001this is uh may 24th and we are in a special meeting we have a couple of items that we need to address one includes our 2022-23 board committee schedule the board's summer 2022 schedule and we'll have discussion around of the board retreat and um if there is uh any new business that we need to discuss uh we will also include that in this conversation so uh let's start out with a uh um to um to approve resolution 592. is there a motion don't move second workout yeah they're there's some conversation going on please mute if you're not talking um so um all those in favor of resolution five ninety two it's been saying president elliot was this the motion was this the resolution on this that's correct it feels okay thank you yeah yeah you
002did who i thought you seconded you did not sign oh i'm sorry who seconded it vice president lebron second all right thank you um all those in favor of resolution 592. hi any oppose thank you that motion carries 7-0 and so i'm going to turn it over to cali about the 22-23 board committee schedule kalya hello everyone and good evening um this should be very very quick there's just a few matters that do need to be decided as we um finish out um the year 21-22 and approach um 22-23 um so the board did adopt its calendar for the um 2223 meetings and um at this time that is pretty sufficient however um though we the board did adopt for to have tuesdays of the month for committee meetings and to have the third thursday
003as the business meeting as well as the first thursday as the uh work session um we have not decided when each committee will meet and so at this time i do want i wanted to ask commissioners who are chairs to advise their schedule right now we have policy meeting policy committee meeting on the first tuesday of the month esa meets on the second tuesday of the month finance meets every other month hr and cigr meet if um quarterly and audit has its own schedule which is predetermined by um policy as well as um some dictates with it or or external auditors so um i did want to find out from each committee chair if they want to stay with this schedule or if they want to meet more frequently and to have discussion on that
004so i don't see any hands so would you if uh because everybody's not on the screen but if you have um your hand up please just go on and share so does everybody want to remain let me just say in terms of hr commissioner lebron i'd like that to meet more than um were we saying that that was originally quarterly and so i'd like that to uh commissioner lebron if we could do that a little bit more frequently can i get your comments on that ma'am vice president yeah and i just put my hand up because one i actually i personally am not ready to make a decision on the frequency of those meetings but i do agree with you president elliot but that vote hasn't happened yet so i do need the vote to
005actually occur and then i want to have conversations about the restructuring of hr and intertwining it a little bit as well with the finance schedule um and what that would look like moving forward but we're not there yet so i don't even yes i would like it to meet more frequently but we have to kind of i feel like we're putting the cart before the horse by having this conversation right now so so what do you mean by that because i'm thinking that you know here's an opportunity for us to have a draft at least a draft of those meetings talk a little bit more about that vice president so i'm not the chair yet that's one um two that vote hasn't happened so i know we've had conversations and conversations about potentially aligning um
006the human resources with finance and trying to have some better oversight from the board around open positions and getting reports but we haven't voted on that yet president elliot so um i'm also not prepared right now at this very moment to look at the um like the days of the week that you know the first second tuesday i mean i'm okay right now with how finance meets in terms i think it's policy first then esa then finance and finance moved every other month but if we combine it with hr or a combination of finance and then right after have the hr committee um i would like to for myself give it a little bit of time to kind of structure what that would potentially look like president eliot so that's what i mean and i
007can have some more conversations with you about it tomorrow all right thank you commissioner malloy thank you um i know i had spoken to you president elliot last fall about um governance not having regularly scheduled meetings and i know that along with you're telling me that hr was not going to meet until april of 2022 you'd express some reservations about not meeting frequently enough and although we are trying to reduce the number of meetings that that we have and that was a board monitor recommendation for us to look into that i think there are a number of governance matters that would require us to have more meetings than what we had uh in our prior year all right thank you any other hand uh commission vice president is that an old hand or do you
008oh hand all right thank you uh commissioner elliott um i'm very comfortable with my time slot of the first tuesday of each month except that during uh summer um i i know for a fact that i will be away on the first tuesday of july um i think is um oh i don't have the camp um first tuesday of july is july 5th and i'm off that whole week yeah so that brings up the other point we're going to go to the summer schedule but um so would you be willing to not to have a policy meeting no my my preference would be that it be rescheduled rather than put you know just canceled all together because as you know we still have a whole lot of policy manual to get through and i don't
009i i i'm not going to be the one that stands in the way of us making progress towards that um that uh particular recommendation in the state monitors um um findings just you know i i'm taking it really seriously so thank you commissioner adams what about the community intergovernmental relations committee you mute it commissioner adams did you hear you it there you go um i i don't think it meets enough but i'm not here um advocating for any change in that area right now and uh no i'm not advocating for any change because uh i'm not going to be here you'll be in next year next year right yeah but i yeah i'm gonna be here next year is it that's it that's right around the corner all right thank you uh commissioner simmons what
010about esa um yes i'm okay maintaining the cadence of the second tuesday of each month all right and commissioner patterson audit committee same okay all right okay so it looks like we may have some discussion around um uh hr in in in finance for the future but for the other committees it seems that everybody is okay with um the frequency of their uh their meetings i i was not okay with the frequency of governance we definitely that's gonna funnel you the last governance meeting uh we had our retreat last august and then we didn't have another schedule of governance meeting until i think november um and then we had our organizational meeting but the next governance meeting isn't until june 7th um and they're just a number you know it's hard to always schedule special
011meetings month after month to discuss governance matters i think that's one committee that it's worth looking into meeting more frequently all right thank you any other conversation around the committee schedule all right thank you and then the next item is a schedule for the summer last year we i think we took off july um and i was also hoping that we could take off august but uh let me open it up any comments on uh um reducing our our meetings um for of the summer commissioner vice president lebron yeah i actually i would be okay with taking july off but i would not be okay with taking august off nor would i want any of the administration to be taking vacation during august it is a peak time for the district as of september and
012i say that because we went through this last year and also in any higher education institution i've ever personally worked at august was a peak time for colleges nobody was allowed to take time off so i do want to put that on the forefront now um i don't know how if we have to ratify it through a policy but nobody should be taking time off in august and that includes the board but i would support taking july off all right thank you commissioner malloy i i i wouldn't support taking july or august off i think just in terms of governance there are so many important things that we need to prepare for in the coming year um and i think that we ran into some trouble last year um because we didn't have any july
013meetings and the governance meeting was cancelled so you know hindsight's always 20 20 but i think that you know the real work gets done with the board in the summer and although everyone takes vacation and that's important for our well-being i think that it's really important for us to to get the governance matters taken care of over the summer thank you all right thank you but president elliot can i just ask like why was governance canceled last july that's one and two um governance is going to continue the board is eliminating the committee by vote there's a resolution to eliminate the committee itself thursday at the board business meeting with the plan that the board as a whole will move forward to address all of the needs that the board as a body needs to
014do to govern so i just wanted some clarity around if i ever wrapped it yeah if i recall uh vice president lebron i think it had to do that we took off did we take off august or did we take off july cal you can you remember um in the month of in the month of july typically um and i know that um uh commissioner powell um will also be able to kind of provide some insight on this as well typically in the month of july the board does um go to a reduced schedule um to allow for um planning um additionally in the in august the board does its um retreats typically this year we're moving the retreats up to july hopefully but um well the month of july was used as a planning
015month to plan for the retreat um uh and so typically in the past the board does have a reduced schedule in the month of july to allow for prep and planning um to move into the next school year so we typically do a business meeting um and a special meeting in the month of july um last year we also kept um policy because we are under the um policy um manual review so that that committee did meet but all of the committees in the month of july did not meet we did um finance um reports in the business meeting to facilitate that um so um the board does get through its business in the month of july but typically does go down to a reduced schedule just for the month of july all right thank
016you commissioner patterson you have any um comments well i'm pretty new but um like i said i'm fine taking off july and picking up back in august all right thank you commissioner simmons uh yes i'm okay with the reduced schedule in july for planning purposes and then going full throttle in august all right thank you thank you so it looks like we'll take off in july except for policy that will be rescheduled but all other committees uh will be um except for the retreats done as well that we're going to have for better governance that's that's next on the agenda may i ask a question president absolutely um because there are some some things that i am trying to change um for our discussion with esa and aligning with the academic and strategic plan making
017sure those pieces are at the forefront um so with the changes that i'm hoping to make and how how i would love to see that aligned is that something i should be bringing forward to the board so that there can be a vote on those changes that type of thing so would it make sense to have the actual meeting and should i plan to have an estate in july for that those purposes or if you choose to do that but that could also be a part of the planning for august but that's that's up to you okay you know how if you want to do it in july you certainly will be available for that okay i'd rather finish out the planning in july and and do some checks and balances and present ideas in
018august okay perfect thank you all right you're welcome okay any other discussion so calia it seems as if esa and policy will meet in august excuse me in july i i thought i heard um bsa will meet in august july or august commissioner simmons um august august i just need to clarify so i'm going to meet in august but i'm just going to be planning in july so august oh yes okay so do you need the board to be there for july for that planning or is that something that you're going to take on yourself i'm going to take it on but i'm definitely going to be reaching out to individual commissioners just to to get their thoughts so that i'm making sure i'm capturing um our various thoughts but then presenting it in august
019okay sounds good thank you thank you for the clarification so um to recap um i will so policy will be rescheduled from the first week of of the month of july to either the second or third week of july that would probably also help as we do right now um if we are moving into the retreat topic um right now the most responses that have been provided on the duty poll for the retreats for the three-day retreat in july is um for the first week of july right now that's that's what it's looking like i do know however that the responses were really varied across the board i did have um all folks um did respond all seven commissioners as well as dr meyer small dr nelms um and dr jallo um unfortunately there was
020no consensus on any of the dates put forward for july so i'm going i'm looking at the the highest response rate and the highest response rate was for wednesday thursday and friday the first week of july which is the fifth sixth and seventh if i'm not mistaken correct that is the um sorry the sixth seventh and eighth which is wednesday thursday friday first week of july um and so i wanted to share that with the board it is not consensus um but that is the most um that i was able to get from the from the poll i'm wondering if that will be problematic but folks i know that um commissioner powell is traveling that week so that does um i do already know note that that challenge i'm also traveling that week um so
021i'm a little i'm i do ask for a little bit of direction here because um yeah after that there's the next highest response rate um is like three or four people um agreeing on another date so the following what about the following thursday and friday and and saturday the only reason i'm putting saturday in there is because um i'm new to my job i already took time off in april that was scheduled for the board and you know now i'm gonna have to go back and ask to take two more days at least two days off so is it possible to that one of those days can be a saturday so the following week um which would be the 13th well if we're talking wednesday the 13th the 14th and the 15th or the 14th
022which is thursday 15th friday and 16th saturday only four persons agreed that they would be available during that time so um that's even more problematic than the first week of july so i'm commissioner i'm teaching a class on the 16th anyway so i can't do saturday okay um commissioner adams what's your thoughts around this what do we do or do we do it um once a week for three weeks once right i was wondering maybe if we do um um we could probably split it up um and do a wednesday one week a thursday one week and a friday one week or friday one week third you know et cetera you get the people y'all don't mind if we could do them all on saturday that would really work for me but um that's just
023me you know just wanted to keep my job saturday had the lowest response rate yeah of all days [Laughter] and it's the summer time too mr adams what's your thoughts around this probably it's the last last week i can't do nothing um i'm flexible all these dates except for like the 29th the 28th the last week i can't do nothing okay all right um commissioner patterson what was your response teaching a college course on a sanity okay um commissioner powell matter of fact it's a two day i'm sorry okay 15th and 16th to be honest with you today okay um commissioner lebron vice president lebron yeah so i can't do the last week of july but i'm also wondering why we picked dates if we didn't ask people some block off dates because there were
024a lot of options and i had to like pick off what my calendar looks like right now but i do know like the week of july 23rd that entire week i cannot do anything including that saturday um because it's gonna be a peak time for me at work so if i think what we can do is kind of ask people when they're going on vacation and gather dates that way i'm okay with one week um one once a week i'm also i would also personally prefer a saturday be one of those days i don't care what saturday it is except the 23rd i can't do that saturday or the 6th um but that's what i would prefer do we go into august is what was what's the august uh schedule like kellyanne well um we
025could we could go into august again we will be butting up against the same issues that we did last year which was the fact that our board goals really do need to be adopted earlier on um and so i do recommend um uh discussing them earlier to allow the superintendent to have an opportunity to make her board goals earlier on um the state monitors academic plan does require that the superintendent and board goals are done before the 30th day the before the um before sorry by the 30th day of the school year my apologies so um i do recommend that they um try to be addressed as much as possible earlier up in the summer than um than we did last year which last year we did the first week of august commissioner simmons what's
026your uh thought what what's your availability uh in terms of trying to work on getting us together well it's going to require some sacrifice but i'm willing to do it because it's necessary so that means i'll open myself to a saturday if we need to do that for sure um i think the approach to staggered days might work the one day here and there i i prefer a sequence but it just doesn't seem like that's happening so um i'm opening to i'm open to a saturday and also staggering days if we need to um i do have something like the like july 10th 11th around that time frame um and i did just start new employment so i'm not sure what my schedule was going to look like completely but um i'll be happy to
027yeah that's flexible thank you commissioner adams i see you raise your hand first yeah i was thinking um what about the last week of june is that off the table well um the only thing is we do need some time to plan um right now we are talking about um a possible facilitator for the um for the for the time this the agenda is still in development as well as the fact that um i would still need to reserve of space which which i can do within you know quick time but um i i do i would prefer for some intentionality around um building the agenda and um participants and all of those things um so that that i i would kind of ask that yeah it's it's it's pretty soon all right commissioner malloy
028okay go ahead in addition i'd like to say um i'm available as well on a saturday all right thank you commissioner um commissioner malloy thank you i'm available most saturdays except the 23rd i would not be available on that saturday similar to vice president lebron um you know earlier the better to to get all of this accomplished it's just that one week in july that i will be out of town and traveling and i just don't know if i'd be available to to zoom in but other than that i'm you know i'm not opposed to staggering um either all right thank you uh madam superintendent president elliot the only thing i'd ask is if we could reserve either one to either half to a full day to go over the data going in early july
029doesn't give us enough time to disaggregate the regent's exhaust results and those two and sometimes we're not going to get the three through eight results for a while so if we could do the data piece in august that would be helpful um because we won't have to worry about the us history exam now right no we don't no we don't i'm just going to close the door because the superintendent i can hear her in her office [Laughter] all right so that's all i'd asked so it looks like then um to help with timing and everything so we're not all here what i will do is i will take the information that's given it looks like um saturdays um folks are able to do except for the first week of july and the 23rd of july
030folks are kind of flexible on a saturday date it also sounds like folks are amenable to a staggered so we'd probably do one one day per week instead of having them consecutively um um strung out and then um uh i will possibly put one day in august as a data review day to allow for um data collation by the administration so um if you can if everyone can just be amenable francine and i will be giving you um calls throughout this week i really would like to have this kind of tied down before the end of the week um as you know the board did um uh just two weeks ago agreed that um to have the retreat for three days so that's why we weren't able to block block calendars ahead of time but
031now that we know that three three days is what folks are looking forward to i'm going to ask francine to block days next summer um so that folks um with the planning for next year that we're able to have that um with consideration because it does sound like right at this time that we're coming up against a lot of scheduled conflicts um so next year we'll we'll try um to to prevent that um that's it for me all right thank you so in terms of the uh vendor um i don't know if you if you know i and i may have put it in a letter uh that i participate in uh try to participate in weekly meetings of the council of great city schools and in one of those meetings a couple of weeks
032ago um i asked um them to if they had anyone who can help us to facilitate our retreat to my question was how do we get to a high performing a high performance level what does it take to have a high performance um school district and without hesitation a res a reservation they all mention a person by the name of aj crabhill and um we callie and i spoke with him um and um he he he is out of the san francisco um area and when he was on the board there they had that school district had lost its accreditation and over 10 years they were able to get that accreditation back he is um pretty well versed and knowledgeable um he was asking us about uh when we go into school visits for example
033you know do we go in there in terms of from from an accountability perspective so um when we're going to visit schools and what i said to him you know we're basically just go in and have conversations but we have not really gone in from a position of accountability meaning that you know we find out what the metrics are for those schools and then have discussions around you know the status of those of those metrics and what he's saying is is that you know we should be going in there from that um perspective um he is he talked about the fact that um you know when they come into a school district they are ferocious you know they really um you know um pretty pretty forthright you know about education because they want to you
034know make sure that the um children in the districts that they um consult you know are um you know performing at a high level um now what he also said is is that you know if um the our district was not um you know pretty much on board with this and then they wouldn't come in uh they have to have you know buy-in from you know almost everybody uh and so one of the things what we tried to do is to see if we can get him um to at this meeting but it was the the nose was too short but what i would like is is that if you all can have a conversation each one of you individually or we could do it um collectively um at another at another time um and
035so while i'm not um i think it's it's an exciting opportunity for us to have this person you know i just want to be mindful you know to what commissioner lebron said last year about only having one um vendor to choose from and so um we also have invited in is it the monroe county school board or the new york state school board association the new york times the new york state school boards i know that the monroe county i did also reach out to the monroe county school boards association i've done quite a bit of checking around um or local partners right now monroe county school boards association is um expanded and they're not able to um to facilitate but nisba would be able to offer what they call a um targeted um or
036hybrid um [Music] retreat um where they'd be able to facilitate um they have different cost structures that would allow the board to take advantage based on different topic areas i know the board has well several members of the board have had um experience with nisba facilitating retreats in the past um if those of you might recall the one on um board and superintendent um roles they did that not last probably three summers ago um and there have been some feedback that persons want more targeted um retreat facilitation so that's been the discussion but i have reached out and have gotten quotes from from nisba on that any uh commissioner malloy thank you i just wanted to make a comment that these are all governance matters that we are discussing and as of this moment i
037am still the governance chair i should really be facilitating this discussion as governance chair because this is a governance meeting i know we don't officially meet until june 7th for governance and i realize that there is a resolution on the table to effectively strip me of my title but i'm still the governance chair and i should have been part of the planning of this meeting because i am still the chair all right thank you any other comments um president elliot i do want to just comment very quickly that um you know the same issue i had you know last year with commissioner molloy only having one vendor for the ant site by his training that i would have the same issue if you were just presenting one vendor to facilitate the board retreat the same
038issue still stands for me i do think that we need to create a process with a rubric and a standard so that we all have a collective input and who gets selected especially as we move forward in a new shared governance model for the board so i appreciate that you and kalia met with someone but it should really be a process where multiple people can submit a proposal a budget you know a cost structure and also an understanding for all the board members to know what that person would be doing beyond facilitation and what would make them unique and then that we have a rubric to to rate every vendor or potential person to facilitate and then make a decision as a collective so i do appreciate you bringing that up but i just want
039to put that on record too so what what do you so we should just not have anybody for uh what what are you suggesting that we no i'm suggesting that we have a rubric and that we have a process we where we have at least three different vendors that we either seek a proposal from or ask them to submit a proposal so that the board as a body can review it and score it and make the decision as a collective that way right so i don't i guess what i'm saying is that do we have um the time to have someone to facilitate for us for this year or do we not uh not use anyone and uh begin next year in terms of a facilitator for our retreat um cynthia um please th this
040i mean i i give i give beatrice mark for consistency but we don't have time to go through an rfp between now and the beginning of superintendent evaluation so if everybody else feels this if enough people feel as strongly as beatrice does about that then i would say the only alternative we have is to not be facilitated and that the board president is the de facto facilitator um those are really our options are to um and and i'd also ask our legal counsel to weigh in that um again out of consistency there's our our legal counsel had in the past has cleared the way for a single vendor on um for our training that was um that that didn't happen you know it contrary to some arguments that that it was illegal it was not
041illegal the our legal counsel um cleared that uh from the standpoint not niadrian but his predecessor from the standpoint of of um certain professional contracts as a sole source provider or or some such is is allowable um so but you know we we already hashed that and hashed that and hashed that so my recommendation is just that we proceed without a facilitator until we've agreed on a process thank you commissioner vice president lebron and if there's some other hands that i don't see please um you know just speak out a commissioner vice president lebron yes thank you so i just want to be clear i didn't actually use the word rfp the fact that you all went and got an rfp last year and then mid process switched up the process because you realize you
042didn't need an rfp to have a facilitator that doesn't take away the fact that we ended up with a vendor that most of the majority of the board of color doesn't believe is a good fit for the board so rather than end up in that position again i don't think it takes um 20 months or even 20 weeks to come up with a rubric that we all can agree to for scoring and if president elliot and kalia want to go and seek proposals from individuals and have the board score them and make a decision it shouldn't take weeks and weeks i didn't use the word rfp that process was not appropriate and i stand by that and and let's put it on record that the legal advice that we receive is questionable given the circumstances
043that it occurred under so we're not going to pretend that that didn't happen either and nobody's trying to manipulate and take somebody out and make it personal but we're gonna go there we're gonna go there so let me just be clear i am saying that the board as a whole should have a say in who gets elected to facilitate whether president elliot goes and speaks to three people and says put together a proposal so that my colleagues can rate it and make a decision as a body i'm okay with that i intentionally did not use the word rfp which is a different process than what was then quote unquote cleared by legal because of certain circumstances that were happening if i may interject briefly i would say the legal advice is a proper topic for
044a closed session or an executive session so i can provide the board some legal advice on um you know procurement laws and regulations at a next available executive session or a closed session all right thank you let me hear from president can i just say can i just repeat what i said earlier i give high marks to commissioner lebron for consistency i said that in the beginning i meant it and and i don't understand why it's coming across now as a point of argument i'm just offering up what i perceive to be the remaining alternatives given that we have to start a superintendent evaluation process this summer um and and summer is what a month away not 20 weeks a month all right um i see commissioner malloy's hand is raised mr malloy thank you
045i'm just switching screens here um i i just have to reiterate that all proper procedures were followed um and all proper policies were followed i think if we have an issue of policy that's something that we need to address as a board because i think that there are conflicting policies between different committees um and our policy well i think it's our board policy versus i think finance policies sometimes differ in language so if that's what we want to change then let's do that i am not against procuring um advisors to the board or consultants to the board using a standardized process that is very important transparency matters but i i just want to say i need to make this comment um president elliot i feel like my authority as governance chair was superseded by canceling
046the final racial bias training that was slated for may 14th and when i inquired as to why this had been canceled you stated that the board was moving in a different direction and i asked you how that decision was made given that i was never part of any such conversation nor was there a public meeting held to reach that decision so that decision should have been made via resolution and not behind closed doors i believe that that's a violation of the open meetings law and by canceling the state monitor recommended and board approved training for this school year we will now be obliged to pay potentially the vendor 7 300 by my calculations this was our final training perhaps some members felt that they weren't getting what they wanted out of the training but we
047approved it for the 21 22 school year through june of 2022 by a vote of five to two last fall with the understanding of course that we would revisit our particular needs as a board following this first time ever training accepting that it might not be perfect but that we would need to start work on it so i believe that's the same rationale that you gave for approving the 20 22 23 budget right like it's bad but we've got to get it done um there was an understanding that moving forward we'd start looking at revamping board policies and district policies regarding special consultants to the board to ensure that we could create updated policies surrounding how we secure professional development consultants to the board and our current policies obviously conflict so i don't believe that
048it was your call to cancel this meeting and there was never an official vote to do so and it's a waste of district resources the fact that this was in fact canceled we had the understanding that we were all going to meet again together and find out collectively because it is the job of the board to do anything governance related that we would collectively decide as a board moving forward what would work better for us if some people did not agree with uh the services being provided thank you before before i um uh recognize hands let me say this first of all uh i did not tell you that it was we were going into a different direction now that's a lot yeah let me just put that out there you know it's on record
049i got the email number two is is that um it was so bad it was the the session was so bad and she was so disrespectful that i know i didn't want to be a part of that and there were others who said that they didn't want to be a part of that because it was just that and like i said she was disrespectful and who wants to be a part of that now i was going to participate in it but then we had commissioner adams who had not been a part of it and the way which she treated him and the way he responded so in terms of my me wanting to be a part of that there were because and you left the open session you said you had to leave for whatever
050reason and so because you left listen it's on you if you decided to have left but the business of the district still continues and and so we did that and we made the decision okay commissioner lebron i actually want to go on camera because i don't know what reality commissioner lloyd lives in but the reality i live in there were certain actions and consequences and if you weren't a part of the meeting because you had to leave you were part of the meeting because you had to leave so i just want to be clear that president elliott didn't just cancel the meeting she did get the consensus of the board and the board's concession was to move forward i actually have no say because i wasn't participating in a fraudulent process regardless of i appreciate
051that you write your speeches commissioner but again i need you to live in this reality this reality of the actions that you have partaken you answered to this community as to why this is all going down you answer you answer for that because you want me to answer it so that you can make it right from the board but you have to answer to this community so you answer to them go ahead talk to adam tell the community the truth amy commissioner adams oh um i really was concerned about um how that ran for medical reasons i missed the first um session no it wasn't even medical reasons um it was for i was attending a school event and so i got there late no or i wasn't there oh i wasn't there for when
052we um hired her when she came and did a presentation that's what i wasn't there for i was in the hospital for the first her first presentation with the second presentation it was to be thankful fruitful and straight up it was trash when we're doing a section of anti-racism and you talking about you gotta extrude a line through the racism part we're not gonna talk about race that is ridiculous what a fraud that is and as far as i think something about um it was mentioned in here that um we might have to pay 7 300 out and we paid more more than that out um the district um open laws is one thing that we need to have some open accountability please please let's quit playing games yeah i'm um i wish the community
053could just look at the money that's leaving the district and why why um that's the that i don't know about how open law go i'm telling i do know but i'm just telling you we throwing little things out there commissioner malloy um and it's just it is it is not um it's just misleading it's just so misleading um i'm done i'm done thank you commissioner adams commissioner simmons thank you president elliot um i want to try to be as mindful as i can be with my words so i'm gonna breathe and i'm gonna try to be slow to speak um i'm just gonna say the word underbelly and i'll leave that that as anybody who's filling me understands what that means under valley um but what i will say respectfully as far as this particular
054process i i did not participate or or was not around when the vendor was selected or what have you and um i do want to say that you know 7 you don't want to throw 7 300 away but when we talk about resources time and dollars being wasted um from my personal perspective we were wasting it anyway and i will admittedly state that the very first meeting that we had with this particular vendor i was not present because i had an obligation with the school community that i had already signed up for and i did not want to miss that and therefore that's where i was um the second one that i was able to attend i was woefully um similar to commissioner adams kind of a matter of fact during the during the session
055i asked explicitly i said you know i i believe this is a racial bias training and when we're talking anti-racism racial bias i expect to see those sentiments um direct explicit and understood and i didn't and so i i did ask about that because i said well maybe i missed something in the first meeting so there were there were a few things the approach to the facilitation um that it just it just was not effective and i'm a person who truly enjoys coming in ready to learn even if i don't want to get up on a saturday morning or whatever the case is i will come in and i love to challenge myself to learn to find something new and to be open to ideas that maybe i i didn't know and i was not
056getting that out of this training so as far as a waste of resources the fact that we selected this particular vendor unfortunately and this for this particular occasion seemed to be a waste to me i'll stop there but um we need to be paying attention to the underbelly dr jallo thank you commissioner simmons yeah uh good evening um i really want to um ask the question of you know what's next um there's still a recommendation on the floor so to speak so i don't need an answer today but i need an answer soon as to what's next what is what are the next steps um as it relates to not so much the vendor but relates to the actual process or the actual need or the actual training not for tonight because i understand [Music]
057there may be some emotions there but i still think that there's a need as it relates to the training and how everybody's disposition may impact how you spend your resources or how children learn or how the district operates so i'm just making the request that within the next week or so we can have a clear i can have a clear understanding as to the direction you'd like to take from here so that we can see how it gets recorded or or not in the plan and in future um quarterly reports that are coming due thank you um dr jallo any other um comments questions about this matter so so in this case uh beatrice i will i will um direct this to you um you mentioned about um doing a rubric so i guess the
058question becomes what is it that we want to see in that rubric rubric so that we know um you know how to select um on what basis do we select this vendor please have room for president elliot just for the record the the board has used rubrics before to score other potential vendors into the space um so if that's something kalia can't find i will try to go through my notes and find um i believe chennai had sent us a rubric before to score some information in the past all right thank you commissioner adams i just had my hand up to say that we don't have to uh rewrite the book we can ask somebody else for their rubric okay you know all right commissioner simmons um just a quick question is it was there
059already a very clear objective to this trump training i was looked at i may have missed in the previous process i was looking at um how do we get to a high performance school district and i asked this question uh to the members of the council of greats uh great city schools and um unquestionably they came up with the name aj crabhill and so uh callie and i had a conversation with him and he seems someone like someone we may want to consider in helping us to facilitate uh you know the um the the basics of becoming a high performing school district there may be others out there i'm not in contact or you know i'm not serving on any other um committees right now that would help us with that but maybe um for
060example cube may have someone or some other organizations may have someone it was you know the council of great city schools that i reached out to now if you're directing us to um excuse me look at to some other vendors like council of great city schools i think there is the national black um school boys association that may be an area for us to look um but that just happened to be the the person we spoke with last week um commissioner powell excuse me i my commissioner powell um do you have any other questions commissioner simmons oh no thank you i'm outside all right commissioner powell uh so president elliot to your point the the call to action is laid out in the state monitors report it's unambiguous about anti-bias it isn't doesn't ask us
061how do we become a high performing district it asks us very explicitly to address um the racial tensions in our own board that is the motivation behind the recommendation that it to address our own uh the the racial tensions within this board and that the recommendation was anti-bias training so i guess i'm talking about something separate yeah and and i'm trying to get us back on point can i just also um president elliot that dr jallow has asked a few times now what the plan moving forward is but also has indicated that she would be open to an amendment as there have been other amendments to her plan if we came to her with a solidified plan of an alternative for training and so i just want to put that out there because that also
062was discussed um and i just want to put that out there so i don't necessarily think the training moving forward is going to be anti-bias especially when the recommendation is coming because people of color feel the biases from our white colleagues and let's just put it out there we're going to be all funky with it at this point yeah i um and you i've mentioned in in one of the meetings with regard to um i really don't want to talk about race anymore about what i would be willing to discuss is you know interpersonal conflicts uh because i don't think that um uh with regard to um race that we're gonna resolve that um in um in in in these sessions uh what i do think though is and i'll say this because we don't
063have the sessions often enough typically when you're going through board retreats you know you're on a high for you know first few weeks then you know you go back to the old behavior because there's not a continuation of those board retreats to continue to talk about uh those issues so that there is some permanent um behavioral change um but i like i said i would be willing to discuss other topics like you know interpersonal conflict or you know whatever else that the the board would suggest that we talk about um in place of this whole notion of um you know uh issues of race and bias um commissioner malloy thank you i just again want to reiterate that although there are some board members who have expressed um that they did not like the training
064in a five to two vote last fall we agreed und with the understanding that we would try this vendor and then we would regroup in june and we wouldn't commit to multi-years with this vendor that we would have discussions as a whole board to come to a consensus around what was going to work best for us and our particular needs and so the canceling of the final session of this bias training in my opinion was a bit short-sighted on the part of the board and that we are probably going to have to end up paying this vendor now i believe it was a total amount of 22 for the training for the year and so by my calculations that's where i came up with around 7 300 for this what we're losing by not having
065completed this final training i think it would have been beneficial to engage in the final training i know i was certainly getting a lot out of it and i am fully committed to anti training and also to anti-racism training i can't teach what i don't try to do and accomplish and it's not about me as for governance chair it's about what we can do to ensure that we have good interpersonal relations on this board but i believe in anti-racism work and i'm committed to it and so again the whole understanding was that we were going to regroup as a board talk about what we liked or didn't like about that given training and how we needed to proceed forward whether that was procedurally with a clearer process or changing um some of the policies that
066we have in the district so that things don't conflict but the understanding was always that this was not a permanent fix or solution that we were going to try this and then re revamp the program and come to a consensus around what was actually needed for our board commissioner simmons is that a old hand um thank you no this is this is a fresh hand so yeah that goes back to my um previous question which you you you answered for for a a different topic but yeah that was my confusion with this particular training what was the objective because again i hear us interchangeably using racial bias or anti-racism but then when i asked the facilitator i was told uh it's bias training and because i explicitly said if we're talking about race then i'd
067i need that stuff explicitly you shouldn't be guessing you shouldn't be trying to figure out where race is in it and unfortunately you know i know we are tired because we live it breathe it we every day you know the reality is it's an obligation and we have to lean into those things even those things that we are tired of even those things that we are uncomfortable and there is a distinct difference between racial tensions addressing racial tensions among board members and interpersonal conflict those things look very different and so when i go into a training if we're going to be doing interpersonal conflict then let's talk about inter personal conflict but if we're going to be talking about race then let's talk about race and let's be real clear and specific on about it
068and unfortunately a lot of decisions and actions have taken place that have cost us a lot of dollars in this district unfortunately that's that's the reality and so you know um my father always said when you're pointing your finger at someone else you got a thumb pointing back at you so i think that we should all check ourselves that that that's my opinion um but again i just want to know as we move forward if we're doing racial if we're addressing racial tensions among board members or interpersonal conflicts or both so that i can come in with an expectation of what to receive but even if whatever we were addressing that was not effective but i would love that clarity and we'll support as we move forward because that's the question on the table um
069i would love to support um as an individual board member being part of sending out uh my thoughts on what i would love to see in the criteria and how we go about making the decision what we would all collectively like to see in this training all seven of us and and trying to figure out in the middle where we can meet and find common ground and have a robust training that um is helpful to everyone i'll tell you what that comes to mind i would i would participate in a session on white privilege commissioner adams um i'm first president on elliot i know you got a lot on your plate um going into the meetings new jobs been on the board a while um been been through a lot of different trainings two babies
070now that i'm having to raise a three and four-year-old who now lives here yes um and so i know you have a lot on your plate but but but i'm gonna have to ask you to get a bigger plate because you need we need to um have we need to have trains about racism man we don't need to dress it up we i know you're tired of it um and and because it don't never seem to get nowhere in this district but we cannot give it up we have to keep pursuing the straight up conversations about racism um have we forgot just what happened in buffalo um just a couple days ago basically um and this was basically this person just got out of school he just got out of school 18 years old um
071so and no discussions were being had uh maybe that wouldn't happen so i i just i just beg to disagree um and i know i don't know why you said you didn't want to talk about race because you feel like it's not gonna but i just have to disagree um with that to say that we must move forward with talking about racism thank you i'll take that on advisement um vice president lebron yeah and i just want to agree with commissioner adams in that regard and then just pointing out that you know one commissioner again one commissioner is saying that they are going to benefit and literally ignoring the voices of the commissioners of color who did not have a good experience with it from for collectively individually and then collectively is that that's the
072stuff that we need to be addressing as well um and the board did decide the board did as the body have a discussion that we were going to move in a different direction we can't stop conversations because one board member is not there that includes myself y'all make a decision and i can't be there because i have to go pick up my daughter or i got to go pick up one of my grandkids keep the conversation moving the work still got to get done those conversations were had just because you were not there because you had to leave for your own reasons does not mean that the board has to stop doing the work of the conversations about which direction we're going to move and the audacity to talk about the cause when we have
073been put in certain situations that have cost the district money that have cost us giving children money in their classrooms over individual decision making over individual decision making and that's what i'm going to say because i think that this community can decipher what's going on and they can read through scripted speeches and have an understanding that something bigger is happening in the conversation that we're having right now that's all all right thank you dr jallo yeah just very quickly i wanted to respond to commissioner simmons question i do believe it's both i do believe it's interpersonal and it's race i mean buffalo is certainly a huge example but you have multiple examples daily in this district um whether you're looking at staffing whether you're looking at funding whether you're looking at curriculum whether you look
074at who goes to what school whether you i mean the examples are endless and they start with this group here on this screen so i do think it is both um and and probably a few other topics for um enlightenment and discussion and deliberation as well so i think it is anti-racism or racism as it pertains to leaders of an organization as well as how those leaders address communicate trust and work together as well okay so i just wanted to make sure that your questions yeah thank you so much dr jello i definitely appreciate that it is both i mean interpersonal relationships are lifelong like that's just an ongoing piece that we would have to focus on um i would love to see both of them but i need them explicit i need and this
075is i'm gonna let me go on mute so so this is um a conversation for another day in terms of if if the board is in violation of that recommendation around you know racial bias training then what do we put in this in its place and um you know for me interpersonal relationships the interpersonal conflict because we come from different um world views um and then i really would like for us to talk about white privilege i really would like that to be a part of this uh whatever that we decide because i think if we don't help our white con colleagues to be able to unpack who they are and the privilege that they have where we always have to be the ones to try to you know help others uh to assuage their
076um their issues um that's what's tiring and i think commissioner adams that's why you know i don't want to talk about race anymore because it seems that we really are not getting to the core with a number of people nobody really white people don't necessarily uh participate in fight uh privilege trainings and i think that that may be an area where we need to start because we need to understand their biases and we really we really do not and where their their biases come from i haven't had a conversation around white privilege and i think we need to do that but that's going to be you know a another session in terms of closed session of how open session i'm sorry of how we move forward it seems to be that it's always on black
077people and hispanic people to try to help white people to understand this whole issue that we're going through and and i think it has to be a balance of both white privilege has to be a conversation that we have and a facilitator to help with that so um any other any other comments for uh this particular agenda item so i think that there has to be a next step and to determine what other sessions that we need to have and i'll have callier to help uh you know we'll we'll get together and and and determine how we do that you know to have um some recommendations of other sessions uh workshops to have around this um but white privilege would have been very informative for me let me just say it would have it would
078have helped me i'm sure um it would have helped um our white colleagues because you know they just live in this world free uninhibited you know most black folk are not uh uninhibited they can't be they can't afford to be you know so we have to operate from that paradigm from that dna because that's the dna that's been in us for generations and all of us got it if you're living in america so i'll stop thank you so we'll get to cali and i will get together and we'll determine the next steps and um keep you all posted on that all right anything else any new business i have a couple of things but let me just open it up to new business president elliot i gotta go in and talk to some kids at
079the montgomery center so i'm gonna go in and do that now all right thank you thank you vice president all right so the only thing i have uh is in terms of um a couple of things one is one was already mentioned i think commissioner powell mentioned about the superintendent evaluation that's going to be coming up uh and also if you all can make it to um the annual meeting of the monroe county school board association they're going to be honoring sherry johnson so that if y'all could come out for that tomorrow night that will be great and uh hopefully i'll see you there commissioner adams yeah um you said some new business um i would like to um just have caillou put something in there in the question log for me um i would
080like to ask the administration could we start getting after having a closed session about suspension i'd like to see us get a maybe a monthly report on um suspensions um throughout the district um it just seems like we're almost out of out of touch with suspicions wasn't that going to be one of our topics calya for the board retreat um that is um a topic that is um to be um discussed during the retreat i also know that commissioner pat patterson has also asked for data regarding um incidents of of um violence and um long-term sus well suspensions just in general so that that has already been added to the question log but i i will put it in again um for you um commissioner adams but i do know commissioner patterson did ask for
081a um comprehensive review of incidents um student disciplinary incidents in the district okay thank you thank you commissioner malloy thank you i just want to reiterate once again that we are discussing retreat dates etc and as of right now i am still the government's chair and although there's a resolution on the table to strip me of my title by eliminating the governance committee i am still the governance chair and i should really be chairing this meeting and you know i have to say that the objection i have a huge objection to the resolution to eliminate the governance committee and on a number of grounds you know governance it says right in the resolution that's going to be before us on thursday that governance they're doing this because governance needs to be the collective responsibility of
082our entire board but it always has been the collective responsibility of our entire report no individual board member or committee chair has ever had the power to dictate policy without before the full board approval and additionally the resolution also states along something to the extent of we want to uh respect the state monitor's recommendation to have fewer meetings we have met fewer times than ever before as a governance body in the past year than in i would say any recent history um and i'm sorry but i have to say this president ali you have made it very clear in our numerous conversations that you do not want me cheering the committee and that you would like to oversee all governance matters as president and i feel like there is a serious conflict of interest here
083especially as it relates to your overseeing the superintendent evaluation process your intent to control governance matters was made clear to me when you asked me to step down as governance chair in late march of 2022 and i refused to step down having been overwhelmingly reelected for a third straight year in january of 2022 so why eliminate a committee just because you don't seem to like the person running it or because they disagree with you on a policy about teaching and learning matters or because they support all of their employees in the district in ways that you object to i have to say that this almost feels like some sort of censure of a fellow board member which is illegal i should say under new york state education law this board cannot legally do that and
084i can't ascertain the motives for this but the wording of this resolution and the action don't make much sense and we won't move forward as a governing body for our students with this action we're here for our students and governance more than any other committee is critical right one of the key duties of the governance chair is to facilitate conversations around the super eval process you have been obstructing my ability to do this in the last few months and i think we should rewind a bit before you ask me to step down as chair immediately prior to the superintendent's informal mid-year evaluation on march 9th you sent me a text stating that you wanted to lead the discussion around her informal evaluation and i agreed to this at the time given unique circumstances but that
085conversation never took place because of other discussion items you brought up because this mandated conversation never took place dr jallow cited governance in her report for not having had the discussion which the board clerk brought to my attention on monday may 2nd via a phone conversation in one week that's due to the state in one week we need to have our superintendent's evaluation process in in full gear so with the state monitors transmission to the state slated for the following week i attempted to schedule a special meeting to have this conversation with for the board and as my next official governance meeting wasn't until june 7th that's why i wanted a meeting in fact all of the committees governances of all the communities governance has always had i think the least amount or the fewest
086sorry official meetings so you know governance governance does facilitate board professional development and retreats but those have not increased in number under my leadership all right commissioner malloy i'm going to stop you here because we're going to have five minutes you're out of order we're under new business now dr meyer small i'm sorry point of order and and i will remind you uh in robert's rules a point of order must be weighed in on our bylaws allow any board member who has been recognized by the chair five minutes i don't know if anybody started a clock but we can't but our bylaws say that once a person has been recognized by the chair and madam president you did recognize her then she has five minutes to to make her remarks i all business new business
087that that's what the bylaws call for and i don't don't play this game like i'm showing favoritism i'm i'm applying the bylaws and the robert's rules as they are written that was not what i was going to say so certainly you cut her off i don't think her five minutes is up i think you need to honor her five minutes and let her finish whatever her remarks were but don't don't say it's about rape i didn't i didn't say that all right let me get back let me get back what he said was that this we were under um new business and so it doesn't matter it doesn't matter any point of order i'm under my point of order let me tell you let me tell you it doesn't matter whether it's all business new
088business it's you you you recognized her you gave her the floor you have to give her her five minutes so let me just let me say this so um this is this is clearly why we may not want to have um this person in this position because first of all they don't follow the rules so in that case point of order again point of order again that is not that is not what is that issue here doesn't matter you don't know your own bylaws and you cannot facilitate if you're not paying attention to the bylaws facilitating fairly and and i'll say once again i know that you're going to tell me that because i'm a white lady i'm still going to get up for the other white lady but the fact is i'm sticking up
089for the pop for for for robert's rules and our bylaws and you are violating them and i will continue to say the point of order until uh until you begin to facilitate in a manner that represents those but see now that's that's where that's what i mean by quite pregnant no no no that's what the bylaws call for a point of order is the roberts rules mechanism by which you hold a facilitator accountable to the body for its bylaws and and we our bar laws say first and foremost that we follow by robert's rules which means no problem with that which means you have to respect a point of order secondly secondly our bylaws have no problem once you have recognized somebody you give them the five minutes and you refuse to give her her
090five minutes commissioner commissioner you overtalked me you i'm doing so you have to recognize that as a facilitator you have an obligation you have an obligation to follow robert's rules commission and that means commissioner powell on the point of orders of power and then you and then you're disrespecting the chair because you're not no no point of order point of order allows me to requires that you respond to the point of order not to move on not to change the subject not to give someone else a chance to speak but to rule on the point of order which you have failed to do thank you commit dr i heard the president call on commissioner malloy so can we please move forward with this this meeting because i don't know what's happening here yeah but i
091did hear you make the correction commissioner powell i didn't see the president uh tell uh commissioner malloy to please continue so that she can finish out the two minutes remaining in her three minutes to total out her five so let's start there please i believe our parliamentarian has his hand raised who's going to say in regards to a point of order uh once poor enough order is raised the chair asks the member to stand the point and after the member does so the chair rules on whether the point is well taken and states the reason um so that the chair gets to decide whether the point is made and if the person who raised the point uh disagrees then they can we can kind of file an appeal yes um but but so such that
092i think the president has ruled on the the point of order yeah because and i did it based on the fact that we had moved away we were under new business and um i wanted to move on to dr meyer small so given that we've heard from the parliamentarian i'm going to call on dr meyer small good evening commissioners i just wanted to go back to the student suspensions and um we i thought we had submitted that information relative to the board request so we'll make sure we get that out her commissioner patterson's request and then going to what commissioner adams said one of the suggestions that i was going to make to the board as we start up in the 20 to 23 school year is that as soon as practicable after the month
093has passed that we would do present to the board through the friday letter uh um a disaggregated charts and graphs relative to suspensions based on gender based on grade level um elementary versus secondary et cetera so that we can have um you can have that data and then we can have informed conversations as a result of the data that's what i just wanted to submit thank you thank you commissioner adams so um i don't want to go backwards but i i have to um publicly um take note of i just noticed um commissioner um powell um pretty much yelling at president elliot in a way that um for me we all need to have um teflon suits anyway but um i seen somebody got served some papers here at the board basically um for their
094behavior in the board and and i just really think as talking to another person i just had to put it on record that i thought that was really hypocritical that's all i'm done thank you commissioner patterson commissioner patterson i think you had i'm gonna lower my i'm gonna lower my hand thank you i'm sorry okay all right any other discussion under new business um i don't know you may have to redirect me president under new business um but i i do i would like to see us go in the direction additional direction of board accountability because we as a seven-member board cannot sit over a district of students that we say we care about and we tout all the these these tokenized terms and misread them misuse them we can't sit here and responsibly govern
095a district that is failing and turn it around effectively with what i'm experiencing this evening yeah and i have to constantly do a check and balance with myself because i don't want to become part of this yeah i want us to become a better board but that's a level of not only joint accountability amongst all of us as members but our individual accountability as well so and i felt like i was watching the amber her trial like we need to really be cognizant of truths that were put like stop stop playing stop playing this is not politics these are kids lives this is education yeah so let's have that conversation at another time a point well taken so is there any more discussion under new business commissioner malloy is this under new business um i
096believe that new business also includes the resolution that we are going to be looking at to vote on on thursday and so no it's not a new business it's not in a new business i mean you can try to silence me but everyone deserves to be heard and it's highly undemocratic to not allow people to voice concerns you have a resolution on the table to strip me of my title on thursday and i will be the only commissioner without a chairmanship and you have just assumed all the roles of governance this evening without any authority to do so as board president these are governance matters that you were discussing and as of this very moment i am still the governor's chair and we all deserve to be heard all right thank you very much uh
097motion to adjourn motion can i get a second second second all those in favor aye good night everybody thank you