001good evening everybody welcome again uh it is the labor day holiday and we find ourselves laboring working some people take the day off it is appropriate given the crisis that the board of education be working along with the administration to resolve what is undoubtedly and fairly called a crisis respecting our transportation services but we we endeavor we are working to get that resolved and without further delay i would present to you the superintendent for an update on her specific plan to address that crisis madam superintendent good evening president white and to all the commissioners to my uh team my staff as well as those who are viewing on facebook and on youtube i do have um an update and would like to let you know where we are relative to transportation for the rochester city
002school district so i have good news we were able to consolidate all of the buses at a variety of schools to ensure that 100 percent of the routes for students with disabilities receive transportation so we shared last night that all that there were 32 routes that were open those have all been covered i had a conversation with rts and the conversation was incredibly promising for the new contract with our five schools which include edison leadership academy northeast northwest and rochester early college high school additionally we had meetings with rta regarding limited and emergency simultaneous learning we have been meeting and partnering with our union leaders throughout this crisis over the past several days we appreciate the rta leadership on this issue and their partnership in helping us to ensure that our scholars receive a high
003quality education furthermore today a robo call and letter went out to families informing them that we are have eliminated transportation for students who participate in the walker bus program and live within 1.5 miles of their school to and from school beginning thursday september 9th additionally so those numbers are um are 91 students at school 10 261 students at school 17 and 232 students at school 22. additionally we consolidated buses at all city high school the shift and shifted the end time at dr alice holloway young school of excellence by 30 minutes to consolidate buses and just another update ontario transportation lost three additional drivers today but there was no impact on the rochester city school district and just a note with that we are checking regularly with all of our providers to to just get
004the status of drivers additionally as of 4 30 pm due to the driver shortage there are 17 unassigned routes impacting eight k-8 schools which impacts 144 students at school 8 that equates to 8 students at school 12 that's 19 students school 23 18 students school 29 16 students school 35 16 students school 39 18 students school 46 16 students school 52 16 students again for a total of 144 students let's now talk about the transportation that we are able to provide at elementary schools so you can see schools eight through seven are on uh reflected on this slide we have shared with you the number of buses that are allocated to each of those schools the enrollment at each of those schools and then how many have access to buses so i'll just allow you
005to take a moment to review that information what's school 106 in 68 and 53 which one what are those schools schools uh school 106 is rise what was your other question 68 that should be 58 that is a typo i apologies yes thank you then if we want to go to the next set of elementary schools you can see what that entails those schools are noted again the number of buses for each of those schools the enrollment as well as how many have access now one of the things that i think is um important to share is um the fact that you might see well why does one school have you know the fluctuation and numbers of buses we have to be mindful of the fact that that number fluctuates anywhere uh fluctuates as far
006as the number of students because we also have students with disabilities on buses so there are certain requirements there as we move to secondary schools and the transportation providers and again oh please go back to elementary school dr buyers would you would you prefer that your colleagues ask questions as you go through the charts or wait till the end could we wait to begin president white absolutely go ahead all right thank you so if we move to secondary schools that have transportation again we listed the schools from all city through monroe lower you can see the enrollment of those schools the number of riders the number of buses and the specific transportation company that provides service to those each of those respective schools now let's next move to the schools that we discussed last night
007that don't currently have transportation you can see that those five schools again are edison leadership academy for young men grade seven through 12 northeast 9 through 12 northwest 7 through 8 rochester early college 9 through 12. so you can see the total number enrollment and the total number of writers i know one question might be okay so this reflects a different number we did not um we this number did factor takes into consideration the fact that there are students receiving specialized bus busing and or walkers so that's why there's the difference you can we don't know the number of buses as of yet because this is these are the routes that would be covered by rts and this is pending negotiation so again as i noted conversations were very promising and we should have a
008number we should fight be finalized be able to finalize by uh tuesday which is tomorrow so let me just do a say back our involvement in this plan is contingent upon the approval from the rts or rg rta's board and so the options for these students should we not negotiate which i'm very confident that we will finalize that again the conversation was promising but the plan is simultaneous instruction should not rts work out again i just want to reiterate with our elementary students as well as our elementary students as well as our secondary students all are welcome to start on the first day of school commissioner the vice president elliot i do want to go back again uh school 68 and i should know this is wilson it's wilson it's not that's not a typo
009i apologize wilson foundation which is pre-k 8. so what happens on tuesday which is tomorrow superintendent's conference day goes as scheduled and is planned the district session begins at 9 30 all district staff are expected to actively participate in the presentations that are being offered centrally school members at those five schools again edison leadership northeast northwest and rochester early college have received an exception and will be provided the video recording that can be viewed at their at their own leisure this gives these schools an opportunity to prepare for simultaneous instruction while scholars await transportation so what happens on wednesday thank you to the board of education for allowing us to delay the start of school for one day and approving that via resolution this affords all of our staff the opportunity to prepare for opening
010day additionally the district will provide supports for online learning asynchronous assignments as well as social emotional support what happens on thursday it is the first day of in-person instruction for all of our students in the rochester city school district students with transportation will will begin in-person learning at their school as well as students who can provide their own transportation will be welcomed at their school and again i just want to remind everyone that school is available for any student who does not have transportation and we are very excited to welcome them students without transportation will be learning remotely on their chromebooks in google classroom next steps include the following we will finalize the rts contract and our team has been working diligently again today to finalize that component we will continue to recruit drivers to
011support the routes that are not covered our transportation team will continue to review the consolidation of routes and we additionally will have a community involvement plan i have to share two important areas of the community they have already stepped up one the city of rochester is going to be opening for our centers across the city on wednesday to welcome our scholars should there be child care issues because of the delay of school one day and additionally conkey cruisers has a priority for our walker buses so those schools i mentioned earlier of 10 of 17 and 22 that scholars would be able to receive not only a free bicycle but also a helmet so with that president white that's the update relative to how the numbers of elementary schools and students and and the number of
012buses the secondary schools and what that looks like as well as how we plan to support students should they have to participate in remote learning thank you uh superintendent meyer small i'm going to take questions in a second but i did want to note that chancellor a commissioner rather commissioner rosa is in the room and i wanted to on behalf of the board of education the superintendent thank her and the entire state department of education for their assistance in responding to this crisis she has been an advocate for this district long before she became commissioner and her presence here today is consistent with her support for this district i also want to thank on behalf of the board chancellors turner and and norwood for their consistent support for this district over many years and of
013course we are forever thankful for the support of our albany delegation including those in the assembly and the senate there are indeed many other people who we could spend the next hour thanking for their involvement not just in addressing this issue but in all the issues that this urban district faces and we are continually an appreciation for those efforts but let's get to the questions i know commissioner powell was first commissioner malloy ii commissioner braun and then commissioner adams commissioner powell why don't you start thank you uh on the first the first question i had was on the slide for school number three you described a 30 minute change to the start time or bell time was was this just um was this shifting it from one start was this a rebalancing was this changing
014it from one of the start of the three uh bell times to another of the three bell times in order to balance the load it was to help address the load they were they had um a time and we just shifted that so we went back and we went back to the original bell time okay and so that allows us to be more efficient correct it does it frees up some roots and our chiefs were in communication with deb washington um today to make sure that that was clearly known and to make the necessary adjustments and it was minor right but that does add a burden of being of uh getting the word out to those families because they don't probably only just learn that they were changing um start times when we put out
015the the three-tier system right uh commissioner powell those robo calls already went out and conversations that happened earlier today okay um my next question is it's really quite minor uh yet your slide that described the 17 k through eight schools some of those are case sixes right we're lumping k-6 and k-8 together right okay just wanted to clarify that thank you thank you commissioner powell next we have commissioner malloy commissioner thank you so good evening everybody and um before i get started i everything that i'll be asking or commenting on tonight just is in terms of the recruitment of of drivers because we know that's been the fundamental issue here so first of all i am really happy to hear the news tonight and thank you so much dr meyer small to you and your
016team for the work that you've been doing for the past 24 hours on this much appreciated i'm just so happy that our kids are going to be back in the classroom five days a week my own children are beyond ecstatic to see their peers and teachers again we really do have vibrant school communities across this district we have really supportive families and caregivers and community partners that make all of this possible so i really commend our superintendent on ensuring that this happened for board and community request i'm really happy that we will fulfill this promise to our students and families before i get too far into all of this i really want to wish a happy labor day to all of our employees as well as apologize to all of our employees who've been working
017during a weekend that really should have been set aside to honor you know the workers of our nation i do like to think that i honor our workers but i feel like we're falling short in this regard in some areas and we have been for the past 18 months especially because of the pandemic so the message we've been giving some of our most vulnerable employees who've literally been the ones carrying us through this pandemic are among the lowest paid members of our community and are the employees who are most likely to live closest to the students and families that they serve many of the workers i'm referring to are bente union employees they include our rcsd bus drivers our cafeteria employees our security guards among the many other members i firmly believe an institution is
018only as strong as how the workforce is treated by those in power i understand that our district didn't create the transportation crisis in which we now find ourselves and i'm relieved that um what we've been doing to address this crisis um this is a nationwide crisis of bus drivers during the pandemic but we're also particularly vulnerable in terms of transportation because of our heavy reliance on transporting 31 000 students all over the city including not just our own 24 000 students but also those students who attend charter parochial and private schools we along with most of the other districts throughout monroe county contract with private companies to provide these services and i am so grateful for the long-running contracts that we have with these private companies including monroe ontario for student and rts we wouldn't
019be able to do it without them they are experiencing shortages of drivers as well um scheduled to a three-tiered system back in early august so kudos on that yet we knew we were still short drivers not only in our csd but also with our contractors through the frequent transportation updates we received throughout the summer from our operations crew i am so grateful our elected officials helped to step in to assist us in securing further contracts for transportation in this emergency and i hope most of our students can get transported to school on thursday it sounds like we're almost there because we are still short on drivers for some of our schools and we are expecting more driver resignations so we need to ensure that we aren't just depending on our private contractors to recreate to
020be able to recruit drivers as an organization just like the private companies do during the state of emergency so that we can provide stable transportation for our students and that includes a workforce of rcsd bente drivers who can serve as substitute drivers which i understand we do not really have at yesterday's meeting we were reminded that the district was actively creating incentives to recruit more drivers and in the presentation tonight we also saw that we are actively recruiting more drivers you know i understand that there was a memorandum of agreement offered our bente union offering incentives on par with those that we contract with for transportation the moa was evidently pulled yesterday and is no longer on the table at this time this is really the core of what i'm trying to say i'd like
021to know why we are not attempting to recruit employees when it it why we say we are recruiting employees but it doesn't seem that we're offering incentives to recruit my fear here is that we are avoiding competition with private companies and it seems to me that this is slowly but surely killing our own transportation department who without the stipulations found like those found in that moa are unable to provide commensurate salaries and incentives to rcsd unionized employees it appears to create an unequal playing field that favors the eventual privatization of all public school transport i view this as a direct attack on our unions and labor and the people who suffer from all of this are our students we should be doing everything in our power to recruit drivers it's critical privatization of our children's
022transport takes the power out of the hands of a public entity and into the hands of a private corporation up to 90 percent of our transportation is reimbursable by the state and we certainly need to change our existing structure long term so that we have less of a dependence on busing students all over to begin with so what i want to end with is that i implore administration to do whatever is necessary to make our organization competitive this is precisely the type of cost that covert funding should be used for so thank you to our district operations crew and transportation department for your tireless work in making us aware of this crisis and i'm looking forward to our kids getting back into the classroom as quickly as possible thank you thank you commissioner malloy next
023we have commissioner lebron i won't be giving speeches but i have lots of questions um that i need answers on so i'm gonna go through a number of questions and then hopefully you can answer some and those you can't answer at this moment i will i don't want them to go into a board question log i would like to have these questions answered tonight on record um for the walker buses yesterday was mentioned that there was about a thousand students today you gave us some numbers that are significantly less than a thousand um but i am interested in understanding the grades and ages for these walkers i primarily bring this up because some of these schools were some of the schools that we changed bell times to a few weeks ago and so now some
024of these schools are going to be ending at four o'clock and it's going to be dark out by four o'clock especially as we go into the fall and winter in rochester um and i'm just curious about how far six year old's going to be walking in the dark because we changed the belt times to accommodate a number of other students so i don't think that this is completely hashed out yet and this just you know my concerns but certainly the parents who are these kids um i know that we keep using the word like minimum impact but this is really impactful to our entire community and to all these families is going to be majorly impactful in their lives um the other people that i want to talk about lebron could i just respond to
025that just or don't get ahead because i don't have any questions so our chiefs of schools as well as kelly briggs who's our executive director of strategic partnerships they are working with the principals and there were actually some community meetings that will happen starting as early as tomorrow with the um staff and their parents to talk through how to assist those students who will be walking so we're looking at you know the possibility of something similar to like a safe passage to get to help students to and from school so that is in the works and we can certainly keep uh the board of the the commissioners um in up to date relative to what that specifically entails but that is in the works is that okay um i would like an update at least
026by next week on that because we're starting school on thursday and then monday and sure could be dark in a few short weeks um the 100 the 17 routes that represented 144 students are you saying that those are still the students without any transportation at all correct um and you're still working on figuring out a solution for those students commissioner lebron let me respond to that um and i i didn't say this and i should this continues to evolve because a transportation department we've lauded and should be lauded are continuing to work through to see how we might even make that number or those routes smaller so they that could change tomorrow and it could change again on wednesday so we continue to figure out how to reduce that number so we can really maximize
027children being covered with transportation and then oh again we'll provide those updates thank you and just a follow-up on that question when can families actually anticipate to have a new bus route letter with a more reflective of actual time for pick up and drop off mike do you mind coming on screen and answering that please and thank you yes good evening everyone um apology for my my attire we're over here at transportation still trying to work the problem um the letters the letters to the students the 588 students that are um that are of those three schools we've been talking about will be hand delivered tomorrow by our by our drivers or our our expediters or our troubleshooters that are out on doing our route practice the other letters for all the all the students
028that have a variety of the changes that we're here are here going to go to the post office first thing in the morning will be sent out um with the first mail they'll be in the po they'll be in the post office by 6am the the team worked all day today to make sure we crafted those letters had the envelope stuff to have everything stamped here and ready to go so um that's that's uh that's kind of where we are in terms of mailings commissioner lebron i just wanted to go back to the thousand so the three schools represent the uh the the um three schools uh represented the the hundred and something number but there's 727 which is the 1.5 mile exception and so we're combing through those right now so that's what we're
029looking through that makes up the additional number okay okay thank you for that clarification and then um you mentioned that the district's going to be providing additional supports for our staff um i just would like some clarification of what those supports would actually look like and what did you mean by that um [Music] i just want to know what that means so a few things so glenn if you would come on and take talk about the technology supports first absolutely and good evening everybody we are well prepared and we have been well prepared uh for the past year to support our teachers and our students both in simultaneous instruction or any kind of remote instruction we've been handing out additional mifi's throughout the course of the summer to ensure that every student that doesn't have
030reliable connectivity in their home even that even if it requires multiple students to have modifies to be able to receive one we still have four thousand mifi's left in stock to be able to hand out the students in any case of the situation because we know family situations can change week to week or month to month especially during a pandemic for our teachers we're going to have office hours available for our teachers where they can just pop right in they're going to be handled by kathleen mohan and ted delahente our instructional technology toas will be going to schools where simultaneous instruction is happening to support those teachers in addition and one step further we're going to assign a building technician specifically to the buildings uh where the majority of simultaneous instruction is happening just in
031case of any technical difficulties they may experience okay so just one for school and and then lastly um and when you may want to stay on because this is a this is a chromebook conversation i remember last year we were actually asking our staff to collect the chromebooks from students um and we kept sending those reminders out and there was a little bit of a scramble to have kids come back and bring the chromebooks how are we going to ensure that all of the kids who are not receiving transportation actually have their chromebooks before thursday good question um i'm not sure where the communication potentially maybe went a little sideways we did not collect devices without giving another device in its place we had several thousand chromebooks uh go out of uh basically go out
032of service due to the the vintage of them but we did not take a chromebook without replacing a chromebook however any new students to the building any new student to the building as of last tuesday i believe i could be off by a day it could be last monday any registrant into the building chromebooks were shipped to the building for those students if students that are new to the district have a broken chromebook they can contact their school and the school can fill out a request form and we'll deliver that chromebook to the building however there may be issues with transportation so it'll be just like years before myself uh parent engagement all hands on deck delivering chromebooks or whatever is needed to the student's home i don't anticipate that to be a very large
033number but it's a practice that we've kind of honed over the course of the past year so just for clarification of a student needs a chromebook because they just registered and they didn't get one um even last year or whatever there's some or it's broken they would contact their home school and then the home school would fill out the paperwork and then we would get them the chromebook and then we're going to be doing this in the next 48 hours potentially because school starts thursday we've already yes we've already communicated that into our parent forums and our staff forums and out to the principals there is a link for them to click on and they basically just fill out a google form and wherever that location is where that that is filled out that's where
034we deliver the chromebook to but again we're open for getting chromebooks right into the hands of students even it requires us driving it to the home okay thank you i'm gonna start with questions on the presentation i have some additional questions um that uh president right around school reopenings in general um so i'm gonna use the food lore at this time so folks can ask questions around the presentation if you want to call me back i'll raise my hand again i just wanted to add um two additional things as far as supports certainly our chiefs of schools have been working very closely with the principals they had a meeting not too long ago with them to go through this information and what was reported back to me is that that was helpful and the principles
035were appreciative we also for the five schools the edison leadership northeast northwest and rochester early college the chiefs will be making sure that their supports and as glenn mentioned that those technology supports will be provided and i just wanted deputy superintendent martinez davis to just briefly share also about uh social emotional supports because that is something that has been noted obviously by our scholars and by our staff as well as the community so i just wanted for her to to update the board in our community about what that looks like melody yeah absolutely good evening commissioners and our community first and foremost we are very excited that our scholars will be returning to our schools on thursday so for our staff i want to put a plug we our rock reservative team has been working
036very diligently uh throughout the summer and will continue in the fall providing professional development opportunities this summer we have offered over 60 different types of professional development opportunities to our teachers that they could sign up for on different topics on social emotional learning including after covet how do you set up your classroom how do you ensure that students feel while coming into that learning environment i want to put a plug in that we will have a rcsd step support circles uh happening on september 16th and also on september 30th from 4 30 to 6 p.m for any of our staff that would like to join we will in addition to that for our staff our department will be offering a 10-part sel series on racial equity and anti-racism and specific pd for restorative sel teams
037at the schools we are going to be working with principals to ensure that every school has an sel team that is fully uh supported we are adding to our website constantly resources we have new lessons new uh tools in our sel toolkit that can be found on our website of our student support services website we have a s'mores newsletter that we publish uh quarterly that has been extremely well received by our staff that contains videos and resources that staff can use and this year we are enhancing that by providing weekly messages communicating with our staff on sel tools that they can continue using as they fortified their instruction thank you mel thank you uh madam superintendent next we have commissioner adams good evening um one question um and concern um i'd like to say thank
038you to the city for um providing those for our centers wednesday that's a great thing but i also would like to know if you can collaborate with the city and get us a few crossing guards for those walking buses that you eliminated um because that's just basic having them walking guards i know they got things called safe passage and this and that them walking guards can make a difference and for those schools with the walking distance um it's not large numbers that you need um but you definitely need them and i just hope that you can collaborate i think it's the city that pays those people um if we can collaborate with them once again and get some crossing guards for what we're removing the buses and that's all i have commissioner adams thank you
039for that commissioner malloy emailed me earlier today about that as well so that would be something that is in our community plan for next steps thank you commissioner adams next we have vice president elliot thank you mr president um just let me uh thank everybody for all of this uh effort i i know it's been tough uh it's been difficult um this is a whole different kind of environment whole different kind of environment we'll leave that alone we'll talk about that another time um a whole different um environment um that we've we've just not experienced you know we've got a couple years you know in terms of online learning and what have you but this is this is new um for us and so i just want to thank um everybody you know the the
040people our staff i also want to thank our community i also want to thank our state partners for this but but let me also say this while we want our students in school and this is not my question uh why we want our students in school for me is about their safety and because i understand that in our community there are disproportionate social ills in our community that puts our community more at risk for covet so while we want our kids in school i really want them to be alive i do understand that that we all are social beings that need to be connected with each other i think that i have more of an appreciation for people now than i ever had um so i get that but i also want our families i
041want our students and i want our staff to live um so that's first and foremost for me um and so i'll say that to say this um you know depending on you know what happens in the winter with this covert we may end up having to go to online learning i'm hoping that that's not going to be happening um and that we can keep our families and our students safe and our staff safe but we got to be real about that as well um so um i just want to put that on the table my question has do i really have a concern for our walkers the one of the the ones who we were placing on the bus who were within the 1.5 eligibility and the reason that that's a concern for me is
042is that because i've got examples of you know when we have um one example a few years ago the the the mother lived on sixth street but had to take her her two children and a baby in a carriage in the wintertime to school welcome to school 36. so those are the kinds of concerns that i have when it's within that 1.5 eligibility we want to make sure that children were in school uh i think i mentioned this last night my concern would be the absentee rate and if we're saying i don't know how much planning has gone into accommodating these these families who are not eligible to take the bus because of the 1.5 um eligibility requirement as such i do see that we're going to have i do anticipate that there will be
043um some attendance issues and so how i i don't need to have that answer tonight but i do need to make sure we need to make sure that if we're not going to give them the transportation and i understand why i get all of that uh but but how are we going to support our families to make sure that they are as best as we can that they're in school because if we want them in school um so that um um you know there's not a loss of learning we've got to support those families in some ways thank you the superintendent myers do you care to respond to any of that or will you just provide an answer as this situation evolves i'd like to provide an initial answer and again that's what the community
044plan will help us address to really have those wrap around services to support those parents and to support those families who are not provided transportation at this time but i just also want to reaffirm my commitment our commitment to get that addressed and fixed as quickly as possible but we will follow up as well thank you superintendent thank you vice president elliot commissioner clark yes thank you president white i too want to thank everyone who's come to the table the state the city everyone who has uh stepped in to help us through this crisis but i also wanted to reiterate a point that uh that i made last night well i agree that we need to do everything to protect our bente workers and all our bus driver drivers and grow that pool we really
045need to look at the entire pool we need to figure out what we need to do to stem driver resignations because i i mean in the last week we've had 20 drivers to uh to resign and it's more than a money issue it's a health and safety issue and what one of the things that we need to do is we need to be able to provide uh information sessions for all of our bus driver we need to provide it for our bus drivers and bring in experts in the health profession to talk about safety so that we can begin to stem the fear that our drivers had have because right now i mean they're talking to one another and we're getting this explosion of resignations and retirements but we need to bring in experts to
046speak to them about safety about the precautions we're taking about the uh the effectiveness of the ppp equipment that we're providing for both them and for the bus monitors and we also need to require that our contractors do the same thing and so that we can really begin to get a handle on this because while part of it may be a money issue maybe a salary issue or whatever it appears to me that a major part of this is really the fear of of uh of not knowing what the risks are and i think the better we educate our transportation workers the more likely we are to retain them and to uh really begin to stem the resignation retirements that we're running into thank you commissioner uh clark um i'm looking at the list to
047see if anybody else i do have some questions but i want to make sure i won't run through our first round of questions it doesn't appear that there are any other questions madam superintendent i'm going to give you sort of a lightning round series of questions you feel free to answer them briefly uh because i know that some may require more in-depth response the first thing i want to do is join all of my colleagues i think everyone has spoken of the concern for those walkers those students that are within that 1.5 mile uh a distance that we previously were providing transportation because we were concerned about their safety given the neighborhood uh i joined every one of my colleagues in expressing concern about those students uh i join you madam superintendent in your efforts
048to collaborate with rpd i believe those are the people that commissioner adams refers to that employs those crossing guards i would i would ask for even a broader effort not only city employees but district employees i know we have similar challenges in terms of our centuries our security guards but if we could be deploying uh some of those one or two of those that that red van that drives around in those neighborhoods i think that would be extremely helpful this uh this plan has to be very detailed because the the the the facts that justify the creation of this particular exemption still exists these neighborhoods are not safe for young children night or day and so we want to make sure that that plan while you may not present it today that it does need
049to be presented in short order because we do not want another tragedy as a consequence of this crisis uh sex second question is i notice in your charts madam superintendent uh that those charts that refer to secondary and elementary school uh to be shortages between our difference between the the number of students at the particular school and the number of students that we're going to be that would have access to a ride on a bus um very briefly could you explain to me how you plan on if i'm if my assessment was correct that there was a discrepancy that there were more students enrolled that were actually going to be riding on the bus can you explain that discrepancy is it just the fact that some students just don't ride the bus or is it
050just you don't have the capacity to provide for those students and if so what will you do to provide for those students safety and or transportation so if you're referring to this first set of data that i referred to that have the school number the number of buses the enrollment and then how many access the buses i just want to make sure that i'm clear so we have students that their families do provide transportation or they walk so that's the difference the only schools that we as we noted um were uh one it was seven eight schools that were not covered but the the the charts that we shared with you those uh schools excuse me are covered with transportation all right so that that's an important clarification because we don't want people looking at
051that list and saying the difference indicates that those students will not be able to get to school that is a reflection of for for example students who provide their own transportation to their families all right so that that's a critical understanding i appreciate you clarifying that additionally i want to join vice president elliot and i'm sure every one of my colleagues uh that expresses a concern about the ripple effect the domino effect of these transportation challenges we have an attendance policy we have an absentee policy i indicated in my earlier memo to you today it would be helpful to have it understood what changes what accommodations will be made to ensure that students are not held accountable for maybe some early challenges in getting to school because obviously there are still a number of students
052and families they're going to have to figure their way out has the district given some thought or consideration to proposing policy changes to the board or regulatory changes to ensure that students are not punished because they're not able to get to school on time thank you for that question president white so as we shared those scholars who are not able to get to school they would participate in remote instruction and so our office of attendance they worked on attendance coding and protocols that range everything from uh coding students that are present in person they were present remotely they were present async etc so um that we've looked at that and that would be the um we we revised our attendance protocols relative to that so if a student was learning remotely they wouldn't be penalized
053for not coming but the only way that they would be marked absent is if they either didn't physically come to school or they didn't did not log on if us so if a student is not able to make it to school for whatever reason you know the bus came and he missed it uh and was not able to get on another line because it was full we heard bill carpenter say you know they have a certain capacity for some of these buses uh and will there be and briefly will there be some allowance some and this would happen of course at the building level we of course we have principals that can exercise treason and compassion and grace but i just want to be certain and i'm sure my colleagues feel the same way that
054students won't be penalized if they have legitimate reasons related to transportation challenges for not being able to get to school so i just want to revisit what what mr carpenter said from rts um we don't we don't have that issue because we're not giving out the bus passes like was asked of us so they would come on the route so certainly if something happened and um if one of uh ontario for student monroe or rts so we do have allowances for that if that if if they are late beca out of their control right that it's a transportation issue um so that's what that's what we would follow all right very good uh i also asked a question earlier this afternoon about the hotline it just seems to me given the even the clarity that's
055been provided today that there might be some confusion about what is to happen have we established a hotline for parents to call or a virtual place perhaps on our website rcsd k-12.org where parents can go to get clarity about if they happen to miss this uh particular board meeting or didn't get the robo call is there a place that they can go to get clarity a person that they can call so their first stop certainly is their school we also have our chiefs who work directly with the schools and additionally we will continue to have a robust present on our presence on our website to update information additionally as i shared a few days ago i will be conducting regular updates every friday i will be providing an update everything from we've hired x amount
056of new drivers or we have x amount of roots that are now back on up on up and running because we um have addressed that so that information will come from me every single friday thank you um i asked a question earlier on today about the financial implications i'm sure the state uh the taxpayers of monroe county and rochester want to know and certainly our independent monitor and every board member want to know what the financial implications are of these massive changes um and and i would appreciate if you don't if you haven't calculated that just yet but i think again sooner than later we need to know what impact if any this will have on our 21 22 budget do you anticipate uh having your chief financial officer provide us that information and if
057so when the information won't be provided tonight because as we shared we still are in negotiations with rts so we can we don't have those updated numbers but once we do it's my hope that tomorrow that we will finalize and we do have a board of education meeting um to discuss that what we would have to do is i've spoken with our chief financial officer and she would provide certainly work with myself and other team members and then we would be able to update the board of education with those figures we just don't have them yet because the contract is not is not finalized understood so and the other thing is that we're working because some of this certainly um we we're looking at the use of curse of funds to address this absolutely um
058i've getting i've gotten countless emails from people about opting out their parents you know you you would think given the overwhelming conversations we have about having students in their seat that nobody is interested in remote education that's just not true i have gotten countless emails from people who are using the phrase can i opt out i don't want my children in the classroom briefly can you tell parents and can you establish some kind of message that communicates to those parents whether they have the option to opt out enough because trust me there are a lot of people who are very concerned about this delta variant and they don't want their children in school and they are entitled to hear information about whether they can opt out or not can you talk to them for a
059brief moment and then send out a message later on about whether they in fact can opt out i can address that question president white as a district as well as other districts have followed the cd has you have used the cdc guideline lines information that has come out of from the new york state department of education the american association of pediatrics and even given the fact that the delta variant does impact children all of those entities have been very clear that it is best to have students learn in an in-person environment and our and our governor has even been adamant about that and so while i recognize that we have families and students and we address this this question came up a few times when we held our family forum family forum a few weeks
060ago the only way that we're granting uh remote instruction is if a student has a medical exemption and that has run through our health services department the only reason why that we are offering remote is because of the lack of transportation it is not because of coven 19 and so while i recognize that parents are concerned and i don't want to i certainly take that to heart and i don't take that lightly the best place for students to be is in school in person and we have worked very diligently to ensure that that happens thank you um i would only ask that that message be uh put out there such that the parents these parents and caregivers that are sending me and i'm sure my colleagues these messages make sure they understand the district's position
061on that it it makes sense it's rational sound but i don't think everybody knows that is not an option and then finally um commissioner molloy made reference to this memorandum of understanding or agreement between bente and our internal drivers if you feel it is necessary to respond to that issue or that concern in executive session or with our lawyers let's do that but i do think we need to have that a more thorough response to that particular issue uh and you tell me whether you believe or steve can tell me whether that's something we have to discuss in executive session and i'll certainly accept that recommendation well it's certainly more appropriate in executive session given that it is you know a collective bargaining matter that we we do take those into executive sessions so all
062right so it so at the end of this meeting or towards the close of this meeting we will do that and i have one other comment i realized that my colleagues have additional questions and and that uh relates to just another thanks i i was remiss in and not recognizing and thanking the governor's office for they too have been instrumental in our efforts to address this uh crisis that has not only affected us but is affecting other districts uh and schools throughout the state and through the nation but we appreciate the governor's office we hope that they are listening uh in their busy schedules uh and uh in their efforts to enjoy labor day we too want to recognize the fact that they put in a great degree of work to get us to where
063we are today as well so let's go back to the list and i have uh vice president elliot first thank you president white uh my question has to do with um have we lost any other drivers today what's what's the real time loss of drivers have we lost some today or do we anticipate losing some more drivers tomorrow or the remainder of the week uh we reported we received word that ontario transportation lost three drivers but that has not impacted us where this where our plan is constantly evolving is because there is the potential for additional loss of drivers are we able to uh so so we'll have to uh address those issues as we lose drivers hopefully we don't um but uh we'll have to um adjust uh schedules as as uh or routes
064as we learn of people who may um decide to retire or or quit in some some form or fashion correct vice president elliot should we um lose additional drivers there are two things that will happen if there's a quick adjustment that we can make that again frees up additional routes and that's what we're looking at to almost have some roots and abeyance if you will but this is where we would have to work in concert with transportation notifying our chiefs and our chief academic officer that this particular bus route is now not able to be filled because of a resignation etc and then the notification would be made specifically to that school and the impacted classrooms all right thank you thank you next we have commissioner malloy thank you um i'm very very concerned about
065our lack of substitute drivers um in in the dis in the district i'm afraid of the ripple effect that this is going to have um it's going to have some pretty serious ones that's for sure so what are we doing to effectively recruit our own drivers who could perhaps fill that role and why are we not offering similar incentives as those from private transportation companies and again i understand that this might be something that we need to talk about in executive sectors as far as i know it's not a collective bargaining unit because um it's off the table why did we pull the proposed incentives to bente during a crisis actor miller would you be able to come on screen to address that please good evening thank you commissioner it is important that we um
066recruit and retain and that we have multiple levers and strategies for how we do that and certainly one strategy would be to incentivize how we keep our existing staff and also how we incentivize new drivers and and perhaps even substitutes to the district so it's important that we do that and we are um we are discussing that let me ask you mr dr miller the detail that you just provided is there any more detail that would be provided in executive session or is that the administration's response to um commissioner malloy's question why aren't we some substance why aren't we doing everything humanly possible to keep these drivers and recruit more drivers is there any more detail than what you just provided i think we could certainly discuss some details in executive session but i i
067would i would also say that the coronavirus response and relief supplemental appropriations act or sursa um does provide for funding um and we are we have drafted proposals for that that are being reviewed um and uh this is something that we do feel is important so we will go into executive session after we've finished our business here uh commissioner lebron yeah a couple of things just as a reminder the state still has to approve whatever plans we have which serves the dollars so i just want to put that on the record for anyone listening we even as the board don't just make get to make those approvals for those dollars so just to put that out there i am also interested in what long-term solutions will be to our transportation challenges and i don't think
068that that's the conversation for tonight i think a lot of the individuals and families the thousands of families that are watching including our staff are really just interested in what's going to happen thursday what's going on monday going to look like will i have a bus will i not have a bus will my child be impacted will i be notified um but shifting conversations to just school reopenings in general since all of this has come out i've heard from a number of parents who have said that they don't have a teacher assigned for their special ed classrooms i've heard from staff that we don't have paris for one-on-ones for students who have ips i've heard we have a food service shortages around our schools and so i am interested in a vacancy report by tomorrow
069on all of the vacancies in the entire district to be presented to the full board so that we have a big picture idea of how many vacancies and what the impact of that is going to be in the district and i'm concerned that we're not going to be able to with vacancies and deficits and teachers not assigned yet um and not having the proper one-on-one paris for our students who have those iep needs that how are we going to manage these new recommendations um both from the state and the cdc and if you saw some of them you know you're unmasked you have to be six feet if your mast is three feet i also want to ensure we're not packing classrooms where they're going to be physically impossible able to have a three feet
070social distance scene i brought this up before that over the summer i went to some of my schools i did review their plans how are you going to handle lunch some of our schools are going to be doing lunch from 10 a.m up until dismissal time that is almost impossible to do um and the amount of of staff that it's gonna take to do that and the amount of just transition of students moving just to have students um meet those six feet requirements in these very small cafeterias lunchrooms we're putting them in atrium spaces and hallways to eat um i'm just overall concerned i just want to put it on the record i don't think that we're ready but we are going to be moving forward so i need to understand how are we managing
071all these other things on top of this transportation crisis commissioner lebron um you mentioned that last night and we were prepared to uh present that update tomorrow at the um at our regularly scheduled meeting okay and you're going to present a vacancy report as well to us christopher will have that available okay thank you and with that report i'd also like to know the schools that would be impacted thank you commissioner malloy i believe had another question thank you i did want to just highlight one thing that the district has been doing and wanted to complement dr meyer small and administration for uh just the partnership that you have with shiftdiff.com to try to recruit drivers so i i meant to highlight that so thank you thank you commissioner malloy um i'm looking through the
072list and uh i do stop that christmas assume that's an old digital virtual hand so i think we are even in season season and thank you uh uh superintendent meyer small for that uh reminder um okay that puts us in a position to discuss the fact that remind ourselves that we are going to be meeting tomorrow uh our clerk what time is that meeting tomorrow our meeting tomorrow is at 5 30 um we'll be convening the hr committee of the whole um and the bulk of the meeting will be um dedicated to on the transportation update but uh the board will consider a few um resolutions beforehand and that meeting is uh in person is that correct correct central office conference room 3a 131 west broad street there are limitations just so that people know
073there are limitations with respect to the number of people that can be in attendance on the third floor isn't that right that is correct the uh the room limit is 20 percent um first come first served of course uh their priority is given to those who are have signed up to speak so if you are signing up to speak you may do so by calling or emailing the board office you may do so at a board of education at rcsdk12.org by noon of the day of the meeting to sign up to speak and you may sign up to speak either in person or virtually though so if you don't um want to take up space in the room or if you prefer to attend um from a distance because of covet or other reasons you
074can request a zoom link to attend and speak virtually uh if you aren't intending to attend you must check in with the front desk to um get kobit screened and then uh you will be escorted to um the conference room again 20 persons in attendance um at that time thank you madam clerk madam superintendent could you just very briefly describe for your colleagues and for the folks that are watching what will be on the agenda tomorrow what what items will you be presenting tomorrow i assume a number of them obviously will relate to the resolution of this transportation issue correct so the uh rts resolution we also will be discussing our preparedness for reopening including also talking about staffing and what staffing vacancies by school by school and also if memory serves we will you
075will probably have a report from bill carpenter and rgrta as to what their board of trustees decided on the negotiations i believe they were meeting at 12 o'clock tomorrow is that right correct so so we'll for those schools those five schools that you repeatedly mentioned will have hopefully some resolution with respect definitive resolution with respect to those five high schools is that right correct all right perfect um i i did want to know before we go ahead i didn't have my hand up but go ahead i'm sorry oh no no no go ahead what i just i just wanted to reiterate our excitement as a team that we are welcoming many scholars back to the rochester city school district in person i'm excited our team is excited our principals are excited our staff are excited
076our teachers are excited so we are looking forward to that um i also just want to reaffirm my commitment to continually evaluate our process and to make sure that we continue to implement what's working and to adjust if we need to make appropriate adjustments and i also am committed to ensuring that we keep the community updated through varied mediums to ensure that they are aware of where we are and our progress to addressing this situation i also want to uplift many individuals who work together to enable us to get to this point today so that we can welcome our scholars back and so we are excited cannot wait look forward to engaging with staff tomorrow for superintendents conference day and and just finally i want to thank the the board of education for their support
077for your questions for your feedback but most importantly we are so excited that we will be welcoming scholars back dan my hand is up just a quick heads up yes go ahead i saw it go ahead thank you dr meyer small we're really excited i know um my own children are are just ecstatic um i just wanted not to belabor the point but i i need some clarification just about executive session um i just want to know how my question met the criteria for executive session i need that explained so perhaps our acting general counsel can explain exactly how my particular question met me data incentive for a particular bargaining unit needs to be negotiated with that bargaining unit and the details as to why a particular item was advanced or not advanced or any
078changes that may be made to it need to be done in an executive session so as to preserve the district's ability to negotiate that are we currently negotiating with them though if we are going to attempt to talk about the incentive it would have to be in negotiations yes i mean there's no question this is subject to executive session right but are we currently well if if your question is that there was an incentive on the table and you want to know why it might or may not be pulled off the table that that is a subject of negotiations but if it's off the table then it's kind of moved isn't it i'm just trying to educate myself even if even if your question is why don't we put one back on the table that's
079still subject to negotiation that's everything is about negotiations i mean it it should go into executive session we don't talk about potential incentives for any bargaining unit in in open session it's just not it's not appropriate thank you uh um mr carling i appreciate that thank you commissioner malloy and and we will go into executive session shortly i did notice that and i i might be wrong and assuming what her intentions were but i did notice that our commissioner new york state commissioner rosa has put the video on and i wanted to make sure that if she wanted to make a comment or two that she of course understands that like any citizen she's free to do that commissioner rosa would you like to say a word or two sure uh thank you for the
080opportunity um and just so you know i i did listen in yesterday i selected to be in person today i do have to say that the entire team has been um keeping me informed on the various topics various issues um giving me up to i would say up to the minute um reports on how they're moving forward and my hope is that uh collectively not only the board obviously all the commissioners the community it um not only responds but understands that this is a collective effort to get our kids back in school and that is the core mission of all all of you and the superintendent and i do believe that working together uh with elected officials with the governor's office with our department we will get to a better place and uh i also
081would be remiss if i also didn't mention uh our monitor so collectively i think um we get to a better place than when we travel um in a loner space so thank you for the opportunity to be with you today and listen as i did yesterday but also to be part of the journey and part of the solution and as always um i i'm always with you thank you thank you commissioner rosa we know that you are always with us i often describe it as in the carpool lane we will not get to where we need to be unless we are riding together and in that regard before we go and i get a motion for executive session i just wanted to remind folks that uh on september the 8th that's this wednesday at first
082genesis baptist church that's 292 joseph avenue in the city of roster at 6 30 p.m in reference to commissioner rosa's call for this is a community collaborative effort area ministers and community leaders are getting together with a specific agenda on that path forward and the agenda includes giving district officials an opportunity to update the community on its transportation plans and what it plans to do for the start of the new year school year secondly uh providing through representatives of bus companies uh including rgrta uh first student and monroe and ontario invitations have been sent to them as well for them to provide a detailed description of opportunities within the transportation industry for school bus drivers and what qualifications are needed to enter that field now commissioner malloy did mention there's exciting news that you don't
083you're not even hearing about amarett miller many of you know her with i think it's called shift diff have already gotten 75 people who are interested in applying to become bus drivers 75 people folks now there is an extensive process that they have to go through and one of the things that i said to the superintendent in my earlier messages is commissioner rosa said we need to work with state officials to make sure we streamline the cdl process and the certification process for school bus drivers and for security clearances but that is part of the agenda item number three is affording citizens with appropriate licenses and dmv endorsements because you have to have an endorsement to be a school bus driver not just a cdl license to apply for these jobs at the church real
084time additionally we want to afford citizen groups and groups a platform to share their grassroots efforts to mobilize transportation to and from school for rochester city school district students who are not eligible or who will not have a ride on a bus including carpooling and finally i'm adding this to the agenda uh given what i think commissioner adams said mr elliot mr malloy said mr bron and i know commissioner powell and clark would agree as well that we need to shore down the arrangements for making sure our children particularly in the schools 10 17 and 22 often referred to as the crescent to make sure that those students have safe passage and that requires that the community mobilize it's not just police it's not just crossing guards but perhaps at this meeting again on september
085the 8th wednesday at 6 30 we can get citizens to agree to volunteer to watch those streets as those children make their way to school so again september the 8th this wednesday 6 30 292 joseph avenue that's first genesis baptist church we want to thank pastor johnson and all those folks who will be there in attendance uh finally uh let me take a look at the list to make sure there's been no additional commissioner lebron yeah i just want to expert clarification like if this is a district event um and then also i know you mentioned some community efforts and i've said this on my own personal page as well that i certainly appreciate that the community is doing a collective lots of grassroots efforts but i also wanted to ask legal about any of
086the liabilities like if i started promoting it as a commissioner um i can't assure that there are some safety precautions and you know background check like what is the liability to myself and i don't know if this is a question you can answer in the public or if it has to go into executive 2 thieves but i did have questions about that and then also when if you can answer whether this is a district sponsored event that you're talking about right now this is a community sponsored event of which i'm a member of the community so it's not a district sponsored event and i'm glad to say it's not a district sponsored event but i am a member of the community along with a lot of other people and in terms of uh let's say
087someone decides to carpool what you know again we can call on general counsel to answer this but really is no need because it would be an independent effort totally unconnected to the district i've often said this is a crisis and there's no need to waste an important crisis and not galvanize the community that's what the citizens of montgomery did in 1955. uh they galvanized their bikes there and we're already hearing about county cruisers and no one is suggesting that we should turn back uh nurse boats that generous offer to organize uh bikes and make them available so this i think is a good thing it's a community meeting where people are being brought in to hear what the school district is doing that's the most important reason what is the school district doing to get
088their kids to school on time and also but more equally importantly telling them what their opportunities are as employees as bus drivers what their requirements are uh it is also telling them hey listen if you if you want to organize something you can and you need to make it available to citizens but mr carling do you want to add anything to the fact that i have described this inaccurately so is a community-based meeting where we're asking citizens to become involved in the solution to this problem yeah i mean certainly um it's not a district sponsored event it's not a district um sanctioned it it's something that the district certainly appreciates any private citizen looking to help the kids is great no individual board member can make it a district sponsored event that's an important thing
089to know it would have to take a vote of four of you um in order for it to become a district event which would then impose the you know kind of the the official seal of the district on something so you know to the extent that any of you are are part of things like that and and you want to encourage people to to get out there and help um there's there's no harm in it um again if the district was to attempt a contract with some of these groups we would have all the background check and liability issues that go along with it um but you know and any one of you it it's you are also citizens in addition to being board members and that that's okay to be part of the community
090at those times thank you steve i did want to ask i was going to reach out anyway about the liability um but that definitely clarifies um personally i'm always um a little nervous and want to be more on the cautious side just to have some foresight that if something were to go wrong and i was promoting it that someone may have mistaken that as commissioner lebron versus community member beatrice lebron um so i just want to be clear about that just as steve has indicated we wouldn't get sued but um we have a good case um as steve has said we thankfully thankfully none of us lose our right to participate in democracy outside 131 west broad street and all of us without exception i know all of us do that and so i am
091doing that along with i hope countless other citizens because as commissioner rosa has said this is going to have to be a broad-based uh solution and it can't just be short-term largely what we've talked about our short-term solutions a number of people have said in including commissioner rosa that we have to look at long-term solutions to our our transportation issues and the citizens of this community employees and organizers have to be a part of that long-term solution all right let me look at the list to make sure that there are no further comments or questions and there aren't so all i need is a motion to go into executive session for the purposes of discussing a contractual matter that may be subject to negotiations is there a motion i think i heard commissioner malloy thank
092you vice president it's been moved and seconded that we go into executive session uh all those in favor indicate by saying aye aye any opposition seems like the eyes have it ladies and gentlemen that are watching i would say to you uh we will have no business coming out of executive session but to adjourn and so we appreciate you showing up tonight and uh ask that you tune in tomorrow to see our additional meeting which again madam clerk is at 6 or 6 30. it is at 5 30 5 30. thank you very much all right on behalf of the board of education again thank you for watching tonight and thank you for your support for our efforts um tom you