001good evening and welcome to the reorganization meeting of the board of education for the school year 2021 22. i'd like to invite everyone tonight for this very important event in which we have three new board members elected to the i shouldn't say newport members we do have a new board member we're going to welcome mr williams way at the end of the table there and because your cd there does not mean your importance all of you important as a unit for the community is welfare so thank you so tonight i'm going to ask us all to stand at this moment in time i'm calling this meeting to order for the pledge of allegiance and i'm going to ask mr perino with his appropriate tie to lead us of the united states of america and to
002the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you did you see it i would like to have a roll call please mr gomez here here [Music] all right thank you very much i would like to have a motion for the approval of the agenda second second all right as we move along alrighty so um all in favor aye opposed i think by unanimous we are approving the agenda all right i think now taryn uh you may kindly walk up to the podium and start the reorganization meeting official business paula can you come up please can you raise your right hand please i paula blumenau i paula blumenau do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states and the
003constitution of the state of new york that i will support the constitution of the state of new york the united states and the state of new york and that i will faithfully discharge the duties and that i will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of school board member of the office of school board member according to the best of my ability thank you all right thank you mr purina let's do it again i john perrino hi john perrino do you solemnly swear do you so only swear that i will support the constitution of the united states that i will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of new york and the constitution of the state of new york and that i will faithfully discharge the duties and i
004will place faithfully discharge the duties of the office of school board member of the office of the school board member according to the best of my ability thank you thank you terry thank you mr williams mitchell williams can you raise your right hand i'm mitchell williams i'm mitchell williams do you solemnly swear do solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states that i will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of new york and the constitution of the state of new york and that i will faithfully discharge the duties and i will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of the school board member of the office of the school board member according to the best of my ability congratulations thank you thank you awesome
005[Music] thank you mrs clark at this time i would like to proceed with our meeting and ask the board for nominations for the office of president i'd like to nominate pastor john williams for the office of president of the middletown city school board of education second do we have any other candidates to be nominated here do we have a first anyone we have it yeah with that a second we have that all right all right uh all in favor aye any opposed discussion gary nunn we have a new president all righty thank you okay hey oh wait wait wait take my glasses off okay raise your right hand please i john williams hi john williams do you solemnly swear do solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states that i will
006support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of new york and the constitution of the state of new york and that i will faithfully discharge the duties and i will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of president of the school board of the office of president of the school board according to the best of my ability according to the best of my abilities thank you thank you [Applause] [Music] thank you very much thank you all right well thank you everybody um i'll i'll say some thank-yous a little bit later but uh so at this point i would like to entertain um nomination for the office of vice president please yes sir mr perrino excuse me i'd like to nominate rose b debison for vice president of the middletown school
007board is there a second are there any other nominations see no uh we have nomination for the office of vice president uh miss rose tobiason uh all in favor aye aye opposed unanimously passes we welcome uh once again miss rosenbyson to the office of vice president congratulations [Music] make it do you solemnly swear do solemnly swim but i will support the constitution of the united states that i will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of new york and the constitution of the state of new york and that i will faithfully discharge the duties and that i will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of vice president of the school board of the office of vice president of the school board according to the best of my ability
008thank you everyone for your support congratulations all right moving on in in this particular reorg meeting uh we're going to move down to our let me wait to see a motion for the approval of our annual appointments may i have a motion please so move removed and secondary any discussion all in favor opposed it so passes at this time we're going to have the boat of office for our treasurer shelly cook all right shelly will be coming to the office tomorrow and we'll we'll videotape videotaping tomorrow she'll be taking the all to office at this time we're going to have the oath of office administered to our district clerk terry clark so i get to do that [Music] let's switch places you repeat to repeat after me i terry clark hi taran clark do soundly
009swear do solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of new york and the constitution of the state of new york and that i will faithfully discharge the duties and that i will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of district clerk according to the best of my ability all right congratulations again a point of order uh president williams should we vote for um the uh district treasurer even though she's not here and then she gets signed into that's what we did in the approval of appointments it appointments covered the treasurer and the and the district clerk and it is being notarized all right congratulations once again karen [Music] uh moving on um approval of uh action items action items approval of financial memorandum one
010may have a motion please so move second move and seconded any discussion all in favor aye aye opposed it so passes uh action item b uh authorization to attend conferences may have a motion please moved and seconded any discussion all in favor opposed so passes action item c authorization to approve budget transfers so moved second moved and seconded any discussion all in favor aye aye opposed so passes uh uh action item d approval of election inspectors for 2021 and 2022 year so move moved and seconded any discussion all in favor opposed so passes action item e approval of the superintendent to apply for grants and aid state and federal so move moved and seconded any discussion all in favor action item f approval of school board organization memberships 2021 and 2022. so move is there
011a second moved and seconded any discussion all in favor opposed so passes action item g approval of designated date for board of education administrators retreat august 19th 2021 so move moved in second date any discussion all in favor opposed so passes board committee assignments uh firstly audit committee approval for this is just approval for community members um audit committee approval of community members chuck jones and linda knapp for the 2021-2022 school year some of second moved and seconded any discussion let's have uh just have one question uh yes sir mr president this doesn't preclude other members of the community that want to join up any of the other committees right we can we can vote to add members members later there was one i think it was miss barone who ran for school board she
012approached me she wants to be involved with the school board on one of the committees all right yes absolutely we're going to because what we do what we what we're about to vote on after this after this we have another we have another vote and we'll discuss we'll discuss just that okay doing that this is just this one is just for the audit committee committee um community members community members so yeah thank you for the discussion sir sure no problem all in favor opposed is so passes uh board committee assignments uh again review this is just a review of current board member committees uh may have a motion please don't move is there a second any discussion does this this is just a review review of what what's our names of what we're here and
013then we'll set up between now and the next meeting we'll set we'll set the assignments but this is just a review um is everybody aware of what committees they currently they currently serve on yeah so how do we go about asking to be on a committee yeah what you do you'll uh you'll speak to to you or terry yes thank you not a problem i have a question yes sir can we add some committees to this list um in particular i was thinking of um a board parliamentarium that so that we could use like robert's rules of order and i believe our meetings would run a lot more efficiently yes and actually end a little sooner but with robert's rules of order everything is well set out and nobody has nobody's left out of discussions
014and uh it's it's it's the way we have a large board here and i believe that's the way to do it yes sir and also excuse me i think we've always had a parliamentarian i don't know if the position has always been filled i think that is one of the committees it is yeah so certainly and i would suggest that person whoever is uh of the current committees here um if you know what we'll do is this since and this is a great discussion for now because this is just a review of it and so we can look and see but as far as i'm as my understanding is there's always been a place there's always been a place for parliament parliamentarian [Music] all right and also provide some training maybe nisba has something because
015it's a very complicated topic that was a while ago i don't know if this is a committee position or not but some way of establishing a calendar for things that need to be done by the board of education in a very timely manner because there are um there are dates in our board policy there are contractual dates um that sometimes we're either late on or you know so if we can establish should be more efficient yeah i don't think that's so much of it well i mean we could look at it and see over the course of to our next meeting but i don't know if that's so much a committee as much as it is um we're going to coordinate i think we have discussed uh toward the end of this this school year
016about establishing um a set calendar with our with our um district clerk in order to be able to make sure that we move forward and if we if if if it's the desire of the board to form a committee if that's if that if that's the desire to board then we can we can form a committee along those lines that we keep track of that but i think it's you know my opinion is that i think it might be it might be just prudent to just to let our district clerk um keep us on track she's pretty good at that anyhow yeah i would agree i think she's very good so yes ma'am i was wondering if we could reinstate the curriculum committee that used to be many years ago we can have the discussion
017we can have we can have the discussion as to whether or not we whether or not we uh we'll we'll have a curriculum committee i i don't recall what we're being called no i don't have it i don't i don't recall there being one but we can go back and we can do you remember i had asked about it um i had understood there was but if there isn't i think there is a need for one so i would like to propose that then john do you ever remember i don't i don't i don't remember a curriculum committee and i'd like to know the purpose of i think curriculum to be honest but what do you think is the purpose of such a committee right what would the purpose of the curriculum to review reviewing
018new curriculum that comes in from new york being made aware of it so that the board is um more in tune with what's going on in the state in the educational setting [Music] i don't know if that i don't know if that's in the purview of the board we can we can look at it and examine it um but i think the administration administration that's that's more of an administrative responsibility uh but we can we'll we'll we're not taking off the table we'll look at it yeah not looking to override administration just to make board members aware of what's coming down the pipe all right all right we've had the discussion uh for the review we we've reviewed and we'll we'll have further discussion um when we set the committees at our next meeting all
019in favor all right opposed it so passes uh motion now adjourn this this portion of the meetings second move your second day all in favor all right opposed so passes uh now if you will let's move into our regular meeting do you have that yes and just pulling it up good night good night thank you for being here thank you yes thank you see you all okay i'd like to call at this time um the regular july 1 2021 regular meeting of the enlarged city school district of middletown called the meeting to order at this time we'll start with our pledge of allegiance mrs blumenou after that can we remain standing for a few moments of silence after the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic
020for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all we remain standing for just a few minutes thank you [Music] the first moment of silence and as we've said before we do this in remembrance of people who have served the district uh long and well or the spouses of those who have served the district the first moment of silence is for richard dick deumann richard was a member of the buildings and ground staff for 39 years as a matter of fact his son steve still works for the district he has i believe 37 or 38 years in i worked with mr dumont for when i was on staff the excellent hard-working individual he worked until the job was done he did much of the painting for the district he could
021mix colors better than anybody i have ever known and cut a line better than anyone but dick not only worked for the district he also served his community he served as a fire chief in washington heights i believe and a fire commissioner he was also a member of the middletown phoenix fire company [Music] and it continued on this he's a member of the salvation army a gentleman with a very very strong uh worth that work ethic uh the final moment of silence this evening is savino uh sunny glee elmy mr golami his wife annette worked for the district for 38 years in not only central office but in twin towers middle school again a person with a strong work ethic he owned a number of businesses in middletown and in these businesses he gave many
022of our high school students employment a custard stand a charcoal grill kitchen and so on he also served his country he was a member of the armed forces during the korean war a lifetime a lifetime member of the elks and in this capacity he served on committees which impacted our students such as a scholarship committee as a matter of fact i had some of the children i had his son as a as a student when i first started in the few years that i first started very nice individual both of these individuals they will be missed thank you for the thoughts and prayers for these individuals thank you mr perino [Music] mission of the enlarged uh cities city school district of middletown we're going to pass our newly elected and newly sworn in board member
023mr mitchell williams if he would read the mission statement please tonight we strive to provide fiscally sound educational opportunities in a safe environment that continuously supports our diverse student population we will enable all students to graduate to reach their full potential to become lifelong learners and to become competitive productive members of society thank you sir roll call mrs clark here he's here he's just this is here here mr freddie williams here williams here thank you uh motion for the approval of our agenda tonight please so move second move to second to any discussion all in favor aye aye opposed it so passes entertain a motion now for the approval of our minutes from our june 17th 2021 meeting so moved second moved and seconded any discussion all in favor all right opposed [Music] so passes
024uh moving on to our personnel action items uh if there's no objection we will do um personal memorandum 1a instructional personnel memorandum 1b non-instruction uh together please uh may have a motion for such shall move moved and seconded any discussion all in favor opposed so passes need a motion for the approval of non-affiliated personnel memo so move moved and seconded any discussion all in favor opposed this so passes thank you everybody uh moving on our recognition announcements and community reports uh i guess we'll we'll um we'll start down we'll start down the line with our new our new board member mr mr mitchell williams uh you get to have first say tonight in our community reports and you just want to say your thank you whatever you want you know uh take a few minutes
025and and do so welcome mr williams i'm just glad just to be a part of the um be a part of this board um just just want to congratulate all of the graduates i think that was phenomenal they did a phenomenal job this year as well as the parents as well as just the school system that's it thank you mr williams mr freddie williams good evening uh just to piggyback off what uh mr williams said the uh kudos to the graduation um festivities they were so did both thursday and friday 523. it's a great number and i was discussing it with a couple of people that aren't in the district and they were really impressed so kudos to the staff the grounds everything was was immaculate it was a great job thank you mr williams
026mr c to bounce off mr williams and mr williams same thing the graduation ceremonies never disappoint and the speeches were heartfelt and right to the point and uh and again you i say this all the time the student will come up you'll say his name and you'll hear an explosion up here in the bleachers and then the next student's over here the families are so proud and so happy that they've reached this point and the families have worked so hard to get them there to help them there what have you so it was a very very successful two days and i was only there on thursday but i enjoyed every minute of it um also i don't know if this is a community report but if anybody if over at uh fancher davitch they have
027the uh refurbished pool and then a uh a slip and slide area it's just incredible we took our three and a half year old granddaughter over there and there were many many people there was incredibly well run very very safe they rotate the lifeguards like every 15 minutes beautiful beautiful place and it's worth your while to just take a ride over there and check it out thank you thank you mr c mrs blumenau i would just like to say congratulations to all of our graduates and i really enjoyed our graduation ceremonies i was able to attend the friday evening graduation and it's always exciting and i think every year that i am able and i wasn't able to of course last year was virtual and the year before unfortunately i wasn't able to attend the
028graduation ceremony my mother was sick that year and it just felt so great to walk alongside of our scholars and and just know that you know we're we've done such a great job of um bringing young people um you know up into into the world so i i feel like if nothing else you know as a board member that always feels really great to me so i'm so happy to have that opportunity and and also to continue to serve the community of the enlarged city school district of middletown as a school board member so thank you thank you mrs blumenow miss houston um i want to also express the same happiness that my colleagues here on the board have said about our graduates how proud we are of them and they're thankful to their families
029and want to congratulate our staff our teachers our administration our board on a very successful school year despite the covid pandemic we have a fresh start here coming and hopefully everyone will remain healthy and i want to wish everyone a happy belated juneteenth which i celebrated just after the last meeting it was a really beautiful celebration in the city of middletown festival square and also wish everyone a happy fourth of july and i have a nice little quote here that i'd like to share i think it's a a good one from thomas paine one of our founding fathers those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must undergo the fatigue of supporting it and if that isn't true i don't know what is because i think of our veterans and all the sacrifices of
030those who lost their lives to fight for our freedoms in that thought so thank you thank you mrs houston mr gomez thank you mr president first i want to welcome mitch williams to our board it's great to have you my friend is one of our colleagues i know he's ready to roll up the sleeves and get to work that's great okay and echo the sentiments of my colleagues i also want to give a shout out to all the parents who who had the joy of seeing the children go from birth to that moment of graduation and that's uh for me was especially touching to see when pastors when jayden got his diploma they almost moved me to tears and it shows there the love of a father and the love of a son and that's
031the model we need for our young people uh and also as we move towards the month of july we're celebrating america's birthday city of middletown will hold its fireworks this friday and tanner walk hill will hold him on saturday and then all the other families could go on about on the 4th to the churches barbecues and continue the celebration that's all i have to say thank you sir mr perrino and of course mr gomez remembering what independence day is all about exactly as benjamin franklin said we've given you a republic if you can keep it when he was asked so very good most of my colleagues had said the about the same that i was going to say so i'll just make a few other other observations congratulations again to mitch williams for being on
032the board as mr gomez said i just want to thank everyone who supported me in the last election cycle and i i hope i never forget that i work for you and i work hard i work hard as i can for you and i and a poem by emily dickinson always comes to mind and maybe we should all remember this and this is my thought on it and emily dickinson of course a very famous 19th century poet we studied her in middletown high school when i was there so it's entitled i'm nobody who are you i'm nobody who are you are you nobody too then there's a pair of us don't tell their identifiers you know how jury to be somebody how public like a frog to tell one one's name the lifelong june to
033an admiring bob so we have to remember we were just here as servants to the community and serving to the students and all the stakeholders in the district and i hope i never forget this and i'm sure my fellow colleagues will not forget it just a few comments on graduation to pick up whatever what everyone else said again congrats to the um i think 531 graduates we're all behind you and we stand 23 six okay okay rose what was it 523 523 don't interrupt please we want you to get your facts straight there john continuing on i i personally like the two format two-session format it uh it reduced the congestion and more of the relatives could attend format and everyone involved did a fine job you know those the graduation ceremony it's so smooth
034but there's so many individuals who are responsible for this and groups are responsible for it i have to give a shout out to one person in the high school the school senior school office manager lawyer laura d pasquale and there's another d-pass quality in the district antoinette d pasquale who's chair of the music department but this is laura d pasquale she really is a key player in organizing that graduation she arranges for the certificates uh the floor arrangements has the emergency people there on on and on one of those people that be hard to get along without lore in that building bill boynette is here and i want to give a shout out to the buildings and grounds and custodial staff for setting up the field and and cleaning up after each session nice work
035for you guys bill uh lenny zapca is uh here this evening and his security staff was there seeing everything went smoothly the victor iraqi is not here tonight but his staff was also the tech staff and one other gentleman that's here tonight brian sieberg brian is here and he was the one that videotaped and i know he was very accommodating to arranging various schedules and we in my own case we had to go back and forth and try to get people aligned and so on but he did it and it went it went very well the emergency services from both city and towns congratulations to them administrators were all there and you know the weather cooperated i've been to a lot of these graduations and sometimes the weather is extremely hot extremely hot other times
036we've had rain other times a threat of rain so it just went uh it just went uh very very well i have other things but i'm going to try this year to uh go back to what we used to do four minutes a piece and i know i went over this time a little bit but i'm gonna attack and i i think what i'll ask in my case to have the tv on and when the four minutes is up the timer's up i'll cut myself right off so i would ask other board members to consider that also to facilitate a more speedy beating a more efficient kind of beating okay i'm done thank you mr perino thank you so much mr bison first of all and i'm not sure that we publicly acknowledge but i'd
037like to thank john lansenier for the time that he served as a board of education member uh john is heading for the sunny south and i'm sure we're all going to miss him i also want to congratulate our graduates and especially to pastor and to john lance lee lansini what an honor to be able to give your child his diploma it really was heartwarming uh number three i think we should acknowledge openly here john the two awards the mardi deluge award went to went to millie rivera velez and we're going to have her here to receive the award at the june july 22nd meeting and the midi pride award went to our very own district clerk and as everyone said you know the fourth of july is coming quickly and i believe that most of
038us are aware of the curtailment of fireworks that the city of middletown police are i don't want to be on a negative side but and we want everybody to have a good time but apparently they're taking it very seriously this year and hopefully other people will be respected um not to have fireworks as a disturbance as it was in the past thank you thank you very much uh so i i will i will add my statement uh to the to first to the graduation uh it was an absolutely wonderful occasion on both nights again uh as mr perino said the weather cooperated with us for the first time in a long time and so it was a wonderful occasion and it was my proud honor and and i'll never let anybody no one will ever
039be able to take that moment from me to be able to not only sign my son's uh diploma but to be able to to hand him his diploma and take a picture with him a very proud moment for me as a father as well as i'm sure it was for mr lazineer and as well as provided an opportunity for our one of our former board members mr lupierre oh yes for uh to to provide to hand his son the diploma the reason we did that is because we did not have our graduations for last year until july and so lou was not able to participate in those graduations and so since this was his son graduating we thought it was it would was apropos to be able to allow him that opportunity to be able
040to hand his son the diploma and so uh congratulations to all to all of our graduates all of our parents and our guardians and all of those that have taken active roles in the lives of our children where i say our dare i say our school community as a whole this is a win-win for all of us and so uh i also would be remiss if i did not also thank mr lassanier uh for his service the last three years to this board he is he is leaving the state uh but he has served he has served this board uh the last three years and we congratulate him uh a plaque has been given to him on his uh to uh commemorate his service to us and uh we wish him well in all of
041his future endeavors as he leaves the state of new york lastly lastly i don't know if this is so much community i will i think i will reserve these reserve these comments to um to round table i have some other comments that i'd like to make but i reserve them to round table but i do want to welcome mr mitchell williams to the board uh welcome uh you you uh so the seat that you're sitting in the seat that you're sitting is not gonna be the seat that you're gonna stay in uh we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna shift around a little bit uh and again sitting at the end does not make you the least to be honest i'd love to be in at the end when i when i first came
042on the board uh but uh welcome we know we i already know without question that you're going to bring um uh bring a perspective to this board that is much needed uh you've already proven yourself in this community and so we welcome you and we're excited to work with you uh here um my friend and my brother although a lot of people need to understand we're all named williams and we call each other brothers because that's that's the the degree of our relationship but we're not blood related and so williams is i just want everyone to know williams are taking over the world and um and so uh we have to change our names so everybody here everybody here we're going to we're going to um unofficially name you williams but uh welcome welcome to
043the board i reserve my other comments for round table i have some other comments i want to make as we're moving into the school year but uh we have some wonderful things that is about to happen during the summer with camps and so many different other things that i'm sure that administration will make us aware of um but uh middletown middletown get ready we we went through some tough times last year but we're ready to go forward and and correct those uh not correct but move forward so that we can uh get back to a sense of normalcy uh as we move forward thank you thank you let's um so let's move on um opportunity to address the board uh anybody from the public we you see our friend our friend just walked in the
044door so did you make it just in time timing is everything time and time it is everything all right good evening thank you my name is daryl mcelroy and most of you here know me i served on the board a few years back and people watching maybe they remember me who knows but you know coming here tonight as a parent educator and community member and i felt that it was necessary to speak to some of the comments that were made at the last board meeting by one of the trustees regarding critical race theory well i respect the fact that the trustee received 1832 votes in the midst of a pandemic where everyone received a ballot by mail it is not necessarily evidence that her views reflect the majority position in the school district the trustee
045claimed that she was keeping politics out of our district but it appears to me that politics is being directly injected into our school district in a way that could turn middletown into a circus i was around the last time the board was a circus about 20 years ago i don't think anybody here wants to go back to anything like that the community at that time stood up and voted those folks out of office in my view the school board is not a place to test out political talking points for a national agenda or to use this as a launching pad for other pursuits banning crt is the latest boogeyman being pushed out there and it is simply a right-wing attack on a phantom issue we may as well be talking about an attempt to ban
046an invasion of flying one horn to fly uh purple people eaters its opponents purposefully mischaracterize what it is in order to scare people into inaction on teaching the actual truth in our history classes allowing students to read works from bipoc and lgbtq voices in ela developing restorative justice practices with regard to student discipline maintaining our efforts to hire a diverse staff and ensuring that our teachers use culturally responsive pedagogy nobody is attempting to teach something to children that is taught in law school and is even a difficult concept to grasp at that level k-12 students and staff are not being taught that they are oppressors or victims or that they should be guilty if people do feel guilt after learning about what happened to black americans in this country the takeaway should be oh my
047god i can't believe that happened what can we do to correct those things so that they don't happen again that is the point of education over a year ago we obviously witnessed the murder of george floyd and it looked like that might be a tipping point but here we are and it seems like the country is not really moving further along um it is possible to love your country but to also observe its flaws and work to improve them there were other comments that were of concern i don't believe in telling children what to think to the contrary it seems to me that that's precisely what you want to be able to do is to confine what children are able to learn but free societies here's the irony free societies don't ban subject matter that
048is uncomfortable you teach critical thinking and then you allow the marketplace of ideas to work those things out what's being proposed is actually the opposite of free thinking i would actually stifle thinking for some unexplained reason the trustee also mentioned that she voted against a student survey shouldn't we know what the students are experiencing in school relative to issues of race sexual orientation and gender identity gender issues i mean shouldn't we know how the kids are experiencing school on a day-to-day basis it seems to me that would be like one of the basic functions of a school district we need to listen to our babies because they are telling us things that may be uncomfortable and we may not want to hear but we have an obligation to listen and then to try to address
049those things so that we are doing things to encourage i guess that means time is up um well anyway i would just you know close and saying that you know doing things to encourage students to achieve to their fullest potential regardless of who they are and that you know ultimately should be the goal i had more to say but i will save that for another time thank you thank you mr mcelroy is there anybody else that wishes to address the board i guess not um moving on letters are there any letters today we have one letter this is clark dear mr del moro and the members of the middletown board of education i am writing to let our board of education know about the hard work and generosity of our pto here at presidential park
050elementary school i have been a teacher in middletown city schools for over 33 years and know how hard the ptos work to raise funds for our students and how much effort our ptos give to support our students in our buildings it is a thankless voluntary job that often goes unnoticed and unappreciated this year our pto at ppe bought copies of books that we published for students that didn't buy their own they also gave us money to fill two beautiful blue planters with flowers displayed by the lower level doors at ppe planted by my two first grade classes they have worked tirelessly every year to raise funds for our students thank you for giving me the opportunity to recognize the hard work of our pto and their contributions to our student body there are many more
051things they do to mention here but these are their most recent contributions sincerely kathleen byrne first grade teacher ppe thank you very much mrs clark and um and miss byrne uh moving on uh superintendent's report turning you into the hands of mr richard delmar superintendent thank you president williams i do have a few comments to make and certainly to embellish if you will or extend some of the comments from our colleagues here on the board of education the trustees regarding graduation certainly we're very very pleased about the ceremony itself and the the decorum that was displayed by the students the families and friends it really really targeted the celebratory a very respectful event that it is and i know that all of the parents and and the graduates themselves were very very pleased about all
052the preparations on behalf of them as they deserved this event especially in particular because of coming from a very difficult challenging year i think it's also important to recognize the administration mrs sorrentino mrs derr and all of their staff administrative staff who were very very instrumental in making this a very successful evening i think it's also important as we look at the high school graduation and recognize all of the efforts of the high school teachers they worked tirelessly many many hours beyond their contractual time to make this very possible for our students to succeed but i think we would be remiss if we don't think about all of the teachers that came before them in kindergarten all the way through eighth grade in laying the foundations at each of the different levels their teachers staff
053their principals administrators staff ptos that support the programs in our k-12 program i think it is really a district-wide celebration not only for just the high school staff who are deservingly certainly targeted much of the work there but i think it's important to recognize all of the other individuals building and grounds and our custodial staff our food service staff that provided all of the nourishment for the workers of the in the hot weather preparing that stage if you will in the chairs and all of the other events that evening itself our technology department right the sound system was impeccable we had a i had mentioned a comment at the thursday night celebration if we can have a a board so that we would be able to hear and see at the same time all of
054the announcements and speeches that were behind us and boom the next day it was there done very very well so all of these little pieces that people may not recognize because they're kind of son of behind the scenes but all contribute to the success of that evening and i think it's important that we realize that we are not a district of schools and facilities we are a school district and all that implies and i want to thank everyone and certainly congratulate once again the 523 graduates our percentage for graduation was very very high this year in june as it is again a stepping stone as we continue to move forward to our very eclectic programs that we have to make them successful whatever their endeavor is on the day after graduation so thank thank everyone
055who made that possible i'd also like to just remind the community about summer schools right they will commence on july 6 all the way and end on july i'm sorry august 13th again the 9 through 12 program will be at the high school both middle school programs of twin towers and money will be held physically at the high school right our students with special needs are extended school year program the k-12 students will be at the high school program there and our k-5 summer school program will be at maple hill so i just want to remind everyone about that if you want some more information please call your school the administration offices are open in all our facilities and buildings if you have any questions about our summer programs summer school enrichment opportunities we all
056know that for last several years we had a art and music camps they are completely filled so registration is closed so all of the seats are taken in that regard however we do have some remaining seats in our stem stem stem camp so please you can register online if anyone is interested continuing to be in line to be involved in that activity also i'd like to also announce for the first time we have two new camps two new camps we have a theater performance production camp and also a new one mobile gaming which is a new rage in the country and we're going to be right there middletown as we always are going to have a camp with that program as well it's very competitive it's very exciting and uh we do understand that it's
057just not for entertainment there are colleges universities that now have scholarships to those universities and programs colleges in this endeavor so we do have those and the registration will be announced shortly on those two camps the theater camp and the gaming camp and that will be up on the website so keep a sharp looking out for when that'll be an announcement we also have our jumpstart this is a program that we started two years ago for our incoming kindergarten children right the dates for that program kindergarten jumpstart are august 16th through the 27th and information will be on the website as well as our facebook website so please adhere to some of those dates if you're interested uh and i wish everyone a certainly a safe fourth of july but also a summer vacation so
058be careful and we hope to see you in september those who are not involved in any of these activities thank you thank you sir uh moving on uh real quick we'll be out of here we'll be out here shortly yes oh sure of the and the gaming and the the new camps you mentioned uh are they or for all students or are there particular age ranges i believe it's for the high school ages students high school age of the game at this particular time and the stem one is that also the stem is for yeah three through eleven grades three through eleven grades three not age three through eleven so that would be eight to sixteen seventeen or so right grades three through 11 third grade through 11th grade correct yes thank you thank you
059good questions good questions um action items uh approval i need a motion please for the approval of financial memorandum number two still moved second move to second any discussion yes um i just want to ask for um or express that um item number four i need to abstain for for appearances although it's not a technical conflict of interest for appearances of conflict of interest i need to abstain from that vote item four all right thank you pastor all right thank you thank you we had this we've had the discussion all in favor i i just the exception of abstaining for um item number four okay and the show passes thank you um motion for um approval of special services memorandum number one mr second second move to second date any discussion all in favor aye
060aye opposed it so passes um approval of our motion for approval of our district-wide safety plan 2021-2022 school year second moved in second to any discussion um any comments on that yes uh superintendent tomorrow miss creed mr tuttle president williams members of the board um today i'm just presenting the district-wide safety plan as per the education law and new york state safe schools we presented this plan back in february after we made some changes due to some regulations and we put the pandemic aspect into our safety plan the plan has not changed since then when you've last reviewed it um the only changes we're making currently are the dates on the front cover okay so i just wanted to make you aware of that and um mr williams freddie williams uh you know welcome to
061us and mitchell williams as well and if you have any questions about safety committee and stuff like that please meet with me and i'll discuss what we do thank you board lenny excuse me can you emphasize the importance of not letting this document get out into the public sure this is a confidential document there are some items that are strictly confidential that's why you have a very short period of time to review it and it is also posted on our district wide website for the community to uh view and uh some items are just blocked out that are of course pertinent for safety reasons mr williams any questions anybody else okay mr mr perino thank you uh lenny and again congratulations to your staff what they do lenny is that the whole report available to
062board members if somebody wanted to look at that i have provided that report to the district clerk so yes it can be reviewed and of course if you'd like to meet with me and review the actual hard copy as you can see it's quite lengthy i was asked about that thank you it won't be but it won't be going into uh there was a i had a question about it too the actual copy will not be in our live in our library of documents on board docs okay so we can view it under executive content thank you thank you good yes yes i i think it's good to thank you for all your hard work i think it's in thank you going to know the importance of this if i'm if if my recollection is
063correct this stems back through to a law that was passed by new york state legislature right after around the time of september 11th correct when our we were when terrorists struck home here in america and the importance to ensure that our school facilities are safe and secure for whatever threat or danger that faith faces us so that's why the nature of the confidentiality is there to keep everything confidential we don't want to give nobody who have wrong intentions a heads up i think that's the bottom line and again we appreciate your hard work and and i'm sure that before my colleagues in that thank you sir thank you i think i think um uh we we just mentioned here i think that that this actually stems back to columbine some of the things too some
064of the some of these things directly uh reflected even of our experiences with swatting just a few years ago so uh and and that's why the need for uh the confidentiality thank you for the confidentiality so um i have no other questions all in favor opposed it so passes thank you sir thank you sir um action item d a motion for the approval of change orders bill do you want to speak on those [Music] thank you pastor we just have one change over tonight is to to provide labor equipment and material to revise the site drainage system at monhagen middle schools handball court this number also includes the overtime necessary to maintain the current project schedule any questions for mr bartlett if not thank you sir thank you we we've we've had the discussion all
065in favor aye aye opposed it so passes uh uh seeing as we're at the beginning of the school year i don't think we have we don't have any committee reports as of yet so um uh again we'll we'll briefly briefly um have round table comments uh and i'll start any uh start down at the end of the table again anybody that has a round table uh comments mr mr mr williams if you got anything else you want to say say round table comments no all right mr williams mr the other mr williams yes she's gonna welcome uh paula kevin and uh new board member mitchell this is a great guy right here um look forward to working with him and the rest of you guys as well awesome mr c can i reserve my right
066to speak at a later time yes sir thank you yes sir um this is blooming mrs houston yes um first of all i just want to reiterate something from the last meeting i wanted to share my personal opinion on the vote from april 22nd that i voted no on along with two of my fellow colleagues here on the board of trustees as to the professional services of courageous conversations to provide various leads seminars to our building administrators and educators i just want to shed light that is my opinion that our district should be prioritizing equality and again i subscribe and follow the teachings of dr martin luther king and the most important lesson he taught us is to judge not by the color of our skin but by the content of our character and i
067do agree that critical phrase theory which 30 other states have voted to ban by the way is a lie in a form of marxist propaganda and i'm just concerned that districts across the state could be bringing in something that could divide our students but again i want to emphasize bringing people together teaching the value of hard work service scholarship leadership free thinking and most importantly character and integrity i just want our students to have the endless opportunity to move mountains and reach their full potential i do want to switch to a different topic although we're at summer and i know that for most the school year is over and everybody is at home breathing freely i have to speak just to voice my personal opinion about masks in the school districts i i like many
068of the stakeholders in our district i am frustrated with governor cuomo's executive orders that continue to force individuals in schools and medical offices to wear masks yet he lifted the mandate for all commercial and social settings the week before his daughter was married so for that i can't remain silent i just want to bring out some information that was shared with me by our former board calling mr lawson air who sent me an article from townhall.com on june 16th that provided uh some disturbing new information about mass that i thought was worth sharing with our our board took and i know that right now we have to follow the governor's mandates i'm not expecting that to change but i personally can't just say nothing either to quote the article millions of people particularly children have
069been forced to wear and carry around pieces of cloth that they've continually breathed through for hours on end a group of florida parents sent a batch of these masks worn by their children to a lab to find out what lurking pathogens might be on these disgusting contraptions and these are the results bacteria parasites and fungi including alarmingly dangerous pathogens including different types of pneumonia tuberculosis meningitis sepsis keratitis amoebic encephalitis bloodstream infections antibiotic resistant urinary tract infections food poisoning diphtheria legionnaires disease acne yeast infection strep throat periodontal disease and more and this does not begin to touch upon the lowered oxygen levels and the danger that poses to the human body as a result of the mask or take into consideration the suffering that it causes especially in the extreme heat or lack of being able
070to read lips or see facial expressions when engaging in communications with one another see i have a friend who is hearing impaired and he has relied on reading lips and he's been estranged from other human contact a lot during this pandemic not to mention that i i had a personal experience i broke my back and five ribs excuse me four my back and four places and a rib near my lungs which required me to wear a mask during physical therapy sometimes it's hard to catch your own breath but anyway then i think about our students our teachers our staff and bus drivers who suffer with asthma copd and so many other ailments and how are these masks being disposed of we see them all over and that is not our our school district has the
071utmost sanitary hygienic standards as you can see from this room every spot of this room is shining but in society in general how are they being disposed of we see them all over parking lots on sides of the roads in regular garbage cans onondaga county is submitting these used masks to a syracuse laboratory to review inspect and analyze and they'll be presenting their findings when they become available so i'm pleased to say that about two weeks ago the arizona governor signed an executive order banning schools i'm just about done rose i'm sorry to ban them from schools but the reason i bring this up is let us not forget the many students who participate in summer educational programs there's no air conditioning in one of our schools nor on many of the school buses i
072recently saw a photograph online that showed the temperature on a local school bus reached 113 degrees during the heat wave that we had two weeks ago and how safe is that for the driver and the children so new york state senator rob orr and assemblyman will barclay released a statement stating that governor cuomo and other leaders may be content to ignore pleas from children parents and school districts but these two representatives along with our local senator mike martucci assemblyman colin schmidt there and others they're raising their voices in albany to insist um on unmasking our children now um and it goes i could go on but an artsy mom said said a thought in my head she asked if you would muzzle your dog for an entire day um and that's food for thought new
073jersey has um and other states have lifted guidance and i know this isn't anything our board can lift now but i couldn't sit and say nothing so thank you thank you mr gomez thank you mr president i just want to bri i mentioned something i mentioned several sessions ago now that we are moving hopefully back to a normalcy away from the the painful pandemic era i do encourage our board to look at through the the different grants that may be out there available to give our children our students the opportunity to discover america right here in our backyard we have so much in the middletown community in the hudson valley where they could live and learn our history right here in middletown the underground railroad ran through middletown and there are landmarks there our kids
074can look and explore we have president rose franklin roosevelt's home hyde park which is undergoing recently won the win renovations and that'll be a great place to visit where they could also relive the rise of one of our greatest president of the last century and so many other places they could go in right now in the city of middletown all the additional park lands or on the reservoir they could describe discover nature so i do encourage our administration as it looks into different grants let's make it possible for the future for our kids to be able to go on on school trips or maybe even have an honest problem in our academy where they might explore maybe during the summer session these different locations and learn and become enriched with our country's heritage be it
075from a historical perspective or even from nature some something some foods were thought thank you sir mr perrino thank you and the middletown historical society is independent jerry yeah yes among others you know put that timer on guys again we i'm going to discipline myself here this year and i hope everybody else would too but it's up to them got it okay here we go the um you know i was so gratified how quickly this district has come back there were so many programs we talked about graduation but there were other programs too i'm going to cover a couple of those stem night program yes sir norv o'connell always does a great job on organizing that stem cell program the scholarship the scholarship evening again lauren and courtney cyrus on on this and you know
076our students were awarded 1 million 438 000 in scholarships plus so a great job by everybody who contributed on scholarships and a great job in organization another positive event honor society introductions at the high school and elementary schools at the high school mrs yourman's mrs youngham's the advisers it was again nicely done the the president of the the senior the kyla diggs the president senior class who will be attending cortland and you know our students are attending the finest colleges in the united states if you go over you see a display of where the students are attending so congratulations to all of them on the elementary level brian larry and at carter elementary school and raji larry presidential elementary school did a very nice job as a matter of fact presidential was out on the
077in the courtyard which is a great place positive events the maple hill when the schools were just open the production of the aristocrat aristocats uh many people responsible for this director i want to give a shout out john dunleavy uh the assistant director christopher mineri minari the production assistant camilo martinez camille martinez stage manager suzanne voight they worked very hard on this and one member missy perner she made the various costumes and mass that was very good so i'm getting out of time i'm going to stop right there as i said i want to uh i'll continue at the next uh meeting thank you thank you sir mrs mr bison nothing thank you sir mr c you said you want to reserve for later no no i'm gonna pass thank you all right um give
078me four minutes give me twenty hey there you go you're buying into that i brought into it a long time ago but we never followed it you never followed it that's the problem i'm gonna i'm i'm voting a lot that's right that's why i mentioned it but i'm gonna i'm not buying the formula so first of all let me say come down to the end of this school year uh uh we've we've come through a lot of stuff this past year and a half and as we are moving back to a sense of normalcy i do want to make sure that we understand that we don't want to go we want to have a sense of normalcy but we don't want to go back to normal and complete because there's been so many things that
079have happened in this past year that i think we ought to make sure that we learned the lesson from the tests that we have experienced there have been so many wonderful individuals in this past year that have been instrumental in making sure that these graduates that we celebrated on last thursday and friday got there as well as so many of our other students who were able to move forward teachers teachers of course administrators of course but so much of our support staff psychologists and counselors and uh and and and i'll say and i'll say uh attendance officers and uh and crisis interventionists and so i uh our student supports team i think that it's it would be remiss if we did not um acknowledge them and making sure uh that the teamwork was making the
080dream work and so uh we applaud them and so as we're moving forward into this new year i want to i want us to be aware that many of our children are coming back still traumatized from the from the events of this past two years and it's it's incumbent on all of us whoever we are to operate with the uh the utmost com sense of compassion in dealing with them there's going to be behavior issues and so many other things that we're going to have to deal with but we must operate with a sense of compassion and not hold them to an old normal but to begin to move into a new normal so that we will continue to grow and and and that they will have the opportunity to be able to mature as
081to as to other statements i do absolutely agree with comments that were made earlier that that the critical race theory and the idea of it is a it's a political dog whistle that i would hope that we would keep out of um uh my colleague my colleague mentioned uh has mentioned uh equality and and and it's a wonderful it's a wonderful word and and again this is not this is not to this is not an attack i don't want anyone to ever think that is is to bring clarity to bring clarity from it from experience um uh we can be all we can be as much book knowledge as much as we want but experience is really a wonderful teacher um to bring bring clarity to experience is is that when dr martin luther king
082talked of equality he was talking of a dream and a hope that he had for the future but we got to understand that there can never be equality until there's equity um as long as one as long as as one group of people or multiple groups of people are are are being disenfranchised and uh and and held down and held back there can never be equality until there is equity until we all have the opportunity to be able to uh to now have an equitable start and an equitable outcome the experience of my life is that i fought harder i fought harder and did not have the ability to be able to have an equitable outcome i achieved but i had to fight and so for our children as they're going forward i think that's
083what we want to make sure that we when we look at it yes we want equality and it's a dream it's a dream it has not been achieved racism is still well alive in this country and in this world and until we begin to look at things from the perspective of those who have been disenfranchised we will never really understand what it is to be equal that's my comments thank you i think i made it right a few seconds afterwards thank you um uh uh motion motion for a german moved and seconded second any discussion no all in favor opposed thank you everybody our next board meeting will be july 22nd 22nd uh thank you so much have a wonderful evening you