have a motion to approve the agenda as presented so moved second any discussion all in favor any opposed motion passes
005i need an approval of the minutes from august 12. may i have a motion i do have two sets i believe i also have the special meeting may i combine those or would you like them separate combined said all right to combine so i'd like a motion for the approval of the minutes for august 12 as well as for the meeting on august 19th and i also have one for the 31st or three minutes may i approve all have an approval for all three moves thank you so we're approving minutes of august 12th august 19th and august 31st paula approved i made the motion i need a second of the motion second by john is there any discussion on any of those minutes hearing none all in favor any opposed motion passes unanimously we're on
006item six which is the person personnel action items if there's no objection i would like to combine 6 a instructional and 6 b not instructional i have a motion by paula a second by john any discussion [Music] hearing none all in favor aye aye any opposed the motion passes unanimously i'm going to move on to item seven all right we didn't want to do sixty but i will do six c i need the approval for item 6c which is the retirement of our superintendent [Music] that's great after 35 years of service for the district thank you so much all right john thank you go ahead i need a motion to accept item six c so moved by vince i need a second second by paula is there any board discussion hearing none all in favor
007aye opposed [Music] the motion is accepted unanimously item seven is the recognition announcement and community reports if there aren't any or are there some okay i'm going to start with um freddie i'm good thank you freddie mitch um i had a video i'm not sure if this is time to put the video on um we just uh we had a thing called it takes a village um and i think it was just great for our community um very excited about just bringing the community together let's play the video please uh so hmm i just want to thank the community i'm just excited about that because that's what this is about it's about our community and i love our community um another thing is um i just wanted to report that at the parks and rec
008on wednesday evening for middletown kids they have free basketball and on friday evenings from seven to nine we have free boxing training if you're middletown school kid at the parks and rec please come out we out there we welcome you we love you that's it [Music] i want to thank everyone that was involved but especially to you and foxy or to freddie for all your efforts in pulling this off i'm sure that it's going to become an annual event so with my appreciation i say thank you and i'm sure this whole board appreciates the work i know that some of our administrators and some of our board members were there so it's very much appreciated vincent vince excuse me we will give you an opportunity we'll do the board first please vince in today's paper
009they had a vince here a microphone please in today's paper there was an article called high school football meet varsities 845 super 11 for 2021 we have three middletown football players in here i have to scroll down to find them um okay here we go jayden farrell he's a senior quarterback wide receiver cornerback cornerback uh what makes farrell super he's a versatile player with great vision and is a threat on offense defense and special teams he posted 15 tackles an interception and 16 catches for 321 yards and four touchdowns uh let's keep going here jermaine mcrae a senior running back and linebacker what makes mcrae super he's an explosive rugged player who can cover receivers and lay people out he had 19 tackles and four sacks on defense plus 242 yards rushing and 216 yards
010is a receiver impressive and where's the other one go give me a second okay for some reason i'm sorry the uh the third one is not here even can um i know i'm out of turn here but this is a meeting a business meeting of the board of education held in public we're going to respect you and we would really appreciate it if you respected us thank you i have nothing this evening i'm taking a moment during this community announcements portion of our meeting to speak publicly to the community in the form of an apology on october 16th of last year i was an unexperienced newly elected member of this board of education at that meeting i made a mistake one that i have come to regret at that meeting i raised my voice to
011a member of our community in response to her raising her voice i was wrong in the heated moment and my response was definitely not the right call and for that i apologize my entire life i have loved our united states constitution and the freedoms provided by the first amendment i've had much time to reflect upon this let me be clear i am against censorship of any kind and of any form i was raised by my parents to own up to my mistakes and when i am wrong i say i am wrong my love for the constitution and the freedoms that our veterans fought and died for surpass any quote unquote board norms is it best for us to follow an orderly meeting through the use of parliamentary procedure absolutely yes however recently our society is
012very quick to censor the opinions of some and not others i have been following board of ed meetings across the country who are disgustingly censoring the public's right to speak on a variety of topics whether it be about masks the vaccines critical race theory or something something else maybe something local or specific to the community and i want to reassure everyone here that is as an elected official i will always stand for everyone's right to speak here especially in middletown will we always agree no will there be times when we agree that there is a problem but we disagree on the solution absolutely but that is the beauty of our democratic republic there will be times when the subject matter is uncomfortable but each of us has to be brave and open up these conversations
013to listen to both sides there will be times when we respectfully disagree or agree to disagree and you know i lost my place here apologize but um each of us has to be brave and open up these conversations to listen to both sides and will will there be times when we respectfully agree to disagree yes and that is okay in fact there is one constituent in our community who vehemently disagrees with me and speaks out against my words at every meeting and i have the highest respect for him because he has the courage to speak for what he believes in and i will always respectfully listen to his point of view in conclusion the point i am driving home right here and now is that everyone in this community has the right to express their
014viewpoint point in whatever way they see fit and as your elected representative i will always listen wholeheartedly with an open mind and heart to find solutions for each of the challenges our community faces i am a christian woman and my actions will always demonstrate my faith and will seek to find truth and righteousness to represent every member of this hurting community my favorite book has a quote that i would like to end with teach us to number our days rightly that we may gain a heart of wisdom that comes from psalm 90 verse 12. thank you [Music] mr gomez [Applause] all right um okay okay one next all right all right every uh that's the parliamentarium for the board i know a lot of everybody here has something to say and uh and i guess
015when the time comes to please uh it's gonna be afford it's a four-minute rule so everybody can have who's gonna speak has a chance to speak uh when the four minutes are up uh please be mindful so the next person could speak so that nobody cuts off anybody and also uh try to uh remain in your seats so that everything could be done smoothly i think it's important that we all get to hear each other and that's as with respect to my comments uh today's the first day of today's the first day of school my children certainly were very excited to be back and it is my prayer that this will be a year an uplifting year where we will build on the accomplishments of the past at the same time a year of healing
016of new learning new opportunities and it's my prayer that god will bless our children our parents and teachers and our country that's all but again remember to keep the four-minute rule and also when speaking not be mindful not to be referring to different personnel and also it when the board member when you're addressing the board it's not a opportunity it's not for the board members to respond and at the same time to get into argument with particular board members that way you can make your points effectively and again i know everybody has a different point and that deserve to be heard be respected and that way it could run smoothly and everything will be laid out out there okay exercising your first amendment rights at the same time the board as trustees of the community
017elected by the community could also address those concerns thank you mr gomez mr perrino thank you uh mr bison we're not going to be back until the 23rd so to our jewish brethrens who will be celebrating the high holy days beginning september 6th beginning september 6 with the start of rosh hashanah may the year 5 7 82 be sealed with love peace and happiness and as you celebrate young kipper john kipper begins i believe on the sundown on september 15th may you be sealed in the book of life thank you the a number of events took place in the past a week and a half teacher orientation very successful the staff at the high school did a nice job i think carina acevedo was in charge of the teacher orientation it was the student orientation
018went off very well the students also mhs graduation summer graduation the staff at the high school did an excellent job we had 11 new graduates and that went off uh exceptionally well uh another event that took place in the past uh well week and a half or so the presentation of annie which was the presented by the summer drama camp the students had only two weeks to prepare for this two weeks and by gosh it it seemed like they had uh uh eight or ten weeks they did a fine job and i want to just shout out to the director uh mrs dunleavy the assistant director christa minari production assistant timo martinez and stage manager suzanne vogt so and all the of course all the cast you have my debt of gratitude and you did
019an exceptional job and of course victor iraqi and the crew were right there and uh doing what they usually do creating a success for the uh for the program so i'm not going to go into anything else i have some more but i think i'll end it there thank you i just want to mention the opening of school sometimes there's some bumps in the road and we had a couple especially with transportation we will work them out i also want to comment i saw on social media today what presidential park did here with some pictures of their students so i thank the presidential park pto don't like to do that because it's not to say that the others it was just to me a very creative idea and i'm sure that all of our other
020ptos will be there putting forth with first first week or first day activities from our students just be patient please with the buses i know there were some issues and i believe they have been worked on and hopefully tomorrow will be a better day moving on i will turn the meeting over and i would hope that this crowd would give the superintendent their respect thank you superintendent del [Music] maro you mr tobiason members of the board of education in the middletown school community as was announced just few minutes ago i have submitted my letter of retirement to the board of education we've been talking about this over the last week or so and so um it is with a heartfelt thank you for 34 years of working in the school district and a total of
02146 years of public education when i walked into our school district in 1987 i came as a young man filled with joy and hope that i had this appointment and each of the days that i've been in this school district although some days may be overwhelming i have a sense of gratitude for being able to serve this community in various capacities certainly at the building levels as principal at truman moon elementary school then it was converted to a k-1 center [Music] and then i went over to be principal at monhagen middle school and then i was appointed into central office as director of secondary education then assistant superintendent for curricular instruction and most recently the superintendent of schools there were many challenges in front of us but if i can just summarize without going on
022and on and on that we've come a long way from the day that i went into central office to where we are today with our program as robust that it is today on all of our classrooms kindergarten through 12th grade and making sure that all of our students every one of our students regardless of skill levels need levels emotional needs social well-being needs we all try to meet those needs on a daily basis it has been my pleasure to work with such a committed staff at every level regardless of what position we held in the school district you've heard me at this microphone or at the podium in various meetings indicate that i always feel that and i still do today if the most important people in the school district are are classroom practitioners they
023meet with your children your most prized possessions every day and i think that we have worked through some difficult times we have difficult times ahead of us but i am resolved to the fact that the commitment and talent we have in this school district will meet those challenge as we have in the past in a successful manner this past school term the class of 2021 reached a graduation rate of 90 percent and that doesn't happen in a single silo there were many very dedicated individuals working to that end over a number of years that culminated in some of that huge huge milestone for us and it indicates one thing that our children that we serve are indeed champions and that's the evidence of that and i am very proud of our facilities that support all
024programs for our students the continuation of looking for effective ways to create learning environments that meet the academic social well-being needs emotional for all of our students as we continue to move forward as we bring into our program the culturally responsive sustaining framework to make everyone aware of the needs of all the feelings of all the respect and the value for each and every one of us as we go through these difficult times in our society that schools are the microcosms of society indeed however this is where we are going to make a difference in my belief through education through a committed collaborative effort by everyone involved and i want to thank the board of education and all of the previous boards of education for their support because it starts from the board of education
025and it moves through the school district i want to thank all of the parents that have worked countless hours giving up their valuable time for the children of middletown and their investment in their child's education there's never been a day that i felt that our parents are not committed to that goal and it's been truly an honor to serve you and i thank you for your support throughout the years i leave with fond memories of this school district i will always think very highly of the school district because you are a phenomenal community i thank you very much just a few words thank you just a few words about the opening of school as mrs tobins had mentioned um historically the first day of school is a little less than smooth because of more parents
026dropping children off than buses and so on and so forth we'll work all of that out we have responded to those parents who have reached out to us about particular bus stops and so on and so forth uh we understand that there's probably a little more adjustment at the high school with some of the lunch periods we will address all of that in a timely manner obviously we we built a new cafe to accommodate our students so that they're in an environment that's welcoming and comfortable and certainly the facility is is addressing that and certainly scheduling has to be adjusted we will make those adjustments because that's our intention to do that i'd also like to mention that we have reset the administration team at the high school i see a number of placards here
027and let me just call out all of the building administrators at the high school acting principal acting executive president mrs lauren durr and the house dean's not in any particular order this is acevedo mr perez right mr sheedy [Applause] this is alasaka mrs merchant and mr williams [Applause] so obviously we are looking forward to a very productive school term especially at our high school we have many exemplary programs going on for all of our children up in that facility but we cannot forget our ka program as well so um please stay tuned to our facebook district facebook pages for announcements as well as our websites and of course all the other means that schools normally communicate to parents i think it's important that we continue to work together for the children of the school district
028that's the key here and so i'd also like to mention that we're receiving guidelines on the pandemic for schools we just received some more guidance moments ago about probably about three hours ago indicating that obviously we all know from my previous message last week and the week before that all of the individuals in the school building must wear masks universal math squaring k-12 the students and now there's going to be for all of the adults all of the adults in the schools effective immediately from the department of health at the state level that we have to demonstrate that they're either vaccinated and or will have weekly testing so we continue to make those adjustments as we receive them we will notify all of our employees of these immediately and continue to keep our parents informed
029it goes without saying that i'm very very proud of the patience of all of you and i understand we all agree about the frustrations to all of this we know that it affects family life in terms of child care issues and so on and so forth but we must follow the guidelines and i know you understand that and we will try to reasonably accommodate as many parents as possible in these very difficult but changing times as you know the commissioner of education as well as the new governor indicating that the primary focus is to have in-person learning and so that that is our paramount goal here and of course there's always going to be exceptions to that on an individual basis that we will look at them but the primary goal is to maintain in-person
030learning for all of our learners k through and we will continue to monitor the programs as a result of all of these whether it's the mitigating strategies for hygiene mass wearing hand sanitizers we have masks that children can change i think this is one of the questions i get constantly asked if a child drops a mask what happens we have mass for them to replenish we have boxes and boxes and truckloads of of mass so we will provide the mask when necessary to change them when they need them if there's a car for sneeze we will do that we want to maintain the health and safety of all of the staff and students is always paramount and health is a concern so we will work through this together as we did in the last 15
03116 months we were hoping that the delta variant wouldn't escalate which it has which is making these more guidelines come coming down to the schools because of all of that and obviously it's affecting the younger students that it did in the previous coed 19 issue so we are constantly monitoring this please if you have any questions about that please do not hesitate to call your school and or central office and we will respond accordingly that's all i have at this particular time this is tobiason board of education and thank you for the opportunity to speak to the community thank you we are on our action items i need it i need a motion to approve financial memorandum number six as presented so move moved by john perrino i need a second second second by paula
032are there any discussions [Music] with respect to the governor's uh uh since i've asked for a first and a second may we complete that and could we go back then all right so i have it first and i have a second is there any discussion about the financial memorandum number six just just to point out i'm sure mrs tobiason will do this for the people who have not been here before we have this agenda well in advance and we ask questions we don't rubber stamp anything believe me we ask questions of the superintendent we ask questions of the the business manager the director of on on on so when we approve these we've already asked our questions and they've already been modified as necessary thank you mr bison is there any other discussion hearing none
033all in favor aye aye any opposed the motion passes unanimously i'll go back i'll hold then number five you had a question for the superintendent yes thank you because it might be a question i think that might be in the community's mind uh with respect to the guidelines issued by the new governor is there anything in the guidelines uh that addresses let's say individuals be it personnel staff or students that for health related reasons and there are cases are not able to or may be exempt from wearing a mask could they wear an alternative like a shield is that was did the governor address that yes there are in the guidance as even in last year's guidance and including this year's guidance there is accommodations for those medical reasons by a new york state certified
034doctor yes you know if uh in terms of an exemption and as far as shields and things that would all be based on that particular situation you know would be very presumptuous on my part to say yes or no it would be based on those issues that the exemption is being assaulted in other words there is that opportunity to move through that pathway will the guidelines be posted on the school website for parents or they could go i guess go to the governor's website the answer is yes we just received this guidance we will turn to our agenda our next item is uh the approval of special services memorandum number five again as mr perino said we've had these um since last friday so may i have a motion to approve the special services memorandum
035number five as presented i have a motion by mr perino i need a second second by mr cruzenza can i have any discussion hearing none all in favor opposed hearing none the motion passes unanimously in our packets there were two letters for the approval of a nisba aryan 9 representative one was from john redmond and the other one was from john burns i will take them individually do i have a motion and we can only vote for one do i have a motion for the approval to nominate john redmond of florida union free school district as the nisba area 9 director so moved moved by mr cresenza seconded by paula any discussion all in favor aye opposed so we have i'm going to ask for a roll call so that i'm sure ms clark opposed
036so it looks like mr redmond would get the vote to support him from the middletown city school board question of procedure would i need then okay thank you i'm going to have to ask now for a nomination for john burns of ellenville so moved i have a motion by miss houston is there a second second there's a second by um yeah mr gomez any discussion hearing none all in favor aye no you already voted i believe mr gomez so okay you know and since i seconded the nomination and in the interest of i guess diversity here i mean i'll give mr burn i'm gonna take my withdrawal my votes for mr rightman i'll give it to mr burns so two votes thank you so the middletown school district then would be selecting mr redmond thank
037you very much to everyone item e is our approval of change orders and i'm going to ask mr barnett to review the change orders that we had in our packet and to discuss them with the board thank you bill tonight we have five change orders for your consideration the first two are for twin towers work the first one is to provide all labor and materials to infill existing cracks into concrete slabs and in multiple classrooms at twin towers the next is to provide all labor to remove additional concrete patch holes and provide self-leveling material in three classrooms of twin towers the next three are for the site work the first is for a saw cut of the asphalt for the proposed expansion joints at monhagen's tennis basketball handball and handball ports including the overtime required
038to maintain the schedule the next is a credit to eliminate the chain link fence scope and install no parking signs provide additional paving marking and relocate the proposed emergency access gate at truman moon and the last is to provide and electric panel conduit wiring for the school sign and excavation for the electrical conduit and replace existing concrete sidewalk at truman's entrance thank you bill may i have a motion to approve the change orders as presented second move by then seconded by kevin any discussion yes john thank you uh mr barnett presented these to the committee during the week and i had a conversation with barnett as well as other members of the change order committee and they appear to be sound and legitimate change orders thank you bill anyone else all in favor aye bye
039any opposed the motion passes unanimously we have come to the point of in our meeting where we are going to allow the community to address the board you will have four minutes we have the timer there to speak at the podium you may not give your time to another member of the public when your time is up you may finish your sentence but please respect the other people that's the rules excuse me mrs tobiasen you mate this is tobiason i apologize for interrupting you but um there was a letter sent to me and i think that we do those first and i want to make sure mrs clark got that from me via email [Music] certainly i just want to make sure we we did it in the right order mr crescenzo i was saying
040that you may not give your four minutes to another member of the public when your time is up we ask that you finish your sentence but please respect the other people in the room that have come to speak as well time will be kept on the tv screen at the back of the room and on the screen behind me the board does not dialogue with the speakers we are here to listen please be sure to sign in the podium before speaking i've been speaking about this for a while now thank you for your help and confidence yes yes as parliamentary i just want to clarify so make sure everybody understands what we mean by you cannot give your you know your your time is that if you finish speaking in less than four minutes then
041at that point the other speaker comes to speak and then they're four minutes start in the parliamentary setting only the the elected officials could yield balance of time okay so if you speak less than four minutes then somebody's going to have their own exclusive four minutes just to make sure that it might understand mr gomez what order do we do the letters in oh okay mrs clark did you receive a letter from mrs houston you just got it it's from mr lassenaire our former board member please is i believe we have speakers at the podium hello everybody i just want to say i appreciate all you guys coming here today taking the time out of their day to sit here for a while i know we might not have all the time in the world
042but we're all here to for a cause you know there was a situation that occurred that a woman got a child a female got harassed by a security guard and our de not our dean mr perez says something about it you know he came up a lot of people don't take the time to do that there's people getting harassed every day as we speak right now within homes communities this i know um women that got harassed and menacing goshen there was a protest in pine bush and i just want to say that at the end of the day there might be a change if there is a change i just appreciate um everybody to being here because everybody here wants to change something about anything i just want to say i don't hate anybody you
043know you guys make the decisions y'all make but at the end of the day y'all can make a change or keep generational curses going on at the end of the day i have love for everybody in this room and if you guys have love for yourself you'll understand the choice that you guys have to make today because it could happen to your daughter to your daughter your daughter's daughter this could happen you you might not you might be higher you know we're all higher at the end of the day we all have a higher power to ourselves you know we not we might not be behind this table we might not be even having chairs at the moment you know what i'm trying to say so if you guys can make the choice that will
044better this community that could better people's lives that would be much appreciated thank you very much i understand that you guys have your reasons for things you know even maybe to better yourselves at the end of the day but there's people really getting hurt there might be your people getting hurt are people getting hurt everybody's people because we're all one we're all connected to each other our voices should be heard your voice has been heard you know what i'm trying to say and like i said i love everybody in this room it doesn't matter what choice you make but we can we can bring peace and kindness and love everywhere you go you guys must have been through things that affected you guys and maybe dictate how what choices y'all make in a day-to-day basis
045or you guys know what i'm trying to say you know it's just i feel like mr perez should be able to stay in the school because he makes a change you know this might not have happened he might not have came up about this situation last year but i see him helping students i see him speaking spanish to the kids that that can't speak english you know even him being a male you know there's a lot of there's a lot of teachers yes that that that helped me in situations i'm i've been down you know i'm trying to say there's kids that have been down and i've talked to them because they can't open up you know i'm sure y'all have been in situations where y'all felt like y'all was not heard and this is
046happening as we speak all around the world i understand people have died in the military and afghanistan there's thousands a lot thousands of lives being lost right now as we speak i have i have a sister in the military and i haven't seen it for a long time you know but i try i try to reach out i try to listen to people's inputs about things i try to to give warmth to those around me you guys can change the child's life you guys can make the you guys can make the time to be like yes this is right this will be on your conscience you might not think about it you might think this decision is right but really think about your children's children this could happen to someone of your um this can
047happen to anybody this could be happening right now as we speak down the street it is happening and i just want to say you know make the right decision for not only yourself but those other than yourself because at the end of the day it's the choices you make that really affect you the most thank you everybody yes please it's the protocol to sign your name so okay and also introduce yourselves as well okay oh my name is yahawa dayath bashir tripman thank you thank you hi my name is andrea my voice is shaky because i've been thinking about this a lot i'm a senior at the high school i emailed mr del moro about mr perez because he's like he's really influential to all the kids at the high school even kids who aren't
048in his house and i was just thinking about when we said the pledge of allegiance how you said for liberty and justice for all but you're not giving everyone liberty and justice because you cover stuff up and you don't listen to us like when we were clapping about something and um that's your name you banged that stick thing like that that's not okay let us speak and mr purino um i know you say that you have the stuff planned in advance but if you had it planned in advance then why'd you cancel the other week because you knew we were gonna be here um nicole is that your name i really liked what you had to say because it shows remorse and that there are good people on the school board and good people who
049can make a change like mr perez that's why he needs to be at the high school so he could help kids that are hurting and i'm almost done but i just want to let you guys know that mr del morro emailed me back saying that you would keep mr perez at the high school so it'd be a shame if you were lying [Applause] oh speak now okay good afternoon good evening to everyone that's here today my name is adrius traverso and the reason why i'm here is because one of my concern is safety for my children as i when my kids came home today i asked them how was school one of the things that i was concerned about was their safety and they explained to me that the bus was crowded they also explained
050to me that the lunchroom was packed i don't think that that is a safe is safe for our kids i believe that even though they were in mask we know that mass are not a hundred percent we know that distance should be um we should use distance whether it's three feet whether it's six feet and that's not even being used um the classes are not being um we're kids uh being separated we have a distance between each other i think that that is not safe for our children i think that that is going to continue increasing where kids end up they're going to end up being remote um i know that the high school is packed and i don't know if one of the things that i may have thought about i don't know if
051this is a trial to see what happens if this is to see if the number's going to go up if our kids are being used as a guinea pig to see if the number is going to go up by just throwing them out here in the school they're out in the system but one of my concern is um one of the things that i was thinking about was why don't they do a and b a group comes in on certain days and a group comes in on certain days so the kids will not be cluttered um because at the end of the day even though we say well you know if they get sick then we do a quarantine but that's going to affect when they go home to the families that they have also
052at home that are doing what they have to do to take care of themselves so they won't get sick so it's it's concerning me to you know when it comes to my kids i don't know if their parents here also feel the same way when it comes to these kids but i think that that's um safety is very very important and if we love our kids we will also try to do what we have to do to keep them safe because if not the numbers are going to continue going up we're going to continue going into quarantine then we're going to end up shutting down again so i think we need to take that in consideration what can the school do for our children whether it is like i say separating them in two separate
053groups when it comes to business when it comes to being in a classroom when it comes to being in a lunch room because my son said that he had to step out of the lunchroom to go into a separate room because the lunchroom is packed and it's not safe it's not safe for our children and i just wanted to bring that to your attention okay you have a blessed one [Applause] good evening ladies and gentlemen for the record raymond w mcnamara senior i'm a taxpayer here in the middletown school district and i had a very nice politically correct three and a half minute address for the board written out for august 26th unfortunately for whatever reason this board did not value my time or my effort in coming down here to speak and that's why
054i'm going to be late for my own meeting tonight so i can be here to say this mr perez has been an unbelievable asset to the middletown high school my daughter margaret in 2017 had a kidney transplant she was afraid of a lot of different things one thing in particular was the senior trip mr perez had my number and my wife's number in his phone with the promise to margaret that if anything happened he would call one of us we would come and get her and she would not be embarrassed that is the type of man that mr perez is i should also say for the record and this is one of the things i hear the most from his students my daughter was not in his house however my daughter was his student and
055i will not allow this board or anybody else to cheat my daughter haley who started in middletown high school today out of having that man watch her back the way he was there to watch margaret's back i am a former vice president of district 27 new york city department of education the largest school district in new york city i ran 53 schools and i am here to tell the ladies and gentlemen of the board first and foremost you work for me secondly i am watching and thirdly i have already proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that i can get elected to a position in new york city in orange county or in oshkosh michigan i've done it before i will do it again do the right thing by our kids or i will do
056the right thing myself when i replace you thank you ladies and gentlemen god bless you have a good day start the timer because i know they hate me but i'm not going to come on here in anything negative because i just have to say first and foremost to half the board um i appreciate a behalf of y'all if it took i don't care if it took a year a day a week just to know that half of y'all deep dug somewhere deep and decided to stand with us and listen i appreciate you so i'm just going to salute you like that the only thing i got to say to the superintendent delmarva you said something earlier you said when you first started you had a joy and an excitement and you went through all the
057schools i don't know where you lost it i don't know where some of the staff members that you have in the board lost it you could tell the way they lost it when they addressed us as the crowd or when they walk away or one is half sleeping while we're talking but just remember one thing i just want to let you know something um these students that you teach here these are your these are your children your mandated reporters we leave the we as parents leave our children and your in your care your care your staff care your your your people's care for eight hours if not longer we entrust that we send our kids to school that you would teach your staff to love care honor and obey you teach us to tell you
058teach our children to tell the truth stand up for yourself speak out tell somebody but when they do that you shun them you silence them you do things like drag a meeting for over an hour about absolutely nothing when you see a whole community come and express our concerns so we can honestly see by some of the staff member how you really feel about us don't worry election time is coming we will replace you but just going forward for those that are on the board please do me a favor for those that stood up for us and that's standing with us but most importantly to those of you that are listening finally we love you we thank you because all we wanted out of all of this is for you to hear our babies hear
059the teachers those ones that put their life on the line going to school because it's hard to be a teacher you don't know how we're raising our kids so you don't know what they got to go to teaching our children then again it's hard being a student because i don't know you half of y'all don't look like me so what can you really teach me all we're asking for is not that you just put mr perez back in the school or you give mr williams a position give him a high position you say you love your kids mr dimara you said that you appreciate the kids you love the youth the youth are telling you we want to do better we want to grow we need to see more people like us we need to
060see more people in higher position if you leave delmarva do us a favor if you don't ever do another right thing in life we're asking you to put somebody like mrs williams in your position mr perez in your position mr williams in your position or somebody that decay the more because your school is over middletown school district is over 70 percent minorities we're tied to seeing this people like miss tobias who's the crowd and addressing we're tired of this it's 2021. you are you are blended you have met us latinos you have asians you have black what we're asking you to do is if you're going to sit on that board and say how you love your community and you adore your community and you're listening to your community and you're here for your community
061let's do the first things first let's set up the table like a community second thing let's get involved and start correcting and holding people accountable for those things because we're not going to keep holding mr perez accountable for doing the right thing and you got board members doing the wrong thing so that's what i'm asking you listen it's all love you don't want to hear from me i don't want to bother you i want you to do your job and i want you guys to be great i also want my youth to be great i also want my kids to graduate i want them to be inspired and i want them to grow we should all be on the same page no need for us to come here and combat we should be on the
062same page ready tag teaming what we got to do next to be great what we got to do next for our youth what we got to do next for our teachers what we got to do that's what we should be doing it shouldn't be the crowd and whispering and texting and it's snickering but listen we understand and we are in community your assignment is next election you see take a look pay attention they gotta go and pay attention to the ones that stand in their ground because i'm telling you right now you don't know what it takes for them to have to say and do what they have to do on this board with what they're dealing with thank you guys have a blessed night [Applause] you're gonna know i had a song clock now
063uh your name and ladies and gentlemen i'm martin mcnamara uh maureen's daughter i'm the one that had a kidney transplant um i was diagnosed in 2016 kidney failure and right then i came up from school didn't care about doing my work in the paramount goal in the class and made it through sophomore year barely my junior year was after i got my transplant and i noticed there was a new administrator in the building mr perez and i didn't really think anything of me he was just another person i hadn't avoided while i was kind of class um then one day one of my friends asked me to go to house school with her so that i can get paperwork for the slaves and uh i was introduced to mr perez and it seemed kind of
064cool but i didn't really think anything else i wasn't in the house i didn't have to deal with him there was an occasional hello in the hallways and then i started getting to know him more when i was introduced to him started talking about my classes and he really pushed me to try my best um i finished my junior year a little better than sophomore year still not really caring though uh senior year i started in 2018. mr pereira had become the huge part of my life and he was always there to listen if myself or one of my friends had a problem no matter who it was about or what what the meal was um he made every kid feel like they fit in no matter what we look like no matter how we
065talk no matter how many friends we had how popular we were it didn't matter to him we were all his kids even if we weren't really um like my father mentioned i was terrified about going on the student trip mr perez was kind enough to promise me if anything happened he would be the first person to call my parents so nobody else knew um the first half hour of the trip this man did not leave me alone i appreciated it at the time but it was annoying not a lot i was finally felt comfortable enough to fall off on my own and visit my friends and he let me be um as i had kidney transplant he made sure i was allowed on roller coasters before letting me go because that's how much he cares
066he didn't have to do that he couldn't just let people look but he asked my parents if i was alive if i saw him in the park he would check in and say oh how you doing how you feeling everything okay and then we were all about our day had i not met this man i definitely would not have translated it on time i was not in his house but i was most definitely his student i can tell you more things about him that i could my own dream when you're going to lean here with me and out of this i graduated as a class in 2019 believing in myself for the first time in a very long time because mr perez refused to let me give up on myself now with his help i
067have an amazing job that i absolutely love i'm going to polish to become a math teacher um hopefully if this people are in the right direction i will be working for middletown um he pushed me to work to my full potential even if i didn't care this man continues to push me even after i translated i have no problem reaching out to him he always gets back to me as soon as we can and i feel like i'm one of his children even though i am an adult he he is like another father to me and i really appreciate how he carries himself i'm not going to say he acts like a child because he doesn't but he relates to your kids he lets them be heard and i feel like because you work for
068the taxpayers the people that you care about the most should be your taxpayer children but maybe that's just me moving forward i hope you do the right thing and not only keep mr perez at nhs but give him a position he deserves [Applause] hello my name is brandon gary i'm a former student of middletown high school i graduated in 2018. i'm just here to tell you a few things that mr perez has done for me in the one year that he was there because he came when i was a senior i was playing football i tore my acl the first game of the senior year couldn't play i was real down i really didn't want to go to school but mr perez got me up every day called me you're coming to school you're gonna
069do your homework get your grades up you're gonna graduate football is not football is not everything for you there's something else that life has installed for you and it's just sad to see you guys push out someone that actually cares about the students that's not just there for a paycheck because i can tell you there's a lot of teachers in there that's just for a paycheck and there's a lot of you sitting on this board that's here for the paycheck so for a person that cares about the students that will actually give his time no matter what time of day it is he can be in the meeting with his boss anybody if you need him the students need him he's gonna tell you excuse me i'm gonna go i'm gonna handle my students because
070their future matters i just was lost for words the even here that he was getting pushed out because i would have thought that since everything that happened with mr sauers mr castell and everything else that happened in middletown high school you guys would be glad that there was actually someone that's stepping up and not trying to hide what's going on here i don't know why the reasons that you guys had to hide it if it was for the money because you guys do get a lot of money got a whole bunch of money through a grant a few years ago you want to keep getting the money okay fine but you got to care about students their lives matter the most we're all supposed to be in this together and yeah he's just someone that
071your children should you should want your children to emulate to be a good man good father great man great father a man who's gonna give you the shirt off his back because i can tell you i had homecoming mr perez will tell you a pink uh fuchsia pink dress shirt the outfit he got me for homecoming because i didn't have alpha for homecoming he wasn't going to let me go not go to homecoming because i didn't get to really do anything for my senior year because i was on crutches and in a brace for the whole year going to physical therapy and everything but he took money out his own pocket to make sure that i had a few hours of fun what are you guys going to do for the students because he shows
072showing you guys for three years what he's willing to do so show us what you're willing to do for the students in middletown and the community that you love so much and you guys took an oath to these students to help them out to teach them to nourish to make them better people to educate them but i don't see any any of that from you guys and the faculties faculty of these schools especially middletown high school you guys need to get it together and it shouldn't be taking children to tell you this it's kind of sad but thank you for your time and best of luck to you [Applause] good afternoon my name is justin gonzalez my mother is ruth morales she security at a at mhs i find myself having a problem being nervous
073as i walk up to this stage and i'm trying to figure out as i go along and i think the reason why i'm nervous is because people like me aren't usually under this predicament or allowed to speak to people like you and voice their opinion and i feel like that's the major problem in this district because not only do i view perez as a father figure but the father that came into my life after i didn't have one and the fact that you don't give him the simple right to voice his opinion is completely outrageous you sit there and you're not even paying attention to me knowing that there is a tremendous amount of evidence that perez did nothing wrong and all he did was voice his opinion i simply think that is the problem
074with this school board that you you hear what we have to say but you simply ignore us because you don't think that our individual opinion is important and that is not acceptable at all you you sit there and you go through papers completely not acknowledging anything i'm saying you haven't even looked at me in my face one time this just shows me that you have no respect for me my opinion mr perez's opinion and every other person's opinion that you don't agree with and i just don't think that's right to anybody because when you were talking everybody gave you their center of attention no one interrupted you and even gave you attention and you simply don't care and that's really sad for someone who says that they should care about the community these children are
075important to us you don't seem to re reciprocate that that treatment through your actions and that's sad and i and i feel like i'm about to break down crying because perez is a father to me and he never gave up on me one time and the school district has given up on me many times and i feel like somebody like that should not be disregarded as as filth you guys treat him like trash and and that's sad yo like i don't think you guys understand that and i just think that you should at least listen for once one time in your life that this is just wrong and i'm so sorry that you think that way and i feel bad for you honestly that's all i have to say [Applause] hello hello sick um hi
076guys my name is mark germain um some of you guys may know me from um what's up this is bob's mention some of you guys remember me from milltown high school um so i had a whole thing like written down and i was like you know what mark you're just gonna go off the book because you know why not so one thing about my man mr perez where are you where is he mr president hey so one thing one thing about this man this guy this absolute unit he shoot carrie isn't even the right word to describe there's almost a handful of teachers i can say that genuinely care about us and i remember i think i think you guys remember fairly enough i was the kid from this coming year that try to get
077finals canceled because i felt in a way that you guys didn't care respectfully that you guys didn't care and you know i just i don't think i would have said what i said on that day when i was talking to mr del morro face to face on a i think google meet or whatever it was about every single thing that bothered all of us because at this point this isn't even about i graduated class of 2021 baby let's do it but um bro i literally graduated in a pandemic and all i heard from my friends and to me that we were lazy that no one cared shoot perez was the mainstay the main guy the main man who actually looked after us and looked after me so on my throat when i was younger not
078younger when i was a freshman in high school no sophomore actually we had a talent show and basically for some reason i decided to like uh like uh do a act whenever i was freddie mercury was great um and i remember not a lot of the judges said a lot and i was like i'm not gonna lie to you it was kind of weird i wouldn't have said a lot either but perez literally looked in the eyes and told me that i used to be this shy kid and the fact that he literally looked at me and told me that i'm something more the fact that i'm this un like eccentric unnecessary person like if you know me personally i go ham for no reason and you know if it wasn't for people like him
079or if it wasn't for adults like him we probably none of us would have even been here at the end of the day arguably we're probably the strongest ones to exist in the room and maybe i'm just talking to the youth right now but i just need you guys to process right now 20 years from now we're going to be running the country we're going to be running the district we're going to be running everything we're the strongest ones in this room with the loudest ones in this room and sometimes the weirdest ones in this room but that's us man you know some teachers don't care about the fact that if so say we don't want to go to college right we have our own set goal we have a job everything god forbid you
080tell that to a teacher or or a parent or whatever it is they just stop believing you they just don't care but i know for a fact if i walk up to the prayers and be like hey yo that's what i'm doing and he'll i know he'll say something good because he cares about us and he loves us not like not a lot of people would um you know let me just like whip um i think matter of fact no i got it basically my whole thing is that he cares more than anything in the world if there's anything i realized after being on this earth for 19 years adults fear change like a kid fears the dark at the end of the day i speak for all the students alumni and future alumni when
081i say we need him at middletown high school i'll repeat it once more we need him no one else and no one else will leave the impact that he has on us i i'm really bad at words but all i know is that you guys can do better i know a lot of you can do better and i'm glad that one of you i forgot your name but you stood up and you said a lot of things i really like that so thank you for that um i just really appreciate everything that's going on right now i appreciate the fact that i actually had the guts and the heart to actually stand up and say what i believe in this is what we are we're strong we fight and we scream because this is who
082we are this is midi pride [Applause] before you start to speak may i just remind everyone to please sign the sheet that you are speaking thank you oh can i go now yeah okay so mr perez is the reason that i walked at graduation last year after all that happened with my class the class of 2020 by the time the day came for us to walk the stage i had had enough i didn't want to walk anymore i just wanted them to mail me my diploma and be done with it all but mr perez noticed how visibly upset i was and told me that i didn't have to walk for anyone else but rather it was so that i had to so that i could prove it to myself that i did it and that
083nothing not even a pandemic could stop that i wasn't even in his house i was in house one it didn't matter to anyone whether i walked or not but yet there he was and he convinced me to walk at my high school graduation i'm here today speaking to you all despite my anxiety because every student at mhs just deserves to have someone at that school who cares about them as much as mr perez does regardless of what house they are in like everybody else said i wasn't in his house but i was definitely his student so that's all i have to say thank you [Applause] hi um yeah you could start the time i wasn't in his house either i'm also going to piggyback off of a lot of what other people said like first
084of all y'all are mandated reporters it's the law and then you get upset when he reports what he's supposed to so stupid oh my god second of all perez is definitely the reason that a lot of the alumni and the graduates that are going now are graduating because a lot of you teachers don't really care you say you do you have all this talk and then when it's time to act on it you do nothing but perez will sit down with you talk it out try to figure out what's going on like my senior year i was dealing with my dad being very sick he had cancer and he died it was great you know trauma and perez was one of the only people that i like to talk to about it and he was
085there for me and he cared and he does that with everybody like it doesn't matter if you're in his house if you're a student he was nice to everybody like the custodians the other security guards the other deans he was just all around a great guy and y'all are really trying to get rid of him and then tried to put him back which didn't make sense because you shouldn't have removed him in the first place if it ain't broke don't fix it but that's none of my business so what i don't understand is if you're going to put him back why don't you put him at a higher place because you guys need him more than he needs you and i don't think you realize that he's the greatest thing to happen to that high
086school and god knows how long and you're trying to get rid of him like he's trash and he's not so do the right thing or don't but at the end of the day it's on your conscious so um okay i just want to make sure that when the speaker waits for the clark that we have four so that you don't get less time then good evening my name is jennifer keith mcnamara and i am here tonight like so many others showing my support for mr omar perez others have stated all the good he has done and why he should remain at the high school i agree a thousand percent but i am not going to use my time to tell you why if you'd like feel free to speak to me after my time tonight
087is to speak to the victims the women who were sexually harassed i am so sorry i am sorry no one would listen i am sorry you were afraid i am sorry you were not safe i am sorry that you will forever question every conversation you ever have i am sorry to all those caught in the crossfire please listen to me you are not a victim you are a survivor you found the courage to find a voice even if it was mr perez's please do not give up now stand with him and finish this battle if there are others still silent please find your voice you have support if you need help find me i will help any way i can to the board and anyone who brushed this aside or covered it up all together
088how dare you you are the reason people do not come forward you promised all of us you would keep our schools safe and that should mean safe for all would you keep silent if this was your daughter your mother your sister your wife these women are important to someone and how dare you treat them as less you've hidden behind the craziness of covert and making up titles to employ those that never questioned you while you look to move good teachers and allow a predator to roam the halls of the high school my daughter was started as a freshman today do you know what that means that means for the next four years i will be a thorn in your side when necessary i will be damned if my child is not protected i remind people
089when necessary of the evil that you allowed to continue for months to the survivors you matter to mr perez i thank you for the courage you've shown i thank you for helping me find my voice to the board shame on you this was written for last week for tonight miss houston thank you miss tobiason you sit up there with a gavel news flash i have one too because i'm the president of the ladies auxiliary of pocatello you want to share stories meet me for coffee you sat there and told everyone to be quiet as you went and whispered in mr gomez's ears while miss houston was telling us how she was sorry she did not respect our wishes as our employee because you need us to be up there you had no problem correcting everyone
090in this crowd but rolled your eyes when other people are talking how dare you shake it off we all saw it you know what it'll be on mini tv re-watch it tonight during coffee do the right thing or like my husband and my daughter said we will replace you i ran the schools and queens with him don't let the queen's girl come out up here [Applause] wait wait okay hi my name is sincere marsh i'm a senior in middletown high school and i i'd like to just share something i've experienced while being in this high school my freshman year i was there to witness a woman being sexually assaulted in the stairwell of our high school i reported that to multiple houses at the school i was promised that justice would be served and nothing
091ever happened her parents came to my house you know talking to my dad about whether they should go to the police or not and i didn't think that that was the right decision only because you know she didn't feel as if he deserved to be in prison which you know i just respected her wishes and i and i did as she said so i talked to the houses they talked to our parents and there was there was nothing that happened ever and it and for years it's been bothering me it it seems as if like you know you just don't care and i was harassed that entire week just for speaking out i was called a snitch and many other words i'm not going to repeat here but you know i didn't let that get
092me down because i knew what i was doing was the right thing now i'm just here to inform you about that situation um and only because it's similar to what mr perez had done he spoke out against some you know assaulters some people who would be or people who were sexually harassing other other people in in the building and look at him he's now being transferred for what i'm i'm not going to sit here i'm not going to stand here and let you silence another opinionated black man like i was i was specific i was explicitly told to to not tell anybody about the situation that happened my freshman year i don't know why but i it felt wrong i i just couldn't talk about it i told people who who was involved i told
093people what had happened but i i was silenced i think i think it's time for a change that's all i have to say hi my name is delena and i'm not going to go into detail but long story short i just moved here last year and a traumatic event happened to me i lost four people my mother my sister my grandmother and my great-grandmother and you probably don't care but i'm gonna tell you why i'm here and it's for perez perez has helped me through everything he's helped me through times where i wanted to give up times where i wanted to kill myself times where i just felt like nothing's nothing matters anymore and i shouldn't even be here you know all these kids all these teachers everybody that has stood here it says a
094lot and it probably doesn't says a lot to you but it says a lot to us and we're going to stand with perez 24 7 whether you guys like it or not and it's unfair that he had to speak up and say something about sexual assault and say something to you guys and y'all want to put him down it's upsetting and it's not fair at all and i feel like he deserves more than that because as that boy that came up here and said he is a father figure he has helped people through so much stuff that you probably wouldn't even imagine i haven't even been here that long and he changed my life i didn't even want to i thought that i wouldn't even but once i went into house 2 and once i
095i was in there with them as soon as i met him we had that touch that bond that it was a connection that like i literally look up to him and i don't even have my father in my life and that was a father to me he was a father to me to a whole bunch of people and it's crazy how he changed my life because you know like i said i just moved here i didn't know nobody i was scared to even walk in the building and georgia and new york is way different you know people are mad rude here and you know in georgia they're polite they have manners and you know i thought that people would be mean to me i thought that teachers wouldn't like like me i thought that they
096would be they would be rude to me and as soon as i met house 2 they was all nice to me especially perez and it's not fair to what y'all are doing and y'all need to get it fixed asap real quick we shouldn't even be having to speak about this because y'all should already know what's going on and if you know something about sexual harassment and and if you know somebody even it could be one of yours kids that can get sexual harassed what y'all gonna do what y'all gonna do like i said perez was a father figure he's helped mad kids he's changed my life he's probably changed that whole entire school he made he helped me walk past that um and i graduated this year he helped me walk across that stage with
097a smile on my face because i thought at one point in my life that i went i thought i wasn't even going to be alive at 18 and i'm here so get it going [Applause] hi my name is anne-marie pendleton i'm a new parent to the district i have a third grader at presidential park she just started today um i have relatives who've lived in middletown for over 40 years so the community i do consider home in a sense um you know it's really inspiring to see all these young people get up here tonight and i do hope the board is taking note we moved up here from district 3 in manhattan and i'm sure the board is very aware of some of the dynamics in district 3 which is the most segregated school district
098in our country i have to admit i was floored miss nicole by your statement i didn't expect to to hear that up here and it's really powerful and important because the problems that district 3 has experienced a huge reason for those is because there are many voices in that district that are not heard respected or valued i am a child psychologist as well and the well-being of our children is imperative to me and i i have felt anxiety with my daughter starting here because the communication with parents is lacking i know we're new to the district i thought that's why but i have i'm on one of the parent you know facebook pages and i do see that it's not maybe it's not unusual and just the first day of school which can be chaotic
099there were a lot of possible safety issues that came up so i'm glad to hear the superintendent is aware of them i don't think you can really enact change if you are not including the parent voices i think this is a huge turnout even in the city there might not be this many people at a meeting like this you have a great resource here for really getting feedback and i hope you will and as a member of the school leadership team of our previous school i understand the decorum of these meetings and the rules we had meetings our slt meetings were not open to comment they could only be observed by the public but i do agree that there are respectful ways to explain the decorum to people attending the meeting so that it flows
100smoothly as you want to and people still do feel that respect and the courage to speak so you know there are a lot of things tonight that help me feel more confident with my daughter being in this district and you know i hope that the dialogue between parents and administration will continue and i will be looking at that as my daughter continues so thank you to those of you who did exemplify that tonight [Applause] hello my name is maureen mcguckin i'm a math and science teacher here in the district i've had the pleasure of working often with yaya willie williams and i'm here tonight to speak on that experience from the very start the very first professional development i attended that was led by yah she stood out the energy and enthusiasm yah showed was
101what you would expect from someone who is passionate about what they were there to do her presentation that day was creative and engaging it had all the bells and whistles of someone who worked hard to be prepared and make a connection with her audience but what stood out the most for me was the way that she encouraged us to have a voice and the way that she listened at that point we had only just met and i myself was not that comfortable speaking up but she gave me a lot to think about she provided a spark in the time since that first meeting ya has never slowed down in fact i would say that she doesn't really know how to she has a love of learning and of community that is so big and so
102present it's impossible not to notice her desire to make math accessible and relatable to all is the heart of everything she does as a part of her team i feel supported i feel inspired i feel valued and those are the feelings that i pass on to my students most of us have a teacher or two that we can say made a difference in our lives and tonight i just wanted to take the opportunity to publicly thank yaya for being my teacher she is one that i will never forget [Applause] i'm reading a letter on behalf of nidriah lebron who couldn't be here tonight moving to middletown was one of the worst decisions my mom made that i had set had no say in she took me away from my friends and put me in a
103town where i didn't know anyone my first year was horrible and my grades reflected that i didn't have the support of my dean or my teachers and when i got into a situation in school i was immediately suspended not only was i new to the school but the school pretty much made up their mind when i walked through those doors that i was a bad student after that i started getting petty suspensions that were written off as insubordination my school didn't get much better after this until the following year when the new house 2 dean was introduced he was happy and very eager to meet us he made sure that he learned all of our names for a school that was filled with over two thousand students it showed that he cared mr perez gave
104all of us a chance when nobody would he didn't care about the color gender or which house you belong to when a situation occurred he examined both sides before determining the consequences he tried his hardest to keep up in school and gave us multiple warnings before we were sent out of school even out of school he was keeping in contact with my mother to make sure i was keeping up on my work he was like no other teacher or dean it was never about getting us to pass and getting us out of school to meet numbers he wanted us to get out go into the real world and be successful he cared for us when nobody did and he pushed us to be the best version of ourselves that we can be without perez i
105would not have graduated without perez how many students diplomas will be handed to them in five years instead of four how many diplomas will be handed out in a summer school ceremony instead of june after a successful four years he taught me that no matter how hard it gets you have to remain calm and that has stuck with me every day i will forever be grateful to mr perez and hope there will be more people who can say the same in the future now i have a little bit of time for maria blonde to speak there have been a tremendous amount of letters that have come to this district about serious problems with systemic racism we have been speaking up about this for more than a year there have also been extremely serious letters about
106the special education department and how official documents are being changed and i'm just wondering when the board's going to start addressing these issues investigating these issues and really taking them seriously i don't like coming here i do it because it's the right thing i have a lot more fun things to do i'm not getting paid i'm not trying to get on the school board i'm just speaking up for the students the educators the families and community members who deserve better thank you [Applause] my name is greg joyner and i'm a member of the community and i asked the sister to stand with me because i'm gonna first introduce myself and i'm gonna tell you why i actually stand because we're actually what the community looks like right now you know those that want change um
107i want the community to understand two things one is don't focus on the one or two people who are antiquating old who didn't pay attention to what we said i want you to look around the room at the path of other board members who are actually attentive and paying attention if we can get them to understand our plight understand our dilemma and understand what we have to do then we can make a change in this community number one number two uh i have four excuse me four family members three of which who came through the middle style schools all of which graduated college and one who's serving the military right now in the u.s navy who's in haiti right now so i fully understand what's necessary and how it's important for parents to support our
108children despite what the academic dilemmas or or or falsities might be number one number two i asked you to stand sister because we have to make a change we have some board members who may listen to us and understand that racism and all of the other isms that exist require all of us to come together in order for us to make a change there were a lot of accolades said about mr perez tonight and mr mrs williams all of which are true i'll say it again all of which are true we are you all need to understand that so my question is not that mr perez deserves to be in school high school he does i have another question why was he moved what decision was made to cause him to be moved because i'm
109only going by what i hear and see and i'm a part of another school district and i'm on a district administrative board so i fully understand and i work very closely with the school board so i understand your job and understand mine and i certainly understand the superintendent's job because that's our report directly too so my question to you is why was he moved what decision made that did we did we arm or did we penalize a whistleblower is that what we did did we penalize a whistleblower because far as i'm concerned that's against the law you're not allowed to do that if somebody comes and tell the truth about something going on in the community it's our job your jobs to make sure to do something about it and to the superintendent congratulations to
110your retirement you're fortunate because other superintendents and other administrators are in your position or similar positions they got suspended or removed or taken out of office you're allowed to resign congratulations every resignation and i wish you the best to the rest of the board members who's gonna be around for a while this is the community this is what we look like i think that the teachers should be reflective of the community the administrators need to be reflective of the community and a school board definitely to get rid of some antiquated people and get some young people up there to make decisions for the community thank you very much [Applause] ladies and gentlemen on the board mr superintendent and uh you motivated group of concerned community members right there i'm clapping for you right uh greg
111that's a it's a tough tough one to follow here and uh my name is tom blonde i'm retired teacher from middletown high school and uh thank you i too am here to support my one time high school colleague mr omar perez my omar hat thank you i at least i think he is at the high school i couldn't keep track i i thought he had like a tear-off name tag you know maple hill uh roundtail uh yeah it's shameful uh lack of leadership uh for a dedicated uh professional um greg said it the initial reassignment to me was clearly a retaliatory punitive measure against a whistleblower in regards to the sexual harassment claims at the high school um considering past history at this district uh not so long ago um we're in the newspaper for
112a uh yeah for a sexual harassment case uh in which uh someone went to prison i i would think that with that past history in mind the board and senior administration would be extremely vigilant and proactive when any hint of social or excuse me sexual improprieties arises i along with greg i i'm pretty sure there is whistleblower language in the district guidelines and i hope these were followed in mr perez's case lastly i i would hope the board has conducted a thorough investigation into these actions against mr perez leadership has to be accountable and i think we would all like to know uh what did the superintendent know and when did he know it concerning these cases thank you hi everybody i am speaking on behalf of one of the letters that was written to
113the board my name is diazia parent of former student destiny j smalls with the recent developments of the sexual harassment investigations within the district i struggle to understand the actions the district has taken to protect both students and staff members it is clear that the district has an issue with sexual misconduct my family to this day has not received any explanation as to why the family was not informed of destiny's sexual assault we were informed an investigation was taking place but received no response from the district we have reports from two police departments but no reports filed on the schools better i'm sorry on the school's behalf to document the said incident however the district documents the most minor student infractions whether they've taken place on school grounds or not in listening to the previous
114board meetings with talks of micro and macro aggressions i believe the district was intentional in silencing my daughter i believe the district was intentional with silencing the female staff members that face sexual harassment on your watch how many other incidents to sensitive situations have been diverted to be tamed never addressed and simply brushed under the rug this appears to be the district's response how many more incidents need to take place for the board to respond simply not responding is irresponsible and disrespectful to the parents students and the community as a whole thank you [Applause] hi my name is sally babuniya i'm an employee at middletown high school i am rereading the letter from john lassener because the mic was muted for those watching online so it says good evening superintendents our moral members of the
115administrative staff and members of the board of education i would like to start by commending the three members of the board who had the courage to stand up for what was right during the last meeting mr perez is one of the district's greatest assets in the high school not only has he earned the reset the respect of the students he has also always gone above and beyond for the employees of mhs to those who voted in favor of what was obviously a move to silence mr perez i congratulate you as well you have shown the constituents of the district that you are indeed the rubber stamp you claim to not be during every meeting as i mentioned mr perez has earned the respect of his students and fellow staff members he has never demanded the
116respect unfortunately many of you have lost the respect of the taxpayers community students and staff members with such a blatant attempt to silence someone who is bringing misconduct to light sincerely john d lassanier thank you [Applause] hi my name is desiree damon i'm a senior now but i'm reading off of someone else hi my name is lauren gonzalez i'm sorry i can't be here to say this but i would like my friend to say this for me on my behalf i just graduated from middletown's class of 2021 and i just want to start off by saying thank you to mr perez for being one of the most incredible people that i have ever come across in my life i didn't really think that i was going to graduate because of so much stuff that has
117happened in my life throughout my high school journey i am beyond grateful for mr perez pushing me to my limits and helping me succeed he has helped so he has helped so many people and continues to many people they may not see him as a kind-hearted person that i have seen him as he has pushed me beyond my limits he's never let me give up on myself and even when i had my worst days ever he always looked at me and told me it was going to get better he is one of those people that is very hard to come across in life with such a pure heart and kind soul i second that just him being around can make any person feel alive and i just want to say thank you for that thank
118you for always pushing my friends to do their best and always putting smiles on those around you instead of you guys putting this man down you should take a second to ask yourself how many people has this man truly helped out and push them to succeed thank you good evening my name is ruth morales i'm also a staff member here and i'm the proud parent of justin gonzalez that spoke earlier i'm going to be reading a letter from a student melanie montano montalvo excuse me my message is overdue but i'd rather say it now than never i recently graduated from high school a couple of weeks ago ready to start a new beginning then i heard of the news regarding mr perez and i was blown away mr perez is honestly one of the only
119people in the high school who will not get mad at you and will help you instead i was very upset hearing the news and i cannot believe the administration has become this low i cannot count how many times staff have staff was rude while mr perez the only one who handed things differently this made students not want to really ask for help and it's not their fault i remember during graduation practice there was a student who did not speak english and was sitting in the wrong section i told him to ask an administrator who was there where he should be seated and help him translate but this administrator was so upset that he was in the wrong seat then i had to explain again to the person that it's not his fault he just did
120not understand then i told him to go to miss to talk to mr perez since i know he is able to speak spanx speak both languages and he would not hesitate to help that being mr perez i have never seen this man get so never seen this man get angry because he is so kind hearted and i have never seen so many middletown teenagers agree on something and that is the support that is supporting mr perez all over my social media i have i see kids that are still in high school that have graduated a while ago like me uniting to help out this kind man who has always lent a helping hand when needed please rethink any approaches done to mr perez since i know there is more to his to this story and
121listen to the teens be their guidance there are many great kids going to this high school like my siblings who deserve to be surrounded by staff who want to see them do better and be better but how can that happen if the school won't try to be better good night hello hi my name is christian tatis i'm a recent graduate from middletown high school um i just came tonight to speak about mr perez um i made a petition that has over 2000 uh 2 200 signatures um i want to say that [Applause] um this man this father figure and this person this administrator this dean that actually helped kids that actually cared for kids there's a lot of teachers a lot of administrators and a lot of people who are in charge do not care
122about their kids they don't hear their kids and they do hear their kids they throw it out the window you know why because i don't care about them at the end of the day sorry i wasn't i wasn't planning on speaking um at the end of the day mr perez should not be moved he he was a great man and he is still a great man he changes people's lives every single day and he touches a kid's mind a mind of a child over here touches it because he actually cares for them he speaks to them and he helps them any way he can and if he can't he's where he's at but mr perez needs to stay here and and i just want to know reason like like the other sir said why did
123he get moved in the first place there was no reason for that you're moving him to a school that had 18 kids 18 from a school that had 2 000 kids plus for what he can't pack no one there he can impact someone in the high school with with the most kids that there is not 18. so thank you [Applause] hello my name is bianca i have a second grader at middletown high school i mean at middletown school district she goes here to presidential park elementary school um today was her first day of school in this district we recently moved to middletown um and i just want you to understand from a new parent coming into this district how concerning all of this is we definitely stand with mr perez and yaya williams and it's
124very concerning everything that they're going through in this district especially as a mom of a child of color who has a long way to go in this district it's very important to me that we all stand together to make a change aside from these obvious things that have already been covered tonight the administration of the school district is very concerning coming into this as a new parent there's a obvious lack of communication and trends that go on here um it was my father's first day of school and i came to pick her up and no one knew where my child was and that is concerning to me because i dropped my child off today she did not come here on the bus um and it wasn't only me it was a whole crowd of parents
125who didn't know where their kids were i don't know if they're on the bus oh if you didn't send a letter they might be on the bus these are kids especially kindergarten kids who have been with their parents for their whole lives because of covert they never been to pre-k they've never been out of their parents site and this afternoon was it was crazy it was madness in this building if you would have been here you had a whole bunch of parents who've never let their child out of their sight and now nobody knows where my child is or if they're on a bus because the parents should have sent a letter saying that they don't belong in a bus i register my child here in person nobody ever gave me a form to say
126should she go on a bus or should she not i went to orientation here i did not receive a form asking me where my child should go i dropped my child off here this morning actually did not get in anybody's bus so she should not have been placed on anybody's bus i had to raise hell and i said if that bus if she's on that bus stop the bus because my child needs to get off of that bus because i didn't send her on there for a reason and guess what she never was on the bus i didn't get a text from this school district until 4 44 in the afternoon saying that bus had just loaded the children and was on his way to us i was here at three o'clock on the dot
127and i was told that my child was already on the bus so which one is it safety comes paramount and there's so many concerns in the school district and you want to know another thing aside from the fact that they didn't know where she was i had my id in my hand the whole time and because i was so upset about the fact that they didn't know where my child was they never even checked my id so just because i came here throwing a hissy fit that means that this must be my child okay so we're talking about racism we're talking about sexual harassment we're talking about the lack of care that administration has and then they blame the parents and said well if somebody i i don't know a security guard came out and
128said you know the reason why we're having all these issues is because the parents did not write letters saying that their children should not get on the bus i need to write a handwritten letter without a signature no official document saying that my child should not get on the bus they blame the parents and that seems to be a trend here it's to blame the parents to blame the students you as i have a background in social services education and human resources and i know how these things are supposed to go there should be an official forum for these type of things don't come out and blame the parents that we didn't send back a form blame the parents that they were getting out of their cars or we had to abandon our protocol because
129you guys are getting out of your cars and abandoning your cars i wouldn't be getting out of my car if i wasn't sitting here since two o'clock and at 3 30 you still don't know where my child is so you guys really need to address all of these issues [Applause] hello how's everybody doing tonight uh i'm new to the district as well my name is jovar manning i have uh two sons here at presidential uh a second grader and a fifth grader so i've heard a lot of things tonight uh you know this isn't our first year we started last year but it was covert so we didn't really get the full experience and a lot of the things that i've heard tonight have been very like disturbing and a lot of the stuff have
130been inspiring and i just want to say like to everybody who came out to support mr perez like you got somebody who's new on board and everything and i don't know anything about him but i really hope and pray that the board listens to the folks here today and understands that we so i understand that the kids want him to stay and like me as a new parent i would love for my children to have an advocate like him at the high school level at the elementary school level middle school level so instead of uh trying to move him around to places where he can't be properly utilized you should be looking for more people like mr perez and and so again i just want to express my my full and humble support for mrs
131perez again i'm joe von manning uh like i said i have two sons here and i'm looking forward to the influence you're gonna have on them because i'm sure adjusting to a new place is difficult whether you're high school you know preschool elementary school middle school and i'm kind of rambling right now but to be honest i'm catching the emotion that everybody has right now and it's kind of crazy so please listen this guy over here needs to stop falling asleep i took several pictures in video and i'ma try to see if i could put it up because he's odm right now uh oh last thing i want to say is it's very inconsiderate to at the last minute change a board meeting because like i'm sure i'm not the only parent who like rushed
132you know from wherever they work or whatever to get up here and this is the first day of school and we were all all the parents were unable to have dinner with their kids on the first day of school and that's kind of crazy well depending on the time that you do it so i rushed straight from work to here my kids ate they're probably in bed now i didn't get to ask from how school was today so just keep that in mind next time be considerate for the the time you know the parents have and the students as well because last week definitely would have been what you know the last meeting definitely would have been way better was that the 26th or something anyway uh yeah have a good night and uh good
133luck to everybody here uh good luck this year at school and everything [Applause] is there anyone else that would like to address the board one more speaker good evening everyone my name is barbara williams i'm a member of the grandmother's coalition boy what a night i think the question truly needs to be answered as to why mr perez was moved in the first place [Applause] it looks like a cover-up it looks like the good old boys club is still working sexual harassment is real it's something that affects a person for the rest of their lives and for the men on this committee board or whatever you want to call it if you did not press for sexual harassment to be should i say the person should have been arrested and for some of the women
134who still are foolish enough to blame another woman for being sexually harassed shame on you i don't care what any of you say this is a cover-up this is a punishment and the only reason why you decided to bring mr perez back here is because you know the curtains have been pulled open and you think by him being placed back in the high school it's going to shut us up guess what no it's not [Applause] good evening members of the board um i'm gonna read this letter on behalf of deandre montgomery my name is shadrach st louis i'm one of the guidance counselors at the high school hey julia all right as i as i look back on my four years at middletown high school there are many things i could say the positive and
135the negatives when i look back i think about how i was labeled as the bad kid i think back to how i was labeled as the kid who wasn't going to graduate on time my freshman year was not the easiest or the most successful year during my freshman year i had many write-ups and many iss and oss on my record when i met mr perez he changed my mindset when other administrators went straight to discipline mr perez listened first he was never about to go on the book at a student it was about the student first one situation i was in the first thing my dean said was i'm suspending you for two days when perez heard about my suspension the first thing he asked me was what happened he asked me what led to
136my actions i was shocked never did an administrator ask me for my version i was just assumed to be guilty explaining to mr perez understood what happened and he listened in a school of over 2 000 students mr perez made me feel welcomed open to discussing what was actually going on in my life in my senior year i was asked by mr anthony williams and mr perez to join mbk i was very hesitant i just wanted to get through my senior year they made me join because it wasn't just about getting through it as a um through it at the standard level these two people could have spent five minutes with me and kept it moving decided that there should be no student left behind closing my senior year as an mbk member with a
137diploma who graduated on time there are two things i take from middletown high school experience i am capable of more than people saying and not every person is the same i want to thank mr perez for being there for me and not giving up on me when others have without mr perez and mr williams i don't know where i would be many people will say the same mr perez deserves to remain house student of students or high school principal this role was built for him this job he does it is clear he does he doesn't do it for for the money but he does it for the students and the families this new position is not only demotion to him but it is a robbery to each and every student in middletown high school and
138a robbery to every family you are more than a statistic you're more than a label i got so mad because when you all were against each other you'll you all were losing we were fight you were fighting each other instead of finding the system that will only help hold you down fight to be better fight to be greater fight to be extraordinary instead of ordinary omar perez my freshman year [Applause] is there anyone else that would like to address the board i believe you had a fair funding meeting no there is a scheduled fair funding meeting if i could ask um miss clark you could put it on the record september 14th is the fair funding meeting okay at four o'clock there is also an audit committee meeting on september 29th in light of round
139table since we have in light of round table we have a late executive session i would like to know if we may pass round table this evening i have something brief mr bison does anybody else i guess what she's uh she's asking if mitch you have anything to say or sorry freddie do you have anything to say point point of order are we are we moving on to round table now yes so we finished committee reports yes we did thank you i'm sorry i couldn't hear that we had moved on i only heard kevin giving his start i believe that was the only two committee reports was there other committee reports the the only thing i just wanted to bring to the attention to the board that new york state school boards association will be
140meeting toward the end of october and i believe that we've been discussing who will be representing our district and i would like to recommend as i've recommended to our board that as many of us attend this the programs that we can we don't all have to attend everything however one of the most important parts of the one of the most important important parts of the meeting happens before the meeting actually happens and that is the communication portion of the meeting and the law portion of the meeting those are all there's a it's called a pre uh pre-law conference pre-conference law right pre-conference law am i saying that right sorry it's been a long night and a workshop on community communication so i would like to recommend that as many of us attend that i've been
141attending that for a long time and i think that it would be beneficial to all of our all of our members not just our seasoned members but also for our new members we also will be voting on the resolutions later on i believe it's going to have to happen in the first meeting of october so that we can so i'll be getting those out to you as the rubber the new york state school board representative thank you sorry freddie yes so um as we've seen tonight the community came in uh waves and um i just hope that us as a district we move with more we level up as far as integrity and accountability and transparency uh it's it's it's been a rough my whole year since i i came in last june and that's
142when covet their pandemic was uh at its height and so it's been a roller coaster since i've been in and um you know i walk by faith and not by sight so hopefully we can move in the right direction from this point on as you heard the community is a very adamant about change and progression so you know i'm here for the long run i'm here for the community that's who voted me in so that's what i have mitch um we just want to um just commend and just compliment the youth that came and spoke and the way they articulated themselves and just remain patient and just maintain just the right character integrity i want to commend them as well as their parents because i know it's not easy to stand up here and uh
143the way you advocated and represented yourself i just i'm inspired by it so i just definitely want to commend the youth as well as the parents in this community thank you vince i don't have anything tonight thank you paula thank you i would like to take a moment to say thank you to the community for coming in my nine years as a school board member i was a parent i'm an unpaid school board member i don't think people i it's not a paid position um those of you who don't know that i think most of you do know that it's we come to this uh we come to this position because we we feel that we want to make our school district the best that it can be and when i got involved as a
144parent many years ago the parents club at the high school was a fundraising group to raise money to throw a party and one of the first things that i did when i became the leader of that organization was to start to bring in district leaders and community members to talk about what was going on in our schools and what services were available in our schools and what programs were available to the students and the families in our school district that was quite a long time ago my son has been out of the high school now for uh for 14 has been out of school for 10 years and so that was about 14 years ago the growth that i've seen in middletown the opportunities that have come about because of you know during those 14
145years that uh that i was well been here for 25 years and involved for 25 years but certainly in the past 14 the major changes that have happened didn't happen certainly without a very talented staff at every level so as a when i was approached to be a school board member nine years ago i took that role very very seriously and a year and just a little over a year ago when i had the to make the decision of whether or not i was going to continue to want to make a difference in the school district i looked at my you know my tenure and i said am i making a difference and i truly believe that i am i truly believe that i have made a difference i truly believe that i have been
146a part of the process that has made the school district great but i also know that i am not responsible for making the decisions about where a teacher goes or where a school district principle goes it is not my decision i may not agree with it i might agree with it that's my prerogative but it is not my decision and i have input but very limited my role is to vote on policy my role is to vote on on the overall moves that are made in the district because i trust the leaders in the district i trust the leaders in the district because i feel that i'm being educated i felt that i was being educated every step of the way if that is has been a mistake i truly don't believe that that's true
147but i will do the best that i can do and i believe that i speak for many of my fellow school board members when i say this that i will do the best that i can do to be informed and make sure that the decisions that i am voting on are for the best interest of the school as i have done for the past nine years so i want to thank the community for coming i rarely get a phone call from a community member every once in a while somebody reaches out to me to say my bus was late or you know who do i talk to about you know getting a job and i point them in the right direction but i am here to represent middletown i've been here i've lived here been
148a member of this community and i love middletown so i want to thank all of you for loving middletown too and for being here tonight and i hope that this first week of school continues in a positive direction for everyone thank you very much nicole our community has spoken thank you i am i have this key chain that i carry around one time i thought i lost and i was kind of heartbroken over it's a silly little token but it it has words on it and um those words are words i truly try to live by it's uh it's a little dog tag to remind us of our our military and what they've done for us but the words on it say this question with boldness speak without fear and hold to the truth and
149that is how i try to live confidentiality forbids us from speaking on personnel matters or anything that has been discussed in executive session so please don't mistake our silence as ignoring you or not hearing your concerns our role as board members is to hire fire when necessary and evaluate the superintendent to establish policies and to establish a proper budget um but i just one one of the sentiment or two of the sentiments that were echoed by mr freddie williams tonight were accountability and transparency and i want to echo those as well that's all i have thank you thank you nicole mr gomez thank you mr bison i want to just take this opportunity to especially thank the young people with that with boldness and courage i'm going to interrupt you could you just speak a
150little louder oh sure i want to thank the young people especially everyone for for exercising their freedom and their engagement as the members of our community but especially the young people i know it's not easy for young people sometimes to speak especially at a table of adults and the courage to speak with conviction about something you feel very strongly about a couple of years but i'm an attorney by profession but a couple years back i ran for family court judge in orange county my first run and it wasn't it wasn't meant to be at the time and but i remember something i kept hearing and again wait your turn wait your turn in my legal profession i remember receiving especially out of law school a lot of rejection letters and the pr what's frustrating is
151that i knew at the end i wasn't being rejected because i didn't have the qualifications but because of course um you know in the legal profession it's like who you know what you know okay but i had one thing a result that this latino man this hispanic man by the grace of god will not take no for an answer and i'm very proud of our young people today you may hit walls in life but never be afraid to stand for your convictions and many years ago president ronald reagan and the state in the 1987 state of the union it was a critical year for his presidency he turned and said i want to speak to the young people tonight speaking from the halls of congress who are watching and he said someday you may be
152in this room but wherever you are remember that america is counting on you to reach for your highest and be your best those words inspire me to keep going and to our young people today who spoke with passion and conviction you show that you are ready for that challenge to someday in the future either be behind this table or whatever endeavor the lord has for you and again as a parent myself i'm very proud for all you done thank you mr gomez mr purina thank you mr bison uh firstly i'd like to thank mr del morrow for all the years of service in this district i think you're a little muppet i'm awful all right then i'll put this down for a few minutes if i could and i'd like to thank you you did
153a good job and we hope president williams feels feels better soon and i'd also like to thank the lady in the audience who's a member of the pocatello ladies auxiliary i'm a 56th year member of the celta's hook and ladder company i'm very proud of that you know there's one thing i want to address has nothing to do with mr perez it's a fact that the charge and i've heard it before i've heard it on email i've seen it on email and i've heard it this evening that this district is systemically racist systemically race that's a terrible charge and a false charge let's look at some of the facts you know our family has been a member of this district since 1890 i spent almost 40 years in the district plus 10 years as a
154the administrative orange arts to boces evening program what's our mission our mission always has been always will be to prepare students for college and careers so let's look at now the hard facts of this 2020 school year for example the total graduate graduate graduation rate was 85 percent 80 percent of black males graduated and 90 percent of black females 98 the hispanic cohort had a 81 male graduation rate and 89 percent of hispanic females now let's look at the white graduation rate white males 74 74 well that of white females 84 what i'm trying to trying to say and the point i'm trying to get across is that the administrative instructional staff and support staff we all take a personal interest in students believe me quote personalizing education rather than standardizing education every student every
155day these aren't just words believe me they're not just words and they're not figures of speech is that's what we do in this district we have programs at every level designed to give students every opportunity to succeed and keep focused whether it be in the elementary two-year kindergarten program k-8 midpoint program or mhs program such as safe school ambassadors my brother's keeper student support centers on and on and you know richard delmoro was one of the designers and implementers of this program let's look at the high school lobby because i get around the schools i make it a point of getting around the schools there's a wall entitled illuminating middletown's future i see displays that show photos of kids and the colleges that they're going to all races and ethnic groups are represented moreover i
156have been to the musical annie this year which uh you saw again all groups were in that production this morning my neighbor friend and former board member lou pierre [Music] who immigrated from haiti haiti quite a while ago stopped me and i said how's christian doing christian pierre one of his sons received a scholarship to new york state university uh new york university he said yeah that's because of all the finance structures in the high school and that's because of what you're doing so let's not deprecate that uh that the instructional staff of the high school let's look at something else linda bratt 1988 graduate of middletown high school she happened to be one of my students when i when i was on staff director of bilingual enl and world language education many programs for
157english language learners including english as a new language transitional bilingual education home language arts and dual language program again for my observation whether it's fine art festival stem program hispanic heritage program concerts and plays i see students of all races and ethnic groups participating so these charges stomach racism really believe me they're untrue and they're disservice to both staff and the students of the district and you know what even it's even worse because i've been in this business a long time you're harming the morale of morale of a hard-working instructional and support staff seriously already seriously impacted by the pandemic we're not perfect i i believe me i know that what we have to key on and i i've said this before you have to key on the fundamentals the three to eight graduates three
158to eight state scores in math and english language are not good we must get them up i am sick and tired of seeing middletown ranked 16th or or 17th from the top of the 17 districts in orange county so that's what we have to do that's what we should be doing because if you don't give the kids the fundamentals in the early grades believe me they're not going to be successful in middle school and high school i know it i've seen it and i've been there so i want to thank everybody for being here tonight it's been a long evening and uh have a great labor day you all deserve it thank you thank you mr prana i'd just like to qualify a few things i did put it out last week the reason why
159the board meeting was cancelled i did not have a quorum i had people on vacation i had people under doctor's cab i need five people to hold a meeting and to vote on our agendas items i didn't have that i take full responsibility i was very hurt before when someone said i wasn't paying attention i was trying to listen i did use the gavel because i felt the crowd was rowdy and i needed to calm them down so that we could conduct the business and listen to what they had to say we're here to listen to you as mrs blumenthal point to doubt we cannot discuss personnel there is reasons things have been taken care of whatever but we can't discuss with anyone because it is a personal message i apologize to anyone i thought
160the young lady that was speaking first when she paused i only wanted to tell her to please sign in i understand that you folks are unhappy but please try to look at the bigger broader picture we're here to listen we're here to do what we feel is best for the children and the district as i said i'm very sorry if i've offended anyone i've tried to be in the last couple weeks as transparent as i could be explaining why the meeting was called i hope you understand i thank you for coming and please believe me we have listened so i thank you and i will go back to asking for not an adjourn a german to the business meeting i believe that there was a request from a board member to go into late exec
161does that still stand do you folks want a late executive session yes no we could be okay i was going to say we could be brief or we could schedule another meeting i would prefer to take care of it tonight all right so we're going to adjourn this meeting i need a motion to adjourn we will be going into executive session to here i believe it was mr gomez this is concerned we will not come back out of the executive session so moved second all right i have a motion by mr cruzenza and a second by miss houston thank you again for everyone for coming thank you i hope that you have a better understanding of the role of the board of education and what we are charged with thank you very much you