001that uh this is the Board of Education and we are in this space because this is the circumstance that we are in we hope that one day we'll be able to return to in-person meetings but for now and I believe commissioner Malloy is going to bring up that topic later today but for now this is where we're at and for now it is April 22nd 2021 and time is 6 33. on behalf of the Board of Education welcome everybody we are blessed and happy to have you here we indeed have our challenges but one of our blessings and one of our gifts is that we have each other to work on those challenges together and that's what today is about it might get into the minutia there might be some stuff that you don't get
002or understand because there just isn't all the time that we'd like to have to explain everything but that really is what today is about us as a board uh with the superintendent the the distinct the uh independent Monitor and all the staff uh that are that you they're faces that you see of course Dr Nelms uh Dr Myers small and the Board of Education all the people that you don't see uh the board of education is thankful that you are here to join us in this effort to make this District everything that it should be so without further Ado you know it would do these meetings is we give people the option is that's the wonderful thing about the American way we begin our meetings uh citing the Pledge of Allegiance those who choose to
003join us in standing can do so that's the great thing about this country and those that choose not to uh can sit down and and spend the next 30 seconds uh contemplating how you will contribute to the uh District success so uh for now I'm going to turn my monitor over to uh my my flag here in my office you see Frederick Douglass is right there hanging out with the flag uh what you also do by there there's a little piece of woodwork of Frederick Douglass done by one of our students so I'm blessed to have that so uh again if you choose to join me in the recitation of the flag please feel free to do so I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for
004which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice say that again and justice for all all right we got a very full schedule and uh the first thing I know we have to do is we have to approve just the minutes for the public hearing which was dated April the 8th 2021 can I get a motion to do that commissioner Adams is seconded by commissioner Clark all is in favor of proving those minutes for the public hearing dated April the 8th 2021 indicate by saying aye I I think the eyes haven't met him clerk um I would just remind my colleagues please make sure and I think everybody has done that please make sure that you turn on your cameras when you vote uh next item on our agenda is um oh
005I almost forgot Madam clerk you told me not to forget uh there has to be because the board starters practice a couple few months ago while we were in covid a description on occasion of upcoming events that are sponsored by the district and or the board so a Madam clerk will you uh communicate to the community the things that are on our agenda that are in our immediate eyesight for the next week or so I will I'm just gonna share my screen really quickly so uh coming up uh just want to let the public know that we have uh on May 4th well firstly there are no meetings next week no board meetings um for the last week of uh May um of April I'm sorry um because the board meets for four weeks of
006the month and so for the fifth week there are no board meetings so we'll pick back up in May with the policy governance meeting uh I also it's not on the screen right now but for those of you who are waiting for the code of conduct hearing that will take place on May 6th that is a Thursday and we do encourage persons who are interested in talking about the code of conducts and changes that have happened to that document to please sign up by calling the board office uh or by sending an email to the board's email Board of Education at rcsdk12.org after that we'll have a series of committee events taking place on the 11th and the 18th and then we will have a PD session coming up there on the 20th I think
007I skipped one which is May 10th which is one of the biggest meetings um which is for slated for Budget adoption so for those of you who are who have been following the budget proceedings we encourage you to tune in uh that night there will be no public speaking but the board will convene to um vote on the uh 21-22 budget and then we'll have an audit meeting on the 25th of May and we will have our employee recognition program and that is something I wanted to highlight as well on May 27th we will be recognizing employees of the district for 25 30 35 and 40 and over years of service as well as those who will be retiring during this year um and then we'll have our business meeting following that program so we
008encourage you to join us um on the on our website or on or YouTube and Facebook pages to watch these events and you can also check out where events are on or uh education Board of Education calendar on the website as well it's just the website uh forward slash board Boe calendar and then we are recruiting for parent reps to our committees so I do want to encourage members of the public if you are interested as a parent or guardian of a District student please check out our website at the website forward slash Boe parent rep to find out how you can sign up to become a parent representative to any of the board committees thank you so much thank you madam clerk I I do want to emphasize that I know the board staff
009has put a lot of work into a variety of projects particularly the projects related to the project related to recognizing employees who have been in service for this community in this district for many years I want to on behalf of the board thank the District staff the board staff and the District staff that are putting that program together because we couldn't do this work without um the the folks that have endured the blessings and the burdens of working for this district for many years so we the board and of course our superintendents thank our staff that are putting together this recognition this is really vital work that they are doing which is the work of recognizing the work of others so we thank our staff and uh we appreciate the work that you're doing in
010that area um you folks will have to excuse me I I did miss an item uh that we usually do at the beginning of the meeting this is an important a a duty that we have we usually begin our meetings with an act of reverence for after the Pledge of Allegiance and there's all kinds of reasons to have a moment of silence um there's been tragic loss of life um throughout the year uh that we've experienced this out of covet we've lost people in uniform and we've lost people who are not in uniform because someone in uniform murdered them we've also lost colleagues and friends and family members I I do know that we've lost a colleague in this district and uh there's just not enough time we called an act of reverence reserved in
011a couple of minutes of our agenda and it to to do it for our two minutes or a minute is just not enough but we're gonna give a minute or 30 seconds just so that people can fill their mind with nothing but our support and prayers for all those people who we as a board wish we could hold them and embrace them and the tragedies that have befallen them over the last year including as recently as last night so I ask that you join my colleagues and I in a moment of silence for all those folks who you know and maybe many that you don't sending them your best thoughts and prayers thank you very much we we appreciate you spending that those few moments doing that next item on the agenda speakers Madam clerk
012I understand we have just one speaker yes we have one speaker tonight her name is Cyril and she is a parent of the district she'll be addressing the board regarding the budget so I'm just letting her into the room now you're in are you with us yes wonderful whenever you're ready you have three minutes okay thanks so much um dear members of the Board of Education thank you so much for letting me address you this evening I'm a parent of a fourth grader in the Dual language program at amda school number 12 and a Pre-K student at Asbury Care Center and what I'd like to talk about tonight is that the budget details that have been made publicly available so far do not take into account the approximately 228 million dollars that rcsd will be
013allocated under the American Rescue plan pandemic relief bill that was passed this March yet it seems to me that this is exactly what we as a community should be discussing it's a staggering amount of money that could if handled well be transformative for the district both addressing such long-term issues as academic achievement special education compliance and fiscal solvency and in fostering our Collective recovery from covid given the disruption to student learning that occurred last spring and the online only format of schooling last fall and given the trauma our students have incurred this last year there have been significant learning losses that I urge you to address through summer learning opportunities tutoring mentoring and social emotional learning programs such supports could really make a difference in addressing long-term academic achievement issues that the pandemic has exacerbated
014but as parents we have yet to hear any details on what summer learning opportunities might be available for our children this year certainly this and other Federal funding should be used to bring not some but nearly all students safely back into the classroom in September whatever the distance restrictions are the district should now have the funding to support frequent coronavirus testing temporary learning spaces and additional Staffing for hybrid teaching most importantly I would like to see the district productively engage parents to learn what our priorities are as I'm sure that they differ from family to family it would be a shame if this money is spent on bureaucratic priorities rather than addressing what we as parents feel are the most urgent needs of our children thank you thank you so much Urena we appreciate you
015joining the board tonight and at sharing your comments thank you so much of course um President White we had four persons also submit public movement tonight and those can be read on the website once you visit uh or board docs site you can read all the comments that persons have submitted for the record just for a quick refresher for those watching for the first time or those watching previously watched what is the process for signing up to speak or to provide a written submission uh so persons in the public who are interested in signing up to speak please call the board office or email a board of education at rcsdk12.org by noon of the day of the meeting and you will just need to indicate your name your affiliation so whether you're a parent a
016student or Community member and then also indicate the topic that you'll be speaking about or board staff will answer that and they will let persons know when uh when a zoom link has been provided so that they can enter the meeting to speak and if you also are interested in submitting public comment you can send that to the same email thank you very much I just want to do a bit of house cleaning um I had had the occasion to revisit our bylaws and I had the opportunity to be remind myself that when a person is absent the bylaws actually require that I uh note the absence and then request if there is any objection to the absence being recorded as valid and that's what I'm doing right now and is I think you heard
017our clerk say um and if you didn't I will inform you our vice president is not feeling well this evening and so uh she found it difficult to attend tonight's meeting I know she would be here if she could so unless there is any objection I will record her absence as well commissioner Powell when you say valid you mean excused of about excuse to absence right correct yeah the better term would be excused um yes so if I understood what you were asking for thank you sure absolutely so is there any objection to uh the absence being recorded as excused uh there being none uh that's how we'll be recorded thank you very much next item on the agenda is uh advisory Council reports Ms Simmons I saw your face there and The Brady Bunch
018screen are you there with us in person I am hello hello all right I will get started um hello everyone my name is Anaya Simmons and I am the president of student leadership Congress and this is the official report for student leadership congress's latest meeting on April 21st of 2021. on our agenda we had introductions a spring sports update a senior Capstone project human capital department presentation the superintendent's form president announcements and open dialogue this meeting was led by the MBK fellow in 2020 Monroe graduate yavanel across Torres as I had a family emergency to attend to at this meeting we had representatives from World of inquiry and Northeast College High School in attendance we encourage all high schools high school principals to reach out to student leaders within your school community and bring them
019this opportunity to them as an opening discussion we discussed our feelings around the verdict of Derek chavin's case in the murder of George Floyd The Congress acknowledged that while this was a much needed accountability there's still much work to do nationally as well as locally to correct racial Injustice on this call Dr Koto presents the options for spring Sports this season and their starting date which was this past Monday right now offered is Boys Baseball Boys Tennis girls softball girls tennis co-ed outdoor track and more that you can shed for at the rcsd website which is www.rcsdk12.org Dr Kota would also like to later acknowledge student athletes who were able to make the all Greater Rochester accomplishment for their previous seasons Maya Waller a senior at World of inquiry high school was able to share
020her senior Capstone project which was creating a document walking students through creating and leading their own professional developments for teachers and Educators during her time she explained the importance of student advocacy for teachers in creating meaningful meaningful learning experiences Maya has offered it all the specific schools and support them in creating teacher professional developments and presenting her plans to other student bodies before she graduates anyone interested can reach Maya at 890-204 -529 at rcsd121.org or w-a-l-l-e-r -m-a-y-a gmail.com Dr Chris Miller of the human capital Department discussed their team efforts to recruit and make the District staff more diverse and is working with local universities to do this his team is focused on rebranding the department of work to improve their services to better represent the students and families of this District Dr Miller also explained
021his project for giving more resources to schools he hopes this project will encourage students to become teachers with the district support and resources during this presentation he also explained the development of infinity groups with the vibrant with the districts to support staff with their individual cultures creating a more transparent and vibrant skill environment for school communities the last thing Dr Miller presented was the upcoming development of Rochester Urban fellows program which he will explain as it gets more developed during the superintendent's form Dr superintendent Meyer Smalls spoke about two policies she would like to improve upon she asked for student input on the development of a transgender policy which she will hear soon more about for our district as well as student Excellence regulation hoping to finish this initiative of the student Excellence regulation by
022June 30th all student feedback will be given to the Congress in the May meeting for next for net school year the reopening plans are continuing forward as planned by offering in-person learning five days a week superintendent is making sure to keep all families updated in the loop about the rollout for next school year the superintendent is also requesting student feedback on the allocation of funding from the government's chairs Act during the meeting Yabba now introduced my idea of hosting a candidate forum for the upcoming election and packing the seats on the school board this form would allow students to see if running candidates of this year's and of this year's election and a question and answer formatting the Congress was receptive to the idea the host also introduced the idea of creating meeting times and
023dates for or excuse me changing the meeting times or dates for the congresses meeting for next year as it conflicts as it conflicts what many student days away from zoom and sporting commitments this will be a separate conversation to make sure all voices in the Congress are heard Dr Jordan also suggests the idea of the community of a community building day such as a Saturday Retreat for the Congress to continue our values regarding community building this idea will be explored upon a later date as the as the Congress was receptive to this idea Elizabeth Reyes the director of student Support Services taught to the Congress about contacting um students for topics such as social justice and Civic engagement Miss Reyes also returned to the main meeting to follow up and continue the discussion with the
024Congress Dr Ricky Frazier was reminded the Tundras on about the event on May 5th from 3 to 4 P.M that will feature Joshua Richard McFadden Mr McFadden is an artist that will be displaying his work on social justice that will be occurring over Zoom Desiree Garrett of East Upper high school and I met with Dr Cronin was able to propose a spring Sports planning committee the committee will consist of spring athletes meeting to figure out key ideas of how to safely bring back at flooded this would give student athletes a chance to be a part of spring Sports as well as increase District athlete communication I have recently been selected by the Council of Internet of the Council of international educational exchange c-i-e-e is known to Lisbon Portugal on study rural government for three weeks
025this trip I will be exploring the Parliament and the European Union headquarters in Lisbon and meeting with the European Union parliamentarian I will also be getting acquainted with the domestic and political systems of Portugal among other things I was also awarded a global Navigator merit scholarship covering most of my trip fees any support is appreciated president Wyatt at this time I have no comment on the following resolutions on behalf of the students thank you and happy Earth Day well let me just stay I see a number of commissions just smiling and superintendent smiling staff members my what an accomplishment I'm not even gonna press the plus thing I'm gonna just that is that is absolutely amazing um my goodness your family must be so proud and and of course your District family is very proud
026of you too that's just and the other thing I think I I can safely say on behalf of the board we've had some really good student reps some really exceptional ones over the years but I gotta tell you I gotta speak the truth you just are very comprehensive you're organized and we've had some really good ones so you've just really I I see a couple of my colleagues smiling it's the truth you are you've just done an exceptional job representing our students and and uh you were just we're just very very proud of you and um when is the trip take place um this will start um I'll actually have to leave early July and I'll be there for the entire month of July just I don't know if any of my colleagues want to
027ask her questions and when are you coming back um I come back at the beginning of August wow that's um and you'll still be our student rep hopefully uh the election for SOC will be so we will have lots of questions for you when you come back does anybody have any questions for her now yes I I had one question I want to know there's a few of us with our hands up though well I I apologize commissioner Clark and commissioner LeBron I I didn't look at that I'm just so overwhelmed with being impressed with our commissioner Clark I apologize let me go through the stack I see Dr Myers uh commissioner LeBron and commissioner Adams and then I'll get you commissioner Clark I apologize that's my mistake super down to Myers I saw your
028hand was raised right I just wanted to say Anaya that if if it means anything I am so incredibly proud of you I watch you in just your efforts and you are incredible you really reflect what a student should know and be able to do um and you just go beyond that and so I just wanted to give my my personal congratulations and I have extreme admiration for what you have already accomplished as a high school student and so I can't wait to see what the rest of your journey is going to entail it's going it's a it's amazing already so I just wanted to say congratulations and just one slight um modification to your report both of both the transgender and the educational Excellence are regulations because that's what I have control over so
029I just wanted to make sure that that was clear but I I absolutely want and value the student feedback as I move that forward thank you thank you for both the correction and your support you're welcome [Music] Anaya actually two things um I know you just requested some support so if you can give us your cash app and venmo um we can also promote it and put it out there in your behalf and I know myself and perhaps some other Commissioners can also promote it within their Networks um so certainly will support but I also want to let you know and I was planning on letting you know tonight that I'm going to reach out to you um and I just got your email because I want to invite you to the play in education
030convening that we've been working on and um I don't know if you saw the Kaboom the project the did you see the drafts of the Kaboom Part on Grand Avenue yet I haven't actually I'm gonna send you that too so I'll shoot you an email and we'll be in touch but if you can please give us your cash app and venmo or other ways to donate to you that would be great yes I will definitely do that thank you so much for your support yes ma'am so that's all I had my hand up for is to find out how can I donate me and my wife donate to you so make sure you get it get that information to me we'll definitely do that thank you again for your support [Music] commissioner Malloy commissioner Clark
031was before I was but I defer to him but whoever wants to go first I'm sorry okay thanks no I I just wanted to indicate this uh basically what was said already by commissioner Adams I really want to support you so please let me know what I can I can do to support you I know we're in Neighbors so all you got to do is let me know will do thank you so much again for your support and I uh congratulations to you I just want to say um I'm so proud of you I've watched you grow up and you're just blossoming and you're amazing so congratulations and let me know how I can support you thank you again commissioner Malloy I love all of you guys um I can't even express how grateful I
032feel to be a part of this community um you know let me just suggest if you don't mind this work will work better for me email me your information about how I get to your venmo account or whatever do it please send the information directly to me I don't know about how the rest of my colleagues feel but a direct contact with uh so way in which I see commissioner Clark raise in his hand so please you have my email address so please email me directly because like my colleagues I would like to support you as well so again congratulations and thank your fan they may be watching but thank your family that have that has supported your education and your your dreams and your effort because it is really reaping wonderful benefits not only
033for you but for the district is our superintendent said you do us proud you are you represent the district and what we are capable of um helping students accomplish so thank you for being that wonderful example for us okay um next item on the agenda is until the bilingual Council does not have a report today is that right Madam Clerk that is correct but you do have the parent um leadership advisory Council I see that um that we and we do have a report I believe their secretary um is giving that report today because the other officers are not available um Mrs Hetherington is that right see here oh there you are sorry Rebecca no problem thank you and um it's a heck of a thing to follow Anaya so it's a new congratulations um
034so I'm here to give the plaque report we had um one of our biggest meetings ever last night um and um so my name is Rebecca Hetherington I'm the secretary of plaque um so the meeting last night um we highlighted some parent um um some parent voices um in the Fulfillment of foundation Aid conversation as well as the progress of the parent engagement um plan that's going on with the office of parent engagement workshops um the ELA Department gave a presentation on parent empowerment within Ela and we've opened up the possibility for parents to sign up if they have an interest in participating and having communication with some of um with some of the Departments to give feedback um and we've we've started the process of opening that line of communication um and then we
035also were lucky to have a presentation by Deputy superintendent Martinez Davis and members of her staff um that spoke to the September plan and both discussions had a ton of questions um and we got a ton of answers um so we're going to be putting together um an FAQ that'll be just a running um question and answer for parents to be able to submit questions that really only Administration could and should be answering um and then we'll have that on the plaque website um we are in the process of reaching out to the student Congress so that we can support students concerns and invite their parents to plaque as well um so and we're also working on setting up a meeting with Dr Black to discuss summer school and the direction that that's taking and
036how parents can best support that as far as getting um in the conversation before final decisions are made which has become a principle of plaque is that we really want to see parents as um in seats as decision makers at the table with the people who make those final decisions to make sure that both the students and the parents are heard um and then we are also beginning nomination the nomination process um for um uh president vice president um two reporting secretaries in a parliamentarian um myself Kenyan and Sasha have been placeholders um and are happy to do the work but we are excited by the number of people that are interested in taking on leadership positions within the parent group um to the point where we are also looking into a liaison committee which
037will help to communicate from the schools and parents um directly to Administration and questions and concerns that come up um so um and every and um the only qualifications to serve um in these roles include um you can't be um an employee of the district um but we do ask that you have been to or watched at least one black meeting and that you've that you certified that you've read the bylaws um uh and just to reiterate every parent of a student enrolled in the Rochester city school district is invited to become a Clark parent um we meet the third Wednesday of each month and right now it's all via Zoom um and our next meeting is May 19th so you can feel free to to reach out directly to plaque plac at rcsd121.org and
038thank you for your for the opportunity to speak tonight no thank you uh on Beth the board We Appreciate You updating us and it is a welcomed uh message that you bring it uh we thank the administration and the parents for Reviving our parent engagement effort at the district many board members of our call we've we've struggled a bit as of late trying to make sure that we had an organization that could represent all of our parents and obviously from your report the board is very proud that you're doing that in an exceptional way so thank you for that effort uh next item on the agenda are board reports mine is going to be relatively short um and and I'll begin by saying that uh I want to thank members of the community of District
039staff who pass by that uh food basket many of you may recall a couple few weeks ago I asked for your permission to participate in an effort to raise uh food stuff for our military and other community members uh during the time of Easter these were Easter food baskets and we're very very fortunate we have a very generous community and District staff this organization called United and healing through hope in Monroe County as a result of your contributions raised and put together over a thousand food Easter baskets that's an incredible effort on the part of this community and uh this district and it follows a very long tradition I'm proud to say a very long tradition we have collected spoons for people in Haiti diapers for people in Florida ties for students in leadership Rochester
040uh and the list goes on and on so I'm very appreciative as are my colleagues for your contribution to this effort and finally to my uh uh colleagues I was successful in reaching out to Dr Malik Muhammad for those of you don't know we've retained him to provide some support and assistance to the war in terms of working together as a team and collaboration a number of board members and District staff leadership staff indicated that they thought the two-hour period that we were allotted I think it's for the 29th was not enough I was able to contact Dr Malik Muhammad to share those concerns and I will just tell you very briefly and we can talk about it at some other time but he believed that four hours would really be pushing us in terms
041of the stuff that we would have to discuss and his experience he thought three hours was a better amount of time I'm going to rely on his experience in this area uh and uh we'll shoot for three um I will provide you additional details as they come along I'm not asking even for a straw vote on this because I assume most of you would agree that his experiences in this area is better than ours and so we'll go with three because he thinks that's best he he does believe that there may be a need for follow-up but for now he's agreed that we will go from two to three hours and and our clerk she's just finding us out for the first time right now um we'll provide you the additional detail later on um
042you have my you've had my schedule um nothing Fantastical in it um it's just the standard stuff and uh that concludes my report the next uh unless there are any questions let me go to the participant list make sure I'm not missing any raised hands just yep okay looks like there are no raised hands so we'll go on to the equity and student achievement uh committee report uh our vice president is not available to deliver that report there is a written report uh the our clerk has provided me a copy of that uh she will make sure that everybody gets a copy of that and so it'll be submitted for the record and for those in the public space that want to read what's happening in equity and student achievement committee they can get that
043on board Docs next up would be our finance and resource allocation committee report commissioner LeBron I'm polling it out give me one second sure and then actually I have to jump off and then I'll be back um finance committee convened on Tuesday April 21 as the committee of the whole via Zoom video conferencing after the third and final budget deliverations session for the budget season the finance committee's discussions during the meetings focused on a variety of topics and several discussions or entertained the May 2021 Finance resolutions review and keeping up with our new practice the committee reviewed a series of resolutions with fiscal ramifications that will form part of the May resolutions packet CFO Pierce let the committee through the March 2021 financial report and noted that a budget amendment would be coming in the
044form of resolution and tonight's business meeting and the committee received the quarterly change order report for January through March 2021 submitted by the facility Department the finance committee recommends the approval of the district's unaudited March 2021 financial report and the quarterly change order report for January through March 2021 can I get a motion now for those two sorry is there a second yeah a second second all those in favor all right or clerk did you record it I got it thanks thank you finally you should be noted that the discussions in Tuesday's deliberation session highlighted that several questions remain regarding the proposed 2021 22 rcsd budget tonight superintendent Meyer small and CFO Carly Pierce will be providing an update regarding any potential changes to the budget as well as the clarification on proposed revenue and
045expenditures following this presentation and during the new business section of the meeting I will ask board members to weigh in and provide the reflections on the proposed budget this will allow for the development of a cohesive board memo which will be sent out to the administration to prepare for the budget vote on Mata the next finance committee is May 18 2021 that concludes my report thank you commissioner LeBron next up uh uh is the governance committee report from commissioner Malloy thank you good evening um the governance committee met as a committee of the whole on Tuesday April 6 2021 I just want to extend a quick public thank you to President Van white for leading this meeting with so little notice I unfortunately felt ill prior to our meeting and was unable to attend I
046did watch President White walk through my planned agenda though and I just want to again offer my sincere gratitude so thank you for that our topics that we discussed during the meeting included a review of the new grants Awards report executive director of Grants and program accountability Kerry core addressed the committee to advise on a new report which is now being generated for Board review this action is a requirement of the state monitor fiscal plan during the presentation Miss picor um shared and I hope I'm saying her name right is it Mrs pickor or pcor miss picor a shared pertinent information about the district's usage of Grant funds and its Revenue percentage in the budget she also shared details on the new awards that have been awarded for the 2021 fiscal year following this she
047advised how the report is structured and detailed the kinds of information that board members can expect to see in the report the grants Awards report will be provided quarterly to the board moving forward the April meeting also featured a discussion on a return to in-person board meetings we'll be discussing this later tonight uh district clerk Wade and acting Council Carlene shared the most recent information regarding allowances for virtual board meetings during the pandemic and some content potential considerations if the board were to resume in-person meetings so this conversation is ongoing and Logistics are currently being discussed between the board and District Personnel this evening during our new business section I would like to take a straw poll of my fellow or of my board peers to see what individual board members are comfortable with in
048this regard this information will be crucial as the planning for in-person meetings continues the last topic discussed related to the 2021 board meeting calendar during the meeting district clerk Wade shared the projected board meeting calendar for next year based on our current calendar planning practices and she highlighted the state monitor plan recommendation that calls for board consideration of meeting reductions um following this the committee engaged in initial conversations around what it would look like if some kind of reduction strategy was implemented in response President White offered to further explore the ideas raised in follow-up meetings with committee chairs which were held last week this topic is also ongoing and proposals raised during the committee chair meetings are anticipated to be presented and discussed in the next governance meeting for full board consideration um so our
049next governance committee meeting is Tuesday May 4th at 5 30 pm and that concludes the governance report thank you commissioner Malloy any questions for commissioner Malloy let me go to my participant thing I don't see any questions all right so we will move on to commissioner Powell with our policy committee report uh thank you Mr President um the um policy committee report is submitted an on to board docs it's in the member only section for now uh I think it'll be made public right after this meeting um we met as a committee of the hall on Tuesday April 6. uh the first item on the agenda was a update on the policy manual review for the public the the current status is that we have completed review of all of the special education policies we
050are waiting feedback from both CPAC and cabinet on three of the of those policies but um um and the review of the whole special education policy packet will be done on May in the May policy Committee of the whole um second agenda item was a presentation by our general counsel Steve Carling on the changes to the code of conduct which has been through many many months of review by both our um constituent communities and cabinet and the union representatives and so on um the public hearing was rescheduled to Thursday May 6th at 5 pm persons wishing to speak can sign up uh right up until noon on Thursday the 6th for more information you can go to rcsdk12.org backslash COC Forum that's coc4 code of conduct forum f-o-r-u-m next item on the agenda was a
051discussion of our board bylaws there is a technical uh fix that needed to happen Mr President I have a resolution that we could walk on if the if the um board is willing to waive the policy 2410 requirements for for um information item and and discussion item the reason I would advocate for that is that the sooner that we get this to its final stage the sooner we can can consider the next round of bylaws changes we do know that um commissioner Elliott has in in its most generic sense wanted to advance some some changes to uh board uh roles so I asked uh would you like to take up a a walk-on resolution now or should we wait until new business I was going to wait until new business but um it doesn't doesn't
052make a huge difference to me is you have a particular feeling about any board member have a particular feeling about it um commissioner Powell did you want to do it now since the conversation is fresh I can do that for you uh the resolution is in board Docs those who don't have War docks open um the clerk has the resolution would you like me to read it or have the clerk read it Madam clerk can you put it on the screen as she reads it thanks yes give me one second sure for those of you who are watching the board has rules about when a resolution can be presented there's usually a requirement for a certain amount of notice uh commissioner Powell is asking on this particular resolution that that requirement be waived now we
053would have to essentially take two votes one to waive the bylaws and two uh to vote on this particular resolution so why don't you go ahead and read it for us commissioner Powell wow yep where is the policy development and Review Committee of the Board of Education was received and has recommended to the Board of Education the amendments to bylaws word bylaws policy 2300 in accordance with board policy 2410 formulation adoption amendment of policies therefore be it resolved that the Board of Education hereby amends policy 2300 board bylaws as set forth in the policy filed with the clerk of the board and Incorporated by referenced herein and repeals the prior version of the policy which was adopted by resolution number 220 and 221 on August 27 2010. and directs the clerk to update the Rochester
054City School Board policy manual accordingly that is the resolution it is a one it's a one-word change or rather one number change in the bylaws so I have one thing uh commissioner Paul I usually it's it would be fine to vote on it right now but you need a two-thirds vote and I know that commissioner LeBron is is out and commission and vice president Elliot so if we could wait until new business when commissioner LeBron is back then you'll be able to do it at that time that sounds fine that pretty much dictates the agenda um but we don't we don't need a two-thirds vote to waive the requirements do we no not for not to waive the requirements of the formulation and adoption policy during yeah would I put that motion forward now Mr
055President absolutely to to um change the policy to to waive the requirements right yep I commissioner Clark has moved it is there a second second there's the second all is in favor of changing the requirement uh indicate so the timing requirement indicate by saying aye aye Madam clerk did you record an affirmative vote I did okay um so commissioner let me just say this um Madam clerk if you could just keep an eye out for commissioner LeBron because I as I understand it she has a number of commitments today her schedule is is kind of uh she she I think when I had spoken to her to talk that she had to go back and forth to a couple of meetings so just because she returns doesn't mean that she will be around so when
056she comes back if I don't catch it let me know and we'll call that resolution at that time so that she'll be free to go back uh if she has so I just seem to remember her saying that she had a number of different obligations and commitments today and she was going to do her best to participate fully in the meeting but I want to catch her when she's back okay yes will do I'm sorry commissioner Powell that's fine thank you uh spedites the bullet in my in my the policy committee did approve the um changes that I recommended to uh policy 2410 which merges it with uh two other policies and a regulation um that policy uh has been forwarded out of committee and it can go through our three-step process with an expectation
057of it being voted on in the May business meeting our next uh policy Committee of the whole will be Tuesday May 4th at 5 30 pm and that concludes my report Mr President any questions for commissioner Powell I'm going to my participant screen here I don't see any commissioner power so we'll move on to our superintendent reports as it's written on the agenda I have superintendent Meyer small going first and then I also have superintendent Nelms do you guys prefer to keep that order is that how you want to do it that's fine with me I'm ready to go all right well go ahead thank you good evening President White good evening to all of our commissioners to our staff and to those who are viewing our board meeting on YouTube or Facebook tonight CFO
058Pierce and I will present uh co-present information and updates on the board and I certainly appreciate um the public comment relative to providing certainly information and updates and I think many of uh my of what she is concerned about will be addressed this evening so the budget is the vehicle by which we meaning the administration the district the board communicates our values and our vision for the Rochester City School District it signals a deep commitment to our mission our vision and our Scholars and certainly sets the priorities for how we will grow and ensure that we have increasing student achievement this year we instituted what we called a bridge budget development process which allowed us to reach a balanced budget the guidelines that are provided in this document incorporate the parameters necessary to achieve a
059balanced budget as well as take into consideration all of the priorities that are identified very specifically within our strategic plan the independent monitors academic and fiscal plans talk about our future process for just a moment relative to the budget it will be more inclusive and provide greater opportunity for inbat input and feedback from a multiple multiple stakeholders it is our profound desire to develop an annual budget that will achieve our vision through the identification of system-wide needs and the allocation of all available resources including people programs supplies and Facilities we are looking forward to a budget process where we continue to focus on and support thoughtful and responsive teaching engaged and challenging learning and continually raise expectations with that just brief introduction I'll introduce Carlene Pierce who serves as our Chief Financial Officer and then
060I will complete the second half of the presentation CFO Pierce thank you good evening president Mike Commissioners superintendents Dr Myers small Dr Nelms Dr jallow and our entire rcsd Community Family it's an honor to be here this evening and an absolute privilege to serve all children of rcsd we'll start this evening by going back in time to March 23rd when we first presented our draft budget to you on that evening we presented to you a balanced general fund budget and the amount of just over 841 million the combined aggregate balanced budget was just shy of 980 million it needs to be stated that we have a great deal of respect for Dr jallow and her assessment as well as the commissioner Rosso's reiteration of the fact that the budget we presented that evening was too
061heavily Reliant upon what was then known as the covid-19 supplemental stimulus funds however it was the best budget we could bring forth with the conditions we had to work with at the time to explain on that evening we presented to you this Revenue chart which reflected the fact that we needed to utilize 71 million of the 87 million in covid-19 supplemental stimulus funds in order to balance the budget that was an undesirable situation to be placed in because we are all fully aware that that source of one-time funding is not to be utilized for normal operating expenditures and yet that is exactly what we were faced with given our current instructional deficit again as a reminder a structural deficit is when normal operating expenditures exceed revenues today the story is much different as we all
062know given what's occurred both as state and federal level we are so very grateful to our legislators for all that they did and behalf of our children in increasing our foundation Aid by approximately 40 million dollars similarly we are very grateful and anxiously awaiting the American Rescue plan grant money the foundation Aid increase coupled with the realignment and the usage of our current existing cares money allowed us to completely remove the need to rely upon the covid-19 stimulus money which is now referred to as cursat the next slide specifically shows the movement in revenues from March 23rd to April 22nd so let's walk through this Slide line by line on the first line you're going to see the state aid increase and again that's the reflection of the foundation Aid increase of 40 million dollars
063you're going to see the removal of that 71 million dollars in the cursa which was back then known as the kobit 19 stimulus money so again now that money will be moved over to special Aid you will see that we removed any reference at all to the Rand because again just to remind you we will not be going forward with Iran in this current fiscal year so we saved money on the expenditure side and also any premium that would have been attained on the revenue side has been removed as well we did confirm the fact that we would indeed be receiving additional 6.2 million in Charter School supplemental Aid we made an adjustment in the federal qualified School construction board um uh Bond act which is again just in a reclassification of Revenue coming in
064it's a rebate and we will not be receiving as much as originally anticipated we do have an increase in our building Aid and you will see the return of the federal stimulus money of cares coming back into the revenue side of the budget as I mentioned previously as we um realigned the need from 2021 to 2122 budget years and so you'll see an increase in that Revenue line of 23.3 million so again the total general fund revenues that we're presenting this evening would equate to just over 840 million dollars the end result in a side-by-side easy comparison is now reflected on this slide so now we move away from the revenues and we go through the same exercise for expenditures this slide represents the expenditures as presented on March 23rd and the next slide reflects
065the expenditures as of today so again April 22nd it's clearly evident that under the leadership of both of our superintendents a tremendous amount of work went into the reduction of the non-instructional expenditures so that an increase in the instructional expenditures could be realized the Six Million Dollar increase in instructional expenditures from March to April will directly benefit our children and are in exact alignment with the academic and financial plans this movement will start us on the path of attaining equity and education for all of our children of rcsd we've come a very long way since March 23rd in addition to the numerous positive changes to the general fund budget we've also seen a positive change in the special Aid fund where we recognized as commissioner Malloy just mentioned the awarding of three additional grants since
066March 23rd the aggregate increase in that fund now is 6.5 million tonight superintendent Dr Meyer small and I present to you for your consideration the 2122 proposed Aggregate and structurally balanced budget in the amount of 985 million I'm turning it back over to superintendent Dr Myers small thank you Carlene and hello again so let me provide a few budget highlights starting with the Strategic plan we have instituted an rcsd district-wide comprehensive assessment tool to make sure that we are increasing proficient Proficiency in ela and math in grades three through eight this is per the state monitor academic plan additionally we are purchasing additional textbooks for all five academic areas which include Ela mathematics science social studies and World languages to support the new New York State Next Generation standards so that's another shift we've made
067in the state of New York and align curriculum implementation per the K-12 per the state monitor academic plan we also have included allocation of money for professional development for teachers on the Hallmarks of literacy we have spent a lot of time discussing chronic absentee chronic absenteeism and conducting presentations to the Board of Education we have allocated money to redesign mtss which is multi-tiered systems of supports to ensure the components of the related SEL and attendance are addressed monitored and interventions are put in place we also are collaborating with imnt to create a data dashboard that includes alignment of chronic absenteeism with State reporting which will allow us to move much more quickly and expediently we're also endeavoring to implement consistent systems and structures for School attendance teams to use when they are reviewing the data
068on a weekly basis in order to implement tiers 1 2 and 3 for implementation in mtss another area is we have to have a focus on increasing the percentage of students percentage and numbers of students with disabilities to that lre or the least restrictive environment so we are moving forward to make sure that we are providing students with evidence-based interventions including positive behavior supports that also addresses chronic absenteeism as well as restorative practices which is embedded into the framework of our school district additionally we are going to be implementing professional development for functional behavioral assessments or fbas which are behavior intervention plans for school administrators and both special and general education teachers additional professional development for our school-based administrators and assistant directors related to CSE meetings conducting program reviews for current 812-15 1 and 1211
069classrooms of students who are working towards either a local or Regents diploma additionally we are having an increase focused on parent engagement of students with disabilities and so we've increased parent engagement in our Zoom meetings that's something that's happening right now our electronic communications we have a special education support line attendance at parent Community organizations and I'm very pleased to share increased professional development for parents and caregivers through our parenting University budget highlights for the Strategic plan and you can see there are four big areas that I'd like to highlight Next Generation standards fortifying social emotional learning and restorative practices consent decree compliance as well as New York State special education and bilingual corrective action plans and compliance those last two bullets are really critical because we have outside monitoring of those areas from the
070New York State education department as well as through the legal system so I've talked a little bit about next Generation standards we have allocated over a little over one million dollars to purchase resources and textbooks for all five academic areas where we're continuing to work to align curriculum implementation and this again is per the state monitors academic plan so you'll hear over and over again that I talk about that's either in alignment with the academic plan the fiscal plan or the Strategic plan we hear a lot of public comment and we certainly are concerned about the social emotional needs of our Scholars pre-k through 12. who are proposing to allocate 885 thousand dollars to strengthen mtss to increase trauma illness and grief training for staff and unfortunately just this week we have had an increased
071need to have a Reliance on those resources to port to support students to support staff and to support families we're increasing professional development opportunities for restorative practices training as well as implementation of cultural responsiveness and additionally we're fortifying social emotional learning and restorative practices by increasing with six Rock restorative team members the consent decree if you remember a few months ago we conducted a training on this so we are allocating a little under four hundred thousand dollars to add to additional associate directors and two additional clerical positions this is Grant funded so we were able to shift those funds five bilingual contingency positions to address growth in compliance with the consent decree and seven teacher ftes are needed to provide content instruction to all students with disabilities as the need arises to avoid gaps in
072compliance with Commissioners regulations part 154. Additionally the bilingual corrective action plans we're working allocating to support safe students or students with interrupted formal education or inconsistent formal education to late newcomers and subgroups with the highest L Dropout rates which includes an increase to enl and bilingual coach positions now to the academic plan four million dollars approximately for updating District curricular materials textbooks and assessment tools and I've I've spoken a little bit about that I've also mentioned previously to ensure that we strengthen the program evaluation arm because we need to ensure that we understand the effectiveness of the programs that are in the Rochester City School District and so the office of accountability has taken approach to develop and expand capacity within the department and the major goal is to improve the quality of education for
073children in grades pre-k through 12 in the Rochester City School District we need to expand summer school approximately 3.1 million dollars and we plan to offer multiple seats across 20 programs and sites many of these seats will be for students who are in receivership schools so those are our lowest performing schools in the district at the elementary and secondary level we also will differentiate our summer school programs to ensure that we're serving students with diverse education needs as well as our secondary students I've mentioned multi-tiered support systems or mtss we've included three hundred thousand dollars to continue to develop a framework that helps Educators provide academic and behavioral strategies for students with varied needs and then finally professional development we're continuing the work of updating all of the K-12 materials that support curriculum because that
074this has not happened for a while as well as instruction and assessment this includes ensuring that teaching and planning materials are aligned to the next gen standards that teachers will have strong unit and lesson plan examples as well as formal assessment and suggestions for determining student progress the financial plan and our priorities there as Carlene shared earlier we are proud to share that we are eliminating the uh Revenue anticipation no or what we call Rand so we will not be seeking one as you recall last year the 85 million dollar ran was sought and in Prior years this amount was 50 million why this the elimination of the Rand is so important is this will save us over a million dollars in interest payments back so that is huge for us and as stated in
075the financial plan it is imperative that we improve our IEP processes and doing so our reimbursements will be improved upon so that's the importance of upgrading our special education management system so what's on the horizon certainly what are things that I'm thinking about and what is what is what are our team thinking about there are a few things there if you'll go to the next slide please and thank you certainly the declining enrollment and right sizing our data and the academic plan state that we do need to reduce our footprint to accommodate for fewer students so that translates to developing Staffing levels that align with enrollment at each School level and to apply to the extent possible the contractual formulas for Staffing we will continue to review and evaluate vendor contracts to ensure that the
076any contract that we have between the Rochester City School District and another entity certainly has value added we will continue to ensure that we address the priorities and the recommendations and all three the academic the Strategic and the fiscal plans and we will develop a plan for feedback with multiple stakeholders with the cursor and the ARP funding what I want to just be really clear certainly with the board and I know most Commissioners if not all know but the public might might not know we do not have all of the direction and the information about how we can specifically spend um the money we are certainly very grateful that the Rochester city school district has that has those has those opportunities but we don't have all of the information and it's our understanding that we
077should have that by the end of next week so we will work together and we will come back to the board to talk about next steps we've done some initial um thoughts and we have done some really good thinking and we've been getting we've begun to lean in especially around things like learning loss culturally responsive education Etc but we really need to have the final determination of what that entails and so we look forward to engaging in that dialogue just a few other things as far as good news with just updates and exciting news about some of our staff our students and alumni as you know I announced that for next year it is our goal to return on September 8th with five days of in-person learning families have to choose remote and they must
078do so by May 7th you can contact your current child school or you can use the power School Parent Portal and we are working hard to make sure that we get this word communicated out just today Deputy superintendent Martinez Davis was on podair to connect with some of our Spanish-speaking families we are tweeting we are really working to get the word out or we've been working with the mayor's office we really want to ensure that everyone knows about what their opportunities are for next year it is our hope that if not all that most of our students certainly will choose the in-person in-person five-day option um and so we are excited about that possibility and welcoming more students into the school district um again this is following the three feet of social distance distancing we
079continue to be updated about the New York State Department of Health and the CDC guidelines and that certainly influences how we move forward um and certainly if all restrictions are moved removed then we can go back to pre-covered learning in the Rochester City School District again I want to reiterate if families want their children to take part in the 100 remote learning starting in September they must respond by May 7th and just a reminder by making this decision parents are committed to having other children learn remotely for the first semester of school which ends on Friday January 28 2022. let's now honor our music department I'm very pleased to report the district has been honored with the 2021 best communities for music education from The NAMM foundation for its outstanding commitment to music education and
080we and we won in the midst of being remote for most of the Year this is the third consecutive year that Rochester city school district has received this Nationwide distinction I am so proud of the exceptional work done by our music teachers and the department as well as our Scholars this award is a testament to the unique opportunities that we provide to students and the wonderful collaboration that we have with the Greater Rochester Arts community I know personally that Arts education is so vital in a child's education personally I began playing the violin in fourth grade and then switched to playing a double-readed instrument the bassoon and not the baboon baboon President White the bassoon because that's what most people call it it's a baboon but and I have such a joy of music and
081so I'm so grateful that we are able to provide those opportunities for our students there was an amazing story on Channel 8 late last week highlighting the efforts of two teachers at school number four who were highlighted because of this National National recognition so congratulations to our director of Arts Dominic Pickard and our music department and all of its teachers I have a current student and then an alumnus that I will recognize uh taikita Thomas who is a sophomore at Rochester Early College wait till you hear this she has been selected to participate in a study abroad program where she will learn Mandarin Chinese in Taiwan and and student of the diverse culture of Asia the program she will be enrolled in will emphasize rapid language acquisition by combining in-class instruction with a comprehensive cultural
082program that sounds so amazing she will be enrolled at the Chinese language Center where she will also take classes daily with local and international students in order for her to gain a deeper understanding of the culture she will participate in culture enhancement and community service activities that will include trips to historical and cultural sites and allow for interaction with local community members to Keith Takeda grew up in Spanish culture and is in is fluent I'm not fluent right now but she is in Spanish Mandarin will be her third language and so I want to certainly congratulate takita on this once in a lifetime opportunity Larry Holmes our alumni Spotlight he graduated from then what we called Wilson magnet it's now Wilson commencement he won both coach of the year and co-coach of the year for
083men women and men's tennis at Norfolk State University your Rochester City School District family is extremely proud of you and just Larry is a former student of mine when I worked at Wilson so I am so proud of Larry and this huge accomplishment that President White I know it might have been a little bit long concludes my superintendent's report and I continue to be honored to serve in the role of superintendent and thank you for all of your individual and Collective support of the work that we're doing to move forward together now that was worth every minute that you utilize to share all that information I especially and I know my colleagues did as well like how it ended it's always good to share the good news of the good work that our employees are
084doing and the fruit that is being born as a result of that so thank you for sharing um all the news but particularly the the very good news at the end we appreciate you putting that together I do see that there are some questions I see commissioner Paul has her hand raised thank you um Madam superintendent the um presentation you gave on the budget um towards the end you gave some specifics about increased ftes to support academics um can you give us a little bit more specifics on the changes to the um attendance initiatives is are there uh additional ftes being assigned to support that function so I'll start by um talking about the um the professional development aspect and then I'll ask Deputy superintendent Martinez Davis to um to further address I just want
085to go back to my slide just give me just a moment commissioner how I apologize so for the mtss that's multi-tiered systems of support we are ensuring that we have um certainly additional ways to review the data and to um ensure that it connects to sel so we're working we're looking at interventions we're looking at systems and structures as far as a data dashboard and then additionally as I said the consistent systems and structures for School attendance teams but I'd have to ask Deputy superintendent Martinez Davis if there's additional Staffing that's attached to that yeah good evening uh President White and Commissioners there's no additional staff um to attendance in particular we are uh adding through grant funding um to uh toast us to help us with the MTS SAS work the multi-tier support systems
086uh left of that work but for the attendance office where Elizabeth Hoffer who you all have met many times has presented many times it will not be an edition of ftes for her office thank you for that answer I see commissioner Adams has his hand raised as well I was I was wondering um I didn't hear a particular amount in reference to allocations for restorative practices the pde professional development and I'm just hoping that we're heavy-handed on that because I I do hear people still using Zero Tolerance language around the district you know I've heard people say out their mouth when I tolerating this when I tolerating that um and so I I just think we should um allocate heavily when we talk about if we're going to be a restorative next District we really
087need to um be restorative um it should not be so optional and I have one other um um before you respond to that um next week like when you get some guidance about fed any more Federal funding I just would like for you to keep in mind um about the students requests for better food absolutely thank you commissioner Adams so I'm sorry if I I may have glazed over it but we're um allocating a little under a million to fortify social emotional learning and restorative practices so training as well as rock restorative but I know Deputy superintendent Martinez could speak to that better than I could yeah thank you so um rock was not rock restorative but restorative practices is a mindset so we are going to be allocating funds for professional development to continue
088to grow our Rock restorative programs and the training so that we start changing the mindsets um it makes me very sad to hear that we still have staff using that language so we have work to do we have allocated funds to continue the the training um and we have about right now we've added on general fund and also on grant funding for restorative practices and we are restoring one uh position that was previously uh caught in last year's budget for the restorative team we are restoring that position back to fortify the team um I don't see any other questions being raised uh so I think that concludes your your time before the board in terms of your report thank you very much Dr Myers small again for the good news I I remember Miss I
089should have said there's great news from you and Carly and also about the budget too and we appreciate everyone's work on that uh and as well so thank you very much Carlene to you and your staff the board of course extends its greatest appreciation because this year could have ended totally differently and and uh I I also I have to double check with our clerk I did draft a letter of thanks to our legislators in Albany and Rochester uh there was only one suggested change I had I have not followed up on that but I don't think the letter has gone out yet no it hasn't next week I think is the slated time to go out okay so uh but in advance of that uh on behalf of the board uh let me and
090anybody any legislator assembly person or Senator uh and also to the folks in Albany that represent us Joe the brand Schumer um uh Joe Morelli and again all of our electeds in Albany I know sometimes they're not confident whether I speak for the board on every issue but on this issue I know there is great thanks and appreciation uh not only for the federal dollars but also for our legislators and Albany finally stepping up and doing what for decades people have been asking them to do so on behalf of the board you will be getting a letter of thanks as well all right Dr Nelms uh the floor is yours all right good evening everyone um we did not align our presentations but you're going to see some similarities between what Dr Meyer small presented
091um and myself um just want to again thank the community for um supporting the work of all of our students throughout covet I had a chance to meet with some students uh uh this week and it's clean taking um one uh Venture colleges tomorrow and they are all saying that they completely understand how difficult this has been for staff and they appreciate it so to all the teachers out there and support staff administrators your commitment to our kids um is being noticed by them and their families um and it's ironic that we're talking about the ending of school right now it seems like we kind of have been on day one for about 10 months so so as we wrap things up um you know we are uh we are also focusing on reopening school
092next year we are continuing uh both Dr Myers small and I are continuing to coordinate our efforts with uh the county superintendents to ensure that there is you know equity in our school reopening plans and you know the CDC and New York State guidelines change often um and uh and sometimes right after we get done making plans on a Thursday they're changed on a Friday so we're hoping that things uh go smooth for September we hope that as many students who are 16 and over will consider getting vaccinated I think it's something that we need to talk more about for those who want to be vaccinated there are fun uh vaccinations available to the community starting at age 16. my daughter just got her first shot and she's waiting for her second as she enters
093College some colleges are mandating that students be vaccinated so to our College uh seniors you know who are planning to go off to college check with your local College University and or the college you're attending to see if there is a vaccination requirement um for September that's going to be extremely important we have a ton of vaccines available to help you make that transition next slide um athletic updates and a note to all students as was shared with the student report there are a ton of sports being offered and we want to encourage kids to sign up um and we have at one point we had about 70 of our kids participating in one or more Sports at East and we want to continue to have that that number climb and so please please please
094um remember to sign up for your sports get your physicals and uh be prepared to contribute it's been a great season this Saturday at one o'clock uh our boys football team plays in a playoff game at Irondequoit our girls volleyball team uh is playing tomorrow night um in the playoffs and our boys volleyball team as well so there's a lot of uh post season competition happening but baseball and those other sports start up last week and so there's a lot of kids doing a lot of cool things and I encourage all students to participate across the district in the sports that your teams offer the next slide um you know this this slide here has really been um something that we've been working on at ease we often hear um comparisons between schools and districts
095across the state and um you know I think this framework here this kind of data in bright spot might help us to reframe how we think about schools I mean if we're honest we know that um when you look at District performance Rochester is is definitely improving but we're not at the point where we want to be I think that's something we would all admit so it makes no sense for us to argue among schools that are still performing below other schools throughout the state what I would rather us do is to think about how do we Define the data on the left you'll see the academic performance and perhaps doing a five to six years Trend analysis with some data points these are not all inclusive and look and see where schools are doing
096incredibly well across multiple data points and then trying to replicate identify what systems and structures led to that at each of our schools um I think that's a much healthier conversation for Rochester than to compare schools especially using one-year data or two-year data that's not Trend analysis I mean anyone who who is familiar with data knows you have to have Trend analysis Trend data to see how the inputs impact the outputs so I'm encouraging us as a system to really think about the performance of our schools there are so many great things happening throughout this District that we can all learn from one another um and having it tied to a data point and seeing how that has trended over time and then looking at the systems that caused it will allow for us to
097replicate and also for us to Target our dollars in meaningful ways and you saw a lot of those examples and um and in the previous presentation how dials will be used to strengthening uh some of these uh key performance areas but I am eager to hear about the other data spots throughout the district so I can lean into those principles and those teachers you know support staff members to see exactly what they did um so we can um you know lift all votes on the right side you'll see other school culture considerations we know at least at East we figured out that nothing happens less kids are in the seat nothing happens kids are attending school and nothing happens until parents feel safe with sending their child to that school and learning environment and so
098what are some of the school culture considerations to look at staff transfers and around a different mobility and structures enrollment Trends attendance not just the average daily attendance but also kind of absenteeism in Period by period are there certain classes and certain teachers that kids are attending are there certain class and teachers and teachers where kids are overwhelming and tending at higher rates what is that teacher or teacher doing or teacher is doing to uh to cause that type of um that type of growth and again that's a long list I'm not going to go through them all but including in that list is some of the behavioral supports that are offered similar to what commissioner Adams mentioned you know restorative practices and how do you structure the building and um in the master schedule
099to do that so this analysis will allow us to not only understand the bright spots but to think more strategically about how do we use our master schedule to highlight and to emphasize the areas that work well but to also provide space um for those areas that we have not done well and then align our dollars and our systems and strategies um for addressing them so I'll leave this with the board just things to consider as we look at long-term uh long-term data this is just some examples I know I was asked previously about the six through eight Ela and math data and so I just shared this uh this slide to kind of help the board understand why Trend data is so important so if you look at the 2014-15 pre-epl that's the year
100before we began this was just our first four years this is just an example of what it looks like our the master indicators for schools and receivership is you want to see the yellow the uh the the light green I guess and the dark green you want to see those numbers increase and you want to see the red get smaller um the red would be a kids who score level one twos would be the kids who are working towards proficiency and that's in the yellow green would be you know kids would read a feature three and the dark green would be ones you reach a four you'll see like before the EPO there were no kids in green and you could see those that yellow and dark green and and uh and uh light green
101dark green and yellow get larger and the red gets smaller in math you see it on the bottom in ela so what I'm suggesting is that before we just throw numbers out as a system that we really think about how and to what extent do we get there where are some of the gaps where are some of the opportunities for me to Proclaim that we have uh fixed Ela and math problem at East with all the redness there would be false and for me to uh compare myself to a school where I had two percent in 1415 and only two percent in 1819 scoring a level four it would that's that's not the type but didn't want to score especially I know my colleagues at two miles from our building are that those numbers are
102completely opposite you might have eight percent in the red and 58 in the green and light green so I just want to help us really think about and be careful the message that we're sending the community when we are um discussing School versus School we're all trying to get better at this work and I think this creates a collaborative environment instead of a competitive one and that's something that I that I know Dr I respond myself are committed to it's been far too long since I've heard and we're committed to doing that so it's in all of our interests too to kind of reframe and refocus and lift off shifts next slide this would just be an example of some of the data that we've collected I know this board has seen this before some
103of the older board members but this was just like one way of looking at like your Freshman Academy and upper school looking at the credits that are attained when we talk about the number of freshmen who pass from one grade to the next nine to Tenth those kids being more likely to graduate you see pre-epo that number is about 49 and now that number is around 80 that's an indicator that we can figure out why is that at our ninth grade academy we have a lot of social emotional support assigned there to social workers to counselors because we know we got to get those kids through um and to move forward I don't think that would be wasted money um but that might be something that we consider across the district if it works and
104so I think as we think about some of the interventions let's be um thoughtful and share that information you look at the on-time rates on time means we know when the kids are supposed to take the exams so math and ninth grade science ninth grade Global 10th U.S history and government that's ushg and 11th and English and 11. the data would say wow they're making some progress but what does that 28 happening in 2018-19 why did that dip off why is it so low those big questions we would ask and I would say because that's the year in which um the students were able to use their CTE requirements in place of a History exam and so because we have six CTE courses less kids took the took the exam and so again those are
105questions if I just share that and someone said look at your U.S history exams you know what's happening at East without understanding that perhaps CTE is something we should have in all of our buildings because it gives kids a different pathway and we can spend our money to expand that these are the conversations that that we're having as superintendents across the county and we got to be able to have those within our district as well again incredible principles in this District incredible leaders in his district great great staff downtown great staff at East together we can figure this out but we have to be collaborative we'll continue to do so and I said on Tuesday um it's uh Leslie staff is has been engaging meaningfully um and again in some cases for the first time
106in our six years so I really appreciate that and I know that sounds like a broken right but it's more symbolic than I think people really think um and know that it really the teachers are willing to um I've heard people say we're not allowed to engage with you in the past and I don't hear that anymore like people are saying what do you got we're asking what do they have and it's definitely moving towards um a consistent collaborative the next slide is uh something that commissioner Elliott uh requested I know she's not here tonight but I'll give this to her she asked about graduation rates as you know I don't send those projections out even though van beats me up about it every year um it's an ongoing joke imma give a range where
107I think we are so we have 181 kids in our total our cohort we know between freshman year and Senior year 18 kids decided not to continue for whatever reason we know those kids out work with them some have gone to Job Corps others you know of course have made some decisions that pick them out of um out of school and into other systems we have 30 students right now who are struggling during covet we know as seniors depending on how they do we're on top of them that rate could move from 73 to 82 percent right now about in that range so you know of course you want to go for the higher end but this could be the first year we actually see a slight dip in our graduation rate and that's simply
108do it could be hopefully not but we know that covet has not worked for many kids and that's why we have to continue to stay steadfast with those kids from 2022. so when I hear um Dr Myers presentation about summer school and looking at unfinished learning like this is all the plan this this is these are our data points are telling us that kids have not done well and kids May struggle next year if we're not being strategic um and proactive and that's happening across the district and I hear that from our principals who attend the principal meetings in the city and I hear that from principal from the city who reach out to our team as well for advice for our master's schedule on a positive note the uh the the next uh big
109thing is for our seniors as a as a pop who has a a daughter who's a senior you know last year was tough for them they lost their ball they lost their sport season if you're at Spring Sports um and so we're gonna try to do what every district is doing it is uh it's a Monumental task and I know that uh there's a few emails going around about it you know there are districts who are allowing crimes some are allowing no guests um the CDC has made it really really ordered New York state made it really really difficult to have a problem but our kids are so focused on trying to have ones we're gonna do the best we can um and I explain to them there may be kids who go out and
110get their hair done and and get their their their dress or their tux ordered and they might test positive and they can't come into the event and I don't know if it's better to cancel the prom or to tell the kid on January or I'm sorry on June 4th that they can't attend on June 5th you know so kids are going to have to be tested and they have to stay safe um but again those we're all dealing with this and we're all trying to figure it out we want to give the kids the best experience we also want to set them up for fossil winners to New Year so we're working through those details um and we'll be able to continue to communicate those the Monroe County superintendents are sharing their plans with us
111and us with them and we'll try to make it um the best situation possible but please know it is not guaranteed the CDC rules could change in a given week I saw a district today who had um who had to pull some uh Brighton had to pull um uh some events because of a covet scare it's and that's you know again three miles away from us so we just have to be have to be cognizant and be honest about our ability to provide some of these experiences we have our graduation date just note to the board that is the the day of the board meeting I apologize but that's the week week of graduation as much as I love having these conversations I would much rather see the seniors cross stage um we're going to
112have uh two times on a football field 5 30 and 7 30 and then a rain date the next day I believe uh there's one and two other schools in the district they're also using the facilities we're trying to share across the district um the the field there was uh set up last year it worked out really well for our seniors a lot of lighting a lot of style and those things so um again just continue to collaborate on getting our kids the best experience as they exit and then the last side I want to really thank we had a very generous donor who um who volunteered to buy all the caps and gallons for our seniors to buy yard signs for the seniors and the senior gift um you know he realized he and
113his wife realized that um you know a lot of kids were able to work because of covet and families have Financial stress and so they found a way to support um these students so I thank them for their generosity and a lot of people in our community who are trying to do things in various ways this is one of our donors who've donated um over over the years they have an affinity for helping students at East and the last slide is just to thank you things are happening well here and I wish um the uh everyone a wonderful weekend hopefully the weather warms up a little bit so we can get out of this snow and hopefully in some shorts and we can relax because it has been a stressful stressful stressful few days for
114a lot of us and I know many of us needed a data um detach and to re-energize so I wish you all a happy weekend and thank you for listening to my report thank you any questions for commissioner no uh superintendent of yes I'm sorry uh commissioner Molloy okay I might have might have this uh because I had to step out briefly uh to be with my kids um were there plans for summer school yes so yep so we had we are working with uh the district some of our kids who attend so it's a financial decision a structural one so for kids who need like one course of math it doesn't make sense for us to hire one teacher and do one course when the RCC has a program but there are funds available
115to schools and receivership to plan um summer learning experiences so for example in lower school it will be less content focused more skill based because those are the issues that we the kids not being in school some of the reading skills and some of the inquiry skills will be developed there'll be some content but it will be more of a um a learning experience for kids they may take and do inquiries based on big topics and involve science math and history as opposed to just going for seventh grade science um and then uh for high school those would be more content driven simply because um oh I'm sorry I'm sorry so I just saw your your email Kelly um those will be more content driven because those kids need those credits for uh for graduation
116so the answer the question is yes there are funds available but it'll be fluid and it'll be based on which students need okay thank you superintendent Meyer small yeah this is not to Dr Nelms I just forgot one thing I wanted to thank Carlene and her team for Herculean efforts this was no easy task to to when we started together in the summer to get to this point and so I would be significantly remiss if I did not publicly acknowledge Carlene and all of her team in finance and budget who worked miracles to get us to this point so Carlene I wanted to publicly acknowledge you acknowledge you in front of the board and those watching so thank you a little bit too so just a little six o'clock in the morning on Sunday right
117who was texting me at six A.M idea she's famous for that yes I don't see any other questions or comments um I do have just a couple quick comments uh I know commissioner Powell had raised a question it probably was submitted to the question log I don't need it answered today but I do want to make sure we have follow-up on that about the investment that the district has made at East and are we getting a return on an investment in terms of replicating the curriculum that has been developed there if there were some doubt about the effectiveness of that curriculum and that approach Dr Nam lays out the progress that has been made in ela and math scores no one is standing on the deck of the uh the shipment saying mission accomplished but
118clearly that ship is moving in the right direction and as commissioner Powell pointed out we've invested considerable sums of money uh to make that effort happen there we realize of course that staff are making it happen but the the board and the district and the taxpayers invested heavily so that we could develop something that would just not benefit the students at East but rather would benefit the rest of the district's community and again looking at this from sort of the the the long game four years instead of just one or two years the evidence seems to suggest and I suppose we could dig a Little Deeper seems to suggest that what they're doing over there is working now that's not to say it's not there are other schools where it's working as well and I
119pointed that out yesterday but Dr Nelms presents to us some pretty compelling data that suggests that what they're doing over there is working and I'm not doing this to not saying this to pet the board or the taxpayers on the back but we made that investment as commissioner Powell pointed out and um we've made that investment anybody was around knowing that East and I quote from four or five years ago was an incubator for best practices for the rest of the district and so please make sure that question gets answered uh and the question log um because we want to make sure that we're not spending additional dollars everybody's talking about being Frugal with our dollars um this is the time to do that we have a reason to do that so please I saw
120our clerk nodding her head please make sure that question gets answered thoroughly and comprehensively because we don't need to spend money uh if in fact what Dr Nelms is saying is correct and again I want to emphasize I know there are other schools that are doing things equally well and I have been a champion of replicating them just that I can't I have not been able to get a superintendent to replicate soda to push Albany for another Consortium school there are other schools that are doing really well and I am I am I I'm just speaking for myself in this particular I am a champion of replicating them but if what is doing is working we've spent a lot of money as commissioner Powell pointed out to make that happen we ought to be replicating
121it and then the other question I had and I I this wasn't a question a lot of question but I think I submitted it to the clerk or uh Leslie I might have sent it directly to you there is as Dr Nelms point out there's been a lot of conversation uh in the digital world about Proms and one of the equity questions that has come up and I don't know if this is true or not but I I think I did ask a follow-up question there are people saying that the Suburban districts are having problems and they're saying City schools are not um I don't need it answered now but I think we if that's not accurate if everybody's operating under the same rules from the state of New York I and my colleagues need
122to have that information so when somebody says and I don't know if it's true or not the Suburban districts are able to have problems and we're not I need to be able to respond to that and and so I I don't know if Kaya I sent that to you or whether Leslie there was an email that I forwarded you I know I forwarded to somebody uh I I'd like to have that answered because Equity is constantly a question in this community and we talk about a child's prom which is probably the most important thing for our students at this particular point and their parents or their someone's telling them white people or Suburban people are having problems and children of color or poor children or people who live in the city are not that's something
123that I want to be able to say with confidence that's true or that's not true and if it's true I want to know how do we fix that so I don't know if anybody can provide any kind of response to that now it'd be great if you could but if you can I understand sure I can and if um one or more of the Chiefs want to come on um we had a conversation and I asked the Chiefs to work with each one of the respective principals who have high schoolers in their school to ensure that the CDC guidelines right and that they're followed so it's a school by school decision and I've never chimed in on Prom before but I realized this is unique being in the midst of a pandemic so each school
124might be doing something differently but the schools are where each School Chief has been working with the school principal to determine what that not only graduation but whatever that event will be whether it's prom or if it's some other senior celebration but Chiefs if you wanted to add to that I'm fine hey good evening uh President White uh Commissioners yes um that's exactly we're meeting with the principals they're they're coming with their ideas they're meeting with their students as well and I think that's been the big part for this is to ensure that we have some student voice and what those senior events are going to be so they're working with us uh their schools and their school Community to find meaningful events for their seniors as the year ends it in just in addition
125that all of the schools will be doing some type of senior activity as well as graduation so they all will be having an event to recognize their seniors and and I will I will leave it at this but I I gotta tell you that and I appreciate the need to have principles to have the discretion to do what they needed they are the leaders of our schools the problem with the approach could be that that kind of discretion leads to observations of arbitrariness and capriciousness and people will say wait a second how come all these principles out in Brighton and I don't know that this is I'm using bright example because that's where I went to high school are having problems and we're not no offense commissioner Malloy right but but I think when when
126we start doing that and we don't ensure that each principle goes to what is a lot perhaps this could be a standard it goes to the statutory or regulatory maximums when you give principles the opportunity to be flexible and and you know people are already saying Suburban schools are getting more than City schools and we're falling behind my concern is if you give that kind of freedom and I'm all for freedom for for principles but that could lead to the kind of arbitrariness and inconsistency that people point out when they talk about inequity among Suburban schools and City Schools so you know what if what if the cities what if City principles are are more cautious it's rational but they're more cautious and they decide to not take it to the state regulatory opportunities that
127they could but the Suburban schools the principles or their Central offices allowing that and it's rhetorical is anybody not concerned that when you allow individual principals to make these kind of individual calls that people will look at us and say wait a second why are our children I I don't know if anybody's concerned about that but I got to tell you being a civil rights attorney that's the kind of arbitrary I use that phrase because that's what they're using the course arbitrary and capriciousness when government acts in a way that cannot be logically explained consistently that's when people have red flags about discriminatory conduct and I I just I wonder if central office ought to have some standard by which you measure and ensure that students are getting the best opportunity to have this once
128in a lifetime opportunity well I'm not said whether whether that every single school is going to have a prom or every single school is going to have a homecoming this or that I have I think student voice is very important so if the principals are working with each respective school and their student body and they say we want to do a dance we want to do a prom We want to do this or we want to do that I'm not saying that every school has to have a prom if every school lands that that's where what they want to do but I've I've never in the you know previously being at eight years I didn't say you absolutely have to do these particular senior events right and so I have just been very explicit I
129just want to make sure that the guidelines just as Dr Nelms is working with his folks we just want to make sure the guidelines are followed um and that they are able to adhere to them and if they come up with a plan that is cogent and aligns with it we absolutely will support that with whatever additional things that we need to do but I'm not gonna you know make up what every school must have a prom if that's not what the school wants I I think they'd be very frustrated if I said that some of our seniors have not seen each other and they may want to do something differently I'm fine with that and I support that I just want our students to be safe whatever it is that they decide to do
130in their senior year fair enough thank you for that comment I think that that should make some people understand how how you view this in a just an appropriate way you're looking to people to make the decision uh commissioner Adams Chinese trying to get some clarification about uh that we get 40 million allocated um Foundation Aid um I didn't really see it in the report I didn't notice any report um what's happening with that what's what I'm sorry commissioner Adams what's what 40 million seems um from from the state for foundation Aid um what did we um did we use that we did I'll ask uh CFO Pierce to come on some of that remember at the beginning she said we had um too much of an over-reliance on using some of the stimulus money
131so we were able to shift some of that but I can have Carlene go into a little more detail we had um yes it was an exact um swap out so what we did was we used the foundation Aid to come into the budget in the form of revenues and we were able then to remove all of the covid um 19 stimulus money and it went over to special Aid so that freed that money up and so now we do not have a Reliance upon um the covid money the The Kershaw money um it's now been replaced with Foundation Aid so it was a swap does that help good commissioner Adams all right that's the help um I'm good I see commissioner Powers raise your hand um same topic so what I just heard is
132that the special Aid there's no plan to how on how to spend that is that what I'm hearing you talk about the additional Aid commissioner Powell the swap out if the 40 million dollars of foundation Aid is swapping out the um I don't know how you're pronouncing that acronym but uh swapping out some of the um cares act funds and that cares act funding is going into special Aid does that mean there is no plan to spend it right at this particular moment go ahead Carly okay thank you um so what we're doing currently is that we're meeting we have been meeting weekly um because there are certain guidelines in which we need to follow with Allah um which dictate what are the allowable expenditures underneath those funds and how they can be used so
133we've been needing weekly to review what options we have available to us and we're putting together a plan and that plan will be submitted to the superintendent for her review and approval and then we'll bring that forward so so what I just said is correct as of right now in special Aid there is no concrete plan for every dollar in of the cares act funding we don't want to spend every dollar of it right now we want to so now well keep wait go ahead sorry I mean we understand that the the aid uh does have to be used for special purposes yeah we we can't not spend it but we do have time to spend it my my question is really a kind of a yes no question right now the plan is not
134solidified is that better said yes ma'am okay oh set commission Powell I don't see any other questions so we'll move on with our agenda I would note um that a gentleman by the name of Ed Donnelly uh he's from the friends of Ria uh he indicated that he submitted uh a request to speak tonight I'm sure something happened that I can't explain right now I can tell you boxing we have a great staff that uh tries to make sure that everybody who makes a request gets an opportunity to speak I apologize for whatever happened such that you're not able to I forwarded your statement Mr Donnelly's statement to our Clerk and she will make sure that it gets put on board docs and shared with every uh board member uh as well as our superintendent
135as well uh Madam click were you going to say something about that I saw you looking like you were going to say something yes I'm not I'm not sure what happened there I did receive also a message from commissioner Malloy regarding the same the same thing um I'm I'm I did not receive anything to the account that I that I believe but I'm going to double check and we'll reach out to Mr Donnelly tomorrow to exercise things but everyone should receive that to their email in five minutes I'll do that right now absolutely um again Mr Donnelly uh we're not sure exactly what happened uh but we appreciate you notifying us of that and uh should you ever have the occasion want to speak again I'm certain given our staff's past practice you will be
136able to get through um next item on our agenda uh is the consideration of resolutions of 790. I'm going to attempt at best to do my best to sort of block these together if I make some mistake or someone has another way of considering these resolutions please feel free to interject and let me know how we can do it better I'm first going to call for a motion to discuss resolution 743 to 752 these are teaching and learning resolutions is there a motion motion second uh seconded by commissioner Malloy um are there any questions or comments regarding what are largely uh additional pay resolutions uh looking at my participants I guess commissioner Malloy yes sorry um just a question about a resolution 752 um I just am wondering if there's anyone who could give um
137give us a little bit more explanation about the 12 days of anti-racist leadership work and what that's going to entail for the pipeline training it looked really interesting to me and I just wanted to know maybe a little bit more information about it as many of you know the board is looking to incorporate um anti-racist and um anti-bias training as part of our onboarding process for board members and so I I wondering if anyone can give me a few more details on that act remorse actually I'm going to defer to my colleague Dr Green to answer that question okay good evening again Commissioners so that resolution is regarding our P20 Grant that's a partnership with uh the leadership academy in Bank Street and part of the process is that we have to have a partnership
138and so Nikola is that partnership and they have done in the past training around anti-racism and they have been working on a curriculum for the past few years that will be used for this current cohort certainly if you would like access to that curriculum I can get some copies of the material to share so much I think the board would appreciate that as we go into discussions um around this issue thank you you're welcome thank you Dr Greene thank you commissioner Malloy I see commissioner Powell has raised your hand um sure that our clerk got it right I just wanted to correct the record uh it was commissioner Malloy who moved it and I who seconded it and you stated it the other way around thank you very much oh no it's tedious but no
139no worries no worries um next uh any other questions or comments regarding resolution 743 to 752 I see no further questions or comments so let's go ahead and vote please I'd ask my colleagues to make sure your video cameras are on and uh president I just wanted to let you know that um commissioner LeBron is back you did ask to know which I appreciate that uh so let's go ahead and take that vote on resolution 743 to 752 all those in favor of resolution 743 to 752 indicate by saying aye aye Madam clerk you have recorded that a vote commissioner LeBron the reason why I asked for a clerk to notify us when you were back in the room is I know you indicated this was a very busy evening for you and you had
140a number of commitments that you were trying to do your best to address simultaneously so uh we wanted to make sure you were there for uh one particular resolution are you still going back and forth to meetings I know you had a very hectic schedule tonight you good no I'm I'm done and I had emailed the board um Clerk and probably should have copied you and vice president Elliott in so that is my fault but um the schedule that I would be leaving for an hour an hour in between this meeting but I'm back okay all right great just want to make sure all right so let's just continue on with the or normal order of the resolutions next before the board is resolution 753 which Dr Nelms is very interested in that relates to
141EOP teaching and learning is there a motion to advance 753 to the floor I think what I heard is commissioner Malloy and seconded by commissioner Clark um uh any questions or comments regarding resolution 753 I don't see any and I'm looking at the participant screen I don't see anybody raise their hand so let's go ahead and vote all those in favor of resolution 753 indicate by saying aye aye aye and your position I see a couple folks laughing John's laughing because he thought I was gonna come I ain't got nothing for you tonight Sean you got it hey LeBron you know it's love we don't have to talk our eyes through a screen just connect all right well that's that's a vote uh that will go down as a successful one for you Sean next
142I need a motion to discuss resolution 754 to 755 is there a motion motion sorry commissioner Malloy is there a second come on guys thank you commissioner Powell any questions or comments regarding these special education resolutions 754 to 755. I don't hear any uh superintendent Meyer small so we're going to go ahead and take a vote on 754 755. all those in favor resolution 754 and 755 indicate by saying aye aye any opposition seems that the eyes have it Madam clerk next before the board of education is resolution 757 It's a grand of tenure motion uh any questions or comments regarding resolution 757 looking at the participant screen I don't see any questions and certainly yeah go ahead commissioner LeBron just want to give my email again that I will not be doing grant 10
143individuals named in the resolution um I don't want anybody to think that these individuals are not worthy of getting grants tenure or anything on their record but I would again ask that we get the proper documentation and information to make informed decisions around these things and again a practice that we did used to have in this District when you know prior to the switchover of the administration um Dr jallow did you have your hand up yeah I did I was going to say the same thing sorry oh no no go ahead you can no I was just going to repeat what you said that you know we were we were promised an opportunity to look at data supporting the uh tenure um offerings to these individuals I I don't know who has received that is
144yet but I do think that moving forward um that practice has to be part and parcel of um granting tenure to individuals that the board has a responsibility to look at the documentation and information that supports that type of a decision in that regard I know our prior uh human capital leader um Dr Joe you weren't around but for years many years We examined this material and he got it to the point Harry Kennedy was his name where it was very detailed to Kaya you're raising your hand I go ahead yes I I do want to note that the board did receive the 10-year packet um last week uh from uh Chief Miller regarding the tenure recommendations for for consideration tonight so when when you and I and I I want to again thank he's
145not he's no longer with us with the school district but uh it was Harry Kennedy um those of you been around for a while who developed this previously we had not had that system but he developed this complicated look complicated Matrix which described the assessments what I thought was holding things up was you know we didn't have some of the traditional measures that we've had in the past um because Regents exams and so forth weren't available but and I thought that was commissioner LeBron's concern uh I might be wrong but I I will tell you thanks to Harry Kennedy there were the there was a period of time where we didn't have any of that now we do and uh he uh if he's watching which I doubt he is he has the the board's
146appreciation because anybody was around know that before he began doing it we didn't have such a system we have it now um I'm looking at the hands being raised commissioner Powell and then commissioner LeBron um yeah I I think there's a substantive difference between what um uh commissioner LeBron uh commissioner LeBron's position and what Dr John just said yes we are getting the data we are still getting the data that data includes that our their past evaluations it includes their attendance uh record uh what um what isn't part of the evaluations I think and I think this is commissioner LeBron's point is observations like you know in-person observations of the teachers performance in the uh and classroom management and what have you um um but quite frankly every every school district has to face that
147and and the state has made some allowances in the evaluation process for that thank you for that clarification commissioner uh Lebron yeah so actually um some of what commissioner Apollo just mentioned is is my position so yes I want to uplift that um around the observations during covid but then also back to what Dr jallow is also talking about and she could speak for herself so jalo Dr jalo please feel free to is that there is some more comprehensive data that should be provided before we're making these decisions for the um per tenure and um yeah I've been you're right that in our previous individual that was in charge of human capitals at least we got that you know from that individual and it was a very comprehensive um system I would imagine that Harry
148Kennedy had for this board and we have not been getting that but in addition to getting that data we actually used to go into executive sessions before we went and voted on tenure and those things were presented to the board and packets for all of them it did not matter if there were 10 or 50 or 100 we went into executive we had conversations we went over it as a body any questions for individuals who had lower rankings and why they were still being um moved forward for tenure what improvements they've done and the Chiefs would also present right why they were backing that with the superintendent we're we're not getting any of that we're just getting up until this last week where we're getting some information we have been voting on 10 years without
149any information blindly during a pandemic not understanding how these evaluations are occurring or not occurring so the mission of Paul was right that was one of my concerns that I have uplifted multiple times like if the administration can demonstrate to me this is what we're doing in lieu of and this is how we're measuring it but what nothing that I just mentioned at this point is occurring the way that we used to get it and that's a concern for me it should be a concern for you all and I do recognize that the state has made some exceptions um because I think they're still trying to figure it out too but you know I would encourage the state to look at that because something like 10 years something very serious for me um and we're
150going to be granting tenure for individuals to be in front of our children for a very long time and I want to make sure that these decisions are taken just as serious as we when we talk about like cultural competency all those things I I it's just a very serious thing and we should have the data that we need and the process in place to make an informed decision that's all but again nothing against these individuals so I want to highlight that President White because it is none of these individuals fault that we don't have our system and our act together to give them the tenure that they just feel that they deserve because they work towards it I just want to put that out there too let me just say to move the subject
151along um and of course we will report back to the full board uh Dr Myers small could we have a conference about this at our next officers meeting because um the the material the format is there to do this what what I recall and we've even done them during covid um what I recall is that uh we would use to get those big packets when there were a number of individuals up for uh consideration when you have a smaller number like one or two or three it is within the discretion of the board members to say Hey listen I need to talk about this in executive session I haven't heard that and that might be a very wise thing to do uh but it's incumbent I think I I the assumption that I've been operating
152on when we have a small number of them that the board members have read that considered that and if they feel like a a discussion and executive session is necessary when you have a small number of people and they could call for that but there you know there may be a need to just systemically always go into executive session but the reason why we have not and I know we've done these in executive session during covet because the numbers have not been as large but let's let's look at that to see if even my recollection is right on that and we'll report back to the full board about maybe we should just as a standard practice always go into executive session on these but my recollection is we're not doing it because we don't have
153the large numbers and if there's four or five and they're in the resolution packet like any other resolution people read the numbers and and there is nothing we can do about the fact that during a significant period there wasn't the observations that were done traditionally before Kobe so can we look at that in our next options meeting Madam Clerk and Dr Myers will you make sure we look at that report back to the board so these people know definitively how these are going to be handled my assumption was we weren't meeting an executive session because there wasn't large numbers um so if you just give me a uh just a moment to respond I agree tenure is a huge and Monumental decision you're making over a million dollar investment potentially in uh the certificated individual
154so when you vote on that you should certainly vote with confidence and authority authority that you feel comfortable because the chief of human resources or um the superintendent I ultimately make the recommendation to all of you so yes I'd like to go back we can talk through process um I know that Dr Miller is is working on something kind of moving forward but we have more tenure that we need to approve between now and certainly June 30th the end of the year so let's talk that through because I would like each you individually and collectively as as Commissioners to feel comfortable with the process and the vote that you are hopefully casting um in the affirmative so let's talk that through and make sure that we have a process that's um that's agreeable that you
155can feel comfortable when we say we're going to Grant Amy Malloy tenure that it has on the authenticity behind it and your comfort level excellent all right so we are at that point though that we have to vote on 757 I don't see any additional comments so let's go ahead and vote on that all those in favor of uh resolution 757 indicate by saying aye aye I'm sorry I'm sorry president why I don't I didn't get a motion um I I thought that there was I thought that's why commissioner LeBron began to speak about it all right so it's been moved and seconded uh so we've had at the discussion commissioner LeBron a race an issue with respect that we've discussed that issue so now we'll have the vote all those in favor resolution 757
156indicate by saying aye aye and any opposition I heard one nay any other opposition seems like the eyes have it all right um let's move on to resolution 759 is there a motion I moved thank you commissioner Malloy is there a second thank you commissioner Adams any questions or comments regarding resolution 759 same sort of issue I believe uh no no I'm so no I'm sorry it's not it's to a point to a ten unitary um any questions or comments regarding resolution 759 there being no questions or comments all those in favor of resolution 759 indicate by saying aye aye aye any opposition all right that resolution is approved let's move on to resolution 762. this is an appointment to a tenure any questions or comments regarding resolution 762. uh commissioner LeBron you providing that
157same qualifier thank you commissioner LeBron second thank you commissioner Malloy any now a question or a comment commissioner LeBron yes um um I just wanted to understand this this and also if it was already in the budget for this year or if this is this is within this last 19 the 2021-2022 budget Dr Morris can you take that or would that be Dr Miller I believe Dr Miller could best um provide information about this I'm not also oh I'm sorry Dr Miller also if you can share what the position is sure so yes this position is is budgeted um this is a position under the chief academic officer the executive director of equity inclusion and curriculum program audit this is a very important position for the district to partner with the office of professional learning
158to partner with the curriculum coordinators and the chief academic officer to coordinate consult guide support and assist schools departments teams in working with internal and external stakeholders to ensure equity and inclusion further to consult within the district with with all of our offices and teams particularly teaching and learning to ensure that issues of equity social justice anti-racism and diversity differences in relationships concerning staff students and families are addressed uh further to assist the district with the development of an equity and instructional plan and also to assist in auditing our curriculum to ensure that not only our curriculum our texts our textbooks and the adoptions of any new text are thoughtful and reviewed for the purpose of diversity equity and inclusion and to ensure culturally relevant practices and content is examined and addressed across all grade
159levels and content areas there are other duties as well but I think that provides a pretty broad overview I'm trying to pull it up too um and I'm pulling it up from the budget from last year but the other question I had was um what was the process for selection for this individual just curious um similar with um our district positions position was posted um there was a paper screening of candidates to ensure they met the requirements of the position we had um we had some internal external candidates who were reviewed we had an interview process of a district based committee given that this is a district position there wouldn't be a need for a school-based committee but there was a district-based committee that included key stakeholders certainly Dr Morris and and Dr Black and
160again Dr Black will be the supervisor of this individual so I just want to point out though Chris I I keep last year in this year's budget books together so they're like literally right here so I just went and pulled it up because this was an area that I had a lot of issues with last year and I don't see that title listed as a budgeted position here certainly there is one position that maybe could fall under the office of cultural and linguistic responsible but it's not at that salary um so I I'm going to request for the board question log if you all can direct me and point me to the page and section and budget line item for the 20 uh 20 2021 budget year where this position was budget explored I will
161note that this individual is not starting and I just want to look at the the calendar here a second um June 28th um so there's three days on this year uh before the the new Financial year tell me where it's budgeted for this upcoming year then that's my question to the question log Kalia if you can point out what page instruction is that thank you and that's awesome thank you thank you commissioner LeBron any other questions regarding resolution 762 there have been no further questions let's go ahead and vote all those in favor resolution 762 indicate by saying aye all right let's move on to resolution 764. is there a motion moved excited Clark made the motion I think I heard commissioner Powell second it that's how we'll record it any questions or comments regarding
162resolution 764. I'm looking at the participant screen I don't see any questions or comments so let's go ahead and vote all those in favor of resolution 764 indicate by saying aye aye any opposition all right um Madam clerk you recorded that vote let's move on to we're going to batch Bunch together resolution 6 767 to 777. 767 to 777 is there a motion move I heard commissioner Clark move it first seconded by I think commissioner Powell That's How we'll record it any questions or comments regarding resolution 767 to looking at the participants Queen I don't see any questions no comments all right so let's go ahead and vote all those in favor resolution 767 to 777 indicate by saying I I any opposition means that the eyes have it Madam clerk let's go on to
163operational operations uh resolutions 781 to 788 any question let's first of all let's move that first is there a motion so moved I think I heard commissioner Malloy seconded by commissioner Powell that's how our clerk will record it uh any questions or comments regarding resolution 781-788 educational facilities uh resolutions looking at the participant screen I don't see any questions so we'll go ahead and vote all those in favor resolution 781 to 788 indicate by saying aye aye any opposition seems that the eyes have it Madam clerk so let's go on to resolution 789 to 790. are there any questions or comments regarding residents oh sorry it's like that is there a motion to advance 789 to 790 for discussion Thank You seconded by commissioner Clark that's how our clerk will record it um I see
164commissioner LeBron has raised her hand commissioner LeBron yeah just um I'm actually comments on both so for 789 I know that this is our first time having a resolution for a budget transfer and that um our CFO did a presentation but if this could also be a little bit more detail about exactly how much is being transferred and then to where um I I personally that's how I would like to personally see budget transfer resolutions in the future so that it's documented um how much is being moved the reason that it's being moved and the why I just couldn't get that from this resolution although I remember that our CFO talked to about it in previews and did a presentation to the board on that I think it needs to be documented for 7 not
165the resolution that again with the old pep issue that Administration has not had a chance to meet yet with Dan my request was Tuesday and I'm going to ask if we can table that until our state monitor our Dr Myers Smalls and I believe commissioner Clark and I think President White you also agreed to meet with the state Auditors and our CFO so that we're all on the same page as an Administration and as a board before we move forward with updating the policy and then doing a resolution once the board has had those conversations but again unfortunately our Administration and our state monitor were left out of those initial meetings where we all met with the state Auditors and groups um and so I just want to put that out there so uh before
166we where I before I characterize that uh as a motion to table which would uh eliminate any further debate um are there any other comments regarding resolution 789 to 790. all right but commissioner LeBron I just don't want to cut off people from commenting about what you said or uh give them opportunity because I I well commissioner commissioner Powell go ahead um remind the [Music] uh the book is the only reason I would oppose a table is that last month um the superintendent uh clearly stated that she felt that a one-month delay would be adequate uh and it has been one month uh the other thing I would note is that it's not that the the CFO and superintendent or Dr Jello were left out it was the the ask wasn't made uh and um
167so this does appear like uh delay tactic and there has been no agreement that uh change to the policy as a prerequisite for this resolution to pass President White I just want to respond that I didn't schedule the meetings I made the requests and for whatever reason that that connection didn't happen but I didn't schedule the meetings and Dr Mary Smalls and Dr jallow absolutely want to also they wanted to be a part of those meetings They Were Somehow just left out in the scheduling I did not schedule those meetings I just want to put that on the record and not intentionally leave out our state Monitor and our superintendent from those conversations but certainly my understanding from the state Auditors is that we actually do update the policy then have a discussion as a
168board to the percentage that we want to move forward to putting an oath of the amount and then bring that forth to a resolution but again um my request is that Dr Meyer Smalls Dr jallow and this is why I asked you and commissioner Clark to have those meetings with them not only we have witnessed this so that you we all have the same understanding so that we can move forward in the direction we need to move forward in Mr Paul um I wanted to go ahead and have the last word because I want to move this along follow the board of table that that's fine with that because we'll get this done before the fiscal year end but the commissioner LeBron seems to be the only one who believes that the that the comp
169trollers said that the policy needed to happen first the conversation can happen right now I have a presentation ready and waiting um and and the uh the dollar value that we settle upon is negotiable it is something we can debate and discuss um and and I can outline how I settled upon this number um but um a policy change is not a prerequisite because the guidelines already exist in a whole series of resolutions again I have a presentation I can walk every board member through um what the guidelines currently are and it simply needs to be coalesced into a policy statement so the issue however before the board is and there hasn't been a motion at the table and I appreciate uh commissioner LeBron uh and commissioner Powell no one making that motion to allow
170us to have this conversation but I think we've thoroughly uh uh covered the the various sides of the dispositive issue here is whether Dr jallow and Dr Myers small should have an opportunity to meet uh and and discuss this with the Comptroller's office and I don't think anybody including you commissioner Powell don't have any problem with that Madam clerk let me just finish this remark first the meeting will be scheduled that's not a it's not a major ordeal it will be scheduled for some reason it didn't people are very busy these days and we'll get it scheduled as commissioner Paul if you've as you've conceded we still have time um but I you know both of these folks and I know you would agree with this person pal because you know the law and you've
171been around for a while both of these vigils Dr Myers small and Dr jallow are legally members of the board we'll get it scheduled you know things happen for a variety of reasons there's nothing Sinister about people not being able to make the meeting we'll get them at the meeting and we'll get this thing to a timely vote um and right now we don't have to debate the merits of it we just want to make sure that everybody is on equal footing here to consider it and Dr Meyer small and Dr jallow are not because they did not have a chance to meet so I think everybody agrees that they ought to have that opportunity so um unless there's any further comment or question uh yes uh Madam Clerk yes I'm sorry the meeting is
172uh it's scheduled for next week Tuesday but I just want to confirm is um CFO peers supposed to attend as well I just want to make sure I'm certain who should be invited this time I I would actually so for me personally I do feel like the CFO should be there but I also believe that if Dr Meyer Smalls feels like she herself can be there we leave the information back you know I think I'm gonna personally request that decision be made by you Dr Mary small but certainly I do strongly feel that you and Dr jallow should be there but again my request President White is that you and commissioner clerk you as well are there so that you are all hearing the same information and then we can move forward how we however
173we move forward from that conversation so it's clear that Dr Myers will decide whether uh Miss Pierce will attend if if she wants to there she'll be there if she doesn't for whatever reason she won't uh I've committed I know commissioner Clark is committed to attend I even think I got an invite by somebody who was arranging the meeting so confirming what our clerk has said the meeting is in the works um but we'll let Dr Meyer small determine whether Carlene uh Miss Pierce appears I don't I don't need to have that resolve now that's up to you Dr Myers um commissioner Powell let's really let's move this issue along uh last question then if if a motion to table is coming before you uh can that date certain be something before our next business
174meeting uh in a special meeting agenda that if the meeting that is being scheduled for Tuesday there's no reason to wait another whole month so so uh let me make sure I understand your ask here that you wanted to uh fed affordator and which is what we normally do for a motion to table but you want it to be before the next business meeting correct there's no reason Nick if the next me if the if the meeting in question is next Tuesday there's no need no reason to wait an entire month I would I would actually disagree because I think that once you all meet with the Auditors in a plan then we're gonna need the time to have that plan developed I just want to put that out there Mr Brian let me remind
175you we have Robert's Rules of Order we don't speak unless you're recognized by the chair commissioner Powell had the floor um commissioner Powell were you finished commissioner Powell were you finished I was finished I just I just comes before that we have clearly established that date certain so uh Madam clerk we are scheduled to meet it's right now it seems to be set for Tuesday is that right no you're not scheduled to meet next week Tuesday because there's no meetings next week no no no no I meant the meeting with Dr jallow and Mr Clark oh yep you're scheduled for next week too and that it's an afternoon meeting Tuesday so I want to be very specific about this commissioner Powell if we're meeting next Tuesday you're saying you don't want to wait until the
176next business meeting you want to wait until the next available meeting most available meeting is that right okay um uh commissioner LeBron I see you raise your hand I just want to repeat that same thing I just did that I don't know what's going to come out of that meeting and and what the recommendation moving forward I it's clear to me I was in the meeting with commissioner Adams I think he and I got the same thing because we did a summary to make sure we were all on the same page and I took lots of detailed notes but it's clear that other commissioner had a different kind of outcome from that meeting um but I do you know constantly reach out to the state Auditors to ask questions about these things and so again
177I think it would be beneficial but I do think that there's going to be some some additional items that we're going to have to do before it's brought forth again through a resolution that like and that if we just rush into the next Tuesday meeting that we're not going to have the actual time to do the work in between to give it to a resolution I don't think it's unreasonable to stay a month from now and then whatever needs to happen whether it's going to be doing the policy again or having conversations as a collective board not one board member as a collective board with the administration to finalize what that percentage is going to be then it comes before the board through a resolution but Dr John I would love your opinion on this
178topic as well if you don't mind commissioner LeBron you are not chairing the meeting I have not seen Dr jallow raised her and if she does I absolutely will call on her the the question is not whether this at this particular juncture whether this particular resolution has Merit or not it's a procedural question and simply what is being proposed by commissioner Powell before we make a motion to the table is that we meet with Dr jallow uh Dr Mary small and Mr Clark with the Comptroller's office and that the motion to table will adjourn it to the next available meeting that does not mean we will vote on that day there might be some discussion that would indicate there are other things that have to happen before we vote all a motion to table is
179doing is taking this resolution and giving it a date certain to appear before the body doesn't mean we'll vote there may be legitimate reasons why we should not vote but I think commissioner Powell's request that we have the motion returnable to the the resolution returnable to the body as soon as Dr jallow and Dr Myers have had a chance to consider it to see where we are at we should not wait a month for the next business meme to find out wait a second there's more work that has to be done before the board will approve it so that's the only reason behind the motion of the table to get it back before the body we may not I I need to intervene here for a moment I was trying to let people talk a
180little bit but this is this is commissioner LeBron's motion table so whatever date she picks is the date you have to vote on first if it's defeated Steve she hasn't made a motion to table yet she actually did make a motion table early and then we talked around it but she she did she did say she wanted a table that's a motion and table so she didn't pick a date at that time but it is still her motion to pick the date four and then we vote on it and then because normally it should go straight to a vote and you guys want to talk a little bit and you know that's fine we have some relaxed rules here but it was her emotion in the Genesis of it and so we should we should
181move just on 790 for the moment to vote on it because there's been a lot of talking um but if if it was you can ask her what date she wants to move the table to and it sounds like it's going to be the next business meeting but we should just get to a vote now and if if other people don't agree with moving in a month that's fine they'll defeat it in the motion but we should go to vote at this point there's been there's been too much talking on the motion I want to clarify something for the record and you can play the recording she never said I'm making a motion to table she says I want to talk about this I don't think we should talk about this now I said I
182think what I'm hearing is perhaps a motion table but before we do that let's talk about that because a motion to table goes directly to a vote that's how the conversation was never a formal emotion I characterized what she said but I said before we do that because a motion to table goes directly to vote let's talk about this now you're right she can make the motion right now and it would end the conversation but it would cut off people it would have cut off all this good conversation that we had but commission LeBron he is right in the end if you make the motion notion the table and I'm gonna motion to say so Steve let me point out one other thing Not only was there not a motion but there was never a
183second to the motion so there's never motion listener LeBron please it's a motion to table it goes right into vote no conversations commission LeBron they're never there isn't even a second to the motion that was my point you're not even supposed to be talking I motioned the table to bring it back up May 18th can I get a second that's how it works it goes to a vote or did not go to a vote after the motion is made I made a direct motion to the table gave a specific date it goes directly to a second and to a vote commissioner LeBron I am the presiding chair of this meeting please let me down you called on me I had the four Robert's Rules you called on me I made a motion to floor until
184May 18th can I get a second there's no conversations after that can I get a second sir LeBron this is really not necessary so to move things along is there a second to commission LeBron's motion which is my job as chair to call for a second is there a second to commission LeBron's motion for cable and a second all those in favor of commissioner LeBron's motion to table to what was a date commissioner LeBron May 18th which is before the next um all right so there has been a motion to table it's been seconded by commissioner Adams to May the 18th all is in favor of the motion table indicate by saying aye um it appears that Madam clerking correctly around the motion has failed now commissioner Powell do you have a date that you
185would like to have a motion you agree that this should be tabled is that right that's I I I'm agreeable to that I would offer since did fail I would offer a motion to May 4th which is our next meeting that's an emotion there's been a is that correct Madam clerk we're going to make sure we got the dates right it's like an emotion there's been a second to table uh this particular resolution to May the 4th there's been a motion in a second all those and then there's no conversation now that the motion is probably before the board all those in favor of tabling this particular resolution to May the fourth indicate by saying I I seems that the motion has been table to make hey yeah I'm going to vote again I'm sorry
186for me as well I am very sorry uh commissioner Adams and commissioner LeBron I apologize for not recording uh having the clerk or you record your negative votes so please excuse that all right um so that I you all helped me get myself back on track here that was resolution 789 correct that was 790. you have 789 is still open on the floor so far so 789 and 790 so 789 is still left open is that what you said Steve yes yep thank you very much so let's any questions or comments regarding 789 since 790 has been tabled thank you I'm looking at my participant screen I don't see any uh handspring race no questions or comments so let's go ahead and vote on resolution 789 all is in favor of resolutions 789 which by
187the way I want to affirm I think what commissioner LeBron has recommended on that resolution is is critical so more detail would be helpful thank you commissioner all those in favor wrestling 789 indicate by saying aye aye any opposition all right the ice habit uh one other resolution that is before the board it was Advanced by commissioner Powell it is labeled 791. um commissioner uh Powell because some of our members may not have it I know it was discussed earlier on could you just again refresh our memory with respect to what 791 is about and and then um I'll put it I'll make a motion before the board uh yes it's just a reminder can you um go ahead and describe it sure uh it's just a reminder that there's a one-word technical change to
188uh the the bylaws uh it did clear the policy committee but because there is some interest in bringing more changes to the bylaws I wanted to clear the decks and get this uh moved uh tonight and we did already suspend the um a policy 2410 to make that happen thank you commissioner Powell I now need a motion to advance for discussion resolution 791. is there a motion seconded by commissioner Malloy or that's how it will certainly be recorded any further questions or comments regarding resolution 791 I don't have my participant screen up let me get that up yep there we go I'm so sorry present white can you uh read I didn't have the screen up and I had the the resolution up to you say who motioned I got who seconded it was commissioner
189clerk I think who Moved is that right is that right yep thank you sir and you got the Second Amendment yes commissioner Molly thank you so um did we did we vote I'm sorry uh Madam clerk no we didn't so let's go all those in favor of resolution 791 indicate by saying aye aye any opposition did the eyes have it all right ladies and gentlemen I think we've conducted our resolution business for the evening there is no unfinished business there is new business uh why don't we begin with the commissioner Malloy you were going to discuss um person meeting fantastic thank you so much good evening again thank you um with the fairly recent return to in-person or hybrid learning by many of our students and most of our teachers and staff members there have
190been or has been much Community discussions surrounding whether or not board members should begin conducting in-person committee meetings as well um and business meetings so my initial response as a governance chair was to ask for in-person meetings if other employees are back in buildings shouldn't we as board members be back as well in order to set a good example that was sort of my thought process I'm under the impression that many of my board colleagues have may have had similar feelings in this regard at our last governance meeting as well as revisiting this topic briefly um even last week I agreed to look into this with Administration and board staff to consider the legal administrative and County Health implications of coming back to in-person meetings so last Thursday I had the pleasure of meeting with
191our board staff members of the executive cabinet Dr Myers small and our district Communications Chief Marisol Lopez including our security Chief our operations Chief just in order to brainstorm logistics for various scenarios on this issue um subsequent conversations via email over the weekend have helped provide me with a clearer you know just clearer information to present at the board tonight for discussion and so I'm hoping that we can come to some sort of resolution or decision on this issue um so the question is should we meet in person beginning as soon as possible or do we continue to conduct our meetings remotely at least through the end of the school year um I do hope by the end of our discussion that we can do some type of straw poll that we can get input
192from all of our board members on where they stand on this and as well as possible recommendations from Dr Myers small and her staff um perhaps most importantly from the board staff and our community Department upon whom we are completely dependent when it comes to the execution of meetings bottom line they make all the magic happen for us and I'm hoping we aren't adding to their many responsibilities so we've had many recommendations including those from Auditors from the state comptroller's office there were suggestions these suggestions have been vetted and discussed with our Communications Chief and board staff there were suggestions about how to more effectively run our meetings for instance um via Zoom one of the suggestions was pre-recording the speaker's comments and while initially this seemed like a really great solution and that we
193would save time on connection and sound issues it actually would create an immensely heavy lift for our board staff adding to their many responsibilities um but prior to discussing any of these types of suggestions I'd like to have a few things laid out as related to our current board bylaws about meetings and the governor's executive orders about public meetings during the pandemic so to help us walk through this more more efficiently I've asked acting general counsel Steve Carlin to provide an overview of the issue and facts surrounding all of this so that we can more robustly engage in discussion so thank you counselor Carly good evening everybody um it's uh as as you know the governor continues to roll forward the 30-day exemption to the public officers law which requires for in-person meetings um we
194we have received recently some guidance from The Head of the State School Board association's uh The General Counsel for them that it looks like the governor is going to intend to do this for for quite some time just in in baby steps unfortunately but um that it it appears that the the pledge to at least from what he's hearing is is it's going to be through as long as there's a pandemic was was kind of the colloquialism we were told but certainly it's looking like through the end of the school year so you know that that does uh take at least for the moment it takes some of the pressure off I I have poked around a little bit I talked to my colleague um my the my counterpart in Buffalo um they attempted to
195go back in person not that long ago they had a lot of problems so um they're back to fully remote and from what I can tell it looks like Syracuse is still fully remote as well so as you know as far as guidance on that point um that you know any anything we'd want to do um would be you know some somewhat dependent on how many board members are are you know willing to come back or if any of their medical restrictions um I don't want to talk about that in public session right now by any means but these are our considerations um and then you know certainly things that you know the the big questions that come up are ones that others in the administration can talk about but you know spacing and um
196you know where where are we going to put people and who gets priority as far as who comes in the room because even 3a3b when you start spacing people out is not that big when when we start spacing everybody out by six feet so um but at the moment at least I can say that you know we we are in another 30-day cushion um we you know there's not a rush to bring people back it you know I I would note that the adults are are somewhat different than than the kids um as far as the restrictions on spacing there there's no relaxation that the the three feet rule that applies to students for example right now in elementary um if we get out of Red Zone it would go to the secondary two that
197doesn't apply to the adults anyway it's six feet and masked and distanced and so you know I would say that even if the board members are sitting at the diocese um they'd have to be masked even six feet apart to meet the current recommendations which could make operating as far as you know being able to hear people could could be challenging just another consideration that just kind of things keep rolling along as we dig into them but that that's my that's kind of my broad Strokes um overview from from what I've seen legally we don't really need to get too deep into the bylaws until we start considering whether to when once we say we want to come back we have to start worrying about what's in there that might restrict number of people not
198you know reporting in Via Zoom or or in some other way because right now we only allow the one we'd have to have some kind of a temporary suspension bylaws on that but I think it's premature to have a discussion until um I'm hearing that the will is to have everybody back but again you know your your other big five colleagues are at that point not doing that so thank you so much um Mr Carling um I do see some hands um oh just one hand now um commissioner Clark go ahead yes thank you and thank you Steve because he answered a lot of the questions that I had but my the other issue that I have is the fact that we seem to get a lot more attendance and a lot more participation going
199remote and I would hate to see us lose that while I'm in favor of in-person meetings I would hate for us to lose the uh the parent participation the community participation and if we did finally decide go back in person we would definitely have to keep the remote option in place so that we can have the uh participation as broad as possible commissioner clerk um would anyone else like to weigh in their opinion here oh I do see a commissioner palp or I'm sorry did I miss you President White no no I can't raise my hand as I'm a host so whenever you want to call on me that's fine okay perfect uh commissioner pop go ahead I I just want to piggyback on what uh commissioner Clark just said I think that um it
200might be a good idea to have a um a zoom link and monitor uh four four speakers and parent you know for for so they can participate even after the entire coveted scare is over uh I think that is a terrific solution to parents who don't have transportation for parents who can't haul their kids back and forth whose kids need to be in bed um I think even when we come back to in-person uh meetings that we ought to consider keeping a channel open for um for those who sign up to speak to do so via Zoom pal yeah I wanted to just piggyback on that I I was feeling the same way um accessibility is so key I do notice oh now it's time for President White go ahead yeah yeah thanks um I
201agree I think we've learned something through covid how to expand opportunities for people to participate so I think we should take that burden and really maximize it as a blessing and continue to do as commissioner Clark has suggested use that format um just on personal note I I'm okay I mean if the issue is are we um is it our personal position to be willing to come back I am but I I got to be honest I may be differently situated than others I I've been vaccinated I'm what they call fully vaccinated and I think people have to take that into account you know and I I will tell you you know it's no secret you know you you could have a loved one who you know has coveted and um the question is what's
202the transferability of that so there's a lot of questions that you know I could decide I'm okay with it but somebody might not you know I have family members who have copen people might be wondering well man you okay you're free but that doesn't mean you can't be a carrier right a CDC guidelines say I can go anywhere I want now but I I could be a carrier right so I I don't know how straightforward of an issue this is if you're asking us if you're asking us individually and you said a straw poll would we be will would I be willing to come back the answer to that is yes but I understand that I'm part of a larger organization and some people might feel a little bit different about my willingness and I
203and I I trust me I appreciate that so I don't I I I you know so the cart before the horse which comes first I I realize why you might want to do a straw poll but if I say it I don't know how to I'm just picking on commissioner Clark and don't answer this bill but how might he feel about my willingness and you know and I and Bill I'm not asking for this I don't know if he's been vaccinated you know I don't know if he's had it so commissioner you have a very tough job and I I appreciate you tolerating my answer but it's a very complicated situation but if you ask me am I supposed I would say yeah I'm coming back I'd be willing to come back thank you thank
204you for that is there anyone else who would like to weigh in we haven't heard from all commissioners any other thoughts from commissioners go ahead uh commissioner Adams did you oh your hand is ready so you have heard of a question we talked about this the other day I explained to people me I've never been um not in person I have a job regular job I've worked throughout the thing so um it's not an issue with me um this is an issue that's being driven by uh people who probably ain't even going to their job really they're not even going to their job they use the sick time and staying out and they got that going on it's it's a lot of chaos going on I I really hate for them to get me to
205start talking I really been on a Down Low there's a lot of stuff I I know I'm in the building more than any commissioner because I work overnights that's why I can be I ain't trying to downgrade y'all but I am working at daytime that's why I go in the buildings I'm in there three or four hours a day I'm telling you um it's a lot of stuff driven um to try to be done for the wrong reasons and with that I'm clear man thank you commissioner Adams um let's see let's look um hey Mr LeBron did you want to weigh in at all no Dental Adams is that all right I know I'm certainly fine with coming back just having been in school since September uh in person with my own students um I'm
206also vaccinated um so I have no problem going back but I think that it's really a matter of um reaching a consensus as a board and I don't know I think it's fairly clear [Music] um are we going back or are we what are we doing here anyone um go ahead commissioner Paul I'm just going to propose first of all I'm still a few days away from being fully vaccinated and you're supposed to wait a little while after that um I I think that it might be prudent to let the logistics um drive this and and I'm reflecting back on what our general counsel said if um if a plan can be laid out and the logistics are sound if um parents are able and and community members are able to participate by a zoom
207and not come into the building into the building so that the only people in 3a3b are uh senior staff Personnel who are there to answer our questions then um I could see I could see us coming back in person very soon um I'm still not ready right now but I'm awfully close just days are a couple of weeks away from being ready personally to to in person based on my own vaccination uh schedule um but uh I recommend that we let the logistics Drive the timetable thank you thank you and uh Dr Myers small if you wanted to go ahead and weigh in thank you commissioner Malloy my my um input is similar or it aligns with what uh with what just commissioner Powell said our team has been working on kind of Pros cons
208the logistics so it might help Commissioners to have just more a fully robust and informed um some information that can help them make an informed decision so if we have just a little more time we can get that together get that to you for your first blush and then we can get it to the rest of the commissioners what do you think I think um Steve remind me when is when does the um the first when when does when does the executive order expire please and thank you it just got renewed it's currently expires May 19th but it's been like clockwork every seven days so far at least okay so if we could really have because this week is over so if we could have some planning next week so maybe the week after that
209if we could look at that and get that to you any other questions all right thank you so much for the robust dialogue I appreciate it and I guess we'll revisit this all together um thank you so much for your time and I hand the gavel back to President White thank you commissioner Malloy um we have one other matter for new business uh commissioner LeBron would you care to lead the board in the discussion regarding its Reflections on the proposed 2021-2022 budget yeah so if anybody um wants to give feedback now and that would be the time I'm going to be working with staff next week to develop the memo um and certainly be following up with our CFO and administration on anything that they've heard throughout the budget process um that they want to
210address [Music] um so I see one hand up and that is the commissioner Clerk yes uh thank you commissioner LeBron I think it's been a very robust process I just want to commend the team for doing such an outstanding job and taking all of our concerns into consideration and working on those but I do still have uh some concern and that is the fact that uh even though our foundation funding was increased we still have that structural deficit and over the net and while we can't eliminate it right away uh we need to come up with a long-term plan as to how we're going to eliminate that and I think we've come a long way in doing that as far as looking at the uh teachers pupil ratios and knowing that there is some room
211there to work with that and I think that's the type of work that we need to continue to do so that we can get to the point where we're not dependent on any stimulus funding and I did have I did also have one concern and that was when a board member indicating uh adjusting the budget or modifying the budget for school and I have a major concern with board members doing that because we've hired a professional staff they're doing an outstanding job they're meeting with the uh the principals they're meeting with them with the head of the various schools and they're putting that best foot forward and my feeling is we cannot um ask for a balanced budget and then tell the administration how to balance the budget we need we need to exercise our
212fiduciary responsibility and not get caught up in the weeds thank you commissioner Adams I just want to give out a shout out to the the office of the the School Chiefs for extending uh offer for board members to come talk with them and discuss what they need to discuss and so that I can kind of get them to advocate for me with me um and so I just appreciate that um we didn't I never had that I didn't have that last year I appreciate it and so thanks commissioner Malloy thank you commissioner LeBron um I think one of the the concerns I have just with the current budget book is just I'd like to see I did put everything on the question log um but I would like to see maybe more specific position codes
213for counselors and principals um just a some type of position code summary I'm interested in learning more okay commissioner Powell are you trying to raise your hand because you're unmuted yeah I was trying to hit the right okay I'm gonna call on you now then okay um well since this section is titled Reflections um I would like to reflect on the fact that I in this budget we cannot tell the difference between the budgeted expense for current employees health insurance Health Care versus the retired uh the the pay as you go retiree uh health insurance um I think in future budget books I'd like to see those figures broken out I'd also like to see uh separated the um employee contribution to health care versus the district contribution uh and then so those are my
214Reflections um my questions um because the presentation didn't really identify it as what um is is there an increase in the appropriation to deficit reduction as a result of the new Revenue stream and that can go on question logic if if you'd like we've got time between now and the vote budget vote uh and my comments from the last meeting stand I don't need to repeat myself regarding uh bus drivers that's it thank you commissioner commissioner Malloy thank you I did want to ask if um we're used if it's safe for us to assume or are we using any of our stimulus funding to cover Transportation costs so I I did put that on the question log um but would be interested in knowing what portion of our stimulus funding is being used for transportation
215yeah if it's on the board question log I'm assuming oh President White no no no that's all right again I can't uh thank you because I can't raise my hand um I wanted to uh reiterate I had some concerns about the bus drivers and how those vacancies are being filled but that was addressed previously and I'm sure we we will talk about it at a future time and then um I think I had one other issue and now I'm drawing a blank now because I've got somebody texting me so commissioner Laurent uh if if you don't if you get some additional comments um maybe I can chime back in later if not I'll just talk to Dr Myers later okay thank you I'm actually if it comes back up a van I I do want
216to say you know you all have that email Kalia um she and I are going to meet next week just to finalize some things um but I want to reference back to um commissioner Clark's comment um so just historically what this board has done is it has gone into leads as a board and they've done that through the board memo where they negotiate what this Reflections is on to the board memo to negotiate with the superintendent and so we're not doing that with the board memo we will highlight and uplift concerns that um may still be there but the goal is to move forward and um certainly I will always advocate for the schools that I am aboard liaison to because certainly that my position is that as for liaison we should have relationships with
217our schools and these These are times for us to uplift the needs of our schools and I don't I my experience is and this is nothing against this Administration but my experience has not been that the Administration has schools best interests at heart um and so again not not saying that this is the case with this Administration but certainly believe that my role as a school board commissioner as a physician is a person that oversees this budget is to make sure that my schools are getting their needs met um and if that feels like in the weeds for yourself or this community then so be it I will always advocate for the needs in my school certainly understanding the history certainly haven't been appearing in this district for 18 years of former employee of this
218district and now still occurrence appearance knowing that Administration in previous past have not always made the best decisions for our schools so in my job role as a school board commissioner and someone who has always advocated since the beginning of my arrival on the school board for us to be financially responsible I will continue to to move forward in that regard and and I just share that and you don't have to respond to it well I'm going to call on you go ahead because I'm going to wrap up this up right after okay thanks I agree with you 100 that that I mean we're here to advocate for our schools and advocate for to make sure they have the resources they need but we're not here to rewrite the budget and basically we I mean
219we hired professionals we we hired top-notch professionals to to do a job and we expect those professionals to do that job to the best of their ability and what I was saying is while we're supposed to Advocate we're supposed to push we're we're not supposed what I consider getting in the weeds is attempting to rewrite the budget that uh that exists instead of advocating for changes in the budget so I do agree with you and that was not what I was referring to I was referring to overstepping boundaries not advocating and supporting and you know doing your role as a commissioner thank you and um so Clark nothing I so thank you for that clarification because I think I've misunderstood what you were saying but I do want to just point out um to you
220commissioner Clark into this community that I agree with you we hire these professionals that's my opinion too and I've had that conversation with this Administration but I've also personally have lived and experienced a time when there was an Administration that did not have a balanced budget and that you know I did try to Advocate that we changed that budget so that we would not have mid-year layoffs a year later and that's where we ended up at so you know I think for me it's a different experience than for you coming in because you we have this Administration is a much more stable Administration but also different leadership and style um and so I am grateful to Dr Myers even when we don't agree that she's always willing to keep the lines of communication open and
221and come to some understanding and agreement I will say that and that has not been my experience up until this point so I am grateful for you know her leadership throughout this budget process as well as our CFO um President White were you waving your hand to speak yes thanks commissioner I I did finally remember what I was going to say and it does to commission uh to superintendent Meyer small during your presentation I think you use the phrase uh we have to have our schools in alignment with the enrollment and and as you know it's not going to surprise you Dr Myers that um I I get concerned when people talk about right sizing and so forth and we've had some good conversations healthy conversations about that I felt a little bit better though
222when I um heard the rest of your PowerPoint presentation uh was more in alignment if you will with what I was thinking that our our dollars have to be in an alignment with our enrollment and our needs and it was clear to me in your PowerPoint that you are spending money to address those needs you've you've not only so so the concern I had is that you know I hear a lot of people mostly folks from outside this District but some good caring public service inside this District saying right size alignment with just enrollment um but I have made the point that given the fact we rank third in the country in child poverty and I heard at a crazy number today the number of uh shots being fired in the city is larger than
223New York City people people will look at the fact that homicides are down when I used to work at City Hall actually uh the number of shots fired has increased dramatically so we live in an environment where children are dealing with a whole host of issues most importantly poverty in an unprecedented way so when I say I hear people say adjust in the dollars to enrollment uh I'm concerned that they're not taking into account this significant needs of our children but again I want to say when I listen to your PowerPoint the the latter parts of it you were very clear about what those needs were and how you were going to dispatch staff and resources to address those needs so thank you very much for that thank you commissioner LeBron okay so I'm going
224to wrap up this portion of the meeting I think um Administration um has heard you all not only through the deliberations but tonight and again um the board Clerk and I are meeting next week to wrap up that memo so if there are any out lingering or outstanding issues that you want to highlight um in that memo that's how I do the memo I know in the past it's been like we'll pass the budget if you restore these positions I don't do that in my memo but I do like to uplift concerns that are still lingering for board members regardless of whether the budget you know goes through a vote and you'll vote for it um and I say that because last year one of the things I highlighted was the cuts that were happening
225in the multi-language learning department and did not vote for the budget um based on the restructuring and the cuts there and we'll be advocating over the course of this year along with the Latino Community to restore positions and be in compliance with the law of what we are legally obligated to provide for a bilingual multiple language learning students so just to give an example so if anything comes up from now until next Tuesday please feel free to email and I say Kalia um so that she can gather it all and when she and I meet we can finalize that memo Shelly did you want to say something because I just saw you come on or no okay all right well I'm turning the gavel back over to you President White thank you thank you commissioner
226LeBron uh we're about ready to go into executive session and to have a confidential session with our lawyer of folks out there have heard me say that when you want to speak to your lawyer you can do it in confidence well our lawyer Steve Carling has seven uh actually seven elected board members a superintendent who's officially a member of the board and um our um our our Dr Jowell who is also a member of the board of education so we have the right when necessary to speak to our attorney privately and we're going to do that with Mr Carling but also I need a motion to go into executive session for the purposes of discussing a particular employee thank you commissioner second second and seconded by commissioner Clark motion was made by commissioner Malloy um
227all those in favor going into executive session for the purpose of discussing it determs and conditions of a particular employee indicate by saying aye aye aye any opposition so we're going to go into executive sessions for those of you I call rcsd Gladiators for those who are still watching we're going to go into executive session discuss some things with our lawyer discuss a confidential matter regarding certain employees or employee with our uh our senior staff here then we'll come out of executive session not going to be voting on anything I don't think and then we'll take a survey and we'll that'll be it for the night so we we would encourage you all to go and spend some little time that is left with your family and have a safe and secure night um so
228on behalf of the Board of Education good night and thank you for joining us tonight all right uh I don't know if you there are any rcsd Gladiators who are sticking around to see us after executive session as I promised there's no nothing that we're going to vote on the only thing we have to do is take a survey you all may recall we take these surveys to sort of monitor our progress in terms of working as a team and working efficiently so our staff is going to put up a survey which I don't think you can see but periodically we do share the results of those surveys with the public so we'll take it right now the way you're close to co-hosting Ability right that's right a little bit of time for you sure
229does that mean our survey gets cleared out yeah yeah your survey is going to get cleaned out I'm sorry about that oh starting over yeah uh don't please don't don't miss that is it there no we're gonna restart we're going to restart sorry yep all right no worries uh Mr President while we're waiting for the survey I want to tell you our our board clerk is fantastic yes I ever would have I never would have tried to text her during an in-person meeting but she's been able to respond to text messages asking for her you know to capture questions or ask for additional information uh and it's been terrific I'm just I'm just kudos to you Kalia thank you I appreciate it you're absolutely right I will it's been an exceptional job multitasking at its
230best all right it should be back up for everyone yeah yeah I see it I'm on number seven bye all right how we doing Kyle yes still waiting on a couple more all right one more actually well it's still working you can see us inside you're right I'll tell you if I happen I just like I found myself staring at the screen not even reading it like I don't know what I'm doing I think I'm actually tired [Music] when Ben describes us as Gladiators I you know I give them two thumbs up like I cannot last y'all not tonight all right we're going to sleep in my chair that's it I mean the motion commissioner moved it seconded by who commissioner Powell did you say second all right that's how to be recorded all those
231in favor indicate what I say all right not everybody be safe