Middletown City School Board Meeting 11-05-2020

001good evening everybody we'd like to welcome you to firstly our november 5th 2020 uh public hearing for our district safety plan we call that portion of our meeting tonight to order and we're going to ask mr bison if she would lead us in the pledge of allegiance please thank you mr bison um this is just our public hearing session we're gonna uh we're gonna be coming moving into our regular meeting momentarily uh roll call please mrs clarke here thank you mrs clark well let's move on to a presentation tonight for our district safety plan i'm going to ask mr bartlett uh mr zapka and mr tuttle to take it take it from here how are you i guess no one else is here but me here they come come on thank you pastor williams um

002board members mr del maro amy creeden um tonight we're here to present um probably for the first time we've had to do this as a new state mandate uh need to have a public hearing about our district-wide safety plan however we've been doing the safety plan um since 2001 we've had a plan for each building and a district-wide plan um so what we're doing now is just presenting to the public that we actually have a plan and that they can where you can see the plan and review it so the purpose for us is to keep amending what's been established in 2001 and then annually identify changes and procedures as i said as a state mandate to hold a public hearing uh so we're doing that now um and due to the covid and stuff

003we've had some challenges getting uh some meetings together so um and then also to notify stakeholders of the plan and where it exists so to get the plan access we have it up on the middletown city schools website up on the site it's a redacted plan simply because we don't want to give out information to anybody reviewing it to any specifics about our plan phone numbers and things like that so we do redact it if you would like to review the plan you can put a written request in and a staff member from the school district will sit down and meet with you to go over the plan so uh part sorry uh our committee representation consists of quite a few members from the community board of education central administration school administration uh union presidents

004and so forth we have police we have fire we actually have the fbi involved ems town of walk hill in the city of middletown and we also have student representation at the meetings are encouraged to attend um bill bartlett and frank and lenny zappa actually are co-chair of the committee so they hold it i think every periodically monthly or every other month i have meetings and so this year we have three significant changes one of them is opioids awareness with narcan training more training for nurses and staff in the buildings about opioid awareness and then each each nurse's office is to keep one narcan kit available at all times the other thing is pandemics we used to have in there just a flu pandemic clearly that's changed a little bit for us um over the

005past few months so we've changed the word flu just for flu pandemic to just pandemics and then we also have a district leveling monitoring and reporting and that's our nurse practitioner she does a lot of training of contagious diseases and surveillance procedures and really just making folks aware of um how to prevent illness and things like that and through this covid process she's been very helpful dealing with all these situations inside the district as far as our building level plans so this what we talked about was our district-wide plan each building does have their own plan that they submit to the state that's not something we review or have posted on the website that's just something we submit in a portal and really what what's involved in the plan our phone numbers you know what

006do you do in an emergency um call the police you call fire so it just really goes through all the steps that you could possibly have in an emergency um and it just outlines and it gives you a nice repository for all that information so it really gets the building and the principles thinking about the health and safety of their building one of the things that's very important is the safety plans should be very confidential and the reason for that is so folks outside who are trying to cause harm to the district or anything like that don't have access to the plan or know what you're going to do if there is an emergency or how to access the building in case they do want to get in so so that's really it for us

007for the public hearing we just wanted to make the community and the stakeholders aware that there's a plan and that if you do need to review it you can put a written request in and come sit with us and review the plan so i don't know if you guys want to add any comments okay okay is there any questions from the board um are there any questions anybody have questions no no no questions just just a quick statement um thank you thank you for that presentation um tonight i think it's important for everybody to understand this is something that when we had the swatting issues a few years back was really in play is that while a lot of the community uh wanted to know what the plan was there were certain things that we

008just could not talk about when you got to the end where it says it talks about the confidentiality of the plan because that the allowing certain parts of that plan to become public now allow those who would do harm or who might be planning to do harm the opportunity to know how things how things work on with inside the system so um i just wanted to make that clear that's why that's why we had to do it and it cost a little bit of friction at times but uh there has to be a certain level of trust that comes as we move on so but guys thank you so much for your you know well you know he they they they said they didn't want to say nothing they're being silent tonight they say they're

009talking john john has something to say okay now we have regular meetings safety and security committee and lenny facilitates the meetings the director of security and as president williams mentioned and mr tuttle mentioned there are representatives from the various agencies and we cannot give all the information as was mentioned on what we are doing so be aware though that we're on safety and security we're very big on this in the district thank you good thank you um there's a place in here for public comments and so i want to i want to leave that opening if any public comments anybody for this particular portion of the meeting if not then i will i will entertain a motion for german of this public hearing shall move all in favor aye opposed thank you you now call

010to order the regular meeting of the large city school district of middletown our november 5th 2020 meeting um i'm going to ask mr crucinzo if he would lead us in the pledge allegiance at this time and after that i'm going to ask you if you please remain standing for a moment of silence please i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you mr speaker for a moment of silence thank you we have two moments of silence this evening the first moment of science for mr edward benedict godwin board of education member and board president he also served the community as a member of the ethics board also on the middletown psychiatric

011center board and president of the thrall library board very uh prominent in his church he served the church as a member of our lady of the lord's parish his elector and eucharistic minister saint joseph's church in orange regional medical center also a member of the saint columbus church in columbus church in fort myers florida served his country a veteran stationed in stuttgart germany ed was also a president of the orange county community college suny orange board of association president faculty association president he was a professor of english for 35 years at suny orange he specializes in shakespeare philosophy and british literature very well known in the community and a lifelong member of the national education association the next moment of science is it's particularly tough kaden green fourth grade student at maple hill passed away

012on his 10th birthday teachers loved working with him when he was physically able to engage in school he also engaged in school from his hospital bed he was a happy smiling and brought a true ray of sunshine into the virtual classroom i spoke to the principal of maple hill suzanne driscoll about caden and i just like to quote one sentence from the note mr jusko sent me kaiden will be remembered by his teachers classmates and all who knew him as a kid who brought out the best in everyone around him and made the best of even the most difficult situations he was truly a gift to all who had the pleasure of knowing him so please remember mr godwin and caden greene in your thoughts and prayers i would just like to add to the

013silent moment in regards to caden because speaking to a few of his teachers as well as his principal regarding this child's constant smile even from a hospital bed when he was learning synchronously in a remote environment and his debilitating disease did not hinder his heart and his desire to learn and what was most interesting how he without realizing it was a significant motivating factor in motivating the children to continue to learn even under the challenges or discomforts that they were experiencing certainly didn't measure up to anything that kaden was experiencing and the passing of any loved one is devastating very emotionally for all of us you can only imagine the feelings of parents when they lose a young child let us really remember him and his memory will be in his classmates and his teachers

014and administrators at maple hill for a long long time thank you and i just want to add to this particular moment of silence as well cadence family long-time members of my home church that my pastor my father pastored for uh nearly 54 years i had the privilege of serving as one of the pastors for his family and have known him since he was a child kaiden was a special special special child they must children they were all in the same sunday school class together and caden was a he was a child who had more of a sense of faith than most adults have and so from the perspective of a pastor he was inspiring he was inspiring he loved to sing he loved to pray and he loved to try to make everybody around him

015a better person and so uh since i am the pastor and and maybe it's not proper to do so but i will say this that word the scriptures do say to be absent from the body is to be present with the lord so we celebrate his life we celebrate the gift that he leaves behind he never he his his body might have expired but his presence and his soul lives on thank you moving on uh mission of the enlarged city school district of middletown mr carino please thank you president williams 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 productive competitive members of society thank you

016thank you sir uh roll call mrs clarke both of the williams are here tonight uh thank you mrs clark um i need to i will entertain a motion for the approval of our agenda tonight [Music] moved and seconded any discussion all in favor opposed so passes uh entertain a motion for the approval of our regular minutes from our october 15 2020 meeting moved and seconded any discussion all in favor opposed so passes entertain a motion for the approval of our special meetings minutes from our october 22nd 2020 meeting [Music] moved and seconded any discussion all in favor opposed so passes thank you uh i i want to take opportunity uh at this particular point and uh uh i'm just gonna take my mask off for a minute while i'm speaking uh you'll see in the

017agenda this there is a statement from the president of the board um this is not something that we have done before but i thought that in light of some of the things that were going on that are going on and some of the direction that we're going that periodically this would be something that we would add to to the agenda i firstly want to welcome everybody that is here tonight i want to welcome everybody that has been coming to our meetings we made it we wanted to make uh we wanted to get to the place where we could get back to in-person board meetings because zoom was only so good and we needed to have the opportunity so that you all would have an opportunity to be able to come to the meetings as well

018as as speak i want to state first of all that as we go forward in this meeting you will see that there's an opportunity to address the board the events of the last meeting uh to me and i did not go over with my fellow board members what i was going to say tonight was very unfortunate and and i bear responsibility as the president of such but we can't have it happen again there must be there must be a mutual respect does not mean that we need to agree does not mean that we don't need to say what we need to say but there must be a mutual respect or else there cannot be any solutions or answers to any of the things that we have to all face i made a statement about both

019sides of the table i want to recant that statement and take that statement back because even though it seems as though there's two sides of the table the truth of the matter is is that we're all in the same room right now and many of us are dealing with many of the same issues and we have many different perspectives my hope is is that as we move forward that we can handle most of these perspectives with respect to each other that we can that we can move forward whether we agree or whether we disagree whether we come to the same solutions or the same conclusions respect must be adhered to to fall into place of disrespect brings anarchy that i and maybe that's not even the right word but um i have lived my life

020by being respectful of other individuals respectful of everybody's thoughts and so i want to make it perfectly clear and this is not for this is not for any one individual i does not doesn't matter this is for everybody this is a a public meeting public business meeting that is held in public um the opportunities to address the board are are a courtesy that is extended that is not law there's no there's no law that states that we do that but we set it and we we offer the opportunities to address the board because we sincerely want to be welcoming we sincerely want to hear the voices of every person that has an issue and even if you don't have an issue we want to have that opportunity just to board we stated last time that

021there would not be any dialogue back and forth because this is the opportunity for you to speak and for us to listen and then we will address later and we will come back and we will and we will we will reason together mr crescenzo i want to state this mr cressington is the time keeper and he's been appointed so by myself as the president of the board to do so which means that he does have the authority which was in question last time he does have the authority to raise those things i offered the opportunity the last time of grace because i knew that we were dealing with a lot of different things and and to offer that opportunity of grace for everyone to have ample time to be able to express themselves uh i'll

022continue to do so to an extent you have four minutes to to speak with a minute of grace and and and therefore but i i i i will not allow it to fall into another place of disarray of yelling from any of us board members or public we it's just it doesn't work for any of us it doesn't work for any of us so i i want to on behalf of myself i want to publicly apologize to the public that watched that craziness three weeks ago one of the reasons that i got involved in this on this board was because that had become the norm in this district and i could no longer sit around and just watch intelligent people act foolish maybe i'm not the most politically correct person most the time but it

023caused me to make a decision that i needed to get involved because my children were watching our children were watching our young people were watching that meeting last week and i asked myself what kind of example are we making to our young people so so i i wanted to make this statement because i think that we are too intelligent we're too smart we've gone through a lot of ups and downs in this district and we probably will continue to go through some ups and downs but i sincerely believe that we will we will succeed that we will win together i sincerely believe that i sincerely believe that everybody that is here is here because they want to be and so uh tonight what you will hear is and i made that statement in in response

024to our last meeting three weeks ago uh however when i get up to to make these statements in the future it will be to give you a preview of what our meeting will hold tonight our superintendents report uh well and and from henceforth each superintendent will be reports on the state of different aspects of our district the progress that we're making in different areas and or lack thereof we will be hearing from various individuals within our district that are key players in making sure that things are continually moving the voices will not just be the voices of the superintendent but all of those that are involved in this district and so tonight um i i want you to kind of gear yourself to hear from uh hear from some key individuals in this district uh

025that are making things happen so we don't have the opportunity i'm going to say this last i was trying to i was being real reluctant to say this but i'm going to say i'm going to say it i'm going to say it because i think it's important to be known that that um we don't have the opportunity to go on social media and and and go back and forth and do all the different stuff we don't do all of that um and so we have our meetings only every two or three weeks and so while we are as a board while we represent the district we really represent the community and and uh we represent each and every one of you and so that does not mean that anybody here in this room deserves to

026be talked to crazy called out their name disrespected you can only get hit so many times before you before you i said in the back room i'm a pastor but that scripture that says turn the other cheek i'm still working on so i'm i'm i'm i'm i'm i'm perfecting it i'm working on it as we all are but let's stay together let's stay together we don't have to agree all the time let's let's if we disagree let's disagree agreeably and we'll find a way to get through this and find a solution to all of our issues as we go forward that was my that was my initial statement for tonight um thank you for bearing with me but i did want to make sure that you that you understood [Applause] okay so so just just

027so you know that the opportunity to address will be before the superintendent's report thank you uh the opportunity to address will be before the superintendent's report so that way those of you that have to leave um will be able to do so um and we do understand we've got got a lot of things to do uh so uh but we do want to make sure that you do have the opportunities and that you are welcome you are welcome i i don't i can't i can't say that enough we want we want to hear we want to hear that's why the opportunity is there but we we still must we still must um respect the grace that is given for all of us including me i have to respect it as well um tonight i also

028want to introduce miss suarez she's sitting at the end of the table she is our interpreter for anybody that needs an interpreter tonight uh moving forward we're going to try to make sure that we have an interpreter available at the majority of our meetings so that anybody that comes that needs that particular service will have it thank you miss juarez for being here tonight we appreciate you my pleasure being here yes lastly thank you lastly um in in the fireworks last week uh fireworks last week what what we missed was um the passing of our resolution the board spent many hours many hours sitting together um discussing debating um how we were going to draft this resolution so that it would be um a document that would set the tone for what our expectations are

029moving forward for this district uh we voted on it unanimously on the at the last meeting did not want it to be a vote that was only partial because this needed to be unanimous so that everyone would know that this entire board stands in unity together uh behind the words the statement and the actions that will come out of this particular uh resolution so if you will bear with me just a few more minutes i'm going to read this resolution the enlarged city school district of middletown board of education resolution condemning racism and affirming our commitment to an inclusive school environment for all whereas the board of education of the enlarged city school district of middletown is saddened by and condemns any events which demonstrate the racism prejudice and injustice that exists in our country

030we also recognize words are just rhetoric until they are turned into action and whereas racism intolerance discrimination or any form of hate have no place in our schools or our society and whereas we must protect constitutional rights of every person in our nation and whereas we will be empathetic and seek to understand those who have endured discrimination and intolerance as they share their experience and feelings and whereas we will continue to work to engage our community in meaningful dialogue about the importance of equity and partner with those committed to helping meet the needs of all students and whereas each of us individually and collectively has a responsibility for creating and nurturing an environment that stands against racism where every child is respected and valued for who they are as a school district we will follow

031the new york state education department's learning expectations standards we will continue to review our curriculum to ensure it portrays an accurate account of the oppression of all marginalized groups but even more so the significant accomplishments and the contributions of all those who have positively impacted our nation and the world and whereas the enlarged city school district of middletown is committed to modeling acceptance of all people as we work toward our vision of being an innovative community where caring relationships and authentic learning inspire all students and whereas we will continue to learn we will seek the perspective of our students of color and our families who may have been overlooked by our society our community and our school district our school district can be and will be a place of safety in our community and a

032beacon of light for other school districts and communities as we build stre and strengthen trust with those we serve therefore therefore be it resolved that we the members of the enlarged city school district of middletown board of education stand steadfast in our commitment to foster an inclusive environment where every student teacher support professional parent and community member and i want to add an addendum to this which we will vote on at the next meeting which will be administrators we don't want to miss anybody a community member is treated with dignity and respect and is empowered to continue fighting for racial justice and human and civil rights for all can i get an eye from the board members please thank you that is signed it is voted on it is signed by uh every one of

033our school board members as well as we're having a copy that will be signed in support from our central administration uh thank you i'm done with my statement pastor i don't preach this i don't preach this long on sunday so we're good president williams yes uh mr lawson air was absent that meeting so his name is not on the uh yes so i just heard you say we're going to vote again with the uh adding the event so that would cover that yes sir okay yes sir mr lassener was absent that meeting but he did send his he did send his verbal support and so what we will do at the next meeting is we will we will vote on the on the addition of that one word uh to make sure that we include

034everybody we don't want to miss uh any of our any of our staff any of our any of these wonderful people that sit here as and and that way uh his name will be added to the final count thank you i'm moving on real quick personal action items approval of personal memorandum 13a administrative may i have a motion please moved and seconded any discussion all in favor opposed so passes if there is no no objection we will uh combine our personal memorandum 13b instructional and our personal memorandum 13c non-instructional together may have a motion please moved and seconded any discussion all in favor opposed it so passes um quickly community community reports uh uh committee reports i'm sorry community reports committee reports uh buildings and ground committee turn you in the hands of our our

035former former president and senior board member mr perino thank you president williams about a week and a half ago our committee met and with bill bartlett director of facilities and there were two things done at that meeting number one mr bartlett went over the projects going on in the district and believe me with mr bartlett and mr tom scott they're going to be we're going to bring those projects the high school the new high school cafe and the new high school media center and some other projects some other maybe very important projects but not as expensive as that to a very successful conclusion the second part of the meeting the sanitation of the buildings and the disinfecting of the buildings was discussed and we have a video on that before we do that we have

036members of our custodial and buildings and ground staff here tonight who made the visit the video and participated in it and i would just like to give all these fellas all the buildings and grounds staff and custodial staff a great deal of credit these men and women are our first responders they were here at the height of the covert epidemic they're here when people are home and the inclement weather they come in and they do the get the area ready for school if not the the next for school the next day very hard working group of people they all deserve our respect and sometimes they hear they're not getting respect from various members of this district and that's a shame if you're angry at members of the board or board decisions don't scapegoat the custodial

037staff if you see you come in and you see a bit of uh dust in your room tell the custodians you don't have to you don't have to uh put in a grievance on that i taught almost 40 years in this district we used to run almost or more students through the media center a day if for example i came in and the carpet didn't look quite clean i said hey guys can you hit that carpet a little harder that's all you have to do is nobody better than anyone else in this district they're all doing different jobs and they're all valued and these fellows standing up here and the the other people in the buildings and grounds and staff they're very valuable and important in employees believe me now uh mr bartlett's going to

038introduce these people and then we'll have that very short videotape because i've been asked about this by members of the community on sanitizing and disinfecting the buildings thanks bill go ahead thank you mr purino president williams superintendent del morro vice president tobias and the rest of the board as well as the district administration we i appreciate this opportunity to be here tonight one of the things i wanted to point out was i started on august 24th and when i got here this program was already in place and i was very impressed with what they had accomplished over the summer and i wanted to point that out um mr preno gave me that opportunity we talked about that that day at the meeting and he suggested we come here tonight and share this with you i

039wanted to mention uh two things about it one i'll introduce our staff in just a moment but i also wanted to point out too we have a a written program it's a pictorial it gives all the instructions and this is used by our staff on a daily basis so they have this as a reference so they always know the program and the sequencing and it's been very beneficial this three-minute video you're about to see is a a portion of a 11-minute video that we've used for training with our district with our our staff members and what i want to point out to you is is just the work that they did and really it's these guys right here um it was the vision of our our assistant superintendents of buildings and grounds peter wilcox and

040was directed by director of facilities directed and written by director facilities paul norton and store clerk mike wagner it was demonstrated by custodians lydel henderson from presidential park had custodian jeff abramo owitz of twin towers had custodian larkin gear of the middle high school it was narrated narrated by head custodian joseph smith and it was edited and filmed by it tech brian c back so these are the people that were responsible for this and we'll take time now to show it to you welcome to the middletown city schools disinfecting training video what you're about to see are two of our highly trained custodians demonstrating one of our cleaning and disinfection procedures here we are cleaning and disinfecting the classroom door glass [Music] after the door glass move on to the teacher and student desktop procedure

041using the pulse system [Music] the employee frequently removes soil pads and replaces them with fresh ones you see here they are cleaning and disinfecting the doors file cabinets window sills [Music] and any other flat surface using disinfecting wipes and changing them regularly white door frames door handles [Music] phones light switches and any student cubbies then move on to all touchable cabinet and drawer handles [Music] shave pull chains and window handles [Music] here you'll see the employee wiping the teacher's desk and filo cabinet drawer [Music] pulls [Music] do then wipe down all student desk cubbies and chairs misting after cleaning will ensure proper chemical contact time [Music] [Applause] so any board members have any questions on this and i'd just like to point out the the members of the committee president williams nicole houston a barber

042cure from the uh our nurse practitioner at the high school and who else john i think in myself that's the committee yeah and just uh just one added item i i've heard that and i don't know this because i don't do facebook but uh people say we get we're sitting here and we're getting paid for nothing first of all we don't get paid at all okay let's make that clear we get nothing the second thing is that we have committee assignments we have conferences to go to we review documents on on and on so i just wanted to clear that up and i want to thank all the fellows for being here tonight and mr bartlett for facilitating this and thanks for all the work you do any questions i do i have one thing

043we want to recognize this this is a a very very important message here to everyone out in the community in our school community as well that we value everyone that's in our buildings all of the time and sometimes we overlook all of our support staff and do not always recognize the height of all what they do and we just saw another small segment of our custodial staff they're keeping our buildings safe and clean and disinfected and they are really troopers in going well beyond but tonight it is with great pleasure and gratitude that we recognize the connection that our staff has beyond just their role and responsibility whatever title they have a child in this building eating lunch recently began to choke from the food that was consumed and mr henderson who's sitting standing up

044there on the wall said to himself react immediately and he jumped in and provided the hammock movement and disenlarged that food item in that child's throat who could have been seriously injured we don't even want to think of what could have happened but because of his immediate reaction well beyond not looking for anyone jumped in and took care of what he believed a life-threatening issue is beyond anyone's gratitude but a huge thank you i know lydell for a number of years and regardless of where he works or from whom he's assigned to he is a dedicated individual that really takes pride in his work but more importantly here's an exemplary employee that goes well beyond his responsibilities and we want to thank you and recognize you and i'm sure the family has contacted you because

045they would be very thankful to and thank you very much for being lydell thank you [Applause] know me i don't do this and you know um i would just like to thank everybody here for this award and i'm truly blessed to be working for the middletown school district as everybody know me i've been here for a while i ain't gonna say how long john but we we grew up together yeah we grew up together keep it like that i was six years old when i knew you [Music] but i will say this um the administration staff here that that i have worked with for many years and the leadership that's up here now truly been blessed my family been blessed worked with a beautiful staff here my co-workers uh building ground staff but i just

046want to say about presidential park teachers there's much love here and the love that they give me the love that the middletown school district gave me i just give it right back so in the time of need that uh that any that i can help that's what i'm here for so i just want to thank you for this award and appreciate this time for being here and i want to thank everybody here for um for the applause but uh it's a great day good job good job thank you thank you thank you guys we greatly appreciate all of you is that joe's voice on the video yeah i thought that's the next radio personality i think so i think so that's joe's voice that's the next darth vader uh moving on moving on in our

047committee committee reports real quick um we had the opportunity to uh this time of year is always nisba new york state school board association conference of course this this time it was virtual uh myself mr crescenzo and of course our representative to the to nisba uh mrs blumenau we had the opportunity to attend virtually and so uh we just have to give a quick recap i'm going to turn it into the hands of mrs bloomer now and then mr crescenzo and i'm not going to say too much you guys got it i'm just going to take my mask off because it's an opportunity for me to breathe for a minute um we um the three of us attended virtually the nisba conference over the past this past week which ended on saturday afternoon with the

048business meeting which is um this was done it it actually incredible um and did anybody did you were you able to log on and watch it um three hours about three hours um with um over 200 representatives of school board school board representatives who were there from uh you know all over new york um our our goal was to pass and discuss proposed resolutions that become our new york state school board initiatives for legislation which which really is what we as school board members want to see happen at the state level we advocate our school board members advocate to new york state school boards who go and advocate on our behalf at um at the legislature so that was um that was my role and i'll talk a little bit about my role um and

049our school district uh we there was um you know many resolutions they are public if you want to take a look at all of the many resolutions that focused around equity and education in communication in technology making sure that we're bringing the right messages so really a good good good group of resolutions this year our school board actually improved two of the resolutions we we had two we had discussed them last week we created two amendments both of those amendments were adopted and they ultimately the resolutions were passed so that was uh that was i think for i think that it what it what it says to me as a school board member is what when we see things come we read we we're really careful we we digest it and then we try to

050make it better we try to make sure that it's really meeting the need and that and many school districts do that they bring it to um you know bring it to the floor for adoption for the amendments to be adopted so that makes the resolution a little bit tighter a little bit you know better and mostly really focusing in on the cost of getting things done so that it doesn't fall on our taxpayers and our communities so uh that was um that was my part i did um i was able to get on to a few of the um a few of the you know all it's three days all day long but they are recorded so we'll be able to go back and um and view those like you know in a normal amount

051of time and also share um share information but i know that um mr cresenza will talk about the the sessions that he he attended and um and pastor williams as well thank you all right just as a little bit of a side note obviously this convention dealt with school boards and our issues and what have you um i taught at boces for 36 years and in 12 of those years i was president of my teachers union and we go we went to the new york state united teachers conventions every year and it's really amazing how similar the concerns are i mean there were differences obviously here and there but the goal was for the common good of the students and maybe under the category of tmi the off hours were a little bit better with

052the teachers union than it was with the school board but anyway um there must have been i don't know two dozen or more more than that uh sessions there were too many that you couldn't do them all so i attended about uh i guess about eight of them um but the downside of it was that the convention is like 2500 people there maybe or 2 000 there were 740 districts in the state and it was really a good time to network you could meet people from the finger lakes and all over the place and one of the things this is i don't know my fourth or fifth or sixth convention i always left there feeling pretty good because when you start comparing notes with other districts we're way ahead of the curve and talking to

053some people oh middletown you guys did this you guys did that how did you do it you know so we missed that this year because it was virtual and you couldn't get to talk with the other members so one of the workshops i went to was about school school boards how school boards operate and the presenter was from the tarrytown school district and one of the things i got from it is at the beginning of the board meeting they put a flyer out on the table for anybody you know obviously to pick up and you should pick it up and look at it so i kind of copied it and adopted it to our district so on the front is uh welcoming you to the school board in the district's website address is there and

054when you open it up open it up inside will be uh welcome to the board meeting and it tells you i'm not going to read this uh tells you what to expect at the board meeting what we do here what our roles are and what have you and then what is the board of education composed of nine our board of education is composed of nine members each serving a three-year term the board is the official policy-making body of the school district among among other responsibilities the board develops the annual budget and the vetting and hiring process of the district superintendent and included in here which i think is one of the more important parts of this all the board members when our terms expired and their email address um you know we talk with people

055in shop right and what have you but if you have questions or whatever use these email addresses we will bring your concerns when have you back to the board we're not going to dialogue as we we don't do with the opportunity to address but we'll know your concerns and we'll bring them back to the board and we'll discuss them in public so that is good and the other part of it on the back is our mission statement and over here are the opportunities the opportunity to address the board and it's a list of what to expect um and again i'm not going to read this part of it so my hope is that the board will approve this and it will become a common feature sitting on the table over there and on the bottom

056this one particular one is an area that says building the budget that's coming up very soon and then we can change this as things change topics change whatever in the district but it's a good source of information a real go-to document um in the coming weeks i'll talk about other workshops that i attended and it was a very worthwhile experience and it was kind of a break to do it from home because this time was supposed to be new york city and it gets really really hectic but it was incredibly well done they adapted adapted very well to the current situation thank you so i'll wrap it up just by saying by saying this about this about this meeting for those of you who don't understand everyone that's watching uh doesn't understand what nisba is

057about this but is an opportunity also for many of us that tend to go and to educate ourselves as well it's an opportunity for us to continue to learn and to grow to be able to talk with others that are on school boards from all over the state and so there were many great opportunities to learn during this time and we have the opportunity because of virtual to be able to go back and review and to look and to bring this information and these opportunities back to the rest of the board members so that we can all grow collectively the one highlight that i do want to point out real quick was was the opening the opening keynote speakers uh for that uh for that for this particular conference i was excited upon hearing uh

058that they would be the keynote speakers but if anybody has ever read the book the pact the pact is a book that speaks of three african-american males who grew up in newark new jersey and made a pact together that they would both succeed and all become doctors all three of them have succeeded and become doctors and their story is a story of great success it's a story of of great triumph um growing up in the inner city of newark new jersey i had the opportunity to meet these gentlemen about 10 years ago and uh and and have over the years had the opportunity to periodically talk with them and so uh that particular session was exciting to me and so many other sessions so i i would that i'll leave it there we'll be sharing

059with the rest of the board um the the the rest of the sessions that uh occurred during that particular meeting but i promise you any of the board members if you've never been to one of the if you've never been to one of these i would encourage you that sometime during your tenure here on this board that you um take the opportunity to go to to one of the one of the nisba conferences the the camaraderie the opportunity to learn and to grow um will radically change your view on many things and uh and so i want to encourage you take advantage of every opportunity that you get to learn and to grow thank you um if there's no objection can we can we in this in the interest of time tonight can we bypass

060recognition announcements and community reports is that all right john john has one thing please and then and then we'll move on thank you i'll start this off with a little story personal story my nephew robbie many many years ago i knew he was in a play at school or he was attending a an event so i said robbie what did you do today oh nothing that was his answer today he and his wife are successful attorneys in goshen he's also a prosecuting attorney so don't go speeding around goshen or on the highways around there because he doesn't he tells me he doesn't like to get up at one or two o'clock in the morning so that's it now i say this because at the last meeting the allegation was made that nothing was done for

061black history month in 2020 that is absolutely incorrect and uh fellas while i'm speaking about this could you flash those photos up and by the way the technology department has 9 000 chromebooks in service and they are about stressed to the limit they're doing an excellent job also so i'm going to focus on carter because that's uh that was said that nothing was done at carter so let me read and this doesn't come from now this was from the a year ago all right this was written a year ago or almost a year ago when this when the event occurred here it is students will read dr king's biography both in print and online with chromebooks scholars will visit the official website of the king museum based in atlanta georgia students will research online databases

062to learn facts about his life and times children will hear his voices and listen to podcasts with recordings of his famous speeches upper grades will complete timetables depicting key events in his life students will learn to identify the coretta scott king award which recognizes outstanding african-american authors and illustrators students will read and write biographies about dr king based on their research in the library as february approaches students will select another famous african-american to read and write about the biography section offers a wide selection for students to choose from student work will be displayed in the hallways along with posters expect depicting famous afro-americans from the past in modern times quotations from famous african-american authors leaders and educators will also be written and illustrated for display each class will also complete a dream quilt in response

063to literature the quilts will be displayed in the hallway so i'm not going over all these schools and everything that was done it's too time consuming but when your child or grandchild comes home and and you ask what did you do today in school and they say nothing that's kind of a common response with kids i've learned that over the years so you got to dig a little deeper so thank you i hope that cleared up any misconceptions that nothing was done for black history month last year there was something done there were many events in each of our buildings thank you president williams thank you so i think what we just saw is when they're talking about the um nba championship and they flash up the the um videos of the world series uh

064so that was that was one of our families the jansen family uh whose article was in uh the time serial record talking about their remote experience and and and uh encourage anybody you saw little pieces of that while i was up there uh go go find on record online and review the article it was a wonderful article we'll go over that next time yes sir we'll be quick thank you thank you so much mr perino um moving on we're going to have our opportunity to address the board and then after that will be the superintendent's report again you have four minutes you have four minutes mr mr uh c has the the the time um and you make up you may go sign in at the table please please your name on the on the

065list and and if i can just say um i don't know if i can get your attention but when you get to two minutes i'll put this up um one minute 30 seconds and time is up it's four minutes but i'm i'm i'm saying i'm not going to stop you in the middle of a sentence or in the middle of a thought but just keep in mind that uh we have a number of people that want to speak and it's going to be a very gentle uh it sounds like a phone ringing but it's not it'll be the the indication that time is up thank you good evening my name is sephora newsom i teach math in our transitional bilingual program at twin towers if you know me you know that i'm pretty tough i

066rarely take a day off i love mathematics but i love my students even more and i never miss an opportunity to advocate for their best interest i'm tough on them and i pride myself on pushing them further than they ever think they can go tonight i'd like to follow up for my brave colleagues who shared their hearts with you at our last public session i'm here tonight not because i don't have work to do or that i don't want to tuck my children into bed but in the spirit of the persistent widow seeking your compassion and justice in the same way that i pray without ceasing for a solution coronavirus has turned all of our lives upside down this september we knew there would be many problems but we showed up knowing that we were

067stronger together dedicated to serve the students of middletown a lot of the challenges we face are problems that are difficult to solve but today i want to speak about solutions on behalf of the teachers who are requesting and being denied medical accommodations this year i submitted a request for a medical accommodation that was denied for remote teaching the district contacted my physician who suggested that if i were to return to the classroom safely an n95 mass would be a suitable accommodation while there has been some communication i have been in the classroom through three weeks now with students and no masks i have talked to educational professionals who work in other districts and shared the details of the safeguards in their classrooms such as plexiglas polycarbonate partitions face shields even in areas such as the

068cafeteria while there have been communication regarding ppe there have been no suggestions or solutions that would enable remote teaching i would like to propose some solutions that we teachers were able to come up with it is unbelievable to me that districts are able to figure out a way to make this work and middletown cannot other districts are choosing to do the right thing and protect the most vulnerable among their teachers and staff i would like to make it clear that i'm not minimizing the work that essential workers do and take risks every day or suggesting that other staff members in the district aren't vulnerable and i'm not here to discuss or weigh in on whether school should be open or not i'm here to focus on teachers who are working because i am one of

069many teachers in middletown who has lost countless hours of sleep concerned for myself ourselves our families and our colleagues it seems that granting the accommodation of teaching remotely assumes a substitute teacher is needed subs while valuable are costly and difficult to find especially now and our students will ultimately suffer some disruption to their education this week i sent a letter to each member of the board suggesting some solutions and i'll wait anxiously for a response or feedback at your earliest convenience many of our teachers assistant security aides are part-time employees there are times when they are used to supervise children these district professionals could be offered additional hours to supervise the scholars of our vulnerables while they teach from an empty classroom or their homes this solution does not require the district to pay those

070professionals for their addition does require the district to pay those professionals for their additional hours there are several teaching positions in district that are non-instructable while possible where possible why not switch vulnerable teachers to a position that is not instructional does not directly interact with students daily or to a position tied to students that are fully remote this might not be possible for every teacher and will be subject to the positions that are available and if they qualify for them lastly we consider the number of the students in the building has decreased dramatically since families were given a choice to participate in remote learning some of the duties that teachers were previously given a supervisory now involve less children what if teachers could volunteer their duty similarly to or in conjunction with a study hall

071to supervise scholars of our vulnerables while they teach from an empty classroom or their homes this would require zero additional dollars students would not have to change their schedule other than location and they would not have to change teachers or have further disruption to their education however it would require the negotiation of a new duty description between our union president and the district superintendent last month steps were taken to protect all scholars by allowing their families a choice to keep them remote this week i heard some enl iis and push-in teachers will be working remotely as well i am grateful steps are being taken to protect them but i'm disappointed that there has been no progress communicated regarding protecting our vulnerables i know that the reality is i'm just a teacher here and my advice

072was not solicited on how to solve these problems but i do believe that i am a stakeholder and as a member of this community a teacher and a parent i hope that you may at least consider some solutions for the benefit of teachers who work hard in middletown every day and protect our most vulnerable i would like to thank you for the time that you took to listen to me tonight and all that you will continue to do to serve the community of middletown and our scholars each and every day thank you hello my name is maureen mcguckin i was one of those teachers who spoke last week last meeting i'm a teacher at twin towers who is immunosuppressed and therefore more likely to contract and suffer complications from covid with all that we've yet

073to discover about the virus i'm fearful of in-person teaching and i was requesting accommodation to teach from home my request and the request of other teachers like me were denied by the district um so i spoke at the last board meeting to explain my situation and i'm speaking now because it has not changed i would like to start by making clear to the community what we are asking for in our letters teachers are not requesting that the school be closed we are not requesting that all teachers teach from home we are requesting that vulnerable teachers like me about 30 people in a group of about 700 roughly 4 percent of the teaching staff be allowed the opportunity to teach remotely to limit exposure and protect our compromised health the tools i use to teach in

074my classroom right now are my chromebook and a whiteboard my chromebook is propped on a file cabinet in front of my whiteboard students log into our meet they have access to the slides for the day we talk and reason out concepts while i go through the slides with them and take notes on the whiteboard i take photos of the thoughts and as class is over i edit the slides to reflect what went on in the class hoping to provide the students with a useful reference to refer back to the focus is on making a connection encouraging the students to engage helping them feel supported and successful while delivering the content in a way that's relatable to them all this through a computer screen i miss in-person teaching i miss the way things were and though

075our situation is not ideal we are all making the best of it the thing is start to finish none of that will change when my in-person students arrive it will all look exactly the same except i will be wearing a mask while i teach online and the students who are in person will also be able to see the rest of me that's not always on the screen there's no circulating there's no group work paper exchanging conferencing none of the traditional classroom social learning practices can be applied unless they're through a digital format so i stand in the room with a few in-person students despite no difference in instruction and the district feels warranted to expose me to hundreds of others on a daily basis rather than to see me do my job safely from home

076i just don't understand it and to add to the fact that this decision allows families to choose remote or in-person instruction we have close to 50 percent of students that are opting for online although i have not had a meeting to discuss my denial i have heard second hand how other meetings have gone suggestions to solve our problems have been made by teachers and either turned down or ignored in some cases only later later to resurface again and suddenly seem acceptable in other situations for example right now the district is discussing adjustments in the enl and ais programs in regards to lowering exposure by allowing that extra push in teachers to teach remotely i get that this virus is the new way of life and it requires us to be flexible so every day new

077problems will arise that we have not yet developed protocol for but my problem is this other districts like ours newberg for example have figured this out and allowed their small population of vulnerable teachers to teach from home so what's the problem here i just don't get it in addition as a far bigger picture as far as the bigger picture is concerned i would like to point out that i teach sixth grade in the enriched math program at twin towers paul voitlin who is also seeking accommodations is teaching the seventh grade accelerated math program and our eighth grade accelerated math teacher has just gone out on leave replacing our collective experience with substitutes would leave quite a hole in the accelerated program for grade six through eight and would most definitely cause problems with our algebra

078program as it is not it is not that we do not want to work it is that we want the opportunity to work safely at this point no proper explanation has been given as to why the district is not allowing vulnerable teachers to teach from home while other districts have made the situation work and instead we've been provided with this response that sounds a bit more like a stern parent stating because i said so than a valid reason leaving me to feel that the district just has no desire to protect these vulnerable teachers my students are due to start on monday i would really love to continue to teach them to teach them i'm hoping that the district decides to let me rather than forcing me to take a leave of absence thank you [Applause]

079good evening uh president pastor williams vice president tobias and mr del morro ms scrutin mr tuttle and the rest of the board i feel compelled here tonight to speak on behalf of the members of the mta life as we all know in these past few months as evident through the political climate as well as the pandemic i think it's safe to say that everyone is stressed out everyone is on edge and we're like a powder keg ready to explode basically like we're an open nerve just waiting for something to set us off you know and the overarching thing for every single one of us is the safety for all staff administration staff to our children and to our community at large with all that working in concert and we try to navigate these feelings in

080our educational landscape which keeps shifting constantly and we have to make pivots and sometimes go in an opposite direction i think it's important to keep calm and level-headed as we try to make thoughtful decisions and i do want to speak about some of the issues that have been brought up in the past in these past few months since basically the shutdown and i want to talk about somewhat what my role is and when i'm dealing with the district all right so usually when i set up a monthly meeting with the district it can range on a myriad of topics i'll only keep it brief to some of the topics that people basically already know obviously the protection of our high risk members better and more timely communications coming from the district to the staff more

081teacher input there was a request for asynchronous days to create more robust hybrid lessons as well as changing the schedule to benefit not just the staff but the community at large to try to piece together and have some continuity for their children as well as for their jobs and in working with that and i have to tell you the district has always been very open when we sit down and we talk about those things and you know and i have to say though though not everything gets resolved that we talk about there have been some movements forward and there's been some positive changes uh to point i do want to recognize the district's move to using asynchronous days paired with the pd uh that's also paired with the new schedule that will be starting on

082the 16th uh that came out of the crest of the parents as well as from the mta so i was pleased with that and i just want to acknowledge that another big change that has happened to know that the district is working with is tabling the quarter one quarterlies which was i i recognized was a tough decision for the district to make but they did that on the benefit of the children who were struggling to make through that process and wanted to focus on their well-being in their education all right all these things happened from having a meeting with a district with the mta and also the community members as i'm sure and i know that it's a tough thing to do and these times are very like i said everyone is like a powder

083keg ready to explode i think it's very important that we always work together so even as we move forward and we navigate this ever-changing landscape as evidenced by the teachers here today in this room as well as those downstairs and those that are watching today it is not just a testament to what the dedication to their craft but to the district overall and to all the shareholders the administration the staff the community but most importantly for the children that we serve each day those kids know that they are coming into a stable environment regardless of what's going on on our level they know that when they come in and that is a testament to everyone so i feel moving forward that is vitally important to keep the lines of communication continuously open which it has

084been and i'm thankful and the overarching thing is that we will get through this together and by working together so thank you my name is paul johnson and as always i like to thank you for the opportunity to appear before you sometimes i come before you as a representative of city government being alderman of the third ward best award sorry um but tonight i just want to be a guy and i take that back i want to be an alumni of the board of education many people don't know because i've been around a long time not as long as john but i'm catching up i sat on this board from 1986 to 2003. so i was here for 17 years and now i've not been here for 17 years i watched your last meeting on

085youtube or whatever you guys would call it it was disheartening on a lot of levels i spoke with president williams about it since then but your educators and i'm offering you i'm going to offer you two what i call truisms every moment is the teachable moment if you choose to make it one and perception is reality and when we choose to be elected and sit at a table and be a policy maker that perception is the reality of the speaker and it's not really to be denied or to put aside although the methodology may be different in view of the last meeting and your new resolution regarding racism discrimination and unfair behavior i did share with pastor john i just finished reading a book called cast and i would recommend that each of you consider

086reading that as you move forward in your new resolution the author is wilkerson she's a black woman who was a time supporter puel surprise winner she chronicles america from then until now she also um draws parallels with the caste system in india and the third reich in nazi germany and the jim crow south what do i want to share with you about that book not the whole book but she reminds us that this relationship with the black community started i took a population that was minding their own business with their own life and social structure i did a transatlantic journey and they became a number in an auction book that's the country we live in that's how we started she reminds us that slave owners routinely impregnated black women slaves for a variety of reasons

087not the least of which was all the children born of that relationship were now newfound wealth and property a really cash crop how evil that's the country we live in she reminds us in the jim crow south that young black men were routinely accused of crimes they did not commit and they were lynched at a designated tree where the town watched and cheered other young black men were burned alive and the community watched and cheered that's the country we live in today she also tells the story of a young black boy who unfortunately for him wrote would be the equivalent of a grade school love note to a white classmate what happened to him he and his dad were marched to the local riverbank his hands and feet were tied he was thrown into the

088river to drown while his father watched that's the country we live in so when you look at black lives matter to me and i'm just a guy an alumni but a guy obviously today's world of black lives matter is kind of phrased with law enforcement and negative interactions with the black community but when i read a book like this it reminds me that for a very long time the message of our country was that black lives don't matter and that's the country we live in you know when a person is diagnosed with cancer we talk about systemic racism when a person is diagnosed with cancer they say well you know i have some bad news for you you do have cancer in your liver but it's now become systemic the bad cells have gone to

089all the other parts of your body and now we're going to have to treat you with something commonly referred to as chemotherapy we're going to put a bad chemical in your body because it has to go wherever these cells might be and you know what some good cells are going to get killed in the interim the process would be painful it might make you feel worse it's going to be lengthy and it may not be successful obviously i share that thought to you because i see systemic racism with the same attributes i'm 67 years old will we cure racism in my lifetime what do you think i applaud you for your efforts and i don't want to be kicked off the stage i see no signs of coming up yet i do want to address

090the comments that were made about the superintendent at the last meeting i feel i have standing in that conversation because i was on the board that hire him yeah 35 years ago 40 years ago whatever and i've also maintained a relationship with the superintendent informally over the last 17 years so i don't know the day-to-day machinations of this district or what happens in a particular classroom i don't go on facebook because i don't speak russian so i decide to give that up but i do know and i will state my own opinion because my perception is my reality that if you're going to talk about the character of the superintendent i find it beyond reproach if you're going to talk about the work ethics of the superintendent i describe them as both honest and indefatigable

091and that's my perception and that's my reality i thank you for the time to appear before you i thank you for the good work you have done in the past and i thank you for the good work you're about to do so don't say it's a thankless job because you just got one thank you thank you very much thank you dr johnson is there anybody else that would like to adjust the board at this time welcome grandma good to see you okay i'm barbara williams i'm representing the um grandmother's coalition um i have questions for the board i don't expect them to be answered tonight but there's scuttlebutt around that there have been children that have been diagnosed with covert 19 within our school system concerned about that also with the number of cases of

092coronavirus going up again in orange county the question is has the board made any kind of preparations in case we have to go for another shutdown and the next one is well i noticed that in a lot of places especially like in new york city they check the children's temperatures and everything before they go into school and i was wondering do we have anything like that going on and are we doing any type of covet testing as far as our staff and our students are concerned also before i sit down and be quiet for a while which is hard for me to do where'd that gentleman go the one that just spoke thank you thank you very much i really appreciate everything that you said i had to fight back tears because a lot of

093that is my reality also but thank you and also for the teachers we're still backing you guys 100 as far as you getting proper treatment i don't know what the um americans disability act calls for but i could have sworn it said that reasonable accommodation should be made and i can't think of a better situation than covet 19. thank you thank you very much as to the questions that you asked um we'll have somebody some can we have somebody get in touch cut you get in touch and uh and and we'll get we'll get answers to all your questions all right is there anybody else that like to address the board tonight going once twice three times thank you everybody um to all of you that that came tonight again we thank each and every

094one of you for coming out and um and for speaking uh we did receive quite a bit quite a few quite a few letters and and and i think we that some of the board members acknowledge the reception of those letters and and we are we are looking at them and we are we are yeah right right and so i i know thank you for coming and your and your courage and your boldness and we are listening uh let's move on uh for those of you that that have to have to to have to leave um we understand we're going to move into our superintendent's report at this time and i'm going to turn it into the hands of our superintendent mr demuro so we're gonna okay okay good evening pastor williams president williams mrs

095tobias and board of education and members of our entire school community it's with great pleasure i think i'm going to take this just down a bit here all right uh it's with great pleasure that i come before you each and every time to talk about different aspects of our school district the progress that we're making highlights that teachers students educators in our school district are doing but tonight is a very special night because it is a launching of a new directive that we are very very pleased to share with the entire community one of the things that school districts inherently do not do a good job in my opinion is market what they do to explain to a general public all of the aspects that goes into a school district and what we are all

096about and certainly the heart of a school district is teaching and learning obviously we have our valued members here of our instructional support team as well as our instruction educators our leaders of learners and our classroom practitioners the most valued people in our school district and what they do every day daily daily is curriculum instruction but that's not the only component of a school district there are many facets to a school district and over the series of next few months throughout most of the school year we will come with different components during the superintendent's report i've been given this opportunity and i'm going to really expand upon what we do in all of the facets of our school district may it be finance may it be instruction tonight we begin this and this is not

097going to happen in one evening hiring recruitment practices professional development et cetera et cetera et cetera so tonight uh it's with great pleasure to open this series with the heart of what i believe what school districts are all about teaching and learning and people understand that teachers have instructions to go by what is really coming down from new york state education department in the form of standards the standards are very global in nature and they are very specific to a particular grade level or grade level in areas of of learning in terms of content math science social studies etc the curriculum is how a school district implements that we are required by state education department to teach the standards of new york state adopted by the board of regents and inside each school district we

098have the latitude to select what we feel our community our students that we serve need in terms of whatever the issues are and that is in the form of curriculum the resources and materials and underneath that is scope and sequences how that's implemented in a daily or weekly basis to achieve each of these levels to ensure that at the end of a child's experience in the state of new york certain areas are or thresholds are met here we talk about graduation requirements those graduation requirements really begin in kindergarten in terms of getting the children prepared sequentially at the end of each grade level so tonight very very proud to talk about a very hard-working component of our school district the curriculum instruction team comprised of about 10 11 people and here they are on our

099next slide i think we can get it if i get it that way [Music] there we go all right we have miss elizabeth bowler coordinator of literacy ms linda bratt director of bilingual english as a new language and world language education karen marconi director of special education catherine yahya whaley williams coordinator of our mathematics programs nicole brookins newly appointed instructional leader humanities at the middle school level famous carabello instructional leader for bilingual enl and world languages mr novel connell instructor of stem 9-12 mr donahue instructional leader for humanities 9 through 12. miss rachel koontz instructional special education 6-12 and is nicole tagne instruction leader for special education k5 and i wanted to point them out so that everybody knows who these individuals are they help and support our valued instructional individuals teaching in our classrooms

100they design resources support instructional strategies to our teachers and work very collaboratively in that development so tonight i wanted to go and begin talking about what is the purpose of our curriculum and instruction within middletown and we've broken it down to three areas our goal our work and our vision i'm not going to read off this will be uploaded for all of us on our website so you can read all the individually but basically we're talking about creating in our goal authentic learning environments with a inclusive lens to make real learning experiences for our children and the work that we do is what based upon what high expectations we talked about this for years which is about deeply thinking and analyzing and projecting and making predictions and giving the children the opportunity in their learning

101activities to do that and our vision what is our vision it's ongoing it's refinement of our curricular resources and practices growing learning making changes based upon the needs that are ever changing no one to my knowledge working in our school district today had a course on hybrid and remote learning now we learned about grouping and different strategies different modes of instruction certainly but this is all new so this is what we're talking about how we have to be able to make the adjustments to be flexible because if we truly believe our thought of every child every day and all that implies it talks about all of these things what we've talked about inclusivity understanding that our environments cannot tolerate racism biases and tolerances to celebrate differences not look at the differences as differences in itself

102we start to reflect about these we maybe have to think about how we presented how we are communicating how we are developing that environment in our classroom that's risk-free but respectful and understanding and that's ever evolving because no one year is the same as last year no one class is the same as last year when i taught high school my first period was very different than my fourth period and the fourth period was very different from the end of the days period and i never never finished the same that i did at the end the first period at the end of eighth period because the children that was in front of me in front of the teachers today have the experience to manipulate and understand where their confusion is or where their enrichment is needed

103where more questions happen in one period than another or the depth of one or someone needs a reinforcement or when someone needs to be extended learning because they got it right away and so on and so forth so these series of superintendents report are primarily and exclusively designed to help better communicate and make us all understand what we're all about and what we're doing and why we are doing that now they've been giving me the hook here i can feel it because i can talk for an extended period of time because this is a passion our goal here under these pandemic health crisis is to maintain our schools open as long as we can and i don't believe anyone anyone who's ever said anything to me over these last months from march to today that

104remote learning as robust as we have made it as best as we can make it is the same as having children in front of us no one is saying that so we're trying to maintain that because we believe in it and we will do it in a safe manner we saw and heard about the custodial staff and it's very different very challenging very difficult to be in front of a class with a mask and have your children and not be able to do the things that some of the teachers talked about as they came to the microphone this evening believe me we care we understand and tonight we're going to give another piece to that evidence mrs creighton thank you mr del moro for this opportunity this evening and board of education i just want

105to acknowledge why the names of the members of the curriculum instruction group behind us are are listed on that slide that i think that i can speak for all of us when i say that we know that this team is supported by countless valued educators across the district which includes administrators teachers tas support staff and buildings every level of the school organization our teachers on special assignment work tirelessly to support the work that the curriculum instruction team puts in place and help the valued educators implement this inside their classrooms each and every day and we know that this work would not be done without their dedication their smartness and their overall willingness to be creative and innovative so i just want to acknowledge their thing our thanks for them um as we dive in tonight's

106presentation i just want to start out by saying that you know the district's curriculum work is we believe the foundation of its instructional framework it's the fundamental architecture of our work within this district our goal is always to collaborate across teams to create a pacing guide an instructional roadmap that is inclusive of frames assessments and resources all of these elements working in concert together to reveal the strength of the educator and the diversity of our students our learners are each unique with a specific recipe that equates success and we realize that students must find value in their coursework and they must be guided by educators who respect them as learners and believe that each one of them can succeed in achieving their goals and so that's sort of the frame that we look at all

107of the work that we do so just to give you a little bit of an idea about some of the work that we have done each summer curriculum teams come together and those curriculum teams include administrators and educators from across the district and those teams sit down and dive into the curriculum as we have it at this point and then make any needed refinements and adjustments and so the goals that we had this summer as we approached our curriculum work was to look at each of the curriculum areas and review those standards and skills that were covered by each of those areas both in the previous year and as an on-ramp to the next year and the reason why we did that was specifically this year because of the gap that existed because of the

108pause when we had to take instruction from our traditional in-person face-to-face model into a hybrid model and so this summer when we reviewed our curriculum we really did it with a lens that we wanted students to be able to construct their own knowledge meaning and understanding and we wanted to make sure that they had the resources that they needed to be successful in this coming year so when we did that review of the critical standards we developed a list um sort of a you know a frame on top of the frame that already exists where we took standards skills concepts and strategies and we refined them we added enhancements to them and we really did a robust resource development so that when teachers educators and our students return to school this fall they would have

109the tools that they needed and that then turned into these school year launch resources and those resources included both best practices as well as kits for both students and teachers and the team is going to go into those a little bit more all of the work that we do each time we sit down and do curriculum refinement and review and curriculum work comes with collaboration you know we need the experience of the classroom teachers it's one thing to write curriculum and it looks beautiful on paper but we need the experience of the classroom teachers to talk about what is the actual implementation what do they need from us so that they can be flexible and responsive to student needs and so it was at that point where we sort of bring all of that together

110so that we can develop strategies and resources for our classrooms this year we paid particular attention to creating welcoming classroom environments we knew that with the pause from last year and the stress and anguish that our families and communities and teachers were experiencing that we had to launch this year a little bit differently and so that it included a particular focus on teachers making connections with each other with their school teams as well as with their students before they engaged in academic content so we really looked at the start of the year with the mindset of connections before content and so now i'm going to invite the team up to discuss different components of what the fruits of the labor this summer was and how we're going to continue this work throughout the school year

111okay good evening everyone um we're excited to be here to share this with you one of the uh important pieces that we did over the summer to segue with what mrs creedon was saying was to support our new teachers our very brave new teachers who join us at the end of august every year for a week of orientation welcoming and springboarding and starting the new school year we had a hashtag it's called better together and part of what we do is spend some time with one another provide pd just to adjust as part of our new educator induction program and within that there are multiple components inclusive of what you see above there the power of diversity we spent time on mindset matters creating positive experiences for all learners learning about how the brain works

112and how to address our learners and just who we are as a school community as middletown similarly we introduce the new york state education framework for culturally responsive and sustaining education which has the uh grounding in a cultural view of learning and human development which according to new york state i'm just going to read this definition supports multiple expressions of diversity inclusive of race social class gender language sexual orientation nationality religion and ability that are also recognized as assets that all of our students bring for teaching and learning similarly to support our new teachers we had a professional choice board which offers them the opportunity to sort of self-reflect and guide their own learning because when we understand one another and we specifically deepen our abilities to understand and truly connect with one another which

113is very important for our new teachers to feel like they're part of the middletown community in order to support our students we have a deeper understanding for critical conversations that have to take place so four of those main pillars for the choice board were critical conversations which are ongoing microaggressions civil justice and social justice as well as cultural responsive pedagogy and you can see a quote there just that culturally sponsored education is knowing the student in front of you so there was a lot of work this summer in regard to that now the next slide just to continue on uh to springboard the school year was in regard to our superintendent conference days which took place at the beginning of september over four days as you can see and these days focus on those six

114main points there and this actually launched not only for uh the new teachers as an additional support but for all of our staff to really talk about expectations to review and refresh some of our our true matters that support our students and to also talk about specifically district and building level specifics to start off the new school year especially during covid additionally we continued professional development and we were supported by all of the team that you see there inclusive of technology ela mathematics teachers on special assignment or as we call artosas uh presenters from second step which we'll talk about in a few minutes school connect and social emotional programs our staff also utilize planning time to prepare for the start of the year which is very critical during this time and they also continued

115more choices for choice board we added on from the four previous mentioned which were in regard to self-care caring for others to show compassion and kindness also to talk about trauma and be trauma informed based on what our students are facing during these difficult and challenging times and also just overall responsive practices thank you just in the next slide so continuing on with our professional learning and growth on october 23rd the superintendent's address to the staff called attention to the important work that would take place for the day mr del maro acknowledged the board of education resolution marking a vital milestone for the district while setting the tone and signifying the importance of the work we want to thank the board of education for their hard work to create the resolution condemning racism and affirming

116our commitment to an inclusive school environment for all we were grateful to have the opportunity to share this with our staff and provide them with an experience with a close careful and purposeful read we also spent time with our staff learning and growing together during a cultural analysis that provided an opportunity for self-reflection we have made many pivots since the beginning of the year and the focus for october 30th was based on feedback from staff in the community in terms of supporting our new instructional model this model of professional growth will continue throughout the school year thank you so now we'll move on and talk a little about some of the resources we have purchased this summer throughout through title 1 funds we have purchased culturally diverse book collections for grades pre-k through 12. our

117goal in these purchases is for all of our students to see themselves in the books they read and have voice and choice in their text selections these texts are being embedded into our curriculum scopes and instruction as well please note on the slides as well as in front of you there are samples of the books that we purchased for oh yeah we could do this together okay for our english language learners or elle population our multilingual learners as well title iii funding was used to support digital books so that we built a connection and access in the home as well as in the school dependent upon the student's choice so here we are we have something called raz for kids is the abbreviation but what it is is a reading a through z digital book

118program for grades k through eight we actually renewed that subscription through title three and basically what that is is a series of books in multiple language as well as english that students can access from home as well as school it affords the parents also to work with their children and the children to continue their learning in any environment additionally for grades 6 through 12 we have purchased mango and i know that's an interesting name mango just so you know is an inclusive name that the company chose in order to show that mango the the fruit is actually common in many many languages so the name of the program actually shows inclusivity for all of our world language learners it specifically supports language acquisition here in middletown we have french and spanish but it also helps

119other languages as well and that is a high-tech program which is adaptive to our learners needs and that can also be accessed here in the district as well as home so there is a continuity in instruction thank you additionally title 1 funds have supported the purchase of at home mathematics learning kits for all scholars these manipulatives support the design of learning experiences that mimic our in-person classroom environments we have increased the distribution this year by adding four or more items at each grade level in conjunction with our deck of cards dominoes and dice they allow our scholars to have concrete representations that speak to different learning styles we're planning to offer resources to bridge the gap between students receiving these resources and expectations for use at home these bridges will be in the form of

120town halls for families and brief videos introducing the multiple ways these resource kits can be used with families the target of our town halls and supports will be introducing the bags in front of you to families and think of it as a quick start tutorial for parents and caregivers on the use of each of the manipulatives in the home environment what you see here on the subsequent screen is an overview by grade level of the contents of each of the sample bags in front of you and it really is going to be an excellent way for us to kick off quarter two and beyond for mathematics learning at the k5 level lastly to speak on behalf of stem at the secondary level in terms of our at-home learning resources we similarly have provided resources to

121support science and mathematics in the remote setting tonight we wanted to highlight the supports for our scholars and community around mathematics but looking forward we embraced the opportunity to share how these funds were used to purchase teacher materials to support instruction and so what you'll notice on the screen similarly to the last is some images that reflect the contents of what every scholar at the secondary level received to support math and science and just lastly to echo a sentiment shared by the ela counterpart just as it's important for our scholars to see themselves in the literature it's equally as important for them to see themselves in the mathematics and mathematics is cultural it is a three-pronged approach to not just academic success but it's just an opportunity to enrich cultural competence and critical consciousness and

122we look forward to the opportunity to share with you more the mirror math experience that lives in district for mathematics thank you and regarding our social emotional learning resources last year we initiated a social emotional learning block at the k5 level and based on feedback from the staff in the community we expanded this program so our reach was k-12 the district believes that all students deserve to feel respected safe and secure by purchasing programs across k-12 this underscores the district's commitment to academics as well as social emotional learning at each level there is a specified block of time for social emotional learning thank you so we just want to acknowledge that there will be continued progress um you know we've done a bunch of work but our work is not done and so we have

123additional professional learning experiences planned and so november 20th and december 18th will be opportunities for us to provide professional learning for staff and the topics for those are to continue our work on deepening welcoming and affirming environments as well as high expectations and rigorous instruction and those are two tenants that come directly out of the culturally responsive um framework i think mrs blumenow had it handy to hold up it was the image of it was on our cover slide in addition the entire administrative team is going to go through a professional development on courageous conversations and we're excited to begin that so that we can all become more educated about conversations about race and that will take place this winter and that will be a three-day professional development and then in order to sort of

124wrap ourselves around our school community and our community of educators we are going to design a series of listening sessions where we will set up open town halls where we can provide our educators with opportunities to come on and go into small breakout rooms and share feedback on how things have been going so far for the school year and any needed or requested support and we're going to do that um so that it aligns a little bit with like a mid-winter check-in so we're excited to do those this year that's something new and then lastly we just want to again thank you for giving us this time to give you sort of a zoomed out overview of some of the work that we've been busy doing and again thank all those that are involved in

125doing this work and at subsequent board meetings we will be coming back members of this team as well as members of other teams and we will be giving you additional curriculum instruction updates we're going to give the superintendent an opportunity to give an update on the equity audit i'll be coming up with the code of conduct committee and presenting some updates as we do that work and we'll continue to update you on professional development topics as we move throughout the year so thank you thank you thank you [Applause] at this time we'll open the boards floor for any questions um i have a can i start yeah jump right in when i spoke of the nisba conventions these are the things that have the other districts their eyes are wide like they don't do things

126like this at least to this degree um thank you this was really neat thank you yeah uh the question about the uh powerpoint the blue underline is that are they links yes will we get a copy of this because uh we don't have it on because i'd like to go off onto those links yep yes because uh you'll see the words choice board there right there's a whole plethora of activities readings articles books etc that are offered for a reflection for teachers to read and things of that nature and certainly uh you'll have that opportunity as well okay so we will get a copy of this so we can thank you thank you very much yes yes mr perrino thank you mr del morrow obviously there's a lot of good work going on in the

127district and former board president johnson mentioned this thank you for the work you will be doing and these people are laying the groundwork for this work i'd like to ask uh miss baller miss buller stop talking to bill donahue and come on i'll think that that's not in the script yeah the books that you uh handed out are you uh have you asked emily young language she is ordering these books to copies of these books the media specialists actually have the list of the high school and the middle school and the elementary their list and currently what they were also doing because they are buying a bunch of books as well so they looked to see these books if they could purchase any of them um electronically so that we can have digital copies as

128well through this system and then other books that might have been similar to so they absol we are working very much so with them and and working as a team to purchase the books i know i spoke to emily about the collection in the district and she feels that various groups are represented and she's further diversifying the collection she's conducted a diversity audit and i'm sure we'll we'll get we're there where we want to be right the books we'll put out here for people to peruse also they'll be up on the websites uh so that people can look at the community members can look at the titles etc and have access to them as well but we'll put that here what we shared with you all for their review i'm sorry just a follow-up question

129on the books i know that historically our schools have hosted scholastic book sales um are these has anybody done any research to see if these are books that are available for purchase and i i know because of our remote situation i don't know if scholastic has gone remote with their book sales or not but that might be an a nice avenue for parents to to reach out maybe our parents club groups and representatives to look into that if they're going remote where you can buy the books online and it's we can continue that consistency um and then can i continue yeah so i just want to i do want to say thank you for all of the hard work so many so many times um as a board member because i don't have children in

130the district any longer and some of you know my children and who have you know kind of evolved and moved on um there's a disk you know sometimes we feel a disk i do i'll speak for myself only i feel a disconnect in what's going on directly in the classroom and we i think that what this these past few months have have taught us and what i see as a result here in the hard work that our district has done is to look at the the possibilities and make sure that we're addressing every possible learning environment and learning opportunity that we can and one of the speakers today when one of our speakers today asked you know what are we ready to go you know would would be we would we be ready to go

131full remote if we had to and i think that as you said mr del maro our goal is always to get our children back in school to get our sense of normalcy what's normal what we perceive as normal what this does is it helps to make what we're all experiencing right now normal by setting up the guidelines setting up the tools and having that opportunity to pivot on it you know a moment's notice so i know that that didn't come easy i know that the district although i didn't sit next to you i know that that is what you have been working on and that has been the primary goal so i just wanted to say thank you thank you absolutely correct you know i will never retract from that statement because i passionately believe

132in that it's at best in the interest of the child to have learning inside with our skilled very highly professional teacher working with them in an in-person environment however cannot deny the health pandemic that surrounds us as one of our speakers to the microphone this evening indicated that the metrics are increasing in terms of orange county in particular and that in the event that we are ordered again and the governor has the authority to do that to go fully remote we can and will be able to do that overnight as we probably will get some indication you know sometime during the day we'll have to make those arrangements why do i say that with certainty simply because we've been working in that environment now i mean obviously our staff is working and that's part of

133the help that they requested and needed is to help them with that remote uh environment learning at the same time synchronously with those in front of them uh so that in the event that we had to do that everyone go to remote we were able to continue that um much more in a more robust manner more more effective man that would experience when we were in that situation last spring when we were just not prepared and i say we everyone in this country had the same issue that practically overnight in our case it did happen overnight we got our message to close at about 11 o'clock at night based upon a situation and we never returned and that was from march 12th to the 13th we're not anywhere near that we've done great leaps and

134bounds we're learning growing and trying to make the changes to the challenges that befriend us no question about it but we're in a very different place today than we are or then and i'm very confident of our you know our staff has been yeoman duties on this they've been excellent in making it a go and making it worthwhile in terms of learning and growing well you read my mind because that was going to be the the last thing i wanted to say was that knowing many teachers in my world and relatives and good friends and just you know knowing so many teachers and and being passionate about what i'm doing here as a school board member uh is not only for our students and for it is for our teachers and making sure that it's

135the best possible environment i'm curious as to the feedback that you have received from the teachers who have been participating in the in the professional development if you can speak to that i know that mrs creedy can speak to more specificity with that but i have received emails from from teachers and from parents about the significant difference in the remote learning today that's going on in our school district every other day uh or those individuals that have selected to be remote extended period of time throughout the school term that they may express some dissatisfaction with some other portion of the learning in terms of why not more frequent in school in building learning but they do indicate that what a difference it is going on today in their child's environment in their learning experiences than

136it was last spring that is attributed to many many factors one of which is professional development the receptiveness of our staff which is another success in our way to bring these type of real authentic learning to children in this very different environments so that all of these are contributing mitigating factors as to where we are today and certainly uh the professional development is helpful now remember one of the things that we mentioned today is that i receive and you know mr white mentioned that in working collaboration with district administration we talk about these specific things and a great deal of what professional development occurs in terms of activities is a result of what teachers are asking for certainly i mean it would be like going into a archery and missing the target even though we're

137trying to provide professional development but the target has to be what you need to reach so we have to keep that in mind that the classroom practitioner as was indicated uh in the presentation uh is a critical critical part of what is provided in terms of professional development you're welcome yes mrs device i just wanted to say with regards to paula's comment and i know that the fall and the spring are always the times of the year at the school when we have book fairs i know here and i'm assuming that the other buildings are also the librarian did have a note on and i believe it was the middletown community they are having a remote book fair where you know the community could uh make purchases for books so it is being done and

138as i said i assume in other buildings as well as here at presidential yes the librarians collaborate they meet periodically with mrs creedon to make sure that there is a continuity across the grade levels elementary middle high school so that um everyone is you know reaping the benefits of all what we're providing or what the community wants to provide for our children in terms of this outside source which is very valuable for years our connection to our parent groups absolutely a subject very dear to my heart i know i know thank you mr williams you have anything to say oh mr one question okay i'm just you know i'm still sponging at this point i'm taking it all in so very good stuff we appreciate you guys greatly thank you very good uh i don't

139i don't have i don't have any questions because i pretty much get an opportunity um i get an opportunity to really talk more direct with each and every one of you and um you know specifically the superintendent so i get the opportunity to get a little insight um i sneak into the pd's periodically oh because i i i think and and and anyone can say whatever to say i think if we're going to sit in this seat i think it's important for us to know what we're what you know what everyone is what everyone is doing not not the spy but so that we can educate ourselves and uh you know so that's that's why i do it um i'm an educator myself and uh and so i relish every opportunity to be able to

140grow and to be able to to learn um until the day i die i'll keep learning and i'm learning from so many of you so i'm grateful uh and and i'll say this and we'll move on is that uh what i said to all of you all of this this this particular team what i said to you in the hallway i mean with all my heart when i walked up that room and i and i yelled yelled down the hall um it's not just words it's not just words it's the sentiment of my heart so thank you thank you very much thank you again all right have a good night i know you got a lot to do [Applause] that's um we're coming down to we're we're almost at the almost to the close of

141our meeting um i want to do we're gonna we're going to let's get through let's do our action items and then i've got one thing um we need we we want to do before we finish before we finish all right again uh thank you everybody um moving on action items uh real quick let me put on my glasses there we go now i can see uh need a motion for approval of financial memorandum number 12. so move second moved and seconded any discussion all in favor opposed i need a motion for the approval of special services memorandum number nine moved and seconded any discussion all in favor opposed so passes uh entertain a motion for approval of our change orders shall move second moved and seconded any discussion anything we need to know john no

142they're they're pretty st they were pretty standard we had a virtual tom scott sent us the change orders with documentation on these there's nothing major in the wiring changing this and changing that but not much expenditure thank you that was the discussion all in favor opposed so passes i want to make one statement in the middle of this we do not rubber stamp anything this this this information is available to us on board docs in advance we review if we have any questions we send the questions out i did look at i did look at all of the all of the change borders and as as mr perino said uh they were quite they were quite basic uh quite basic to the things that's necessary in order for us to keep the the work going

143forward um i need a motion for approval of voting member of the middletown teacher center so move second any discussion all in favor opposed so passes need a motion for the approval of revision to instructional calendar 2020-2021 don't move moved and seconded um can you explain to the public what this changes certainly there is a slight change in the instruction calendar practically in a revision and it's based upon a double schedule so the high school short session and parent conference afternoon evening on this calendar is initially scheduled for thursday november 19th which is a board of education meeting evening and therefore we've been requested to change it to tuesday november 17th this is for the high school only only affects the high school community and the staff so the parent teacher conference for november is

144moving from november 19th for the high school to november 17th but parents it's a shortened session it was on the 19th is just going to be on tuesday i thank you for your commitment to that and understanding thank you also that's right today today we received from state education department the cancellation of the january 2021 regents only the january regencies have been canceled and therefore uh that will uh change uh the high school uh instructional staffs uh days during that period of time we'll have regular school each one of those days uh so that um continuity of learning can continue so regents is for january regions is only and there's a whole host of um stipulations we will follow so that those who needed that uh can receive the the credit inside those guidelines so

145very similar to what occurred at the end of the school term last year so we'll get into those details a little further but i wanted to let everyone know that if this is only for the january regions june regencies are still scheduled as well as august as i speak this evening the board of regents will be looking at that in the upcoming months and making decisions hopefully sooner than later but at this period of time that's all i can report because that's the only official cancellation at this time superintendent yes usually then in january the high school is on half days so that will be now full days that is what i said yes yes no because the reason was because of practicing issues that need to be covered with staff to do that and

146obviously you can't hold classes when you need so many teachers to be proctors obviously that impacted the schedule well that is no longer needed and therefore we can have a regular schedule of classes during that week okay thank you you heard the discussion all in favor opposed so passes um approval of approval to authorize emergency replacement of the fire alarm at truman moon elementary school moved and seconded do you want to give a quick explanation i certainly will please understand that the fire alarm that's currently in place is working uh but it has seen better days and therefore when they need to replace a part because of the age of the system they're having difficulty finding the appropriate part to replace so in a preventative mode we are seeking to replenish that system if you

147will with a new system but i rest assured that currently alarm system is working it's functioning operating as designed but we're doing this in preparation of having the ability to maintain it and operate in the most efficient manner and only to do that because of the age of it we need a new system thank you just as a side note that system was installed when i was in kindergarten why are you laughing well we did a good job of keeping it up then yes they did real good i've i've blasted a little bit so it's lasted this long that's pretty good uh you heard the discussion all in favor opposed it so passes thank you um do we need do we need a round table well if i may [Music] i would just like to

148say i would be remiss if we did not do this um this week is national school board recognition appreciation week and it would be a huge faux pas on the district's part not to recognize all of the work that's being done by this board of education not simply because we're in this pandemic which has put countless additional hours but the the time and effort put into being a board member is unseen by most but appreciated by all the fact of the matter is that we no longer can save the thankless job because an eloquent speaker took that opportunity away however the fact of the matter is we really want to thank you and our token appreciation as at each of your desks here today tonight at your chairs so that we would be able to

149uh honor you the best way we can with a middletown fleece vest doesn't have any sleeves but it's a vest however please understand that we appreciate the many many hours you put in and yes it's been said many many times this is a position of up team importance in a community but is not compensated in money it's compensated in an intrinsic reward inside and the contributions you do and it does go seen by many and we thank you very much for stepping up and taking this awesome responsibility helping future minds grow thank you very much thank you [Applause] two minutes dr johnson i live right up the street here you go out you make a right-hand turn on commonwealth and the first uh intersection is j street i live right on the corner of watkins

150and jay been here for 22 years and my deck there's only two houses on j street it's a very short street my deck i can see pretty much what goes on on commonwealth avenue for a while 18 months maybe two years there's been a lot of speeding going up and down this road the police it took them a while but i didn't realize what they were doing but they really did get it under control we don't see it anymore my uh we go to our second ward meetings with uh um andrew andrew green what's wrong with me and jerry kleiner and my wife brought that up and she thought about what if we had full stop signs on commonwealth we went to the board one meeting we presented our case and our case was that

151here is the school and they're estimated about over 400 walkers there's no sidewalk on the east side of commonwealth but there's a sidewalk on this side and we thought that if anything you're supposed to stop when you've got to stop at a full stop sign but that would slow the traffic down and let's do give the students an opportunity to cross we went to one board meeting my wife presented her case dr johnson and the rest of the common council supported it it went um before the board the next meeting and it was approved so within a week or so we're going to have two full stops up here which makes us feel a lot better makes it safer for our students thank you very much that's democracy in action right there thank you thank

152you very much thank you um the superintendent has one more announcement please yes so very pleased to announce we have some very good news today uh speaking with our assembly women excuse me aileen gunther uh in working with her office and her in particular very closely over the past few weeks we were the recipients of a 250 000 grant for capital improvements so her efforts go again to our students she is i've been a tremendous friend to the school district and in particular to the children and staff that she serves uh she will be here at the next board meeting uh to uh officially grant the award to us uh but we were uh informed this afternoon and we'll be uh certainly using that money uh so that money set aside for this project can

153be put in other areas so that it's going to help throughout the school community we're very very proud to announce the recipient of this grant uh and she's been an integral part of that effort so thank you very much assembly when we really appreciate you yes [Applause] yes i believe so yes you get to keep them these are these are the these are the math kids um i'd like to take my two minutes i'd like to take my two minutes um and and pass my two minutes uh uh to to uh mrs howard mrs howard um was was stuck outside because we had a crowd in so she couldn't come in during her during her during the um the opportunity to to address the board thank you yeah i didn't eat today either so but

154um uh mrs howard asked mrs howard uh sent me they sent me a message that she would like to she would like to say something real quick so mrs howard please very quickly good evening all um i am here on behalf of my daughter faith howard and she wanted to thank the board for displaying her artwork on the district website and on the district facebook page from orange community college that cultural affairs put in in their exhibit at the college she's a seventh grader and it was a big honor for orange community college to include her artwork in their exhibit so she wanted to say thank you [Applause] thank you very much for this moment i'm very honored and i really thank you for putting it out in a world like that so that people

155can understand and get the idea and what the world is really going through because it's breaking so many hearts and how many lives are being lost this economist economic system i feel very bad for people with covert cases and people that are in for medical pharmacy and in health care i hope that they get helped soon and the ones that have been at least from the world of complete death from their sickness from the cover case i feel very sorry and i hope that they can people their loved ones i i just i'm sorry for them and i'm thanking the people that can actually see that can understand and feel off of that and express and what that should be means to them because if they don't then they're obviously going to see that as

156well how meaningful but if you really look at it and see it and get the true meaning out of it then that's when you actually see that holy crap that's actually something that we're really going through it brings a deeper meaning to something when you read when you read something like people suffering from probably sicknesses way before that and when they had to go through that that's just troubling it brings her signs of sickness even more pressuring and it's it gets some anxiety and i'm getting off topic but i'm very thankful that it's on there thank you thank you thank you very much we're very proud of our seventh grade monhagen student to see the strides and obviously you see my critical thinker has many thoughts on her mind but it's good you know it's

157it the the superintendent made mention of being able to to blend our thoughts and blend our creativity and our styles of learning in in school that happens outside of the school as well it starts in the community and whatever's happening in the homes of students we want to echo within our schools so that the learning experience is greater so thank you for your time thank you president uh pastor williams for the two-minute opportunity thank you thank you very much thank you faith well done very proud of you thank you [Applause] all right we've come down to the end of the night thank you everybody for your time uh i want uh our next meeting will be um the 19th the 19th of november uh let's come back and prepare we're going to be you know

158i'm sorry that we've been running running a little late but these things are necessary um watch for my book my book that i'm going to start i'm going to start writing about being a board member it'll be in the drama section but thank you i'll entertain a motion for germany all in favor opposed it so passes thank you everyone have a good night you