Special Meeting: Governance and Policy Committee of the Whole

001good evening everyone um this is the board of education's meeting today is june the first june the first this year is halfway through uh 2021 the time is now 5 34 on behalf of the board of education the superintendent and the independent monitor and all those folks that work for the rochester city school district good evening we hope that you all have had an opportunity to enjoy the weather to some extent get some work done spend time with family and we hope that we're able to finish our business in an efficient and effective way such that you can enjoy the balance of the evening with your family and friends um again today is june 1st 2021 and i am now on behalf of the board of education calling this meeting to order all right as

002you all know um one of the first things that we do is we uh listen to folks out in the community who have something to say covet has this form now in the digital world before people would actually come down to 131 west broad street and speak their mind well since we've been in covet lockdown we've been doing it in the digital realm and my understanding is madam clerk we have one speaker is that right that is correct um mr president we have a mr peter berkey who is a community member and he'll be addressing the board regarding bully proof i'm gonna be letting him into the room right now mr burkin are you there yes i am hello wonderful welcome mr birkin whenever you got three minutes mr birkin yes if i could before

003you begin uh you know and i i've not had to give this caution before but since you uh did let folks know what you're going to be speaking about it's important for folks to realize that this is a forum for people to discuss their concerns their ideas their suggestions but it is not that you are going to do that but it is not a form to promote particular products or services so i just wanted to make sure that you and others understood that cautionary note because if we were to allow people to promote certain uh programs and services as valuable as they might be um this would become more of a commercial than what it's supposed to be which is a form for people to express ideas and concerns about the district so having said

004that um please go ahead and utilize your three minutes as democracy would have you do that very good thank you mr van wyk hello superintendent board of education students staff and community families my name is peter berkin i have to say that my name is peter burke and i'm a former teacher for the rochester city school district now i think the big thing i'm going to bring up is bully-proofing our kids and basically um if we improve our schools bully-proofing our kids starting at home uh in the communities and at school our kids will feel safe attend school right if they feel safe they'll attend school and when you do that it will literally bring more revenue to the district because more students will feel comfortable coming to school i experienced bullying as a kid

005see you caught me off guard mr white you knew i was going to bring up a little bit of a commercial so i apologize for that so i'm kind of switching gears right now but i really believe that if we take good care of our kids at school they're going to feel safe and come to school okay so that's the big thing i i taught in the city for 20 20 plus years and what i saw in home hospital clinton avenue learning center all the alternative education and general education we've had great things in our district throughout our history and now it's a matter of cycling back and getting back to the basics i see that if we get back to the basics our kids will feel safe want to come to school perform well

006on tests and graduate from high school so i think that's the key i think the key is making sure our kids feel safe we get the buy-in from the kids the parents and the community and this district will be the best in this country not just in rochester but throughout the country rochester city used to compete with all schools not even just in the city but monroe county and that's why we got such big contracts as teachers years ago is because we outperformed the country and what we did as a city to teach our kids so i'm just here to support the board the parents and the community in our schools because i know our schools will literally be the thing to help heal this country and this planet so that's it it's about my

007three minutes miss wayne thank you for that and you have a blessed night and we'll talk to you soon take care thank you very much mr burke and we appreciate you addressing the board tonight thank you very much madam clerk in case anybody wanted to do what mr burke just eloquently did which is to uh offer comments or concerns about the district or ideas about the district could you tell them how they would do that sure so members of the public who are interested in addressing the board during a board meeting may do so by signing up to speak you may do so by emailing board of education at rcsdk12.org or by calling the board office number and providing your name and a few details once you do that um and that has to be

008done before noon on the day of the meeting you'll be added to our speakers list and we will contact you with um zoom details so that you may join the meeting and if you would like to submit comments um the board is also receiving those to the board of education at rcsdk12 email address and those will be circulated before the meeting and also posted to the website thank you madam clerk next item on our agenda is the presentation of the coronavirus aid package uh i understand madam superintendent that deputy superintendent morris we'll present uh this we'll make this presentation is that right she will president white thank you deputy superintendent good evening how is everyone i hope you're all enjoying this beautiful weather and i'm going to talk about the american rescue plan funding sharing

009my screen all right so thank you so much for joining me this evening and allowing me the opportunity to present the information that we have about the american rescue plan we have my colleague as well carrie pecor who is the director of grants who is here as well in case there's some questions that either one of us can provide answers to tonight and we wanted to provide an overview of the american rescue plan of 2021 as we currently know it and give you some general overview about what we are doing moving forward and also share with you some opportunities for additional stakeholder engagement that we have planned so my name is janelle morris as you know and i have my colleague here to help us with any types of questions that you may have about

010this but we really wanted to provide an overview of what the american plan rescue plan dollars were and also about some of the areas that we are providing opportunity for input and recommendations about the use of the funds we're also going to provide some background information on the various uh corona coronavirus aid funding streams that we have had currently directed to the district and dig a little deeper into the rescue plan process so we have um three main coronavirus stimulus fund buckets if you will that are going to provide an overview of the different types of funding and we have an approximate 300 million dollars that will be directed to the district over the next three years so this is as a result of the federal government providing emergency aid to various government and governmental

011agencies including uh school districts and state education agencies and this funding for us specifically is earmarked to help our district address the academic social emotional and health needs of our students that have arisen as a result of the pandemic the funding is being issued in three different streams as shown on my screen we have the cares act funding we have the sursa or corona virus response rev relief supplemental appropriations act and then we also have the arpa which is the american rescue plan act the corona virus uh relief supplemental appropriations act was passed in the fall of 2020 and the american rescue plan act was passed in march 2021 and so the opportunities that are available with these funding are intended to have a powerful and lasting impact on the education of our students so

012the arp funding or the american rescue plan funding is the largest stream of funding that our district will receive the total of this funding is going to be about 197 million dollars as with all federal funds in order to receive this funding the district will need to adhere to some guidelines and have to use these funds in very specific ways first and foremost the district is being advised to prioritize spending on non-recurring expenses these funds can be used to support district response efforts to the coronavirus as listed on this slide we can also have allowable uses of the funds that will include provision of supplemental learning experiences for our students which could be focused on both academic and social emotional learning such as some of the ones that we've listed on this slide so those

013include coordinating and implementing remote learning for example purchase of hardware software and internet access for students or providing mental health supports or coordinating and implementing summer learning and supplemental after-school programs so additionally 20 of the funds that we will receive or approximately 40 million dollars must be used to bolster bolster students academic programming in a way that will make up for instruction that they may have lost during the pandemic finally funds can be used for any activity that would fall within some of the exist existing educational laws including those listed above so some of the areas that are allowable for use of the funding include assessing student progress i need making sure that we implement and support those with these funds activities to meet our needs of our students providing information to families about how

014they can also support students and also allowing an opportunity to use the funds to track and improve student attendance and engagement so the district's arp planning centers on students academic and social emotional needs in alignment with our strategic priorities and the recommendations put forth by our independent monitors academic and financial plans academics are centered within the aarp plan and will include the following core areas we plan to have a focus on culturally responsive and informed practices and this is in alignment with our position that we are and the rcsd is an actively anti-racist organization focused on providing students with affirming learning experiences where diversity equity and inclusion are at the center of decision making additional core areas we will focus on include provision of high quality learning experiences where we are ensuring that every student

015has access to and engages with grade level content and high quality instructional materials daily we are also focusing in the core area the expansion of diverse programming where each school will offer dynamic innovative and engaging programs and pathways where all students can find their voice and cultivate their respective passion another core area includes provision of expanded learning the rcsd will ensure we will provide robust expanded learning opportunities for all students that challenge them to engage in real world application of their learning and another court area we will focus on in the allocation of these funds will include the recruitment development and retention of high quality staff so the rcsd will ensure that staff members have the desire belief knowledge and skills to provide high quality learning experiences to students every day so we also wanted

016to come up with some guiding questions that would be used um to help us focus the um community and stakeholder engagement um for this work and so some of the guiding questions have helped us in terms of trying to collect some of this the ideas about how to use the funds so these questions that we have on the screen are built from guidance that was issued by the council of great city schools and in keeping these questions at the forefront of our planning it allows us to commit to effective and optimal use of funds so we are sharing these questions with you all as well as the stakeholders that we have engaged along the way so that um we can use that to help guide our input that we collect for the use of the

017funds so the three guiding questions are how does this investment address student needs with regards to the strategic and independent monitors plans and the rcsd's instructional priorities what do we already know about the effectiveness of this investment and how will this be measured in the rcsd and what resources are necessary to sustain this investment what is the plan for this investment after the funding period ends so um we have varying ways that we have tried to ensure that we are collecting input on the district's use of the arp funds here are some of the additional forums that we are engaging with our stakeholders and we are finding different ways that we can have to engage with our stakeholders we have a website that includes www.rcsdk12 in its slash arp and that is a place where

018we are putting information that we are collecting as we receive it uh we are going to try and have a periodic update that will be publicly available as we receive information to allow the community and stakeholders to understand how these funds can be used we also have planned and have actually executed one of the parent and community forums that was on may 26 but we also have another one that will be on thursday june 10th from 5 30 pm to 7 30 pm so if you weren't able to participate in the may 26 forum we would love to have you sign up to speak at our upcoming forum on june 10th we also will have a student forum tomorrow and that will be at 1pm for our students to give us their input about the

019use of these funds and then we also have um employee forums that will be scheduled on june 9th and we have one at 2 30 pm and we have another one at 3 45 and we finally have already had a principal forum and we did that at the network principal meetings that were held on may 28th and so uh we just wanted to bring this information to the board of education and also use this as an opportunity to provide an opportunity to get input about the use of the funds and ms pecor and i are here to answer any questions we may be able to based on this presentation so thank you very much thank you deputy superintendent morris i'm looking at the participant list i apologize i'm on myself on my laptop is not

020working isn't connecting with the district so work with me here folks but i'm looking through the list and i don't see any hands being raised double checking no uh deputy morris i don't see any questions for you uh superintendent did you want to add anything further i just want some questions asked oh commissioner commissioner adams is going to oblige you commissioner adams yeah um i understand she said that we have to prioritize uh certain things um but that that doesn't mean exclusively um prioritizing um and when we talk about one-time um things that don't reoccur we need to address the seriousness of the trauma the students are coming back with um and they'll never have to address that again on that level the first the level of the first year but same thing applies with

021these ssos um we have to be honest and but know that the violence just in our community is coming into the building and so i really want us to figure out how to make sure they get some training they get some more funding they need to get a raise so that they can only have that job and focus on their job our kids safety is gonna be really really important come september man if we think for one second that the school district ain't gonna be a reflection of the community um we tripping so i just want us to try to figure out be creative enough to do what we need to do um when it comes to these ssos and the people that are gonna address the mental health of of our students man um

022and i just had to put that on record i'm done deputy do you respond to that or our superintendent i think uh certainly um commissioner adams we are addressing and looking at what additional supports that we need to put into place when we have most if not all of our students coming back just to school um in september as i mentioned last week where we are administering a survey for our secondary students to get their pulse on where things are and we have another project that i'd i'll be able to talk to you about shortly that will further get some information to help us decide where we need to put those particular supports i also have meetings with folks in the county and with uh ccsi and dr meeker so that is something that deputy

023superintendent martinez davis is actively working on i'm actively working on that because we recognize that we don't even know what what the extent of the trauma that's going to walk across the door come um come september so we're absolutely on that and as far as ssos i know um mike and i met this morning as far as just taking a look at uh bringing individuals uh back to the school and just as far as raises that's negotiation so that's something that we can't speak on further i'm looking to see if there are any other questions it's commissioner clark yes uh it's more of a process question it's great that we're having these community forums and bringing the community in and getting their comments and suggestions on how we can more effectively use these funds in

024the upcoming year but my question is you know once the input is uh is given how is that evaluated and how is that brought back before the board so that we can give that serious consideration so are you talking about after the implementation of whatever we allocate the funds for how the evaluative process occurs i'm speaking before once you complete the community forums and you receive all the suggestions that fall within the parameters that we're given on the use of the funds how are those suggestions going to be funneled up to the board for consideration and and what role would that play in you know changing or impacting how we use these funds i think our immediate plan is to collect the um input that we receive from the community and from the stakeholders and

025as we have already begun to do um bring that to the superintendent for prioritization we have as i mentioned before we have core areas that we are assigning the um the recommendations as we receive them so that it will make it a little bit easier for us to work with the superintendent to determine just what do we want to prioritize with the use of the funds so we are trying to come up with some core areas and try and determine what percentages of the funds have to be used for specific areas and then what percentage of the funds can be used for requests that we will receive from the community or from stakeholders once we get that we have been presenting that information to the board i mean to the board to the superintendent so

026that we can start to prioritize and i think that will be our immediate uh process to get the superintendent's input based on the alignment of the priorities that she has given us um and then i believe we can determine the process for it to be brought to the board after that point thank you all right um we're running uh on time and i want to keep this moving but i do have a question or two myself and you can do sort of a lightning rod uh round response first question is when we had uh when we returned to schools there was the allegation or concern that our staff that there wasn't and i'm not saying these statements were true but there were considerable complaints that we weren't ready insofar as the teachers and staff members

027weren't properly trained and ready for this new approach to teaching given the constraints of covet i do remember frequently members of various collective bargaining units saying we're not even ready for this how could you put us back in schools uh i i just want to make sure this is more of a question than a statement i i want to make sure that there is no question that we are ready for what we're asking our staff members to do that cannot be an issue uh or defense that our staff make when we ask them to step up to do something different they are entitled our students need them to be ready so i just add that as a point of reference please make sure since we have the resources to provide for their readiness that the

028plan for training is solid and it is available long in advance of our our staff members returning to school whatever you think to be necessary and appropriate in terms of training my only point is please make sure that the training plan is solid is available and is understood by all staff members so that when we are asking them to do things differently whether it's social emotional support or safety that they are fully trained and ready to hit the ground running when our schools open the second question the second point is really a question and it doesn't have to be answered right now i have heard over the course of many months that because of covid we will have significant challenges in hiring and retaining people and and actually just hiring people to fill existing employment

029gaps i understand that is the case no fault of this district with bus drivers that seems to be the case with ssos and other staff members um i think that our our response is a district where we reduced our uh our our staff um and some in response to the budget challenges some in response to covet have left many people feeling like the district is not the right place where they want to work or they have found other jobs where they know that there is job security again no fault of anybody's but the end result is my understanding is that we uh we may not be able to hire all the people that we need commissioner adams made the uh eloquent point about uh what is happening in our community is going to find its

030way into our schools are our centuries our ssos prepared now that we've removed police officers from the schools are our ssos prepared for that additional challenge and by preparation once i again i mean training but also as a preliminary matter are we even and you don't have to answer this right now leslie but the word is um it is going to be very difficult and challenging to get ssos to get up get up to our full complement of ssos in our buildings not only can we not afford to not have those that are there not trained but my god and i mean that sincerely the worst thing that could happen is we are not able to hire the requisite number of ssos to provide for the safety of our children and i understand that there

031is a capacity issue that we that there just isn't the applicant pool for those uh jobs out there for us to fill them within the district so that could be put on the question log and the question log is simply this will we have so many vacancies that we're not able to fill critical key positions like for example ssos and bus drivers as our employment history has the challenges of povid gotten us to a place where we may not even be able to recruit a sufficient number of qualified capable and committed employees perform the vital work that needs to be done again you can imagine a scenario where we find ourselves in august and september and we don't have to get the training we don't even have the right number of people so if you

032could uh superintendent please address that issue through the question log is fine because that is going to be a concern of mine and i'm certain of the community yes ma'am president white i can just initially um answer that i think we're seeing that across the count across our entire county where people are struggling you know with the for example the curfew being lifted for restaurants and just yesterday morning i was watching spectrum and they were saying we're trying to do everything that we can to get folks back some people on in the um on the news report they were saying you know some people just aren't ready to come back some individuals have found employment other places and some are continuing to collect unemployment there's a myriad of reasons so christopher dr miller is working

033hard with his team in in human capital to think of creative ways for recruitment and to cast the net far and wide so we can have those individual so we can have the numbers that we need but we are working on that that i share the concern as well that we need to um try and figure out how to address that and we actually met this morning and spoke about that and to and discuss some possible next steps so we are aware that the employment is difficult just in general as far as uh and overall in our county in our city and so we know that we're going to going to be competing with others and we're trying to figure out how to be the most creative to get folks back to the district or

034to get new individuals into our school district i i i'm going to get to you commissioner evans in a second but i just want to follow that very quickly superintendent i agree with you this is not a challenge that is unique to the city school district the only difference is and i'm sure you would agree with me the consequences of not having a full complement of staff could be devastating to our district as as compared to let's say a restaurant they're not able to open and that might be devastating for someone's appetite but if we don't have the full complement of ssos or cafeteria staff people to feed our children ssos to protect our children bus drivers to drive our children safely to schools that could have dire consequences that doesn't mean that uh your

035challenges in recruiting those people is any easier than those in the restaurant industry my only point is and i'm sure you appreciate this if we fail in that regard the consequences could be devastating and i and i i'm not sitting here saying i have an answer for it but it as commissioner adams said five minutes ago not having people trained help not having people in the building to protect our children could be devastating and so what i would ask perhaps if vice president elliot uh would be willing to consider getting an update from your administration as part of the human resource committee so that we or you can give it at any board meeting where we can make sure we understand where you're at before our doors open in august commissioner adams yes um i

036just want to make a couple of quick statements here i just want to be clear that i i don't think um the ssos needed training because the sros are out the building um they've been doing their work they need more training because of a pandemic cane upon this community that we're not prepared for nobody's prepared for that that's why i say that they need not because of the sros is going let me be clear about that and my other statement is i just want to say to the community please please come to these forums come to these forums and do some input we may say from 5 30 to 7 30 but if we have to we'll go longer come to the forums please and and put your input in thank you that's it commissioner

037adams uh i i just i don't disagree with anything you said except to the extent that to the extent we have fewer people charged with protecting our children whether they're ssos or sros surely i agree with you our ssos are up to the job have been up to the job but this is a different job our community has become more violent for whatever reason and we don't have we may not have enough ssos we certainly don't have sros and we don't have enough sso smart so my point is not that they were not are not capable uh they do need trading like all of our staff there are new challenges every year there are new challenges i brought up the sros just to state the fact that by the numbers we don't have people in

038the building to protect our children the way we used to because we don't have some sorrows and because the fact is and speaking to the people who who uh manage the ssos and speaking to ssos directly there aren't enough ssos that's that's a problem uh but thank you uh uh uh commissioner uh superintendent uh for for responding in that matter i agree with everything you say i agree with what commissioner adams has said but if you could give us an update that would be very very helpful all right next item on the agenda is uh consideration of resolutions we have two resolutions as i understand it madam clerk 847 and then 848. is that right that is that is correct i have asked commissioner malloy is she sort of our designee to thank folks who

039make reach for this district or for um uh donations to this district to to introduce resolution for uh 847. first of all is there a motion to uh discuss resolution 847. so moved thank you commissioner lawyers for a second second thank you commissioner clark uh commissioner malloy would you introduce this resolution for us yes so resolution 847 pertains to um a gift that we are receiving from the church of love faith center and this is via a grant from the william and sheila konar foundation they have donated twenty thousand dollars to help us establish food pantries at up to eight of our designated community schools if we have the space available this is a really generous donation from this particular church i want to thank them for their generosity on behalf of the board and

040i also just want to you know tell the community that we understand how important the faith community is at large they play such a critical role in our district for our students and their families and we we truly value these continued partnerships they're helped to help us all can strengthen community ties and we just want to say thank you for your continued generosity thank you commission malloy um next item on our agenda oops i'm sorry we have to vote on resolution 847. all those in favor are there any other questions or comments regarding resolution 847 i am assuming there won't be but let me just double check uh there appears to be no questions or comments so why don't we go ahead and take a vote on resolution 847. all those in favor of resolutions

041847 indicate by turning on your monitor and by saying i i i any opposition and clerk it seems that the eyes have next we have resolution 848 is there a motion to discuss for resolution 848 motion thank you commissioner malloy is there a second second i think i heard commissioner clark all right so are there any questions or comments regarding resolution 848 uh this probably looks very familiar to you all we discussed this in executive session is required by law initially because folks out there listening we're not allowed to discuss the specific particular terms and conditions of a person's employment contract in public uh we have to do that in private and executive session we did that i think it was last week but there still may be questions i see commission lebron has raised

042her hand yep i'm not going to be voting for this resolution but i want to be clear to the community that i was able to specifically reached out to the bilingual education council and get some feedback from them and i did ask them to put it in writing to the board and so i did receive that i don't know if the other board members were copied in on the email um but because of their collective feedback i will not be voting and supporting that tonight i'm looking at the uh participant list seeing if there are any other questions or comments just have a question commissioner lebron is it for both or just or or one it's it's for one but the way that the resolution is written it includes two people so i will just

043be voting now on the entire resolution okay mr lebron for your courtesy if you'd like we've done this before we can amend the resolution so that it's 848a and 848b if you'd like if not we can just vote on it as 848. it's i think there has to be a motion for that separately so [Music] um but we can ask steve for parliament's advice well that that clearly can be done uh we've done it many times before um i just wanted to know if he did it would it be worth the effort would you be would it make it more easier for you to clarify your vote in terms of you maybe support one resolution and not the other i know we can do it we've done it many times before um yeah but of

044xd for parliamentary advice because there's an open motion on the floor for a resolution yeah i mean technically a motion to somehow deal with the existing resolution on the floor would would uh take precedence over the um current motion to discuss um but you could you could easily i mean just say you want to separate right now into a make a quick resolution motion to separate into uh a and b and then go back to the vote on each part that that's that's fine under the small board rules we could probably overlook it too but if the question's being asked the formality would say that you do it that way i'd prefer the formality especially when dealing with personnel yeah so as i indicated we can steve if this is the correct word uh amen

045uh the the current resolution so that reflects 848 a and 848 b for the second employee right yep probably do it by name a48a is uh yeah yep um is you know is there a motion i think i heard commission malloy i'm sorry it might be my phone was that you commissioner malloy yes it was yep is there a second to that motion i think i heard commissioner adams um all those in favor of amending uh resolution 848 so that it reads 848 a with respect to that indicates jason mohammed and 848 b with respect to robert snyder any questions or comments regarding uh that proposed amendment looking hold on i'm looking at my screen again i apologize i'm using my cell phone no i don't see any questions or comments so let's go ahead

046and vote on the amendment now this is just the amendment all those in favor of uh amending resolution 848 a so that it reads 848 a for mr muhammad and 848 b for mr schneider indicate by saying aye aye any opposition some kind of quirk that the eyes have it the resolution has been amended uh so let's uh see if there's any further questions or comments regarding the amended resolution d48a and 848b looking at my participants screen you should probably just redo take a motion take a motion on 848a get a second do a discussion i do i do them separately uh no that's fine i'm sorry go ahead i didn't receive the information that came from the um council i'd be interested in knowing what that information was what information are i'm sorry i

047believe i'm sorry now i thought commissioner lebron referenced some information from the council regarding this resolution or this um yeah this resolution so i i didn't receive it so i was wondering if that information can be shared or forwarded so i could also take a look i was doing a la perhaps i missed it too um uh shelly i was uh looking for it as well but perhaps i missed it uh commissioner lebron do you have the email do you know who was copied in on it it was dr jolly i just forwarded it to you and i don't know who i was copied in if there were folks who were blind cc'd in um because i made a request for a feedback and i made a request that board members were blind cc'd in

048so that there were no conversations and it constituted an illegal meeting um but i just forwarded it to you dr jello well i tell you what we have to uh go into a confidential session with our lawyer at the end of the meeting i'm going to suggest that we take a motion to go into executive session as well for the purpose of discussing the terms and conditions of a particular employee perhaps by that time someone uh perhaps mr lebron i'm looking through my email i don't see it not that it's not there but i don't see it perhaps you could in the interim distribute it to everybody because we all have to vote not just just dr jallow so uh why don't we um uh see we wouldn't have to formally table this we could

049just we table it until later on and then no when you go into when you put something exactly off the table you just say we're going to take that into exactly you take it out of order but i'm saying this at this particular point we we already have it up for discussion you actually don't you haven't gotten either one of them before the because since they were split the prior motion oh that's right that's right you suggested that we take them separately all right so one needs to go and exec you take that one in and if the other one can be voted on now you can vote on it or you can take them both and it's up to you all right so let me let me play my best guess here uh i

050can i get a motion to discuss resolution 848 uh b that relates to robert snyder i heard commissioner malloy and i heard another voice at the same time who was that is that commissioner powell i need a sec thank you uh thank you commissioner adams i have a second any uh questions or comments regarding resolution 848 a b as it relates to robert snyder let me go to my i don't see any questions or comments so let's go ahead and take a vote on 848 b all those in favor of resolution 848 b relating to employee robert snyder indicate by saying aye aye any uh position names madam clerk the eyes have it uh that is with respect to 848b so let's uh go on on our and uh we'll get president yes yes ma'am

051yeah why are we going into executive session for um a because there is as dr jallow correctly points out apparently there is a memo that or email that was uh authored by members of the bilingual council that commissioner lebron got it's not i'm not clear whether other people got it as well clearly dr jala didn't i don't see it in in my email box so i think it does make sense as dr jallow suggests that everybody have a chance to review that before we vote on 8 48 a which is mr muhammad all right thank you sure is there any way that we can go into executive session now to discuss and we can and the board can take a look at it as well i i feel like we should really move in that

052direction i'll move that i'll make a motion to do that there has been a motion to go into executive session made by vice president elliot i believe i heard commissioner malloy make the second to that motion so uh let's get a vote all is in favor going into executive session for the purpose of discussing the terms and conditions of employment for a particular person indicate by saying aye aye aye any opposition all right uh tom we're going to go into executive session to the public um just a little glitch here uh we need to discuss a particular situation before voting on it so we're going to go on to executive session as required by law and then we'll come back and resume our business as promised the board of education is back from executive session

053and there are some votes to take a still additional vote to take there is resolution 848 a which is a motion to uh uh hire someone as principal um is there is there a motion to advance for discussion resolution 848 a move uh i heard clark is there a sec uh i think i heard a second was that vice president elliott yes thank you ma'am um any questions or comments regarding resolution 848 a i'm looking through my participant screen i do see commission lebron has raised her hand yep i just want to state for the record that i am voting no on this resolution to support the bec's feedback that i received i know other board members have not um i do want to just state that i do support jason and he has been

054an incredible vp at the school so this is not personal to him but this is personal to the district and the process that they created for this finalization so that's one and two i am requesting a meeting as the commissioner with jason as the new principal and the bec so that we can move forward you commissioner lebron vice president elliot thank you mr president i'm just um so delighted uh that the board has approved the recommendation by the superintendent for um jason muhammad the reason is is that he spent a lot of time uh with with sandra in it it was it was jason and sandra that really moved uh this district this school monroe to the place in which it is i'm really um excited about that um and the work that uh sandra

055and jason others have done over there um and when they came and presented to the esa committee i was just so impressed uh by the work that's been done over there and they get it and um [Music] i want to continue for the school to move up and the only way in which that can happen is is that you have a continued um uh trajectory of the work that's been done before and jason's has been a part of that with uh with sandra's um blackman's leadership and so um it just gives me um great honor that the board um is has approved um or the um appointment of uh jason have we done that already did we vote on no no all right no not yet i'm hoping let me just say that uh that

056we're going to approve because they've done uh along with with sandra blackman they did um incredible i work over their hard work the kind of work that i know uh with my um tenure in this community and and lastly working at dayton street settlement and so um you know there there's going to be a learning curve in whoever the new ap is but i think that with the leadership of uh jason muhammad to continue on the trajectory that um sandra blackman and the team did that's that's why i'm interested in having uh uh jason muhammad to move into this position because i want to continue uh on that trajectory of success and they certainly have proven that we could take a school that was and really still in receivership but moving from i think something

057like a 40-something percent graduation rate um to now you know 80-something percent graduation rate so i'm really excited i want to continue that and when we're talking about um just having a broad understanding of the work that's going on over there um engaging with the students i've seen him over there engaging with students they love him and i just think it's right and appropriate that the person who along with sandra blackmon brought that school up to the level which it is that that kind uh we reward um mr muhammad with that um principleship so um my vote is going to be yes i'm just so delighted with the work that they have done over there knowing that it's difficult work but they did it and i think that monroe can really be a pattern of

058success for every school in this district uh thank you mr president uh commissioner powell yes thank you it has been asserted that the bilingual education council is has registered a this recommendation but we've learned that two out of the three representatives on the interview committee supported this recommendation and so it is very difficult for me to take on face value as much as i value the input of the bilingual education council it's difficult for me to take at face value a statement that the council itself has objections it seems more evident that one individual has an objection now this is relevant beyond this conversation because we've tried to solicit um input from our the broader parent community under the plac the broader student uh community through uh student leadership title um and the bylaws for

059none of these is readily available so in my in my role as the policy committee chair i'm going to double down on my efforts to not only to get the bylaws make the bylaws available but to make them available as exhibits or attachments to either the parent involvement policy or the community involvement policy whichever seems most appropriate so that anyone looking for this information can find it and know whether the assertions being made reflect a legitimate process i i believe that a legitimate process was undertaken that there was support for this recommendation uh the superintendent supports this recommendation uh i support this recommendation and uh welcome award mohamed thank you commissioner lebron yeah i just want to again respond that i'm requesting the bec to also come and address the board it's my understanding that

060mina is not working now working in the evenings as the president but i will work around her schedule to get her and other members of the bec to address this board on public record and secondly again there is a consent decree for bilingual education in the district and there is also and it's a long-standing consent like i just want to put that out there and the bylaws are not the school district bylaws it is the bilingual education council's bylaws and just to clarify i did reach out to find out what angie's position is and she is a spokesperson for the bec she's voted as a spokesperson for the bc but i have requested that she along with our bec parent reps come and present to the board so i just want to put that out

061there commissioner malloy thank you i just wanted to be recognized so that i could call the question yes before you do that um and i'm sure you appreciate this i was waiting to make my very brief comments so i would if you could just hold off on that um i would appreciate it uh commissioner malloy that's fine yeah i believe very briefly just directing my comments to the superintendent and mr muhammad and and rob as well i think these are both fine selections uh both of these gentlemen reflect a real commitment to the district that you have to have as a principal your past has to reflect a real commitment towards the future of the children and and sticking around in this district when things are only easy is not a trait that will serve

062a good leader well both these gentlemen have been with this district for many years and have met many challenges uh i know mr mr snyder's work uh at the epo i understand that he is a district graduate man we couldn't be prouder i certainly i guess as you speak for myself i couldn't be prouder of an individual who's come up through the district and because of his commitment to this district is now sharing a moment with his family and his his friends and his students and his other leaders within the district where he has becoming a principal of a district that he has spent many years serving with respect to mr muhammad let me just say without revealing any great detail i know your your road particularly as a man of color has not always

063been easy and uh your commitment to this district and to the children of this district no matter what language they speak no matter what color they are no matter how much money their parents have is a real testament to you and your family not only are you are you committed but uh you are more than capable of performing this job and any deficit you might have that uh that you you you don't perhaps speak the language of all the students in in that building i know your level of commitment is such that you will compensate for that so that they do not feel left out they do not feel that they are the other students um and and and also let me just say if i was if anybody had any question about your ability

064and your commitment you took a non-existing football field that hadn't held any team members and created a powerful testament to opportunity that had not existed before in creating a football team there that is just one of the many ways in which most of which are reflection of your commitment to the academic standards vice president elliott has speaking of spoken of how you and sandra turn that building around we could not have asked for in my mind a more imperfect candidate and what i mean by that is nobody is perfect in this world we're not going to get everybody who fits the perfect bill but we found the best imperfect candidate in you and and mr mohammed and and rob and jason let me just say i thank you for your diligence and your long-standing commitment

065to this district and your effort to continue to provide provide the kind of education that our children need superintendent thank you very much for the selection thank you chris for your work and for every citizen that participated in the selection process i think your decision will be reflected and continued positive results for both of these schools thank you uh i think that does it uh let's go ahead commissioner malloy oh my goodness okay thank you though for that um yeah so we're calling the question yes uh let's go ahead and vote then uh this is resolution 848 a all those in favor of resolution 848 indicate a indicate by saying i i i i any opposition name i just want to put a record thank you yeah i'm sorry commissioner lebron there is uh one

066nay and that is commissioner lebron um superintendent is there some additional comment that you'd like to make now that the appointment has been the appointments have been made i would president white thank you for just brief indulgence i'll start at the elementary level uh dr snyder if you would come on screen i'd just like to congratulate you for your appointment at school number 45 i have gotten to know you over the past year and when we had our one-on-one conversation i felt very pleased with your responses and very encouraged by your vision and the direction that you want to take the school in i know you have the support of your school community and i just wanted to formally in front of the board of education and in front of those who are watching to

067say congratulations to you and we're looking forward to your leadership as you move forward in your new role as of july 1st so congratulations thank you very much i'm really looking forward to it i apologize i was in a suit a little while ago and i thought after the resolution i ran to my daughter's t-ball game but i'm really looking forward to being at 45 and continuing to grow that community and working with those families so thank you for the appointment thank you dr schneider welcome to the new role and mr jason muhammad if you'll come on screen i'd like to certainly uh welcome you to your new role at monroe um for those of you who don't know i have known mr mohammed for a long time when he was a college freshman at

068the university of rochester he was an english major and i remember his early days as an english teacher at marshall and um i know about your decorated career as a football coach but more recently um i had the opportunity to see you in action when i was an assistant commissioner um you were an assistant principal at the time and i was very impressed with your knowledge base and your commitment to your scholars at monroe we've had uh in our one-on-one meeting i asked you some questions about relationships i ask questions about receivership and your thoughts about moving forward and also um connecting with our unique learners um in in our in our um at the school and so i just want to say uh congratulations to you formally in front of the board of education

069and thank you for stepping up to the plate and accepting our offer of monroe upper school principal so congratulations jason thank you very much looking forward to uh meeting and overcoming all obstacles in our path thank you absolutely thank you president white for that indulgence absolutely again congratulations to both rob and jason we look forward to your continued service the district all right let's move on with our agenda next item on the agenda is uh the governance committee uh commissioner malloy you have the gavel thank you president white uh good evening to dr meyer small dr jallo executive cabinet members and my fellow board members and all of you from the community uh listening in a board governance deals directly with how we conduct ourselves and monitor our actions as board members and this committee

070oversees training and professional development to help us enhance our ability to perform our roles as commissioners we're also responsible for maintaining an effective working relationship with our superintendent and evaluating our superintendent we'll be talking about that tonight governance facilitates the orientation of our new new members through our board staff and as a board we are additionally charged with supervising and evaluating our board staff finally the governance committee organizes board retreats for ongoing professional development related to our interpersonal relationships and we will continue to take input and recommendations from our state monitor dr shelly jallow to develop adequate governance policy to help us better meet our district and board goals um before we begin i'd like to publicly thank board executive assistant francine scott and board community liaison specialist rahima wynn for filling in for our

071board clerk for the past week who was on a really well deserved vacation we are really appreciative of your time and expertise and your professionalism so thank you to your both or thank you to you both um for all of your help this week all right so originally on our agenda our first agenda item was to review and accept the minutes from our prior governance meeting which was may 4th 2021. we're actually going to be approving that uh next tuesday instead we'll have that ready um then so i'm going to go right on to our next agenda item which is about our board polling tool as you know we have engaged in gathering feedback from board members and other select board participants um in other words superintendent meyer small our state monitor superintendent nelms just

072about meeting efficiencies and so we've been doing this for quite some time our zoom polling occurred between october 2020 through april 2021 and this included data from 22 special meetings and committees of the whole we had seven business meetings that we pulled data from as well as two other meetings on average we had between four and seven commissioners choosing to participate in the poll and our average was five commissioners so the poll results i'm just going to quickly go through these um the poll results are as follows so our first poll question was did we adhere to the start and end times as stated on the agenda um and as time has progressed it seems like we have veered away from these proposed times our second and third poll questions deal with providing or providing

073materials by board or the provided materials rather by our board staff so did we receive materials with sufficient time for you to prepare for the meeting results indicate that we are headed in a better direction on this front and of course the third question was were the materials sufficient to assist you in forming an opinion on the decision made by the board and again it indicated that we need some possible improvement in this area our next poll question relates to participation by other board members and it includes the question were you satisfied with your opportunity to participate in the debate so we do see a very slight decline here um the next question relates to particip is relating to participation and it's were you satisfied with the manner in which other board members contributed to

074the debate we've remained i think pretty consistent in our responses here so in terms of questions related to our standards of conduct we asked if there were any violations of our code of conduct and there is a slight increase here we also asked if there were any violations of our bylaws which indicates a decrease our next question dealt with meeting chair effectiveness with the question was the chair effective in allowing all sides to be heard while bringing the matter to a decision and we did see a slight decrease here our final two questions dealt with board impact with the first question asking if we had done anything to make a clear difference in the lives of our students where we saw an opinion decrease and then the final question was did we do anything that

075had a positive impact on any one of the district's key performance areas where we again noticed a decrease so the question is how do we make this polling more effective in gathering the information that we need um our board staff they've been actively working to redesign or reformat this tool with our tech crew over the past few months and they have come up with the following suggestions so the first is to create two separate polls to be conducted after special meetings and or committee meetings or one poll after executive session as we've been doing over the past months another suggestion is that we complete a google form which will be completed by members within two days of the meeting there were some concerns about concerns about taking a poll um too far after a meeting

076had ended or too long or i'm trying to phrase that differently um and the final suggestion was then to complete a google form poll posted in the zoom chat to be completed during the meeting as we currently have been doing so with that being said at this time i'd like to open all of this up for discussions for a discussion with two questions in mind one would you like to see our questions restructured and then secondly how would you like to see these polls administered so i'll open it up for discussion let me just open this up i do see some hands i've got to get to the right screen here so i can see everybody see i go got my participants okay i see uh commissioner powell and then commission uh vice president elliot

077yeah thanks um was one of the uh concepts of looking at other formats so that we'd have the opportunity to ask more questions or is it just about the timing i'm sorry i asked that one more time so we um the the current uh survey system is limits us to ten questions um my first thought on that was that maybe if there's an area where we've been holding steady or getting better that we could um take that question out and expand on the uh questions that relate to board goals or performance areas understanding that there's a lot of those we probably have to think of a way to cycle out and and just put in you know one or two performance areas and uh for a specific duration and see how we're doing and then

078switch to another set of performance areas but before even asking that question i i have to ask is one of the objectives of looking at different formats to expand the number of questions we're able to ask and so i think that was one of the original goals and kalia please feel free to hop in and correct here but i think that with the zoom pole we are just limited to 10 questions so i think that that was that had something to do with the decision to to look at other formats or i think there are limitations on zoom in general um can we get the board clerk uh wave can you comment to that on that well um so zoom does allow us to to uh offer multiple polls during during the um time of

079the meeting and so we could additionally ask more questions but um i think the issue might be also timing as it relates to you know how many questions can we really get through um during um during a board meeting um considering there's agenda items etc um but definitely um as we've looked at different options for the poll um we are we are considering uh other options that will allow for more in-depth uh review of questions um maybe asking short answer questions and things like that which are um harder to facilitate over the zoom interface thank you um i see vice president uh elliot oops vice president elliot can she hear vice president elliot i saw that your hand was raised did you lower your hand i believe she's frozen on commissioner malloy oh okay i

080don't see other hands i'll give her a second to see if she comes back online is she frozen or just muted looks like just um oh no i think she's it's like uh delayed oh just a lag of some type yes all right um vice president elliot we can come back to you it seems like there's a delay or lag all right are there any other questions before we circle back to vice president elliot i saw um president white i saw that you had put a thumbs up i just wanted to know if you could offer anything in response to that um oh i also said no no only thing i was saying is i like commissioner um powell's idea of you know okay we recognize areas where we're pretty steady or you know in

081the 80 to 85 to 90 percent success rate that maybe we're moving that question and going deeper into questions that perhaps we're not performing as well i i don't know how that idea will be fleshed out but i i like that way of you know drilling down on the areas that we're not doing as well and maybe moving away from the questions we're consistently doing well thank you for that input i see commissioner clark go ahead yes i wanted to respond to the initial one of the initial questions about do we maintain the current so survey format or do we move to google or do we do it two days later i think uh the way we do it now is the most effective way because everything is fresh in our minds and it's not

082something that we need to get back to and try to remember and as far as the questions i think the the um the question i mean the uh the survey really reflects where we are because when i look at the areas where we have declined and and need improvement i mean i i i agree 100 and i think most of our our other commissioners would agree also and uh i kind of disagree with taking away the areas where we're doing very well because i think we need to maintain that we need to make sure that we there's no slippage as we continue down this this road thank you commissioner clark for that insight thank you so much i did see briefly vice president elliott's hand go up again but now i'm not seeing her on

083she's just rejoining the zoo okay we'll take a minute vice president elliot can you hear us so um sorry about that um i'm getting a new computer sometime tomorrow or the next day so hopefully we won't have these problems um the question i have is how long do we have to continue to do these surveys and do we really find that these surveys are effective um are we just doing them just to be you know doing these surveys and you know have we actually seen some change i think some of that seems to suggest that there's been some change and on the other hand i think one of the areas saw a decrease and so what's our next step um you know with this particular survey thank you vice president elliot yeah i think that

084those questions are extremely important for us to consider um moving forward um i think it's always good to gather data um in this regard but you're making some really great points here so i think this warrants further discussion um if you have recommendations for perhaps other questions that we could ask instead or perhaps um maybe suggestions on other ways that we can monitor our progress as a board towards meeting some of our goals um that would be helpful too if we wanted to brainstorm that as a board uh but thank you for those comments uh vice president elliot appreciate it um i do see president white go ahead yeah just to respond to what vice president elliot said i i see an ongoing need for this survey uh it is a way in which we

085can monitor uh our behavior our success or our failure it takes less than a minute a night and if we need to modify it you know i i happen to like commissioner powell's idea but i heard what commissioner clark said and he's like let's keep our eye on the prize whether we're doing well or not i could live with that but in the end i think doing the survey is of immense importance because it allows us i mean we're not the only body that struggles sometimes with having efficient effective meetings you only need to get on youtube and you can see that but i think this has provided us ongoing and internal way an internal mechanism and that's why we did it so i don't see this ending anytime soon i think it's most valuable

086too if we're actually using this data to spur future conversations right as a board so that we continue to reflect and in that reflective work of striving to become better um meliora right you are getting ever better um so i you know i like the fact that we are doing polls but i understand some of the concerns surrounding that and let's just make sure we're having those conversations um using this data um that's how it's going to be most uh the best use of our time so let me ask this question um so we'll will when when will we discuss this will this be a part of the board retreats agenda yeah i mean that's a great question um we could either make it an ongoing agenda item for for governance i would think or

087we could continue to have these conversations at our retreats what would you prefer vice president yeah i think it probably needs to be discussed at the retreat i mean i don't have any comments one way or the other about it but i think that there were some areas that we improved upon there are some areas that we um went down on and i think that that needs to be discussed a problem in a board retreat uh setting excellent thank you vice president um commissioner powell um you know i think that in the areas that we went down i think it's really more a case of uh in practicing the use of the surveys we become more honest um i you know and especially with regard to start and end times uh our frustration shows when

088meetings go very long uh or when uh technical difficulties cause us to start late um i don't remember every slide but that was the starting and ending times showed a big um drop from beginning to end so i think there are explanations for that but i do also think that knowing that we're going to evaluate ourselves uh causes people to think about how they're going to interact with their peers in in in this public session thank you commissioner powell uh commissioner clark yes i just wanted to indicate that i didn't agree with commissioner powell in one sense but for me it's irregardless whether we go over time or not it's the substance of the discussion and as long as i feel that we're making progress and we're making a difference and we're making solid decisions

089i have no problem being on midnight so i'll always answer that question yes we started and ended on time because otherwise we leave out very relevant you know discussions that we need to have as a boy thank you commissioner clark do we have any other comments on this matter at this time any other comments all right well thank you so much for the robust uh discussion on this and we will definitely circle back on this topic with our board staff to either create a different polling tool for next year to better reflect all this feedback um or we'll it'll remain the same this is just an ongoing discussion and hopefully we can have that discussion at our next retreat and circle back all right so moving on in the agenda i just wanted to provide

090an update on our upcoming board retreats and our professional development so we are going to be continuing our work with dr malik mohammed who has been facilitating the restorative work in which we've been engaging regarding our interpersonal relationships as board members that is slated or our next session with dr muhammad is slated for monday june 14th from 5 30 to 7 or 7 30. um dr mohamed has been instrumental in helping us work through a variety of challenges and i know that we're all anxious to continue this critical work together as a as a governing body um additionally we are finalizing the committee calendar dates for next year following our beating sorry meeting restructuring resolution passed at the board business meeting last thursday may 27th and we will have a specific date in august shortly

091for our annual meeting to set our board goals for the 21 22 school year we will have more information to disseminate to commissioners very soon um and perhaps the most important reminder um regarding our uh just board responsibilities is pertaining to the update to our upcoming superintendent evaluation which must be completed by individual commissioners no later than june 22nd uh the superintendent is finalizing her self-evaluation and will have that available for commissioners via super eval by june 9th it's essential that individual commissioners look through the self-evaluation and complete their individual assessments between june 10th and june 22nd so again you have between june 10th and june 22nd to look at her self-evaluation um so that june 22nd date is really important it's going to allow the system to consolidate all the commissioner responses into one

092evaluation on june 25th and once it's consolidated we're going to use the document at our june 29th retreat with the superintendent to conduct her yearly performance evaluation so because this relates specifically to an employee's employment and performance this retreat will be conducted in closed session so please reach out to francine for super eval login information if you don't have that um and board clerk wade has also indicated that she is happy to walk commissioners through the process as she has just completed additional training on the super evil tool so i know that this will be very helpful for us as board members and thank you to francine and kalia on this um are there any questions relating to any of this before we move on i don't see any hands all right so the key

093dates to remember you have from june 10th through june 22nd to complete that performance evaluation or not performance evaluation but your own assessment um the commissioner responses um so that they can be compiled by the by the 25th all right our next agenda item is a quick update by acting counsel carlene on a return to in-person meetings uh councilor carlin hey good evening the executive order that has put the hold on the need for in-person meetings was extended again by another week it currently runs through june 24th which is the friday following our final board business meeting of this school year so that that's the update i have for you at the moment um they seem to be steadily extending every seven days and they go 30 out from the day they're extended so um

094i'll check again tomorrow they're they're generally backdated to monday and posted on wednesday so i'll check tomorrow but for now it looks like we're clear through the end of the school year here to continue in the zoom format um if anything changes obviously let you know and at some point we'll have to come up with a plan for starting in july thank you counselor karlin all right let me get to our next item um our next item is an update i'm just going to provide a quick update on our recommended racial bias training we continue to research possible providers and after reviewing this research i'd like to suggest the following consideration i'd like to suggest that instead of using a specific vendor or provider to create um like a one-size-fits-all training for current board members

095and our incoming board members i i'd like that we maybe consider using the information gathered by board staff two months ago to maybe create as a board a set of expectations for all members to use in their board work um regarding racial bias training etc um this set of expectations should include terminology or training that some of our board members might already have a firm grasp of um and i just want to make sure that you know that we respect that we're all coming from very different cultural backgrounds and have you know our very our own very unique set of lived experiences that don't mirror one another's and so my concern is that a cookie cutter sort of training isn't going to be useful for some of our members versus others so the type of

096training that for instance i need for instance as a you know white female with my own lived experiences is not going to mirror the needs or experiences of some of my other board colleagues even those who might look like me so i'd like to suggest that we maybe create a list of expectations as a board with the understanding that individual board members will work with board staff to find appropriate anti-bias training tailored to our individual needs and perhaps we could draft language around these training expectations that include a minimum number of hours of training or perhaps we can log our hours somewhere for the community's benefit and transparency about this critical work so i guess the advantages to this type of suggestion would be twofold you know we aren't mandating training that people have already

097had and that would be a waste of uh time and effort and secondly it might be a better use of our financial resources if we don't lock ourselves into a specific training that would be a major expense um if we use the research that we've already worked so hard on and that we've already compiled from on these various providers um providing commissioners with a list of possible trainings that would meet the requirements would provide a more personalized experience that we can reflect on and actually grow from um and then we can document that to the to the public perhaps in our own self-evaluations so i guess i just wanted to gauge people's thoughts on this um and have a brief discussion on how people feel if if we want to have a cookie cutter sort

098of training or do we want to try to make it more personalized any thoughts i'm not seeing any hands oh uh commissioner pop go ahead i'm sorry i'm always first but um um i guess prior to this suggestion i had always thought of um racial bias training as a group a group um responsibility that we should be as a group to do not unlike our board retreat and interpersonal development uh work but um hearing this for the first time i do see the merits there is a lot of you know uh training units out there uh by you know whether it be nisba or national school board association or uh some of the some of the consultants and providers who are offering this training to our teachers and administrators who's to say that we wouldn't

099benefit by sitting in on training already underway to school principals and um and teachers um i'm i'm open to that suggestion thank you commissioner powell yeah just to follow up on just what i was saying i'm i'm kind of looking at this through an educator's lens you know as a teacher i have a professional focus that i that i do every year as part of my appr pro process um it's part of you know what new york state mandates and how valuable would it be if we could be reflecting on our own experiences as commissioners um it's also personal um and i think that we would gain so much more from it considering that we're all in different spaces on that that continuum that is racial awareness and social justice um i see president white

100i see your hand go ahead yeah i you know is the first i've heard of this idea or proposal um and so my comments are just sort of a first blush attempt to provide some feedback let me just say i think i don't know logistically how you would do that i mean it's a very complicated subject matter some people are not referring to any of my colleagues but what's on the issue of racism and bigotry some people have no level of self-awareness no no understanding of what is needed to address the the issues that they have and again i'm not speaking about anybody specifically so i i do think and then if you did who would coordinate identifying where to get the pieces from i i guess my initial thought is that at least initially

101there has to be somebody brought in who understands this subject comprehensively could look at each board member and maybe figure out through conversating with them what is necessary to get them to a place where we could be all be leaders of on this issue of racism and bigotry i just think it is far and again this is just i'm not trying to be critical i think it's just far too complicated for us to be evaluating ourselves uh and and you may not even be proposing that uh but i do think we need to bring in at least initially somebody to help us understand the lay of the land as it relates to each person and comprehensively and then begin to suggest us what we might need individually or collectively i just don't think we can

102do it individually i i don't but i could be wrong thanks and i certainly respect your comments president white um i think really it is such a personal uh it is such a personal journey for for every person and so that's why i think that that personal approach might be best but i do like your idea of having someone initially perhaps meet one-on-one with commissioners if we could identify someone who helped can help bring us to the or recommend resources that we use or perhaps trainings that might benefit um individual commissioners that way this work can be done um it's truly self-reflective then um people aren't feeling anxiety um about where they are on that continuum um and can actually do the important work um instead of just kind of the sit and get that

103we that we have sometimes in trainings and i know that that um that lecture style of some of the trainings that are out there is um not as beneficial maybe as it could be um and we want to make sure that everyone's actually engaging in the work and being honest with themselves and i think that i love your suggestion for that reason having someone initially come in to maybe help us find those resources as individuals so thank you um were there any other hands i thought i saw commissioner clark's hand briefly but not to put you on the spot i didn't raise my hand but i do agree with the president white that we have someone come in and do the foundational training and the assessment to uh to see where people are and and

104make recommendations on the type of training they receive thank you commissioner clark thank you are there any other comments at this time all right well we have researched um we have different providers that have been researched by by the board we continue to gather more providers um and so at an upcoming meeting i'm hoping that we can maybe come up with a list at least of expectations i'm hoping to draft something with um with our other with the board staff that's reflective of the work that they already did um a couple months ago um so that it really mirrors that work that they did um and i'm hoping to you know talk with dr jallo more about how how this is going to be most valuable as educational leaders um the type of training that

105would most benefit us as educational leaders um i see commissioner adams go ahead okay you had mentioned about people not having to go through a training that they already been through i said we cannot be given our waivers um absolutely um it obviously did not work more than likely um a lot of times people go through these pd's and they just be there and they just sign in and sign out um and the same thing with us we just because we've been we signed a paper saying that we did some hours of this that's that's like a waiver no we we cannot be given on the way but if we're trying to get some legitimate um growth then everybody's got to be on board so no waivers i wasn't suggesting that we have waivers i

106i think that uh perhaps i didn't explain that as clearly as i could i'm not suggesting that that we have any waivers but i am suggesting that the type of training that i need commissioner adams is going to look very different than maybe the type of training that that you are in need of and so if we can personalize that and and conduct ourselves in a way that allows us to um be open to the types of training that that we need i think that's where we actually going to see some growth and so no waivers i agree um did anyone else want to come in okay so thank you so much for adding to that discussion we're gonna circle back and hopefully have make some progress on that uh we'll begin drafting that um

107shortly um and we'll touch base i think uh at our next meeting all right our last item tonight is just regarding board travel and professional development expenses so as you know we implemented a spending freeze on these expenditures not just as a board but district-wide this year and i had asked our finance department just to quickly offer to the public a quick recap of this so it's my understanding that either superintendent meyer small or someone on behalf of the finance department is just going to provide us very very brief overview of why we have freezes and why they're necessary is there someone who can speak to that sure commissioner malloy i will um back in the fall when um we were in certainly uh had been a couple months in the pandemic we had a

108discussion with the board and made the decision that we would implement some measures because we were we were concerned about our our fiscal outlook and so we always try to take measures that are so far away from the classroom right that aren't directly impacting our scholars so one of the things that we implemented certainly hiring freezing freezes excuse me but one of the other things that we said because we're in the midst of a pandemic we um need to freeze any type of out of town travel for conferences so we instituted that um and put that into effect again because we were really concerned about the fact that we thought uh 20 we needed to you know reduce by 20 and you know that in central office we had uh many departments that reduced by

10920 percent uh at least 20 percent so that was a measure that we put in place given the fact that we were in the midst of a pandemic and that we wouldn't be traveling any anyway so that would be a way to um that would be a measure that would make sense that would be far away from the classroom thank you superintendent meyer small sure thank you all right let me just move on to [Music] so that means no traveling no going to nisbet in october no that was for the um this current school year that we're in so 2021. thank you thank you for that for clarification um so let's see so yeah um i know that i had asked a board clerk wade to just offer to provide a recap of our board

110and travel budget freeze from last year but it looks like it sounds like uh uh superintendent meyer small you've done that for us um i do have one question though commissioner malloy if you yeah only because so so i know um and thank you superintendent mary small for providing an update on the travel freeze but um i know that there's also a spending freeze that goes into effect normally in february um uh that takes place where um budgets are capped and then um whatever money is not spent is then swept so that is kind of the um one of the things that i was hoping that the board could also discuss is um maybe i'm anticipating the spending of funds if it is um that persons are interested in attending or um not just not

111just travel but also pds and things that are even local um ahead of time um before that february freeze if possible so that we can anticipate the spending so that we are not spending after that freeze that that goes into place in february great clarification kalia yes thank you yeah plus with some of those particularly like the law um uh pd's i those are the ones that i most like to attend as well and those you know tend to be well they tend to be local um for the most part so um you know i would advocate for those kinds of uh pd sessions and that money be allocated for for those thank you vice president elliott yeah i believe the the law one offered through nisba is actually here in rochester on july 15th

112so i know that was something i was interested in as well and so certainly anything that is a nisba or mizbah sort of professional development is super valuable for um for all of us as board members so we'll keep that in mind yeah and kelly if you could answer it's my understanding that we saved about twenty thousand dollars on the freeze from this past year well um so we had budgeted uh in last year's um board budget to um for out of town travel to be placed at twenty twenty thousand dollars but of course because of the pandemic um none of those funds were really spent um because of the fact that those were um there was no traveling taking place in addition to the fact that um uh as part of the state monitor

113legislation all out of town travel um has to be improved uh approved by the state monitor so we did not um incur expenses as it related to that however um there are certain um expenses that the board um did agree to incur at least updating or um or deus and and things as it relates to covid um you know trying to make things more virtually accessible and so um that budget um has been utilized for for for some other things as well but yes there was no spending for out of town travel in this past uh year with the pandemic all right so any money that we had saved i know we talked about this earlier in the afternoon um and you had explained uh that any extra money or funds it gets rolled it

114doesn't get rolled over into the next year um it is so it's not a carryover or i don't remember the terminology you use yes so um and this might be explained a little bit better by um or cfo or maybe dr meyer small but essentially for all departments um monies that are budgeted for the current school year if they're if they're not utilized they do get swept and put back normally into the general fund um because it all it's all the districts the district's funds and um of course at the time you know uh we are in a deficit and so any unspent monies goes back to um to to cover district costs okay thank you for that yeah it just makes me think that i'd be really interested to see more info from finance

115on carryovers for maybe other district departments and just spurring uh some more questions here all right um so you were all provided with an excel document that outlined our budget for the 2122 school year um we've allocated for in-district as well as out-of-district travel our in-district is pretty minimal that's only 80 our out-of-district is about 16 000 um our professional and technical services allocated budget is um almost 60 thousand dollars and additionally our professional development budget is about eight thousand dollars calya can you tell us um that technical services allocated or the professional and technical services allocated budget that was almost 60 thousand dollars what are those types of items so professional and technical services generally cover um services that um are take place with you know nisba when we have to do trainings when

116we have to bring in uh professionals um as it relates to the fact that we have a state monitor and there are certain um requests for um certain pds and things like that money is put aside in the past when we had um or distinguished educator um salary was paid out of that budget line um those kinds of things so that budget line is generally a little bit higher not that it's you know it's used every year or anything like that but it's generally a little bit higher based on um the demands of you know or state requirements okay excellent and so like a service like dr muhammad the restorative work that we're doing with him and correct yes that would come from that yes yes perfect thank you so i guess what we need

117to determine is just how these funds will be used throughout the course of the year um and of course professional development is just critical for our board members i'm i'm hoping that you know we can just engage in a short conversation round robin or back and forth um you know i'm wondering how do we divvy up available funds between commissioners right like so um do we do that currently um how far in advance do we need to put in for professional development are there exceptions so i'm hoping that those questions that we can start talking about those as a board um and i will open the floor up for discussion so should we divide up these funds equally um how should we do this uh vice president elliot go ahead um well i have two

118points to to make one is a little bit off topic but um i think that um well let me just say this we have to consider um because we're talking about the 20 uh 122 budget we will have um at least uh two or maybe three new board members in january so we have to consider what their needs are going to be so um that's one that's one piece um of that um and you know their learning curve is really low uh so or high however we would uh so um we have to consider that but i also think that there are some board members who tend to travel more than others that they need to have you know in terms of their uh to reduce their learning curve they need to have more um

119pe pd you know uh being able to go to different conferences um i think that was the case with commissioner former commissioner um was natalie's last name can't even take her last name now uh you know she tend to have used um you know went on a number of professional development um trips because she needed to to do that i don't think it's necessary that's this is just me to you know divide it amongst equally among seven board members because seven board members may not um need to uh attend those sessions so uh that's my my uh position on that now what i do think that we we need to consider this is a little off topic we need to check with our board staff to see if they're still able to handle the level

120of work um that they're handling that's that's going to be very important should we perhaps um we've got to be mindful if we're going to going to continue with this level of staff we have to be mindful that we cannot ask board members ask continue to ask them to do all this work without there being some some um additional support so um i would have us to consider that and i don't know if we can do it in this particular um budget season uh at this point but uh it is important i don't know you know we may be wearing them down and we have to look at that so thank you thank you vice president um i really like all the points that you made um and i think they're all very relevant um

121to the last point that you made i think that maybe we could make that as a future agenda item for for governance if that would make you feel comfortable with that discussion yeah to assess that all right thank you uh president white yeah um on the issue of uh staffing i agree i think we need to revisit that issue and on the first issue of uh traveling um just so that no one has to reinvent the wheel you all may recall and i think most of you are here at the time we did devise a system of allocating uh travel and i think matasol was here when we did it i i think it was done it was done by marisol lopez helped us devise that system if it wasn't devised then it was devised

122under cheney lee but you you should look at what we did before some may say we're beyond that we shouldn't have to do that that's not fair that's not equitable but there was a system device and you might want to throw that back into an agenda and have people revisit that and decide whether we want to change it i know certainly thank you president white i know that um commissioner hallmark had done some work on this prior to my being sworn in um so i will go back and and see if i can find those items i know i just vaguely remember sitting in on a meeting uh that we were allowed to sit in on prior to being sworn in and i would just say it went beyond commissioner hallmark the board agreed uh

123how to divvy up that travel allotment we just stopped doing it because of covet gotcha all right this is valuable information to me as i piece together that history and i'll certainly be meeting with you and with uh vice president elliot to to make kind of next steps on what to bring before the board um are there any other comments at this time any other comments all right well thank you again for the the discussion we'll circle back next month after we've compiled this information um and with that that ends our governance committee for the for the evening i will now pass the gavel to my colleague commissioner powell who will be leading our policy meeting commissioner powell okay thank you can you all hear me all right okay um so the agenda uh lays

124out what we need to accomplish today pretty clearly uh we're going to start policy with a standing item of nisba policy updates um with our council uh steve carling i i don't believe we have anything pending do we steve no there's there's one that i think i'm gonna make as a recommendation that came out but i i i think i put it over to um to the administration late last week and with the we haven't circled back around um but it it's it deals with um the dealing with remote instruction so it won't really be something we need to worry about at the moment because you know we're wrapping up the school year so we have plenty of time on it um but i'll come forward with something at the next meeting if we're going

125to make recommendation on that that's the only item that i saw that was of any uh new um changes at least this is different from the student attendance changes that we're already set to discuss uh you know what maybe there are there's someone i don't remember if i advanced them to you guys i didn't want to speak if i had so um or if i hadn't so i think actually yeah it does i think it is actually in the student intense policy it's it's one paragraph about remote instruction so okay good i am ahead of that then okay let's go if there's something more we can take it to subcommittee and then bring it next month no that was only that was the only one change that came out of the packet of information that

126we had from this but i thought we should adopt so okay all right good thank you going to discussion items um uh the uh dr jallow uh made a require set up a requirement that we signed on to regarding a long-term plan for our data systems cali if you want to put up steve's draft um this this draft uh essentially uh spells out what dr jallow's requirements of us are is is that correct steve it was my uh it was my rough attempt to capture it yes i i worked with glenn van der water from imt and this is kind of what we came up with as far as just a you know a template for the board to work with to uh end with dr joe i just wanted to get something on paper

127for you all to be able to start off of but um she and i have not discussed it specifically right um now so um it's here for you all to read uh but um [Music] understanding that it really doesn't do anything except uh direct the superintendent to do that which dr jallow directed us to do uh calya can you put up uh the regulation 8300 for us the the language you just saw could easily be the governing language for this regulation that already exists where the superintendent sets to sets out a technology governance committee and um so the language steve presented could be the um essentially the scope and purpose doc uh document for this regulation that already exists 80 and we can call it 8 300. alternatively we could have a broader discussion about

128what other long-term investments we need to make um and and create craft a finance area or finance series policy that rolls up any number of requirements that we might have that need long-term financial considerations um a great example is that when we last discussed this uh idea of a long-term information technology uh plan was accidentally we started having conversation about textbooks i mean we currently have textbook adoption committees but do we do we anticipate textbook adoptions in our budget process do we set enough funds aside is it part of our requirement of the superintendent when she delivers a budget to us that there be um significant resources regular every year for um textbook adoptions so the guidance i need as the policy chair from the board is is one of direction do we want to

129have a broader discussion about what long term planning we want to the superintendent to focus on and if so what topics besides i.t and textbooks should we be raising um to a higher profile and um you could shout those out now or you could um just email them to me but before i go into our next subcommittee to to really tackle this policy uh i need a little guidance from my peers so i'm looking for comments or raised hands so question is do we want to satisfy dr jallow's immediate requirement and and do something along the lines of a policy 8300 using language something along the lines of what steve posted and callie you can put that up again if you like or do we want to have a broader discussion about long-term financial planning

130oh thank you rahima i didn't know it was you doing screen share van i see your hand yeah long-term financial planning that's your vote that's my vote thanks thank you for launching the discussion can can i get um pros and cons from others do you like that idea and why do you not like that idea and why i mean two voices just uh dr jallo please weigh in i'm just curious how does long-term financial planning ensure that the district doesn't find themselves in a similar situation where books are 20 years old technology for finances outdated technology for special ed is no longer purposeful and useful how does one connect to the other and i really just want to understand it because the intent of this was to make sure that you never as a district

131find yourself with outdated systems outdated resources that impact instruction and impact um systems and procedures that you have in the district great question dr jello i think you've practically made the case for a policy within the um the finance series the 6000 series that would essentially direct the superintendent's budget planning okay and would go beyond just satisfying i.t limit um obstacles that we have that you that you identified in your in your report the language either way i think needs to be much more specific the language crafted so far simply directs the superintendent to maintain up-to-date information systems uh that doesn't that doesn't really give any guidance as to you know what is up to date how old is obsolete i think we need to get much more uh like drilled down into that or

132as the regulation currently states rely entirely on the i.t committee to tell us when it's time to take appropriate action and and and that's fine so long as that committee is being forward-looking enough that they can show us the the horizon in ample time to budget for it so that's exactly the guidance i'm hoping to get from my colleagues um if if we go the um the finance series route um i would invite um [Music] our cfo into the conversation during our sub in subcommittee and ask for her input on how we go about um structuring a long-term financial plan for those sensitive areas and um if um either if you could write down each of the areas that you have concerned for or if calia can pull that out of the out of the

133recording um that'll give us a lot more guidance on on what to focus on oh are are you in favor i can do that i can work with kylian okay um are you essentially speaking in favor of a term financial planning policy um i'm i'm not willing to weigh in before your colleagues okay um but my intent as long as my intent is is addressed um i'm satisfied however way you choose to do it i just more concerned with the outcome and the outcome is that you have technology you have management systems you have curriculum materials that make sense for an organization dedicated to academics and scholarship right any and each time you state that you're simply describing something that goes beyond just the technology so i'm interpreting here notwithstanding that you want to hear

134from colleagues i am interpreting a need for something more comprehensive uh amy i uh commissioner malloy i see your hand is up yeah thank you and just for all the reasons that dr zhao has outlined um i i would like to see some specific long-term planning in this regard similar to what uh fans okay i've so i've heard from a couple of my colleagues cynthia uh uh ricardo beatrice i was out of the um zoom when uh steve presented that policy so i'm not able to comment on it actually okay thanks for your candor anybody else commissioner adams commissioner lebron um well the votes i hear so far if i'm if i'm not getting any more guidance uh i have to go with what i've gotten so what i'll do is uh take take this

135back to the subcommittee which meets every two weeks is someone someone got their hand up no okay i'll i'll take this to subcommittee which meets every two weeks and um and try to draw our cfo and the superintendent into this um to get um something a little meatier and and broader in scope um for a a long-term something we'll call long-term financial management policy okay for this in the 600 and 6000 series and uh once we've got something new to present i'll bring it back here and we'll hash it out and you know it's an iterative process we'll see if we get closer to what we need okay but we did promise to start the conversation in june and it's june only just barely okay uh the next topic on our discussion table is there

136are two policies that um the administration and its work through the um through the uh special ed series has uh deemed to be redundant especially since a host of new policies were passed in 2012. um now the major achievement program was sort of phased out a long time ago long after the federal dollars left um and so the administration is recommending that we uh um rescind this policy and i just want to get some support from the the board and to to move that recommendation out of committee so that we can formally vote on it uh in next month's meeting i'll move bill is moving that we uh forward this recommendation out of committee to the full board and amy seconds discussion you know i was surprised to see that because it's so antique my

137daughters were in the major achievement program when they when they were in the city school district that's right well many years my kids were too and many years ago i had a principal who who articulated a school philosophy that all children move in and out of giftedness and that it's the obligation of the school to respond to that giftedness when it emerges not just because they scored high on ela and math right and and that's really the sound of sound educational approach so but um anyone else want to weigh in on this one if not i'll call for a vote okay the the motion on the table is to uh advance the administration recommendation to restore this policy all in favor hi all right hi callie are you getting everybody um there's a few i

138didn't ricardo i didn't hear from you i don't know why i definitely said i okay and beatrice is off beatrice what's your vote vote thank you okay similarly the the compensatory education this is the one that was really sort of superseded by a host of new special ed reactions and this is being recommended recommended for uh recent rescission do i have a motion i'll move it motion from bill second second from uh president white discussion why is this being rescinded maybe steve can explain that the uh it's very outdated um the the term even used in the title compensatory education um it's used in a generalized sense here it's actually a very uh loaded term in special education that's developed well past this policy was put in place back in i think 1998 maybe something

139like that it was a carryover from an old pulse even then so it's just way past its time we've had several people look at and agree we have a lot of other policies that cover what this is trying to cover um it's now been split up into much more differentiated more specific policies than this it's time for it to go all right thank you any other questions seeing no hands i'll call for a vote all in favor of accepting the administration's recommendation to rescind this policy say aye aye aye thank you al you'll see that you'll see in upcoming uh board meetings i don't i i'll have to have a conversation with steve about or we have to go through the three-step process because i was just going to say i think that you had

140you just got a majority vote on your board to rescind a policy i don't know why we would we don't need first second third reason there's nothing to change it's going right i mean i think they can both be considered rescinded as of this one that's that's my right i think we need a red well uh i'm gonna i'm gonna trump you as the chair and say well we'll ask for a written resolution to be presented at our next business meeting to agree with you that that there's no for public input um i don't i i don't think there is you know i don't i can't imagine if anything if anyone did decide that uh they wanted it to stay um they could speak to us on the day that we uh are voting yeah

141that's fine i don't think we need to do second third you know i agree at least so we'll see you at the business meeting we'll put in two resolutions to rescind separately okay all right uh that takes us to our student attendance policy 5100 i think this is the one that steve was referring to earlier about uh there's a paragraph about distance learning that needs to be updated um you know now that we have are using um distance learning so aggressively uh in the in the coveted world um this is the language that uh and you should have seen well before the meeting but this is the language i like to insert into this policy are there any questions about that um if not and i don't see any hands could i get a motion

142to uh i have this policy uh um approved by the the committee and moved through the multi-step process motion second uh commissioner malloy is seconded by president white all in favor aye all right hi thank you all that that that'll take us through uh um public readings and at the board level um finally and i do mean finally the code of conduct which has been brewing for and simmering and cooking for like two years now um is ready for to be moved out of committee we had the public hearing was it just last week steve i don't remember the dates um a couple weeks ago but we we held the public hearing that's required uh we've we've heard all of our constituent groups and responded and reacted to them and i would love to see

143this move out of committee do i have a motion okay well i i think we just need to make sure that we're moving it out of committee with with or without the two recommended changes i don't know if we should have a discussion about just a you know informal discussion about that at this point if i can have a motion we can start discussing emotion from commissioner uh president white a second by malloy exactly i thought i thought i heard you think okay so steve can you drive the conversation i can after um after the last time we had a a discussion about the code of conduct which was about two months ago um in addition to the public comment session where the speakers came on there there were several um focus groups with with

144union members um and and staff where they were asked for their input and and that input was then consolidated into um you know series of charts it was reviewed by cabinet members and and ultimately we came to [Music] a recommendation of two particular items for changes there was a lot a lot of concern expressed about the notion of consensual sexual activity in the existence in the new code not having a suspension as an option and some of the top really prevalent or you know that in in for example a k-8 school it may not be unusual to see consensual sexual activity between eighth graders but that could be in front of kindergarteners and you know and and repeated uh violations of this really should be something that a short-term suspension is an option for and

145um upon discussion with with uh with the groups that was that was advanced by the administration as one change to make to add in a level three short-term suspension option for consensual sexual activity for k-12 and it does not mean that um you know that the option is not there for for lesser in fact it's you know that's that's what the whole matrix talks about is starting with the lowest when you can and um you know moving forward but considering the age of the people engaged the age of somebody who may have witnessed it the number of times it's happened before all the factors that we'd ask them to consider and other fact you know other decisions should this should be at least an available option so the the superintendent on behalf of the administration

146is recommending that change the second change has to do with classroom disruption there there was no change in in the draft per se but it did cause some concern people were um i think there was some confusion as to how to view the matrix as a holistic document in which you look at multiple options for behaviors that you witness and so we're just i think the recommendation finally came down to put an asterisk in this one that um if the classroom disruption involves behavior that that is considered either harassing threatening or violent then there are other code provisions there's other matrix available to to address that more significant behavior including dasa violations and dasa reporting um you know and threats and things like that so we just wanted to put a reminder in there to

147help people who are navigating the matrix maybe for the first time or or you know an experience of navigate that there are other things to look for um and i'll i'll say that with this after these code changes are presented in the codes advanced once the code passes we will begin a series of trainings um for people on on the new code because it's a very big document and it can be i think difficult to navigate initially when you're trying to implement it from a disciplinary perspective so with those two things those are the two suggestions that the superintendent has advanced on behalf of the administration as as amendments in committee so that if the code advances beyond here that it would contain these two provisions is the request understood thank you what are the

148what colleague's questions on the code of conduct and or specifically the two points that steve just raised keep in mind there's still going to be several opportunities for community input uh as we go through the first second and third readings so if if these um prove to be entangling we will be able to react to them at the time any i'm checking the her hands i'm still not seeing any hands commissioner powell yes um i i just wanted to add that i know this has been um a long process but it's been a good process and i know that you've as the board you have worked to collect feedback from different constituents both internally and externally and again i just want to reiterate the importance of once this is approved that we will work on

149um training and applying um i believe what is it steve schoolof523 am i quoting that or 526 um that as far as the implementation because a code of conduct again is only as good as the training and the uh regular and consistent application of that code so that's really the next step of making sure that we get this approved so we can start implementing as of july 1st so i just wanted to uh commend the board for their commitment to this and uh we look forward to moving this forward from a restorative viewpoint and i have to say meeting with the principals they are very much so about being restorative and just making sure that we have the support so we can do that but this feels like a good move in the right direction

150and then what we'll do is we'll get ourselves back on track and we'll make sure that we have this review done annually for a a regular approval for by july 1st of the next school year thank you and thank you to yourself and all of your uh people from key cabinet people all the way down to the folks that submitted suggestions uh this has been a herculean task and i just i just appreciate you all so much that we're finally here i mean you know rewriting a code of conduct from a punitive standpoint to a restorative standpoint is is like you know turning a battleship around in black creek or something it's like a huge endeavor so um just thank you a lot i'm checking for hands again uh bill yes i just wanted to

151indicate that uh that i i totally agree with the superintendent just stated also when i look at this there's really only one change that we're proposing and that's on the uh the clarification point but on point number one when we go in for the three readings do the does the community get uh a copy of the clarification the two clarification points that we're making prior to um you know doing the three readings and they'll have a so they'll know what was changed and have an opportunity to respond during the public uh session of the meeting yes if you have to approve those two changes they would leave committee and we would add them into the current draft code and that's what would be published for everybody to be looking at surveys on the same page

152yep okay excuse me commissioner powell yes rahima um in addition we still do have the code of conduct web page that we created for the forum with the documents and steve's powerpoint that highlighted all the significant changes commissioner clark we could add the memo which is currently in public view on board docs to that page just for another way for on the community to access that oh great thanks yeah thank you very much rahima for that suggestion okay i'm looking for hands again and i'm not seeing any does that mean it's time to call the question um all we have a motion we have a second all in favor lebron's off camera yes okay thank you all right well those are all the policies that were we were uh oh wait no we got a

153whole other set um level the third part three of the special ad policies and that's going to be a presentation given by who who's presenting the this packet yes commissioner powell i'm i'm bringing it up i will be um presenting um in collaboration with uh eugene mcnamara as we did last month hi gene thank you for being here thank you for having us how's everyone this evening everybody's good okay as we did last month we'll go quickly go ahead rahima you're on all right so good evening everyone commissioner super administration community um this is the final presentation on the special education policies um so we'll just briefly go through this as we did last month um so just a quick reminder of where we are in the process and what the policy update rule looks

154like we are currently in the last stage for this um part of policies uh here at the uh excuse me the committee of the whole presenting they have already had um feedback and recommendations from this list of contributors which includes um administration board and the special advisory council parent advisory council so i will turn it over to eugene yolanda to go into the details of which policy and this changes thank you rahima okay um we started off with uh transfer students with disabilities uh policy 4216 and uh basically the changes that we did to this were we updated the language to align with uh the commissioners regulations and current sed state of ed and federal guidance specifically that was around our transfer students and collaborating with parents on writing temporary and permanent ieps as they

155come into the district yolanda yep okay good evening everyone um with policy number 4217 which is regarding the identification and registration of children with disabilities there we updated language again to align with commissioners regulations and current sed guidance to include consultation with private and parentally placed schools while maintaining updated records essentially with this policy this it requires the district to maintain in its records and reports of the commissioner uh on these matters in a manner prescribed by the commissioner and this is just with regards to the number of students enrolled in these schools okay thank you um section 504 of the rehabilitation act of policy 4218 there were no changes to this policy so we had taken a look at everything that was there i guess it was recently had been looked at but the

156only changes really were just basic formatting changes and on policy 4219 concerning independent education evaluations there was a recent second circuit case that came down that we updated this policy to align with i would just say uh rahima that um in this the case is the trump bull case so we just might want to change the spelling on that for the trumbull decision and we also align to commissioners regulations that are current and we updated the due process provisions for parents uh and again we uh aligned this with a correlating proposed update to what's a superintendent's implementing regulation 4219r and while that particular 4219r wasn't on this slate um we did go ahead and and make some proposed revisions to that implementing regulation so that it aligns squarely with 4219 uh and we also um

157just uh you know updated some formatting 4220 is you also um no chain you can do it it's either one if there were no changes to this one either with respect to impartial hearings gene um no uh 42 i'm sorry you were just going to 42 20. 42 20 was special education mediation uh there were no changes to that um 4221 the basic the changes to that were we updated the language to align with the commissioner's regulations we updated procedures for the service of servicing of due process complaints we specified who it needs to be delivered to the address etc and for parties what they needed to do in order to withdraw from a uh do a withdrawal of an impartial hearing request as well and uh gene are you going to cover the next

158question 4222 yes i will uh 4222 is the uh adopted credential options for students with disabilities uh we updated the language to a line they had made some changes over the years on the types of credentials diplomas that students could get and different pathways so we updated the language to align with the commissioner's regulations specifically the graduation options and again the different pathways for students with disabilities and then last but not least with respect to 4240 the wandering and enlightenment policy we when in our review we noticed that while it discussed a behavior intervention plan to address elopement and wandering behavior um it did not cover the requirement for a functional behavior assessment that examines the function of the behavior so that an appropriate behavior intervention plan can be developed so we updated that policy

159to ensure that a functional behavior assessment of the behavior is conducted and that it is addressed through the proper supervision as well as the behavior intervention plan i think that does it that would be it yeah so the next steps is the to have a motion to have this um set of policies forwarded out of committee um and then it will follow the policy adoption process outlined in the 2410 policy management um policy concluding what i'll vote at the next business year which will be june 24th and raheem i just want to add that with respect to the trumbull decision um we did go back and double check to make sure that that case is not actually mentioned in the policy we simply took what the case stood for to update the policy it's just

160that in the powerpoint presentation we just want to change the spelling okay now um i i think the only way we're going to be able to have the june 24th is if we do the um um first and second readings at our next committee before our next committee meetings as as special meetings but certainly we can strive to have the vote on june 24th if commissioner ali i see your hand thank you oh sorry about that i was talking and i was muted uh this is more to the superintendent um when it was mentioned about the elopement policies i am um reviewing again the trayvon martin uh document and um i'm sure that that elopement policy also um was um in some way influenced by the trayvon martin case as well so at some point

161madam superintendent i think we need to um review where we are over at school 12 and the other processes as it relates to uh the trayvon martin case have we placed into have we implemented improved policies that something to the effect that happened with uh with trayvon is no longer possible to happen in our district that we have our systems in place there's documentation being noted uh and what have you so somewhere down the line madam superintendent i think we need to have a the board needs to have an update of where we are in terms of systems and um that we are ensuring that we're taking care of our special needs students ma'am superintendent do you want to respond to that or does that stand on its own i i can add something uh

162you know if it's helpful um so one of the things that the updated policy does is it distinguishes between wandering and allotment um wandering being a behavior that is almost impulsive where it's unintentional but a function of the disability an elopement being an intentional sort of an intent to flee the building that is sort of premeditated or planned or and could possibly also be related to the disability but i think that that was a very important first step in developing this policy and updating it to make that distinction so that it really all sort of boils back down to the iep the specific disability and the functional behavior assessment then is the tool that the school building and the csc can use to determine why the behavior is occurring what's the the impetus for the

163behavior and therefore with doing that with the fba you can now analyze what an appropriate behavior intervention plan was but i think that for that policy that was a really important driving distinction is is making that distinction between elopement and wandering i think that will go a long way in helping buildings to build supports around any student that is either wandering or eloping any other questions thank you yolanda for that i don't see any hands so at this time i would entertain a motion to um nancy's out of committee is that you bill commissioner elliott seconded okay commissioner elliott second diabetic commissioner malloy last call for discussion or questions all in favor aye aye aye i know that uh president white leave i don't see commissioner lebron oh there she is okay so it carries

164six six zero uh gene yolanda to your team and and to yourselves thank you for your very hard work uh you have set a standard for the rest of the administration to follow as we as we march through our policy review and um it very well done thank you so much we're making terrific headway on this agenda welcome thank you you are welcome thank you all right um the only thing i'd like to add to the policy committee agenda is this that while we were having our earlier discussion about the bylaws of groups that um whose advice and counsel we take whether it be black or bilingual council or student leadership congress i noticed that policy 1900 um all alternately uses the generic term district-wide parent organization and the former phrase of parent advisory council

165and so i think we're going to need to take that policy out of turn and and bring it current uh given that the parent advisory council has given itself a new name and new set of bylaws so um i will endeavor to do that um uh between now and our next um policy committee um madam superintendent i see your hand is that right i didn't wanna i did not want to interrupt you commissioner powell but i just back to the special education review as you know those policies the the regulations that come from the state are ever changing they can be very complex with multiple sets of expectations and i just have to say our team was incredible and i've reviewed special education policies before and made modifications in both ithaca and brockport but hands

166down our team was phenomenal and i think certainly having um council particular that understand special education law is so powerful and so important and as we continue to become much more compliant and work our way out of both the consent decree and special education corrective action plan we really have the right team i believe in place to do that and i just wanted to echo my thanks and appreciation to the team great thank you thank you did you hear my um request about uh a follow up on travon mark vice president elliot there was a little bit of an echo i'm sorry yeah i had mentioned before when uh linda mentioned about the globe met um that i wanted there to be a follow-up because i'm reviewing again the trayvon martin document from the state

167just to follow up to find out um where we are with that have there been uh the recommendations that they made are they in place uh not only at school 12 but just where we are with that so somewhere down the line i'd like to be able to have a conversation about that um not uh anytime soon first you know necessarily but uh probably you know um i think it is september we need to review it or prior to the start of the school year maybe even okay sure cali if you don't mind making a note we'll make sure okay well that concludes the policy committee portion of tonight's meeting and since president white is still uh has had to leave early i'm going to hand the gavel to you commissioner yeah vice president elliott

168um on our agenda um i don't have a gen an agenda before me so yeah if you can put it up and if there are other items that we need to discuss for the evening or if they're not there it's just executive session um for this evening um uh i don't believe we need that anymore okay all right well then that that is actually it uh then uh vice president elliot that is the thank you motion turtle gym a move yeah we'll do the survey commissioner adams did you say something i'm sorry if you said second oh okay so do we have uh all of the still still waiting on on on a few more okay uh president was trying to join the meeting but i don't think he's connecting would he miss out on

169filling out the survey since it was launched when before he got here i he would be able to see he would be able to see it when he comes in but if he's not he's not quite in the room for some reason it's just pending so without him uh we are complete so all those in favor in the journey of the meeting aye aye good night everybody