Board of Education Business Meeting | December 17, 2020

001um the rochester board of education is proud to present the yes we can award to the northeast college preparatory high school in 2015 northeast four-year graduation rate has fallen to 38 percent by august of 2020 it rose to a projected 72 percent all right now while graduation rate is but one measure this steady upward trajectory and substantial improvement work at northeast the school has made demonstratable improvement each year of receivership while mitigating many significant challenges we applaud the northeast school community for their ongoing efforts to ensure student academic success please join me in congratulating northeast school community and with that my president um white would take over from here do we have uh thank you commissioner adams do we have some of the representatives from the school here yes we do could uh maybe you

002introduce them or or um uh and give them opportunity to say a few words yes i can we were together a little while ago um i start off with uh dr christian kirsten pryor i love your handing out doctor it's there commissioner adams wow um i just i love what you just said that you were just with us about an hour ago with our community engagement team and our student voice committees because i think that was a great a great segue into what this work really represents for us so i think we are we're really proud of the work over the past few years and we also because we know the potential of our young people in our community we see how much farther we have to go um but we really appreciate um the

003collective work that's gone into it and you all for recognizing that so mr pastro or mrs burrows i don't know who wants to pass it off to miss burroughs good evening my name is nikaya burrows i'm one of the assistant principals at northeast and i just want to thank you all for acknowledging and recognizing us tonight we really appreciate it it's been a lot of hard work and dedication and it's just nice to see the fruits of our labor we understand there's a lot more that we have to do but we are just honored to be in a position to see lots of progress so thank you again for the opportunity tonight miss breedlove dr burr dr pacero i was gonna have miss breedlove say hi and then i'll jump in at the end okay

004so i'm noelle breedlove i'm the community school coordinator over at northeast and i just want to say that we have a very hard working team and they've done a lot to get us to where we are and we're just very thankful for for all of the hard work that everyone puts into everything so thank you for this honor um and i just want uh dave pastro principal and i just want to say thank you to our students and our staff that have put in all that hard work uh thank you to the board of education uh our superintendent uh dr leslie meyer small our school chief sheila webster who is incredibly supportive so grateful to work with her this is our first step we plan to be a school in good standing a school that

005brings honor to the name of frederick douglass we want you to get ready for student voice because that's part of what we're doing there it's about student advocacy and we're going to start a revolution that's built on the voices of the students of rochester so thank you all pretty impressive geez um thank you commissioner adams for bringing that their wonderful work to our attention um sheila do you want to say a few words i do commissioner white i was trying really hard she's frozen i just wanted to i just really want to thank the northeast team i'm so proud of them because they are such a united team that will do anything and everything for the students and the families they serve if you haven't had a chance to go visit northeast i really encourage

006you to do that and i look forward to hearing their student voices elevate and the ability of those students to continue to inspire all of us adults to achieve what many might think to be impossible so nothing is impossible when you can lift it together so on behalf of the office of school chiefs really want to recognize the northeast team and thank them for their tireless efforts and inspiration for us all thank you very much um let me just say uh years ago that that campus has been subject to a number of different efforts and uh it is really and before you all got there i was really struggling and uh that just reflected in what commissioner adam said the history but what i'm struck by is the humility and the steadiness of your voices

007and the determination in your voices that is the kind of leadership not the kind of leadership that responds to different press announcements and different numbers from moment to moment day to day but it provides a steady leadership and i see that in in you all and the board is extremely appreciative of that because of the long haul it's not the one time headline it's it's the progress that a team makes over a period of time so uh to ms webster to mr passaro to miss breedlove to ms burrows and to kirsten um thank you all for your work really the board uh cannot thank you enough and and unless we forget as a board and we don't often but sometimes we do behind all of this is the parents the parents are getting those kids

008those little ones to school providing them the support and guidance that they need listening to you all and you are listening to them so again on behalf of the board of education we do this yes we can award because we want to recognize that this stuff doesn't happen by people on their own nobody gets to shore by rowing which is one ore it's got to be a collective effort and you all have done us proud uh in terms of the progress you've made so continue to do that and know that we will be in your prayers and also know like commissioner adams um invite us and we will be there to participate but thank you commissioner adams we don't want to miss thanking you as well yes so savannah i do have one thing i

009i need yes sir um i've been a part of a few um set teams in the district um that's community engagement team um and northeast is the first one that i see to have student involvement um and so i just had to shout them out for that um tip my hand to him you know we we our meeting doesn't start until 6 30. so we have a few moments commissioner adams raises a good point about best practices are there anything is there anything else in addition to what he has just said for folks watching your colleagues parents citizens anybody on the team there want to recommend or identify the things that you think are making it work why you can together have made it work anybody want to offer any insights to folks listening your

010colleagues parents community leaders again commissioner adams gave an example does anybody have any additional examples i'd like to uh hear from nikaya because nikaya has been here i think i think the longest out of this group uh so i'd like to hear from her well um i would say especially with our leadership team i think we have taken on a lot of roles i've gone to lots of training to understand different just to broaden our understanding of school functioning behind outside of just leadership so most of our administrators can speak to you about credits graduation all different types of um experiences that most people would attribute to being a counselor's role or a social worker's role and i think just having that overall understanding has allowed us to develop a better rapport with our students

011and our families we're also very dedicated um we hit the streets we're at homes where we're making phone calls we're doing whatever is necessary to see growth in our students and we have a family model at our students at our school so that's one thing a lot of people uh compliment us on the fact that we go the extra mile and we really embrace the family model and i think that has contributed to our success over the years yeah i would i would just say um the the relationships uh from administration to our clerical staff to our teachers i mean you can see that there's strong relationships with students and relationships are really the center of the function um at northeast and i think that's a critical uh feature that is it's a little bit

012different at northeast with those relationships and that mutual respect um because that's not that's not the case everywhere that mutual respect between teachers and students and staff as a general um that's a that's a big uh important one um the other thing that i would just add on to it is exactly what nikaya said that cohort tracking model where there's attention to every single detail of every single class that every single student needs there's a great emphasis placed on that we meet weekly as grade level teams to just identify those students and the supports that they need in order to gain that credit um and everything's not hunky-dory everything's not perfect um but it's just the it's the positive steps that we've been taking together in unison and that the staff over the years has

013put in incredibly hard work excellent excellent um any uh other comments by anybody else at the staff there i'm just gonna be kind of facetious and tell you that most of the leadership team is rcsd graduates so i think that's okay right that's that's the secret sauce right there not the only secret sauce that is great all right all right we'll take that we'll take that as a compliment as a district that's right all right well again thank you for doing us proud and providing uh hope for folks because when when when schools are successful the way you are when you're able to turn it around other people can look and say hey we can do that and how they come to that conclusion is they listen to you all and i hope there were

014some folks listening to the excellent leadership and that is taking place at that school so god bless enjoy the holidays stay safe and we'll see you next year uh tom i think uh we stay on this this uh thing and then we come back out to you how are you gonna undo it time till our meeting starts 6 30. or kylia all right all right we'll see everybody at 6 30. yep we have another link good evening everybody today is december the 17th 2020 and you are participating at least virtually in a meeting at the board of education if you happen to have one of the screens i have you can see your elected members of the board of education and a whole host of other people who are part of making this district a

015better district a district that can better serve the citizens including parents and students and today is part of that effort and uh as always we begin that effort uh with uh a reading of the pledge of allegiance now since we're virtual uh everybody's in their homes i see our clerk is in front of her she just turned off her screen i was just going to comment on your beautiful christmas tree back there um so we're all in different places but we're all here together virtually so i'm just going to turn my uh laptop towards my little flag there you see frederick douglass there in the background and i'm just gonna say the pledge of allegiance and would encourage those who want to to join me and those who don't want to that's what america is

016all about i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay um it is we try also at the beginning of our board meetings um to recognize that there are those that are are strong may have struggles and challenges in their lives uh many of my colleagues uh have experienced those challenges themselves and in their families and and so we know that there are personally not just professionals we know personally there are people out there who are struggling even even before covet because we've we've had a moment of silence for those folks long before covent was a part of our lives but coveted uh my colleagues and i understand makes life even more

017challenging and more difficult for some folks out there we could literally go on and on with our personal and headline stories about the loss that people have suffered um we don't need to do that we hear that enough on a day-to-day basis on the regular i would just ask on behalf of my colleagues that you set aside maybe a few moments before we begin our business and think about those challenges and be prayerful and thoughtful for those who are trying to meet those challenges thank you all right madam clerk i understand you have some uh information to give the citizens of this community and my colleagues about things that are coming up in terms of the board of education in the rochester school district yes i do so i um i'm trying to share my

018screen i'm noticing i'm not able to do that right now give me one second take your time all right so i'm bringing up on the screen these are our upcoming events um we try as much as possible to share with the public things that are coming up um this is the final meet board meeting or meeting of the board for 2020 um but in the new year we will be back with everyone on january 4th at 6 pm that's when the board will have its organizational meeting and then we actually have quite a bit of uh meetings in january and a lot of pd sessions this is because we are looking forward to a very um uh budget season um where there will be lots of different events that have been added to our calendar

019um and so we are preparing for that by doing board pd um you'll find that the special meeting on um the organizational meeting my apologies um that takes place on the fourth will be followed by a board pd on robert's rules we encourage your public to join us it should be very informative then we will have our special meeting on january 5th a convening of the policy and governance committees of the whole and then we will have our special meeting um on the esa which is our academics committee that takes place on the 12th there will be a pd session there on data and accountability uh we will have our finance committee on the 19th and in finance we will have a pd session on title funds and budgetary practices and then we will have

020our business meeting on the 21st of january and following that we'll have our special meeting of cigr and hr committees and following um during the hr committee we will have a pd session on collective bargaining so for anyone in the public who is interested in these topics we do encourage you to join us um they should be very informative and you will learn a lot and those are our upcoming events for january 2021 thank you madam clerk uh appreciate it folks um if folks wanted access to that calendar is there is that on board docs or is that on our website how would folks if they couldn't take notes fast enough tonight where would they find that calendar of events is it available it is available we have them available on the website it will

021be on the dix district's calendar so they should be there right now also on on our website if you go to the boards tab there is a calendar that does list all of the board's events um especially if persons are just interested in just board events but they should be folded into the district's calendar on rcsdk12.org perfect thank you very much all right next item on the agenda is uh acceptance of board minutes again for folks who perhaps don't file the board meetings and maybe this is your first board meeting um for folks who do go to meetings and board members you know that somebody's sitting there taking notes about what happens and then those notes have to be approved later on so at the beginning part of our meetings we take a motion from

022one of uh our colleagues that says hey listen i've reviewed these minutes they're pretty accurate they're accurate and we need to approve them and put them in our our records and so that's what's about to happen so i'm going to list a series of meetings that have taken place and then one of my colleagues will say i'll make a motion to approve those minutes somebody will second it that's what these roberts rules of orders require and then the board will vote on whether those minutes are acceptable or not so i need a motion to approve the minutes from the meeting of september the 19th september i'm just going to read a bunch of minutes first give me give me a second uh uh november the 19th 2020 september 24 2020 which happened to be a

023charter school public hearing uh meeting that we convened november 30th was a state monitors public hearing and december the 10th 2020 was one of our special meetings i heard commissioner malloy make a motion and i think i heard vice president elliot's second is that right yes all right all right all those in favor approving those minutes please make sure your video camera is on and indicate that you approve those minutes by saying i i i anybody opposed so for those watching that means those minutes become a part of our permanent record next item on our agenda is uh speakers uh forum for those who may be tuning in for the first time the board thinks it's very important that we hear from citizens most of us commissioner adams gave a great example he was at

024a meeting before he came here today most of us all of us spend time out in the community whether we're at schools whether we're at grocery stores and we do engage with folks but we try to set aside a formal time in our meeting so that people can take to the podium and speak now i gotta warn you nobody generally speaking we don't respond and the reason why we don't respond is we don't want to get debates or arguments or even find ourselves agreeing glowing with what people say we just want to hear citizens so that's what these three minutes are about each citizen is given three minutes uh and they can speak their mind and then if they have written comments they can submit them and we'll give you a little more detail on

025that later on so madam clerk uh do we have i think we have one speaker correct we have one speaker with us kristin french will be addressing the board about the reopening of schools miss french hello thank you you have three minutes okay thank you one of the new rcsd priorities is to create innovative opportunities for family engagement there are simple ways to create connections that are not being done right now for example family engagement is critical that a district-wide robocall would have gone out prior to each of the fiscal monitors public hearings the slides to the presentation would have been posted prior to the hearing and not afterwards and the hearings would have been presented separately on two different days academics then eventually financial as it's outlined in chapter 56 part c instead these

026topics were combined which seems to violate this legislation in addition the resolution for the final vote on the improvement plan was submitted very close to the meeting and was not available on the board docs prior to the meeting i know because i spoke that night and i looked right before the meeting started to see the order of speakers and to see if any resolutions were laying off my colleagues all that was posted at all that was posted at the time was rev resolution 502 and 503 in reference to a staff retirement and appointment of another staff member then that evening the media surprisingly reported the board voted to approve the plans with no public written notification of the reasoning for late submission this process does not strengthen connections instead fosters distrust the other piece i

027wanted to discuss was the reopening date for phase one having staff and students go back while positive coveted numbers are rising is absurd on its own then making it even more astanine is giving no time for staff to get proper training on how to manage the new district and school-wide protocols during a global pandemic families will send their children to school without having staff proactively practice the procedures for getting off the bus taking temperatures monitoring the optional mass guidance how to eat safely how to move in the hallways how to properly assist medically and physically fragile students and how to regularly clean with the two soft cloths that we have been given imagine if we had at least an additional week to practice how to newly instruct communicate with families and to create a video

028ahead of time for students of what their schools would look like to help make the transition safer and easier instead there's a rush to make unreasonable and ludicrous decisions such as requiring hundreds of additional staff to report to buildings during times when they have no students to instruct why this will only create more dangerous learning and working conditions this morning i immediately thought of the 99 of the district community that do not get to have a fair say in most decisions when i was reading a passage from sean king's book make change it said it's the increased frequency of these inhumane attacks that make our current environment so overwhelming but it is essential that we fight back as we grieve and we try to keep ourselves from falling off the cliff into a place of

029total despair we must find a way to move from desperation to organization and while that's no easy pivot our very survival depends on doing this together thank you thank you miss french we appreciate your comments tonight thank you uh madame clerk that you know what i'm going to ask you on behalf of the board how if a person wanted to make a statement like miss french or wanted to provide something in writing how or where would they do that well um i am going to share my screen once more um speakers who wish to address the board we do encourage you to do so by emailing us or calling us you may do so by calling the board office or emailing board of education at rcsdk12.org by noon of the day of the meeting if

030you also have comments you may do so by emailing that same address and we will ensure that all board members are provided your comments and the comments are also posted to our website we also want to let persons know that we are still recruiting and the new year is coming up we encourage persons to continue to apply for or parent rep positions and you may do so on our website as well parents and grandparents and legal guardians are able to apply thank you madam clerk um president yep yes commission powell while this slide is being shown i'd like to reiterate what i've said before the audit committee um makeup includes the option to have a community member that community member does not have to be a parent but they do have to possess some minimal

031skills in the area of accounting or audit or [Music] something along those lines so i just wanted to share that that's not exclusive to the parent community um i'm sorry van gogh i just have to i would like to i guess ask a question about that on record primarily because when i was the audit chair we did have a professional person with a finance audit background that served on the committee but there was also community members that used to attend those meetings and i i guess i just want some clarity that could be acts on the board log and then answer to the public you just recall that there were specific people that i know that used to attend the meetings for audit mr president i'm happy to offer an answer sure the state law

032requires that the committee is [Music] it essentially allows that committee to serve like executive session with closed door but the chair of the committee has the opportunity to invite anyone that they wish or make it as open as they wish but that's not a requirement of the law it's one of the few occasions where some of what happens in a public entity happens behind closed doors so again i would like that question answered um again because of me being the previous chair for audit knowing that there were community members that served on that committee and came i just would like clarity on the record as someone from the administration can um they provide an answer i don't know if it would be steve or steve would that be you we'll document it on the question

033yeah i want it on the question um i was on a work call i'm sorry i just heard you calling my name oh no that's all right we've got a solution it'll be on the question log and we'll make sure that someone gets a response uh there's no response to commissioner lebron's question thank you okay uh just for folks out there listening we have a number of committees that's how the board does a lot of its work offline off-site all of our meetings don't take place at these special meetings we have audit committee which is chaired by commissioner powell heard that finance is chaired by commissioner lebron governance is chaired by commissioner molloy uh policy is chaired by commissioner clark commissioner adams chairs the committee on intergovernmental relations and vice president elliot shares the human

034relations committee did i miss anything i don't think i did all right i think i'm good all right so as our clerk said there are opportunities to serve on each of these committees some of them already have parent reps but you can always come to any one of these meetings and finally let me repeat in addition to the committees in addition to speaking out every one of the board members that you see in this brady bunch picture if you have it is accessible by phone or by email and again before covid we all of us visited schools you can still catch us at wegmans and tops and other places where we shop and live just like the rest of you all folks so please engage us where and when you find us all right next

035item on the agenda is um advisory council reports and that actually is a good segue because another way we stay engaged with citizens is community is we have advisory council reports we have student leadership congress the parent advisory council actually they've changed their name and we're going to hear that in a second uh in the bilingual education council you can also join and contribute to these bodies as well but let's uh hear first from miss simmons who is a head of our student leadership congress simmons thanks for joining us tonight hello my name is anaya simmons i am president of student leadership congress and this is the official report for student leadership congress's last meeting on december 9th of 2020 on our agenda we had introductions a community check-in the superintendent's form an rcsd black

036history event the fafsa collaboration and open dialogue at this meeting we had representation we had representatives excuse me from school without walls school of the arts world of inquiry edison career and technology east upper school and north east college high school in attendance during our community check-in our scholars showed their optimism for the remainder of the school year because of their academic achievement athletes on the call explained how they were excited to see the district's initiative for winter sports coming back students were able to open up about recent deaths and a loneliness that follows with remote learning although students are excited for the winter break away from school during this meeting superintendent meyer smalls was able to present a list of ideas and future plans she would like to get student input on she explained

037the reopening plans again telling us the latest family input of going back to school along with how the district plans to handle sports the idea of creating an excuse me an additional magnet school having cabinet members present during our meetings and a couple of other projects she would like to work with the congress and i on for student perspectives we were able to meet with mr ricky fraser who was able to tell us and explain the panel series that the rcsd will be hosting for and during black history month the students on the call were able to generate a lot of ideas for this panel some ideas students came up with were generational advice for how to combat systemic racism colorism cultural identity when midst black empowerment and representation in politics on the call we

038were also joined by miss crystal clark who's helpful in explaining the possible partnership with um youth leadership through social media events like the fafsa athon are great student opportunities that use more promotion the collaboration of youth voices and social media for such events to create a powerful inspiration during open dialogue students on the meeting explained how they would like to see more next step readiness whether that is in higher education or creating more opportunities straight out of high school some schools explain the importance the importance of their capstone classes entailing a period of research job opportunities and other necessary life skills for living in independent life schools looking at this opportunity can reach out to me for more information about this class a representative of the junior reserve officers training corps jrotc show that they

039are recruiting this is a program designed to give students leadership roles and a beginning training experience for a military life after high school on sunday i attended the community-wide youth leadership coalition earned by qlo maya white of roth the future this is an initiative that is supporting youth leaders from various communities community programs in rochester to develop new leadership abilities and provide unique opportunities for our growth i have continued to work on a playground project in the beechwood neighborhood with hannah shippy and commissioner lebron from common ground health to possibly provide a place for schools in the area to have a social distancing rope adventure course experience for gym class we will soon be asking for youth 13 plus interested in advert and excuse me architecture and skills and leadership to reach out to join

040our youth committee i along with a group of world of interior students will be presenting for the hinge neighborhood project on december 22nd which i invite you all to attend it will be beginning at 3 30 and the closing meeting is unsure but i would like you to intend so you can see what we have been working on the presentation is to show what community members what environment school-age residents would like to see in the area they go to school president white at this time i am in support of resolutions 549 requesting funding for the school the arts auditions and 550 requesting financial support to give greater resources to the online credit recovery students on behalf of those students thank you and happy holidays thank you miss simmons um very impressive i wish i could

041deliver reports like that um well done thank you very much and i appreciate i know my colleagues appreciate your recommendations with respect to resolutions 549 and 550. that is very helpful um and i ask that my colleagues take note of that i'll try to remember that when we get to 549 550 but thank you for that recommendation it's very helpful to hear what the students believe is important all right uh next item on the agenda is we're going to hear from mr bins who is as i understand it the newly elected leader of uh our it's it's not called the parent advisor council mr bins are you there i'm here can you hear me i we certainly can you want to tell us the name of the the parent at what used to be known

042as the parent advisory council and introduce yourself hi i'm kenyon benz i'm the acting president of what is now the parent leadership advisory council so we threw leadership in there okay all right so why don't you um folks may not be used to this because we haven't had a report from this parent leadership group in a while so if you'd like to uh offer any comment i know you guys are just getting started but i want to offer any comment or insight we appreciate you being here today but i want to add some commentary tonight that'd be good otherwise we'll wait until next month when you guys had a chance to get started well i have a couple of things i'll be okay brief um we've decided i'm going to be the acting president um

043sasha lewis is going to be the vice president rebecca hetherington is going to be an acting secretary at this time uh sasha is going to work on a border a binder of resources for parents one of the things that one of the things that we come across is that parents don't know where to go to get help or where to find resources so sasha came up with the idea to try to make plac um kind of the reservoir for that um i'm just going to talk about three things three things that seem to come up regularly regularly in our meetings in our brief existence um number one is frustration with a high turnover and superintendents at the city school district everybody knows that that's an issue it comes up regularly and we're curious how that's

044going to change or if it's going to change um number two obviously is the upcoming hybrid school plan and if it's going to be safe for our kids uh and number three is dr jallow's work as state monitor and how it's actually being implemented like i said i'm going to be brief and that's all i've got um thank you mr benz but um i should ask you you want to tell us a little bit about yourself where your kids go to school um oh that sort of thing yeah brilliant i should have started with that um i have a girl at uh 15 school so i have one child she's at 15 school in pre-k four so we are my wife and i are brand new to the district she was in pre-k three last

045year so we're just getting our feet wet with the district well mr bins i know i speak i'm bad for the entire board for you to have jumped into the water this early on in your career your children's career in school is is quite a a commitment and a sacrifice and and we appreciate your leadership and and you you have probably an idea of what that means to people who might be watching and engaged and involved parent who kids are very early on in the system making a commitment to ask questions to make that district better for his child so on behalf of the board thank you so much and and please uh invite us to your meetings we in the past were regularly scheduled at the parent advisory council meetings and uh board members

046would show up and you could ask us questions and we could have dialogue so i would encourage you and your colleagues in your new leadership role to if you want put us on the agenda and we will we will come there and meet with you all okay thanks again uh commissioner powell before we move on um i have a quick question for mr bins um are you far enough along in your new organization to have bylaws uh new charter that the board can ratify or is that still to come okay i'm a little confused we um at least a month ago i thought that i would buy were either approved or in the process of being approved so we we've done all our edits we went through months of going back and forth and kind

047of rewriting the you what bylaws look at it from uh from our end and if it hasn't been presented to the board yet then uh i'll see what the hold up is okay great thank you despite just by way of a little background mr bins um you probably did not have a chance to meet him but we had a uh general counsel his name was carl christoph he did a lot of did you meet him yes yeah he did a lot of that work uh that that commissioner powell is referring to you probably work with him on those bylaws so we'll get an update on that um because our rules our bylaws require that your bylaws are approved by the board so uh steve i don't know if you had any if he passed the

048baton to you on that no i was just i just made a note of it i did not know they were uh if they're still in the works over here so i'll take a look okay so as commissioner powell said mr bins um someone probably contacting you to figure out where those bylaws are at and i'm sure it'll just be a matter of formality uh because i know that mr kristoff was really engaged in that process and i see dr meyer shaking her head so we'll get you an update on that make sure we're all on the same page on that yeah and i was there were no issues with me so i think it's just a matter of what the transition of carl we'll we'll get it moved forward yep absolutely thank you for

049reminding us of that commissioner powell um again mr bins thank you very much on behalf of the board for for taking the time uh to make this serious commitment to the leadership of of this district okay president yes ma'am uh vice president elliot yeah i just wanted to um also welcome uh mr benz but also to say to to you as representative of uh the the parent leadership group that um that that you all really reach out into the schools for parents when i've talked to parents in the past um they were not aware of the uh of the group and so if there's some way that you all can really reach out to the schools to get you know parents involved i think that that would be a true feat um because parents were

050not aware of this level of engagement uh that that they could serve on this on this group so um i welcome you and um you know if you all can work on that i think that that would be um a a feat that you all can um you know that you all can can work towards thank you thank you all right um next item on the agenda would normally be we would hear from our bilingual education council although there is not a written report tonight i am sure the folks that have been involved for quite a while are tied up doing some other stuff but i'm sure we will hear from them at our next meeting they've been very faithful about their services district and uh for those of you don't know mr clark i

051know you are i don't think you've heard the bilingual council yet but they are very regular participants in in improving this district so they give regular reports so i hope that we'll get one from them next week president yes ma'am are they regularly meeting uh i see commissioner lebron and and uh there are clerks shaking her their heads yes so is it possible that i could have an invitation to their next meeting i think they are anything in person actually um i'm i believe they are meeting in person not not electronic not virtually sorry you want the link i mean the information for next month's meeting commission elliott i want to be able to attend the meetings yeah i'll get to the info yeah yeah for next month all right thank you dr meyers were

052you going to say something i see the deputy superintendent martinez is shaking their head to her head as well sure i'll let uh melody take this go ahead good evening um president white vice president elliot and our uh commissioners yeah we are still meeting last meeting uh because of the number of covert cases in the city the meeting was canceled but we did do a drive-through of giving students backpacks and different other items so and we actually had a quarterly meeting with the bec executive cabinet last week as well so the next meeting that it was scheduled for january i believe that one will be canceled as well as the three kings celebration three kings day celebration and as of right now it is cancelled due to the large number of covert cases in the

053rochester area they do not meet in zoo they meet in person so we will make sure to send that information to all our board members thank you thank you all right uh next item on the agenda are board reports and uh we'll begin with audit uh commissioner powell do you have a report uh you're muted sorry thank you uh i do have a report it is posted to board docs uh in summary uh the audit committee convened as a committee of the hall on tuesday december 8th the committee met with external auditor catherine barrett from freedmaxic to discuss the results of the financial audit for the year ending june 30th 2020. the audited financial information and related audit opinions are included in the comprehensive annual financial report or kafir which has been provided to all

054board members electronically and by mail ms barrett presented highlights and discussed key financial items identified during the annual financial audit and she also responded to various questions from the board regarding financial results resolution 572 is requesting the board to formally accept the independent auditor's report and student activity report from freedmexic and which are contained in the kafir for the fiscal year ending june 30th 2020 and directs the report to be filed with the commissioner of education and state comptroller if it please you mr president i'd like to make a motion to approve resolution 572 at this time i have no opposition to that is there a second second thank you commissioner clark all those in favor of approving the resolution as described by commissioner powell indicate by saying i i i i i'm sorry i

055just need a commissioner adams to come on screen i'm sorry for the vote thank you thank you any opposition i i just let me take the opposition vote all right there being no opposition that uh resolution has passed commissioner powell you're going to say something else thank you so much and i'm sorry i stepped all over you uh the next audit committee meeting is march 23rd 2021 and that concludes my report thank you commissioner powell next up is uh our finance and resource allocation committee report commissioner lebron yep i'm going to read it i have two screens up so the finance committee convened on tuesday december 15 2020 as committee of the whole via zoom video conferencing the finance committee recommends the approval of the district's unaudited november 2020 financial report finance committee discussed during

056the december meeting focused on a variety of topics and several discussions where entertained the finance committee conducted a brief resolution review to vet the resolutions with fiscal impact that are slated for consideration in tonight's december 17th business meeting cfo carlene pierce presented to the board on the state of the district's finance she advised about the district's budget and the revenue and expenditure trends provided clarity on the current budget gap and the district's financial forecast additionally cfo peers detailed information on the fund balance and clarified the various fund allocations ms pierce also touched on the upcoming 2021-22 budget development process and what it is to be expected and what is to be expected as the district prepares to launch into the new year finally the committee also discussed the following policies and provided suggested amendments purchasing

057policy policy number 6700 budget policy policy number 611 the new budget transfer policy policy 6150 and the fund balance policy 6500 the suggestions provided in the december meeting will be folded into the current policies via track changes and will be discussed further in the january finance meeting these policies must be addressed quickly in order to stay in compliance with the adopted state monitors fiscal and academic plans adopted by the district on december 1st the next finance committee meeting is january 19 2020. thank you just need a motion for the um finance financial report yeah can i make the motion or do i have to ask for a motion i'll make the motion it has been moved by commissioner lebron and seconded by commissioner malloy um all those in favor of approving the november 2020 financial

058report indicate by turning on your screens and saying aye aye any opposition uh commissioner lebron i assume you said that concluded your report yes all right thank you very much next up is commissioner malloy with the governance committee report commissioner malloy thank you thank you the governance committee met as a committee of the whole on tuesday december 1st 2020. uh topics during the meeting featured a presentation by our chief of communications and intergovernmental and community relations marisol ramos lopez miss ramos lopez reviewed changes to the revolution or sorry resolution development process that are hoped to positively impact the consideration of action items by the board during special and business meetings the changes proposed addressed problems identified in the process like late resolutions incomplete incorrect and misleading resolutions board member frustrations and concerns shared by the

059independent monitor ms lopez detailed a phase-in process during her presentation phase one was explained in detail and features changes to the resolution submission calendar uh resolution packet updates and inclusion of financial analysis and new strategic plan priorities to resolution language phase one has begun and will continue to be rolled out over the upcoming weeks phase two will include full will include rather full utilization of board docs and more information will be shared on this as received and we also continued our discussions that originally started in the october governance meeting regarding the findings of the board meeting poll this poll documents how board members perceive meeting performance in the areas of timeliness board meeting materials participation our standards of conduct meeting chair effectiveness and board impact the feedback gathered from these discussions will be utilized to

060update the poll questions so it's intended that a new poll will be launched in january of 2021 the governance meeting also featured discussions regarding our updates to the communications protocol between district administration and board and our meeting concluded with a review of the professional development calendar for board board members um the upcoming professional development uh sessions are as follows first and foremost we will have a professional development on robert's rules of order conducted by acting general counsel steve karlin on january 4th 2021 following our organizational meeting we will have a professional development on academic data and accountability conducted by deputy superintendent dr janelle morris on january 12th during the esa committee our professional development on title funds and grants will be conducted by our executive director of grants and programming carrie pacor and director of

061financial management and grants glendi miller on january 19 2021 and finally our professional development on collective bargaining will be conducted by our chief of um human capital initiatives i got it right uh christopher miller and our acting general counsel carling on january 26 2021 during the hr committee you may notice that the the professional development calendar is condensed in the beginning of the year and this has been conscientiously done in order to prepare for the district's active budget session which will be picking up in march of the next governance committee will be tuesday january 5th at 5 30 p.m and that concludes the governance report thank you thank you commissioner malloy finally we have commissioner clark delivering the report for policy committee thank you president white the policy committee didn't meet as committee of the

062whole and we met on uh december 1st 20 tuesday december 1st 2020 at our meeting wood staff provided a pres a presentation on the proposed manual update process we reviewed the uh presentation and we provided feedback and agreed on a process proposed process to move forward and our process will begin in january and we're proposing that it will last approximately three years uh we and finally uh as far as committee of the whole our acting general counsel steve carlin provided information on the required new york state school board association policy updates and specifically he indicated that our current record retention policy allows for the required changes to the records retention schedule without any changes to our current policy i also wanted to indicate that we met on as a subcommittee on yesterday and at that

063committee meeting we were also joined by our superintendent and thank you dr meyer small and we looked at the priority as to how we're going to begin to address uh the policy manual we decided that we will begin with the special education uh part of the manual and then we repo prioritize some of the others and you'll you'll see that as the updates come out but i didn't you know i did want to indicate that we are planning to uh begin the process in january it's an aggressive process we're looking at taking the um policies in chunks of eight and if if we're successful we will be able to complete this in three year period also i wanted to indicate that our next uh policy committee meeting of the whole will be tuesday january 5th

0642021 at 5 30 p.m and and before i end i do want to indicate that we did also agree that we will have bi-weekly meetings on wednesdays from 4 to 5 p.m to address the review of the policies and we also take into consideration the information that we receive from the other commissioners and we will be uh ensuring that uh all key members have input into the policy review process and that completes my report thank you commissioner clark commissioner adams you want to add something regarding the committee on intergovernmental relations yeah good evening as you may recall on november 3rd december 1st and december 8th we reviewed the proposed legislative agenda if there ain't no more questions or additions to this document i am asking for a motion to accept the 2021 legislative agenda motion

065second has been moved by commissioner lebron seconded by vice president elliot um all those in favor of approving the legislative agenda as described by commissioner adams is put together by the entire board indicate by saying aye aye any opposition commissioner adams it appears that your legislative agenda our legislative agenda has been approved thank you uh uh commissioner ramsey you allowed us to eliminate some stuff on uh actually i think it was on unfinished business uh we we were gonna address that but now i can cross that off our agenda thank you sir all right all right um finally uh there is my report i will uh attempt to be brief i want to on behalf of the entire board of education i want to thank central office staff uh for their effort to raise funds

066for those who are are struggling with the challenges of covid and and perhaps uh attended issues like unemployment um their work cannot be we cannot thank them enough for their work we realize that in the end the money that members throughout this district contributed probably will not make the challenges go away but certainly the thought that there are caring colleagues that want to try to make a difference in their colleagues lives has to have some value so beyond a a gift card so on behalf of the board of education we want to say to the staff that took the time and the effort to put together this bit of relief for their colleagues their families and the district the board of education says thank you and and specifically we want to call up them call

067them out by name francine maurice rhonda india diane joseph joseph and maria thank you for your work thank you for taking the time to go above and beyond the call of duty because you understand that there are people who are in need and these people are your family members that is they're members of the rochester city school district thank you very much on behalf of the board of education um there is there is much need for relief and there are a lot of other people that could be doing a lot more than our staff is able to do like people in congress during the course of my meetings over the last uh several weeks in fact you all have my calendar from november the 16th to december the 11th there's references to the council great

068city schools what a wonderful organization that we're a part of they really do push those folks in washington to do their jobs and to provide the much needed pandemic relief that we see i've provided you all some updates about that over the course of last week um you all can in addition to reading my updates you of course can watch any newscasts and see that looks like the folks in the senate and congress are working furiously to provide the kind of relief that folks need um that as i understand it the last rendition of that package is just short of a trillion dollars and it does again this is the last version i saw does include some aid for schools whether that's going to be direct aid or whether the governor or other folks could

069use that as an offset that is not really clear that i know there are advocates pushing for direct aid to schools so at leap frogs uh the the governor's office uh so it cannot be used as an offset no offense to the governor because i know he has a lot of work to do and a lot of important work to do but we need this money and i'm hoping and i know you are hoping to that there's some direct aid to schools we are called leas and the in the legislation i hope says that we get that money directly we can only keep our fingers crossed and watch the newscast when we go home tonight because i i suspect that the answer is going to come shortly this district as a result of your support

070and encouragement has written at least three letters to our locally elected officials and encourage them to do the important work of providing the legislative pandemic relief that citizens need one unprecedented letter that was sent out as a result of leadership in the district and the city and the county was a letter signed by i don't think uh i i don't recall that it's ever been done certainly not in my years on the board where members of the county ledge we didn't get any republicans to sign it but members of the county ledge members of city council and members of the school board got together and signed a letter to our leaders in in washington and said hey listen this aid is very critical very proud of that and i think our former colleague over there

071at city hall i doubt he's watching malik evans he was instrumental in that in the three on three on three commissioner lebron was a part of those meetings where we all came up with this idea that we should send this letter uh commissioner adams was a part of that a meeting as well and i want to thank ms wade who helped me draft the letter that we were charged with writing and actually uh ms wadenzei's letter was approved by all those different members of of those different bodies so uh again much of this work that we do as board members is in fact done by our staff so ms wade uh for the umpteenth time as they used to say thank you very much for your work um and and finally i would note that

072uh and i probably could have said this earlier this aid is essential our work that our staff is doing to provide support for other folks is essential you all know this 12.6 million people are unemployed as a result of this pandemic 5.4 5.4 million people are uninsured as a result of this pandemic and if the federal aid ends the paid that supports folks um 9.1 9.1 million people will be affected as a result of the loss of benefits so the work that our staff is doing to get gift cards and and the work that people are doing in washington is critical to this effort i'm hoping in my next report if there is such a report that i will be able to deliver to you all the good news that our folks in washington are

073folks in albany and most importantly the folks here in rochester came through for those who are struggling as a result of covet and that concludes my report all right next item on the agenda is um our superintendent reports leslie i think we'll begin with you if that's okay sure thank you very much as we're waiting for the powerpoint presentation to load i wanted to say good evening to president white vice president elliot all of our commissioners and staff and those who are watching i do have a full report tonight but i will go through it expediently i'm going to share a little bit about district matters and i also am going to share a few student and staff activities as well as student and staff acknowledgements the first thing that i'll share with you this

074evening is our district reopening plan and um we are excited to welcome students back in grades k through 12 and specialized services the january 5th start date is new it was originally january 4th as we're allowing staff to ask to visit classrooms in the in the their buildings between now and january 4th and for any needed classroom setup the number of students that we have returning in this phase is 325 students next slide the district uh also with our district reopening plan we want to share that a little over two weeks ago we asked for um feedback from parents to share with us their choice of either a hybrid model with two days of in-person instruction or to stay fully remote if a family did not respond and there was significant outreach students would remain

075in remote learning and as you can see on the next slide the overwhelming majority of families continue to support remote learning so on this slide you can see the hybrid numbers reflect the student population who selected the hybrid option the remote number remote numbers however reflect the student population who not only selected the remote option those families who were undecided at that time and then those who did not respond to our board commissioners we will announce final details of what phase two and phase three looks like prior to students and staff heading into the winter break the new york state department of education did approve both the academic and fiscal independent monitor reports we were notified on december 11th via email from commissioner interim commissioner rosa in that letter she articulates a timeline for reporting

076parameters we will be working obviously very close with the board of education with the board staff to make sure that we move forward and this certainly was a collaboration between board staff and administrative staff to make sure that all of the items from the board were noted and included and we will have a detailed presentation at the january 2021 governance committee meeting many of you were aware and heard about the racial equity challenge that was sponsored by the united way i want to certainly thank all of our staff who took part in the challenge this was an opportunity for us to help our staff continue to grow when it comes to racial awareness issues of social justice and systemic inequities we had 240 participants in the rochester city school district who signed up for the

077challenge and we of those 240 participants 50 participated in a debrief via zoom i have to share that there were many many stories uh that were shared during this time people were very transparent and they discussed how the 21 day challenge impacted their belief systems and made them focus on how to combat implicit bias many also discussed the desire the sincere desire as far as next steps of putting into action what they learned and then several of our staff members have discussed of having either bi-monthly or monthly check-ins at the school level i want to thank elizabeth reyes and crystal clark both in the department of student services who led this important project for our district the urban league of rochester which i know commissioner clark is very familiar with sponsors many activities and events

078that support our scholars in particular yesterday wednesday december 16th over 2 000 high school students from across the greater rochester area were recognized for their academic achievements at the 36th annual urban league of rochester's early recognition virtual ceremony 503 of that over 2000 students were students from the rochester city school district and they were acknowledged for their hard work and scholarly dedication just as a reminder the black scholar program provides recognition assistance and incentives to students who achieve a cumulative grade point average of a b or better in high school so students are early recognition scholars in 9th through 11th grade and then as long as they maintain that b or higher average they are an actual urban league black scholar i would like to certainly recognize the donors who provided scholarships to not only

079our students but those students across rochester and this year's keynote we should be extremely proud was diamond guy who is a senior majoring in biomedical science at the rochester institute of technology miss guy while she was born in new york city she was raised in new york in rochester where she graduated from school of the arts and was an urban league black scholar in 2016. i am honored to also share that i am a 1987 urban league black scholar and i was very humble to provide remarks during the virtual recognition i do remember more than 30 years ago when i it was announced that i would receive the university of rochester urban league four-year scholarship and for me and my family that was huge because it enabled me to actualize my dreams of going to

080a prestigious four-year university i am so proud of all of the accomplishments of our scholars but particularly those who are in the rochester city school district and in my remarks i just simply encourage them to keep striving learning participating and believing and stretching themselves to continue towards academic excellence so congratulations to all scholars and specifically those in the uh from the rochester city school district these two faces even though they're masked should be familiar because we just recognized them the board of education just recognized them with an award and acknowledgement but as we all know rochester hasn't is extremely proud to have a history of social justice and education and we know that frederick douglass was a famous abolitionist writer and statesman and more of our students now in the rochester city school district will

081understand and know that we would like to thank the daisy marquis jones foundation and the frederick douglass family initiatives for a donation that will help our students know more about our famous and long-time rochester resident over one thousand copies of the book narrative of the life of frederick douglass an american slave was donated by the daisy marquis jones foundation and frederick douglass family initiatives and those books have been generously forwarded to students in the rochester city school district these books will be used by 11th grade students and 10 rochester city school district high schools including the east upper epo and once students return to in-person learning they will use the book as an autobiograph autobiograph autobiography excuse me tongue tied and it's part of the 11th grade new york state u.s history framework so thank

082you for that generous donation one more student acknowledgement i'm sure you saw in social media that 29 students from both rochester and buffalo helped to author the book green card voices and this includes four former students of the bilingual language and literacy academy typically the stories focus on immigrant students however they gave rochester city school district students who were impacted by hurricane maria an opportunity to tell their stories of displacement so congratulations to our former rochester city school district students i'd next like to acknowledge on the next two slides staff first diane jordan congratulations miss jordan is a special education teacher at school 29 and she was a recent recipient of the golden apple award from news channel 8. diane has been teaching for 37 years and she was recognized for creating a classroom environment

083that is engaging caring and rigorous she also teaches her students sign language as another form of communication so they can use it regularly and they embed it throughout their learning it is extremely heartwarming to see a rochester city school district teacher receive this award especially someone who is teaching our special education students in a remote environment we also want to acknowledge our staff at school number 17 administrators custodial food service and security staff last week on december 9th staff members at this school found a child who had been outside all night and had been suffering from exposure to cold these individuals immediately brought the child into the building warmed her up fed her put warm clothes on her and made her feel safe once inside the child was quickly reunited with her family this is

084just one of the many examples of everyday heroes in our own district i want to publicly thank them for their quick thinking for their care and for their concern so kudos to our staff at school 17 and then finally this is the holiday season of december and we um i mailed holiday cards out to both internal and external stakeholders and rather if you go to that next slide and rather than have communications create cards or buy cards we featured four of our students across the district and their holiday artwork and so you can see maurice miller from school 25 lilith coat from school 17 josh josh juwon from school number 25 and isaiah from school 10 their cards went out across not only the city of rochester across the county but across the state and

085the nation and so each of these students they received cards so that their family could have mementos of their amazing artistic work we also gave cards to our board commissioners if they wanted to share holiday cheer so i again would like to just acknowledge these four incredible students who and i had it it was hard to narrow it down to four because we have very talented students across the district that concludes my december report i'd like to wish everyone a happy holiday and i look forward to seeing everyone in that concludes my report president white you're muted for those who don't know technologically what happens is sometimes we the i guess the folks behind the screen mute us and we don't know that so we kind of at the last minute trying to oh i

086moved it's muted so uh i see uh vice president elliot has a question sure yeah thank you mr president um just just some comments basically uh with regard to the 21 day ratio challenge and we had you know 240 of our staff to participate in that um that's to be commended but i just want to share a story when i was in the seventh grade that i hope resonates i was going to school 14 and we were in a home economics class where there was a white uh teacher and the majority of the students in the class were um students of color and um we were doing a a a meal and um you know where white people just have for the most part macaroni and cheese as a protein you know as their main

087thing you know we told as students back then in seventh grade and we said well you know we don't do just macaroni and cheese you know we do ribs or some you know some chicken we barbecue that and to her um to to to her credit um she allowed us to have that kind of a meal and so that was that stayed with me i was in the seventh grade during that time and so you know we had um back then teachers who were willing to accept our culture and i know that we have um you know teachers white teachers who are willing to do that um today so i just wanted to that's just an example of um racial um involvement that you know they will look at our culture and uh be willing

088to embrace that culture in the learning and so i i just wanted to share that on that point with the whole racial challenge and i'm hoping that in that challenge um they really are genuine about learning who we are but one of the things i say all the time is that um you don't have to be an african-american to to uh to teach our kids if you come with a great love if you come with a great understanding that supersedes the whole thing and so um but i just wanted to to share it i don't remember that her her name was at number 14 school but but that resonated with me and is still with me um today and then um superintendent meyer small just with the donation of the frederick douglass um books his

089autobiography one of the things that i hope that is um is taught is his speech when he was here in rochester you know what is the slave uh what is the fourth of july to the slave and that was done right here in rochester and and i'm hoping that they can do those students can do an analysis of that because that was very bold uh frederick douglass to present that speech during that time um i had always thought of frederick douglass sort of moderate um but but that speech you know tells it all and that's something that i try to read every um fourth of july um about um you know we are hearing bondage but you know the country celebrated freedom so um if if in in that um uh curriculum they can really

090uh do a critical analysis of that uh of that speech um that he gave and um lastly um i just want to say about diane on that picture she's been in our district 37 years she looks she looks 30 so she's been taking very good care of herself and being around our students so and just a congratulations to her thank you thank you mr lebron yeah um and i want to thank commissioner elliot for that too i just wanted to say thank you for that whole um conversation piece um i guess dr meyers my questions are really related to the school reopening to the hybrid model and so forth and i guess when parents can expect to know a little bit more about what to expect in the coming year i know we have some

091time because like for sophia she's not starting till february she's not in that first stage um but i also i am anxious as a parent so i just want to understand if there's a communication plan when parents can expect to hear more about whether their student is going to have the same teacher not um all those details if you can speak a little bit more even about the timeline for communications sure so we are um working feverishly and the goal not the goal we will be communicating um much more with more specificity before the students head into the into the winter break so we're going to be able to give some more information around what that looks like um a little more specificity around teachers um because uh chris dr miller has been um uh

092processing the medical accommodation forms and looking through all of that information it's just been taking a little bit of time but the the goal is to give much more specificity before our students go into break next week okay thank you you're welcome commissioner adams yes um this is commissioner elliott um since i am an alum of school 14. i think a lot of people don't know what where that is that's where 58 is right now and so i would appreciate if you identify what school that is next time you say 14. consider it done all right uh any other questions or comments for the superintendent uh just uh leslie thank you for your report i i am reflecting on what mr bin said i don't know if he's still on the on the uh in

093the meeting but he he said that one of the things that the parent leadership council is concerned about is stability in the district's superintendent spot and the thing about history is you don't you don't know that you're part of it until you reflect back on it but i hope that mr bin's even watches your presentation today and understands that he will be part of history that will uh you know we don't know what the future holds but i think your presentation how you've managed is very difficult we have some examples of how people handle challenges right you've had your tenure has begun in a very difficult time locally nationally and statewide and you've handled it extremely well and so i hope mr bins looks back in history a year from now two years from now

094three years from now and sees what sees why we have the stability that we have in the district because you don't know you don't have the answer to your concerns sometimes those answers are staring you right in the face but you don't know that because you need more time and i'm saying the presentations that you've made today will provide the kind of answer that people will see three years down the road all right so thank you for that presentation thank you and i think it will instill confidence in people that we have the kind of stable leadership that this district needs in terms of leadership and stability and progress i introduce uh dr nelms you're up next wait a minute wait wait wait he gets all the pomp and circle i had to summarize it

095and want to greek president white myself pleasure dr okay sean you're up good evening everyone [Laughter] all right so uh i just want to uh take a couple moments to to i didn't give a report last month and i and i don't have any resolutions on the docket for this evening so i want to take some time to acknowledge the work of our uh seniors and some other accomplishments happening throughout kobe um first is we celebrated this past week our top 10 um of seniors and we do this amazing ceremony every year the counselors put on we did it virtual this year and i wanted to congratulate the top 10 students who are on the left side of the screen and on the right side of screen are the next uh students through 17. i

096also want to uh thank the university of rochester for um doing what um we've been asking for quite some time that's to aggressively recruit and support the college-going cultures of our of our students at east and there is a new head of enrollment uh at east i mean at the university of rochester and they've assigned someone specifically to support our students doing a transition so i anticipate at the end of this year naming a few of these kids on this list as a full-time recipient for scholarships um for the university and that's something that they are as part of their equity diversity inclusion plan is to recruit more kids throughout rcsd remember we have the promise scholarship for students throughout the rcsd for rit and the university of rochester but this is a special scholarship

097one of the trustees is willing to consider funding everything else that a student needs to attend college if those students are admitted and accepted and moving forward from east so we're really excited about that and it makes a huge difference when people are willing to minimize the type of debt that parents may encounter from college and to help start to create generational change in that way so kudos to university of rochester admissions and their continued support for uh the students at east beyond their senior year and the rest of students in rcsd as well who can accept us into the school um i want to especially thank diana garcia who was our number one top-ranked student this year and she's going to study biology and neuroscience she also is taking asl american sign language and

098she's when we asked her what do you want how do you want to leave the world better than you found it she said she wants to ensure that everyone has access to health care and so that is an ambitious goal and she has the grades to do it the ambition to do it the drive and she has support from her immediate family but also the rcsd's family to support her on her journey the next slide is to something that the board supported and a couple years ago when the new york state public high school public association did what i think was unfair and taking um the eligibility away from seven mcgee and and i think if that were to occur next year now that we're talking about equity it's a cool thing i think that

099decision would have been changed but we fought hard the board allowed us to really fight that and and um um to make sure that we gave him every opportunity to play and access and really not just to play football but to bring to light that students in the rcsd and students throughout the county come from very differing situations and in differing backgrounds and we have to be cognizant of that and i'm so proud of seven mcgee and his coaches and athletic director for being his stability in a high school time in which uh was really rocky for him and his family and as a result he's going to graduate from east and he's going to attend university of oregon and he is uh the the last student athlete to attend a power um power school

100was 20 years ago and that was mo jackson with the syracuse so it's been a long time from a student to attend one of the big universities who are known for their athletics and academics but for their athletics and so we're proud to have uh seven um sign his letter of intent yesterday his national life letter of intent he is considered a number three running back in the country so there's this class of athletes going to college this upcoming uh summer and fall so congratulations to him in that image and that picture is uh coach d flagler one of the coaches at east the other co he's a co-coach with james van next to him is big e everyone knows eric robinson he's the east graduate now athletic director doing amazing things i mean he

101is father cousin friend you know uh um counselor and because of the counseling background he's really able to help navigate kids through the college application process so he is the counselor and the ad and so he also was a college athlete so he really supports the programs for both boys and girls and and you'll see all those programs thriving at ease then of course smiling block our amazing principal um i gotta tell you i haven't i've worked with a lot of different leaders in my time and it's always um not good advice to to to name who's your favorite or your worst but i'd say that she is top tier she has the caring and compassion for every kid in that building and she pushes and challenges the system in ways that makes sense and

102i think the academic progress that we've seen at ease she'll never admit this or want this um said about her but it's definitely because of her leadership and how she empowers others to do the work as a reminder the next slide as a reminder to all of our rcsd seniors and families get your fafsas in college is here i know this has been really tough with covet and losing timelines in terms of college applications i can tell you as a father who has a daughter who's applying you really this is the time to do it i mean most of them should have been in by thanksgiving at least december 1. um if you haven't uh gotten around to doing your fafsa form there's one more session for free which is on saturday january 16th they're

103doing it virtually you call in you can get a a reservation and they will walk you through the process you don't have to wait till the 16th you can go to the website there at rochesterkid.org and they'll hook you up with a counselor as soon as possible so for those parents who are nervous about giving the government information or you know um you know is is you know people too intrusive to the fafsa form if you don't fill it out your kid won't get federal money or state dollars repel and tap so it's really important that you do it's a very safe process again as a parent i'm going through it right now and it's a great resource for for all so i highly recommend parents who in schools remind parents and of seniors to

104look at the fafsa process and get started the next slide is just a reminder to our all of our students throughout rcsd um and i i use the three tenets of these to advocate myself and others to be tenacious and to think purposefully i say that to say that we have seen a steady uh decline in the academic performance of our students and attendance and i know that there is no uh perfect solution um for for covet but there are kids who are struggling in this environment and those who are doing extremely well but we have seen a steady decline within our data for the academic performance of our students across the board and the level of engagement that they're having with their attendance so you know we have been working with the state education

105department to see if we can create a consortium of individuals trying to tackle the same problem but the reality is across the state across the country we see academic performance in tennis dropping and we're going to continue to do we can support them so to all the students out there regardless of the grades that you're in uh we really need you to refocus and to lean into the academics um and so we can do a better job of servicing your needs a friend of mine um mentioned once recently she said um you've uh already survived 100 of your bad days and so um we have to say this has been a learning experience for everyone as an education but the next hundred days could be much better than the previous 100 and we have to

106really focus on that and and push forward for the last um um two and a half marking periods and that concludes my report thank you okay let me open up my big screen and see if there are any questions for dr nelms i don't see any um i did want to say dr nelms on that last point is there anything that the board of education could do and i assume uh leslie dr myers you have the same challenges is there anything we can do to help you address the challenges of attendance and the diminishing academic performance of our students or anything that and maybe not but we should ask as a board is there anything we can do to support you in trying to address this challenge either i i i i think you know

107you said earlier about you know although we're not meeting in person you know every person that you see at a grocery store or you know at church or in the community remind them to help their students um stay focused and have them continue to do the work and to ask the questions and use the supports that are in school we're at a point right now where it's not a matter of having more supports you know adding more adults to the problem may not fix the solution it's really a matter of of of giving for many kids who lost sports they lost arts they lost clubs they lost their friendship they lost their teachers it's just been a month daily uh reminder of loss and so you know logging in to school may not be the

108most engaging um experience so we're trying to make lessons more engaging make lessons more fun um but but but really it's it's reminding them that it's an investment in them so that last slide what i had about our three principles about being tenacious and advocating myself and others now is the time for us to really help students understand the importance of resiliency and to use this as an opportunity to say when things aren't going as well that you have to like understand that you're investing in yourself you're doing this for yourself and sort of helping students and families remember that education is part of their own journey and if they detach from it now um you know it could have a lifelong impact and so the board can keep delivering that message and using your

109platforms that would be extremely important i see two board members have questions but i know dr meyers wanted to respond to that question as well sure i'd just like to add i see anaya is still on and this was the very one of the conversations that we had during student leadership congress that you know just like dr nelm said about figuring out creative ways to connect and engage with students and one of the things that i think we sometimes slide in to uh with online learning is that more is more right and more is not more it's about really tapping in and and connecting with students and the nya and her peers were were like you know we just want to make sure our teachers understand that you know this is hard like you know

110we're we're we're in this online environment and it is tough and that you know those i think the other piece that we just have to continue to work on is that you know social emotional check-in in the morning is so critical for our young people um you know all of us yes over the past couple days i've been in this seat for over 11 hours basically straight except for bathroom breaks that's it it gets taxing on your brain and it's hard so you know we'll continue to work on the administrative side of trying to make sure we have professional development and giving strategies that enable our teachers to engage in different ways and then it's just not the you know that you remember the charlie brown classroom the mom and i'm not being pejorative to

111our teachers because they are working hard so let me just be clear but you know we're in a new it's a paradigm shift and we have to teach very differently than what we're used to being in person it's different i'm vice president commissioner clark before i get to you i i did want to catch uh miss simmons and see if she wanted to add anything to this conversation about you know the struggles that students may or may not be having with this new environment that we're living in did you want to say anything and i add to that um i just think it's we're still trying to find a balance between how teachers can support students and how um students can support teachers you know because it is a battle for all of us i

112think um we're still you know trying to find the connection to build with our new teachers and new students in the classroom how we can engage with the learning from a computer when we're not receiving it like we usually are i think um the struggle is still there and the balance of teacher to student ratio is still lacking but i think we are you know on the right track to getting where we need to go by continuing professional developments um you know social emotional time in the morning is vital for students especially in secondary classrooms and i think we are on the right track and um i think it's a good process good progress thank you mr simmons vice president elliott yeah i think that um anaya said it uh just crystal clear um because

113none of us has been been here before and some of the things that we want to encourage people with may not be the right things to encourage them with sometimes we you know i just think that because we don't always know and so i think that the key thing for us is that we just got to be there and and sometimes you just can't say anything you know it's just a matter of being there you know and that we admit as adults that we don't know all of this this is new to us too you know but that we're going to try to get through it together and i think that we have to make allowances even for those who have not responded and and those who have have made the decision that they're going

114to continue to learn um remotely i was totally surprised by by the numbers but i think that they are those students um who chose to continue to learn remotely um you know have made some decisions about their safety about the decisions of the safety of their family you know i don't know i don't know if if dr nems or dr meyer small know if we have any students who's who we lost they lost family members to covet i lost a family member indirectly to covet and so and then of course you know the mayor has lost her mom indirectly through covert you know we don't have an idea of who's lost family members either here locally or around the country uh to this and you know it it could just be the people are just

115silent because they don't know what to say don't know what to do it is not an area that we are in control of over you know so the the the even the the the social emotional techniques that we use may not be the right uh techniques to use in this in this situation i i don't know i'm just saying that and and people particularly students i think are not always able to articulate what they're experiencing and again none of us have been through this so i think that we've got to make some latitude for this this these kinds of circumstances and particularly if we know that there are people who are reacting differently than uh they would normally react so i just think we've got to make some allowances and i don't even think that

116it is we need we may not necessarily put any kind of strategy in place per se um because that may not work you know and and we just have to you know just extend our love just extend our support and this may be an area that they may have to just learn and come through themselves based on their personal circumstances so you know i for me it's a matter of you know allowing our students to find their own way in this situation we may not be able to help them with it per se i mean we could be there to talk with them but i'm just saying this is new to us all and i think that if we can just uh make sure that they know that we're here for them we care for

117them we love them that's going to send a message better than any other strategy i believe that we can send because we may not know what strategy works best for our communities thank you thank you so much thanks for saying this i think one of the biggest differences too is that we went through the covet pandemic in march we had spring to look forward to you know the weather was going to be looking better a month from now and we could you know space ourselves out this go around we have winter to look forward to forcing additional isolation so we have to be extremely cognizant of the mental health issues that are going to happen and isolation and the loneliness that we're all facing right your kids have never faced it before so yeah we're

118definitely trying to lean into that and i think again it's not about the academics at this point i mean it is in terms of their life we really have to help make them feel whole and healthy and safe inside and that's been a challenge commissioner clark yes thank you president white i haven't have a question and i also have a comment one of my question is while there's tremendous resources in the community and uh as superintendent nelm says not we don't need more people but my question relates to training because many parents and guardians really don't know how to assist their their students in accessing the internet and doing the homework are there any training programs out there for the parents or are there resources for them so that they can begin to at least

119assist in the process uh that's that's the question but i also had a comment uh during a superintendent uh myers smalls uh presentation i wanted to thank her first of all because she has always been totally involved in the community and engaging community-based organizations and using those organizations as a resource that benefit both and i'm glad to see that that is continuing because i will tell you during my tenure as ceo of the urban league she she she was a guardian angel as it related to early recognition and black scholars program and many of our programs and i and i'm just pleased to see that your commitment to education and your outreach to community-based organizations continue thank you so i would say we have so so to answer your question i think we can definitely

120do more as a community in terms of engaging parents prior to the uh prior to the school year we had a host we did a number of videos to help parents understand how to use google classroom and how to support those things and and got them out it doesn't mean that everyone got it doesn't mean that it was the most useful i mean there was no assessment to see how useful it was but what we do we see a kid who's not logging on we make a phone call home to make sure that it's not an internet issue try to assess what the issue is is it engagement is it internet you know and we have found there's a myriad of issues that lead to students being disengaged we try to work through those we

121have partnered with organizations like rock the future um in connected communities because they um they have a different type of connection with those parents in the community but i think this is one of those situations where we have to look at a collective impact model and identify which organizations if it's abc if it's you know about the future if it's all of them to combine to help address these issues we've seen that when the community comes together you know there's there's clarity at least with what dr meyers did um last week but having the healthcare professionals come was a an ideal example of collective impact and so this this here is is we have a parent network um called pecan at the future which is trying to create a coalition of parents who can help

122parents better navigate um education in general but particularly through coverage so we'll look to expand that um and we'll continue to look into those um yeah right now i think we're all trying to figure out how to create the secret sauce and there's a lot of missing ingredients so we're going to keep moving forward but thank you commissioner powell yeah thank you i wanted to react to that um comment that the superintendent marries smalls uh made about teaching is different in this environment in the online environment and a real life example of that is you know i was stopped by a neighbor the other day who was asking about alex and how is he doing and i'm not shy about saying that he's thriving in this covet environment but i was musing about how as

123a theater major how how is he learning the same things about theater that he would if they were putting on a play and and rehearsing and all of the face the things you assume are face to face and it came up in the conversation that in fact performing arts is changing as a result of of covid right and the way i just look at the late night shows and how they're doing it are you know in remote environments and what have you so um your we don't even know what impact this is gonna have on our immediate future post covid but um i think there's a lot of things that are going to be different forever and our kids are learning it you know every day one day at a time alex just leaned over

124to me just now to say that um the idea of teachers reaching out to parents well that might be especially important at the younger grades he shared that the most impactful thing for him was when the teacher texted him directly just the fact that the teachers can text each student individually and make personal contact outside the classroom um no that's that's pretty special that makes kids feel pretty special knowing that they got a an individual conversation with their teacher even though they couldn't it wasn't passing them in the hallway it wasn't the teacher saying can you stay after class it was just you know the heart felt you know i want to talk to you you got the time right now that sort of thing so just wanted to share thanks thank you everybody for

125taking the time to share that i i want to back up to dr nelms and say thank you for making that observation i'm sure we spent about 15 minutes talking about something that wasn't on the agenda but clearly it is something that was on people's minds and is a significant part of our success or our failure so thank you for being honest uh and making that observation about the challenges that we're having because it did kick off a very important conversation and and uh to your other comment dr uh nelms uh dr meyers small did do something unprecedented at our last meeting which was to begin that conversation with uh the medical the healthcare professionals and it happened right here at the school board last time i remember a systems interaction like that collective impact

126happened like that was vice president elliot you may recall you had the district attorney and the chief of police participating in a meeting so connecting systems uh is essential in in a situation such as ours because we don't control everything at 131 west broad street it's a lot of stuff happening outside so thank you dr meyers uh for uh having that conversation last week and and sean thank you for bringing it up today it was very very important and then finally sean i did want to remark i saw the press conference with mr mcgee and if folks have any doubt about what you're saying about him and his commitment they need only watch that press conference because that young man could have went anywhere and he did he you know he had options right but

127he decided to stay home at east and i know that's true because i've been to several games and even that young man could not play he was on the sidelines cheering his teammates on so there's you may not have the complete recipe the complete sauce but we have things going on in our schools including east and uh you heard it with frederick douglass campus and and monroe and school the arts and a lot of our schools there's our ingredients to making kids and their families want to stick around and and uh watching mr mcgee and his his obvious love for he even spoke he said somebody was like his his family so thank you for that work and thank you for uh bringing uh his success to our attention because it reflects well on the

128entire district all right folks um that president yes mr president yes i just wanted to to share one more thing talking about athlete uh athletics i just want to thank both superintendents for having the great olympian kim batten to talk with um talk with the students and staff i believe um she had reached out to me um a few years ago and then we reconnected we both did the show on any any everything sports that was a podcast that we did that on together and so i'm glad i think that she has a lot to offer our students and so i'm glad that um dr nems and dr uh meyer small that you all were able to connect with her so thank you very much uh for that thank you i i did want to

129also point out you know this conversation about the mental health of our children leslie remind me wasn't there like a a meeting i i happened to participate in it i think it was something that the district center office sponsored where students uh miss simmons i think you were private where you talked what was that kind of mental health check in or right so this is an ongoing thing i see miss simmons shaking her head and leslie is shaking her head as well this is an ongoing effort uh and it's a healthy thing to do to check in not only with the students um but the healthcare professionals so thanks everybody on behalf of the board for this unprecedented important work that you're doing um and and to everyone uh don't get discouraged uh it's tough

130work but you are the right people to do the work so all right i don't want to get that too much longer i just do want to say i think what was so important about what our young people did a couple weeks ago is to really um continue to destigmatize the fact that some of the three most powerful words you can say is i need help right and um so our our young people are leading the way to and they're being very vulnerable and transparent and candid with one another and you know i had a death in my family and i the environment that they create made me feel comfortable enough to say you know i'm i'm really sad right now i lost my aunt and it's it's hard on me right now so our

131young people are really leading the way of making sure that it's not stigma it's not a stigma to say i need help i'm struggling i'm sad i'm depressed um this is a lot and and also i think we're also not only uh breaking through racial or ethnic barriers because that is a stigma in black and brown communities but also gender where our males are saying you know what i'm struggling um and that was just so powerful so anaya thank you for uh excuse me leading that work because it's making a difference president but i have just one other thing i just want to announce and i just i think this is important to announce while we're talking about the vaccine and you know i went on record by saying i'm not going to take the

132vaccine however i just wanted to uh that our community is aware of that the vaccine was created by a black uh female doctor by the name of and i may be getting this wrong but kamikia corbett dr kamikia corbett is the one that uh developed that vaccine so i think that's important for our students and family to know that uh it was a black woman who created that vaccine thank you i did not know that all right uh for for those of us who are thinking okay we got a lot of business take care of we do but again i want to thank those who contributed and those that listened to this important conversation because it is the elephant in the room and uh we maybe took a bit of the toenail from the elephant

133today so thank you for your indulgence and patience but there is resolution to consider so uh i'm going to attempt to be efficient in in sort of a bunching some of these resolutions together if somebody has an issue with it just let me know but otherwise we'll uh get to this in a way that's efficient but also very effective uh i first need a motion to discuss resolution 524 which is a motion to uh resolution to grand tenure is there a motion caution thank you commission lawyers for a second sec thank you vice president elliot are there any questions or comments regarding resolution 524 yes yes commissioner lebron does that need to be asked in executive session no no executive session i just want to again remind people that i personally am not voting on

134resolutions granting tenure during covet and this time frame but that is not a reflection to the individuals that i am sure deserving a tenure i just cannot personally get conscious vote yes on tenure during this time so i will be voting now thank you commissioner lebron any other questions or comments regarding resolution 524 i'm looking at the participant screen i don't see any so let's go ahead and vote all those in favor of resolution 524 indicate by saying i make sure your video is on i i any opposition i know there is one uh that's an a for commissioner lebron uh i i believe the eyes have it um let's move on to the next resolution i propose that we uh uh there be a motion to discuss resolutions 526-528 is there a motion caution

135thank you commissioner malloy seconded by vice president elliot any questions or comments regarding resolutions five twenty six to five twenty eight um yes yes go ahead commissioner lebron on 26 um i just want to strongly support this and personally having worked with this individual when i worked in the district and knowing the work and the expansion of arts in schools beyond soda that this individual has been directly linked to i fully support this individual not only staying in this position but hopefully being fully tenured in the future so that's all i have to say on 5 26 thank you any other questions or comments regarding resolutions 526-528 there being no further questions or comments let's go ahead and take a vote all those in favor of resolutions 5 26 to 528 indicate by saying aye

136aye any nays seems like the eyes have it uh next i'd like the board to consider resolution 530 is there a motion a motion thank you commissioner lebron is there a second second thank you commissioner malloy are there any questions or comments regarding resolution 530. there being none let's go ahead and take a vote all those in favor of resolution indicate by turning on your camera and your audio and say i i i any opposition looks like the eyes have it madam clerk next i need a motion to discuss resolutions 535 to 545 minus resolution 541. awesome now that is a motion by commissioner um uh malloy seconded by commissioner lebron any questions or comments regarding resolutions 5 35 5 45 yes yes ma'am um just on the resolutions where we are doing recalls um

137can administration just remind the public and the community what a recall is again so that they have an understanding yes uh good evening commissioner so uh recall is uh for an employee that was previously furloughed or laid off and and we are returning them back to work um from the previous decisions that were made thank you thank you commissioner lebron for asking that clarifying question i also should note that as i frequently do when we begin this roll call of votes is that the board of education for those who haven't watched before conducts its business approves how the district can move forward by passing resolutions and these resolutions are are much more detailed than the numbers that were in the conversations that we're having we get this material in advance and that's why we're in

138a position to vote tonight so i just wanted you all to know by way of background that's what we're doing we're passing basically legislation so that the administration dr nelms and dr meyer small can move and and manage this district all right next we have resolutions 549 and 550. is there a motion thank you mr lebron i think i heard a second from commissioner malloy uh any questions or comments regarding resolutions 549 550 i would just note uh miss simmons thank you very much for the input from the leadership congress uh we understand that uh you and your other leaders in the congress support this particular these two resolutions are there any other comments or questions regarding uh 549 and 550 i see commissioner malloy um just for a portion of i believe 550 i'm

139looking at 550b this is regarding just sports um so i think my concern is that you know this is the first that we're we're seeing this so we didn't have this information until right before the meeting um i do see bowling on here and i see indoor track but i don't see swimming as as one of the sports and so i guess what i'm wondering is um do we have a swim coach and i was also under the impression just from the sports meetings that i had attended that um track wasn't going to be happening indoor track because of our use of local college facilities and because local colleges are closed that we weren't going to be able to have that and i'm wondering if someone could perhaps explain just in more detail also i'm

140concerned about the testing requirements for our athletes and what are those requirements thank you dr meyer small yeah i yes thank you commissioner malloy we have um dr black and dr cotto who can respond to those questions yes i'm i'm having trouble with my video but i am here um in reference to the swimming i know that we do have you know as we hire coaches we have civil service coaches as well and those don't come to board um i i will share with the group as a whole that we just had our um teacher staff was approved today in reference to certification so they you know given that the challenges that we've had in bringing sports in we've had to do some recruiting and in the same time that we've been promoting program and

141um so we we have one um civil service employee that goes through a different process and i don't necessarily send coaches to board that don't have all of their certifications and this individual just completed all that as of yesterday um and i'll be working with um with mr carling in reference to that particular piece the challenge is when it comes to programs even as we transition and when we're in season having to fill positions when indeed an individual has to take a leave or what have you we do it in the midst and just making sure that they have all of what the state requires as far as the certification pieces so i hope that answers that particular question um as it relates to the the indoor track i mean as of right now because

142that season is scheduled to start on january 4th which um is what the section 5 has approved we um we're still assessing it as we go um there we're still looking at locations the the section has identified two locations and where practices or competitions can take place and ultimately it is a program that will support all of our students given that right now we've got the bowling the swimming that'll take place so we'd like to find a way to keep the uh our other students you know to provide that overall kind of opportunity for all students as we go into the indoor but a lot of that is still being assessed by the section as well as the district on if and in if we do if we kind of move forward but given that

143it starts january 4th before another board meeting it was important to at least have it on the table um as far as the testing we we are testing given that we are in orange 20 percent of our athletes coming back have to be tested similar to what's been shared with um stacy and in our health services department we've tested 10 percent of our athletes going into just for start as of tomorrow and we'll test another 10 as we go into um january 4th when students come back from the recess so we are doing that particular piece we've had meetings with parents we've had meetings with coaches there was a meeting that took place just a little while ago with our with our families and informing them of all of the guidance and the procedures that

144will follow um for practice as well as for game screening of athletes prior to every practice attempt checks that'll take place in the the actual testing that has taken place has been done with parent consent um thank you for that i will just say the following um i didn't know about the parent meeting as a board member until shortly before this meeting because my daughter told me so i think um communication is key we're fielding a lot of questions as board members in the community about this right now and so clear communication about what's happening with athletics is is really critical so thank you thank you that i want to add is that um this is all um contingent on what happens if we go to red so we just need to continue to be

145mindful of that and i just i don't want to damper because i am a former athlete and i know the importance and impact of athletics but if we go to red there could be some different conversations that we're having so i just want to just you know put that out there you all said commissioner malloy i am thank you okay commissioner lebron yeah i just want to say you know um prior to each meeting i go through all the resolutions and mark which ones i'm going to vote yes or no so that i have it in front of me and because of mr men's i was really on the fence about 5 49 i just i have a lot of feelings around the whole process and notion of kids having to audition for school although

146i understand that that's the practice and this is historical to the school um and i was leaning towards no but i'm gonna support um miss simmons and the student voice and vote yes tonight on that resolution but i just want her to know that theirs their voices are heard and sometimes can be persuasive to board members to change their vote excellent excellent i see miss simmons smiling she appreciates the vote of confidence so all right um i don't think i don't see any more hands being raised thanks again miss simmons thank you commissioner malloy commissioner lebron for asking those questions so let's go ahead and vote on resolutions 549 to 550. all those in favor of resolutions 549 to indicate by saying i i any opposition no madam clerk has recorded the vote seems like

147the eyes have it next uh resolution before the board is resolution 551 can i get a motion thank you commissioner is there a second to advance 551 for conversation i heard the commissioner vice president elliot um any questions or comments regarding resolution 551 i see commissioner malloy's raise your hand yeah just out of curiosity um i'm looking at this list of a lot of plastic products aluminum foil etc [Music] lots of plastic products here i'm wondering what green initiatives if any that we're considering as a district when we consider such contracts before us i have environmental concerns and with a district that serves you know 25 000 students i'm worried that we're contributing not only to global warming but the propagation of plastic waste um so i'm wondering if what are we looking at as

148a district to be more environmentally friendly thank you we'll we'll need to put that on the log i can i can briefly speak to it from a procurement standpoint we are looking at a lot of different um products especially with the trays you know the plastic reusable the uh trade and some things are being actually mandated uh that we change which is a good thing uh so there there are a lot of initiatives that the food service folks can probably speak a lot better to it uh because they see what's coming down the pike as well but there is a big movements to change a lot the unfortunate thing is sometimes these these costs are greater uh but it's for a lot of a lot of good reasons so we're just gonna have to balance

149all that thank you and i think we should also look towards our students on these initiatives because you'd be surprised at um what students can come up with so i think we should be looking to the youth um to maybe do a lot of this we see that in our surrounding areas in monroe county um and kids have a lot of really great ideas thank you commissioner malloy madam clerk ms wade could you make sure that gets on the question log give the administration a little time to respond i i just want to note this is old school when i was coming up we had paper straws who remembers that when you go to mcdonald's somebody had a paper straw then they now everybody got plastic straws but did you have you noticed the paper

150we're back to paper and let me tell you something i i hear what you're saying commissioner malloy but there's nothing like plastic because that paper i remembered it would disintegrate on you that's strong right save the turtles but they're also aluminum reusable uh uh straws van just oh really yes okay all right straws you can carry them with you throw them in your bag what do you think vice president elliot i see you kind of sitting back there i ain't giving up my plastic straw that's what i'm saying i'll give up plastic bags i'm not giving them my plastic straws you know aluminum straws i you know i use a camelback when i'm hiking and they're hard to clean are they you know everything comes with a trade-off yeah all right well we've digressed enough

151so i i apologize for that but i had to go back down memory lane all right next uh resolution to be considered are resolutions 552-563 is there a motion i don't think we voted on 551 did we no we did it no you're right thank you very much we did not thank you all those in favors there being no further questions or comments all those in favor of resolution 551 indicate sorry about that no that's all right madam clerk did you record that vote i didn't thank you any opposition i don't think i asked for that all right we're good uh i need him thank you commissioner malloy for catching that i need a motion to discuss resolutions 552-5630 thank you commissioner lebron any questions or comments regarding resolutions 552-563 yeah i see commissioner clark

152has raised his hand commissioner clark yes thank you president white when i was going through the uh the various proposals i noted that on the larger contracts the mwbe participation rate ranged anywhere from eight point five percent to a hundred percent and what i wanted to know is what is the uh how does the mwbe participation rate factor into awarding of contracts i know we use price but how do how do we use mwbe participation michael hey everyone commissioner give me commissioner clark um it is we have to require benchmarks with which to hit based upon the trades uh we did a presentation for the board in october and uh those those benchmarks are captured in that presentation so i'll be more than happy to share that with you uh directly and uh refer to

153the rest of the board as well okay you know that that might be commissioner malloy uh i don't know how your onboarding is going commissioner clark but that's a great question for onboarding because uh obviously approving contracts is a big part of what we do so i appreciate the question um and hopefully mr smith can get you an answer for that but we all should when you do that of course why don't we go ahead and put that on the question log because i'm sure other board members could use a good refresher course on how we make those decisions thank you mr schmidt for answering that and getting that response to ms wade any other questions or comments regarding resolutions 5 52-563 there being no further questions or comments all those in favor of resolutions

154552-563 indicate by saying aye aye any opposition eyes have it next i need a motion to discuss resolutions uh 564 to 577 minus resolutions 568-573 both those resolutions have been withdrawn so when you vote you're voting from 564 to 577 consecutive except that uh 568 and 573 have been withdrawn as well as 570. uh 570. didn't see that yes i'm sorry thank you very much so we're uh i need a motion to discuss resolution 564 to 577 minus resolutions 570 568 and 573 is our motion uh move for discussion purposes i'm sorry commissioner powell i'd say for discussion purposes i do have a question yes absolutely uh so that's motion editor a second i'll second okay thank you uh commissioner lebron all right so let's begin the discussion uh commissioner powell you had a question

155or comment um ms wade mentioned uh resolution 570 the the audit committee was 572 correct yes that was the cafe yes the cafe is 572. yes and then and that's already uh addressed 572 has already been addressed so um so you'd have to take that one out it was already voted on during that that's right uh that's right commissioner powell you brought that up during your audit committee so when we cast that vote we're not casting it for 570 568 573 and 572. all those uh motions have been either withdrawn or the resolution been withdrawn or already voted on as in the case of 572. next i see vice president elliot you're muted i was trying to get to the resolutions because i have a question about 575 but i don't remember what the resolution

156was i didn't write it down but um 566 let me just start from there if i could um i didn't realize that in addition to just regular um educational programs that um our students also who have special education needs also can um select a charter school is that is that correct so if it's specialized services but also just regular academic um programming they also can attend a charter school okay all right so it'll be interesting to know i want this question in the question log how many of the students who are special have need specialized uh services go to a charter school okay and then uh five six six seven um is that something that the union that the teachers union can pay for why do we have to pay for that service that's 5.67

157going back to look i can get um the regulation and make sure that i provide it to everyone good evening everyone um but the teachers you um the teachers group centers the grant requires it to pass through the district and therefore it has been covered under a regulation that was established i want to say it was established in the late 90s that this is the process for that funding for the teacher centers across the state so this is something that is codified at the state level and i can make sure that we provide that additional information about the funding path to everyone um in the question log okay all right who's the so was it the teeth was it the union that um uh got the grant was it that was it the rta no

158it's it's a grant that's established for teacher professional development okay and what we do is we provide the um funding so that the teacher center can be operational and so you see the uh grant it has to be administered and distributed through the district so it's um it's to make sure that we have a path and a mechanism for our um teachers to have professional development but the path of the money must go through the district to establish the teacher's center support yeah i thought that the rta ran the ran the teaching center is the teacher's center read by the district or by rta so it's a teacher formed board so the board is made up of teachers so the teachers there are are probably rta members but the pass-through for the grant funding to

159continue the support of the teacher center comes through the district okay thank you and then 575 i just had a question on that whole resolution around um um providing us with technical services so if someone could just talk me through that whole um resolution i'd appreciate that you know uh hello so for 569 is that the question for resolution 569 575. 570 i think it may be glenn that should be responded to that i think it is glenn and he actually i had questions around that one too in previews and glenn sent um some great detailed explanations but he's on uh good evening everybody is this regards to 569 575. about education super highway correct yes okay very good i apologize for the confusion uh education superhighway is providing us an opportunity unlike we've ever

160had before we've surveyed our families to see who's had reliable internet and really we've gotten some inconsistent feedback in terms of identifying families that have had uh reliable internet that being said what we're going to be doing is providing um the education superhighway uh addresses of all of our students with no names attached they're then going to work with internet service providers such as spectrum frontier and green light and then they're going to put it against their database so we'll know exactly who has home internet service provider and then therefore we can start to target families at least while uh students are in grades k through 12 and help support those families with a home internet service provider is what our goal is and i think this is just a wonderful opportunity for us to

161support our kids in extending the classroom thank you you're welcome commissioner lebron did you have a question on that before i go on to my next question no i have some other questions so i'm gonna let you finish your okay 576 um is the am i saying this right 575 yeah 576. um i guess my question is why if this is a 1919 2020 resolution why are we just seeing it now at the end of the year scrolling i'm sorry it was i'm looking let me just make sure i'm looking at the right one i sort of put my notes on a different sheet okay it's it's for uh the calendar year 2021. okay so this is december why are we just seeing it now it's for january uh did i just freeze no i'm

162i'm here it's for it's for them calendar year is that again chris it's for the 2021 calendar year so was there a mistake in the it's a renewal to run through 2021. so it was for originally for the 2020 year and then it renews for one more year through december 31st 2021 okay i don't think that's what it's maybe it is saying that and i just didn't in the second paragraph okay yes all right my apologies our third paragraph yeah okay okay thank you i misread that and then uh 577 my last question has to do with the cost of that i see what looks like per unit cost um and perhaps you can't give me that but why don't you tell me whether or not you can give me i see a two a

163two dollars and twenty cents administrative fee costs and then there is another um looks like per unit cost of three dollars so um do we have any idea historically um what we've paid out in this um this is consistent this is a per month per member and so we're charged by the number of employees that we have that could potentially make benefit of lifetime benefit solutions which allows our staff to use flexible spending accounts and i would just say um my last remark um with regard to you know i'm hoping uh madam superintendent that that's something that we could renegotiate you know given our a dire financial uh situation um that we can't always you know cover in my view we may not always be able to cover people for life or not at the

164rate that we've been covering them in the past given our financial situation so uh i would just you know leave that with uh with you madam superintendent okay thank you very much thank you sherlock the commissioner lebron yeah my um comments they're not questions but they are comments too number 576 um and then i have a claire i do have a clarifying question on 570 if that one was pulled or not so i actually i'll start with 570 if that one is still in this motion of it was pulled okay 570 was pulled 570 was pulled so then i don't have to ask any questions around that one but for 576 um this is the the same one that commissioner was just referencing to a little while ago my comments are related to the fact

165that even though we are self-insured um i cannot recall my time on the board having seen any proposals for health insurance through any of the um folks that go out and do this work even though we are self-insured there is a company that we hire to like go out and find the rates for us and so forth i would actually like to see us uh perhaps get a few bids and have discussions as a board um so that we can look at ways to lower that cost for us with the cost of health care rising i'm concerned whether we'll be able to continue to afford it at the rate that we have it but i also don't want to take away benefits from people that need benefits right so um i would like us to

166figure out a more balanced way in the future so i will not be um voting yes on this one um but my recommendation to the full board and to the administration is that we look at our self-insured coverage and get some different bids from other folks superintendent meyer small do you want to respond to that at all or no we we need to look at that i think we should put that on the log for further follow-up all right uh commissioner lebron were you all set yes commissioner powell yeah on the topic of um the third party administrator um i struggle with this every time it comes up for renewal because blue cross blue shield has policies on their books that limit subscriber access to the most cost effective care providers namely midwives and i've

167have raised this issue at the very beginning exhaustively the only problem is that all providers that i'm aware of have similar constraints mvp aetna they all have similar practices and when they serve us as third-party administrators they impose their rules on our subscribers so i do struggle with this and um i don't think ultimately i don't think it's going to end until we have a single-payer healthcare system nationwide or statewide at the very least so i'm not going to hold my vote hostage on this issue the third party administrator essentially either i'm not entire i don't recall entirely how they make their profit but it's essentially either on a subscriber basis or on a flat rate so they don't um the cost of health care is related to the benefits that we have conferred through

168our negotiations and and um that that's not something that this resolution would address if the only way we're going to substantially reduce our health care costs is if we're able to negotiate different terms of of what we're going to cover um as a as a an employee-based healthcare provider the third party administrator will have very little impact except in so far as what i said when i started my comments which is that their uh practices in putting provide health care providers on their participating list is discriminatory and it and it blocks some of the most cost-effective providers in our community as i say i'm not going to hold my vote uh hostage on this issue however commissioner lebron yeah i just want to say for the record i'm not holding a vote hostage i am

169voting my conscience and saying no that we need to as a board and as administration look at this as a growing debt an expenditure on our budget year to year and figure out a way to reduce this cost and i don't think that going through the same broker year after year because we're self-insured is the best practice to not look at all other options that are potentially out there i looked at the state employees health insurance they're not paying the same amount that we're paying and they're getting equitable type of benefits i think it's out there i think we need to make this an issue that we look at it is one a of a large debt in this district year to year in our budget so that's all any other questions or comments if

170not we'll go ahead and take a vote mr president i just want to clarify sure that my remark about holding hostage was not directed at commissioner lebron it was directed to the administration so they could if they're if they're counting votes uh prior to the official that comment was directed to the administration so that they knew where i stood it was not directed at anyone else and i apologize if it seemed uh if if my remarks appeared to have any different direction thank you commissioner lebron and commissioner powell for that conversation now it is time to go ahead and take a vote on this matter just to remind you all um we are voting on resolutions 564 to 577 before we do that commissioner uh malloy were you going to provide any commentary with respect

171to resolution that was a donation gift i don't know i i forgot that we were going to be doing that yeah of course of course just in regards to uh to that resolution i just want to say on behalf of the board i'd like to thank education super highway for their donation of almost fifteen hundred dollars to the district to assist our students in more readily accessing broadband internet services by identifying the specific access needs of our families and their service will have a direct benefit for our students and their families during this really challenging pandemic period so we are incredibly grateful for this partnership with your organization and we thank you for your generosity thank you commissioner molloy for performing that very important function we sometimes forget and this craziness of trying to get

172stuff done uh to say thank you and appreciate you sharing those words on behalf of the board so uh back to the business of approving these resolutions or getting a vote on them uh just for background uh remember we're voting on resolutions 564 through 577 minus resolutions 568 570 572 and 573. there being no further comment let's go ahead and make sure our mics are turned on and our video is on and indicate uh whether you support these resolutions by saying i i i minus 567 is a no for me okay all right and um are there any further notes commissioner lebron has just indicated her no sorry yeah and 576 is also a no madam clerk did you record that yes that's unknown to 567 and 576 from commissioner lebron thank you appears that

173dies have it and that would complete our business of resolutions for uh today december 17 2020. that doesn't mean we're done um there's some unfinished business from a prior meeting uh commissioner powell you have proposed resolutions 578 579 that were presented to your colleagues by email more than 48 hours ago do you want to bring us up to speed on where we're at there were some conversation about these that are these issues that are at a finance committee meeting so go ahead um thank you for the floor um i believe the resolutions are self-explanatory uh in the whereas this clause there are two buckets of funds in the fund balance section of our financial statements that are currently listed as assigned which is the prerogative of the superintendent and her and her administration to designate

174assigned versus unassigned because they both have significant import one of them being backed by a memorandum of agreement with our bargaining units and the other being extensively discussed the transportation extensively discussed among the board members as important to hold in reserve and so that it's there when we resume to full in-person learning and all of the transportation expenses that accompany that and so the concept is to elevate those to committed status which only the board of education can do by resolution there any comments or questions regarding those proposal resolutions i see uh commissioner lebron has raised your hand yeah i have a couple of questions and comments um so having had a chance to review both of them the transportation one van you mentioned two numbers for the resolutions the ones that were sent on

175my screen don't have any numbers so i don't know which one is which or which number is going to be oh madam clerk could you clarify that i got those from the clerk yes yes so um the committed fund balance resolution will be assigned resolution number 578 and the uh committed the other one which is regarding um transportation will be 5.79 okay so thank you for that clarification so on number 575 um i have no issues with that resolution i think that that is a conversation um exhausted through both our cfo and our superintendent over a number of finance meetings over the last couple of months that they were going to commit to putting that money in a separate item line and not touching it at all so if it just reinforces it through the

176board's resolution i'll support that one tonight as far as 578 i have a couple of concerns of about ushering this type of resolution with this being the first time we're having a conversation um about it um i'm concerned about whether there will be any implications in other budget item lines i want to uplift that yes historically previous superintendents um and cfos at the direction at times from previous superintendent under budgeted in that item line certainly that is not the only budget item line and so we just say that only health insurance was under budgeted so was charter schools and if we're not going to commit to putting more money into the charter school line that we have historically under budget it why would we do it only for one and not all of the other

177budget item lines in addition um i do want to say we are in the process of changing our fund balance policy per dr jallow's recommendations um and that has not those updates have not been finalized by this board i'm also concerned that this particular resolution was not vetted through administration or legal and i would like to hear their feedback both on whether there will be consequences or some implications on other budget item lines and again i would like to give them the time to do that as this was originally sent out on tuesday around 4 or 4 30. i saw you raise your hand commissioner paul but i do want to go through the people who have raised her hand vice president elliot uh yes mr president in reference to uh i i can't be

178sure of which um uh resolution was 575 or but let me just say the the um the one about transportation i guess i'm unclear about uh the need to have a committed fund balance if i'm using the right right language with regard to transportation uh so commissioner powell can you elaborate on the need your perspective on the reason that you believe we need to have if i'm correct and committed fund balance for transportation uh well yeah oh do i have the floor mr president yes yeah go ahead um if i could back up to commissioner lebron's question about the elevating the the health insurance rate stabilization fund uh reserve as opposed to her question was as opposed to all other budget items here's the distinction between this and those other items this is a balance

179sheet item it's it's not in the budget it's not part of our it's not part of our revenue stream and it's not part of our expense stream it's it's the fund balance is presumed to be something we hold in our um on our balance sheet and that's why you only ever see it on the annual financial reports it's the we we talk about it in our finance committee meetings because we are constantly talking about cash flow and replenishing the fund balance but it is not part of the budget except in so far as the budget talks about depleting the fund balance or restoring the fund balance ongoing funds within the fund balance are not part of our budget process to commissioner elliot's point about the transportation i i was hoping that what i wrote in

180the world whereases were clear enough but the important thing about transportation aid is that it comes on on a delayed basis right so in 2018-19 well i'm sorry we're in we're in 1920 so in 2018-19 we were reimbursed at 90 of transportation costs that we incurred the year before and the amount of money that we actually spent in that year was reduced because that was the first year that that was the beginning of covet was the end of that fiscal year right so we essentially have we received more funds from the state last fiscal year which ended june 30th then we spent and we know that when we ramp up it's going to cost us more than we're going to get in that year in whatever year that is uh in transportation reimbursement 8. so

181it will this particular fund would only be committed for a very brief time until the next fiscal year but committing the funds is committing the funds and this is something that the that the administration has worked very hard to get our support for so what's the strongest way of signaling our support by committing those funds all right nxt commissioner adams he's been waiting yeah this is the area here that um is i'm going to um i haven't had enough time with this one um i really haven't and and i've always talked about this um and i'm just going to support for right now i'm going to support my superintendent right on on this resolution and that's where i'm at with that so i'm just letting people know that i am not supporting this commissioner lebron

182yeah so i just want to go back to some of the comments being made that um this is the best way to show administration um it is not the best way to show administration by presenting them with two resolutions without prior conversations certainly no conversations and financial previews where we do have a parent rep that also gets to put eyes on all of our resolutions and all the things that are going to be presented and also ask questions on behalf of other parents um i for me it doesn't feel like this is how we support administration they didn't know about it till tuesday like i said at 4 00 and 4 30 is being presented again like new business we still do not have actual uh feedback from the administration they didn't ask for this

183we have no feedback from them we also didn't have an opportunity for illegals to vet it to let us know what the implications would be i also have to say i i i feel like i advocate strongly and wholeheartedly for us to have a balanced budget in all ways possible and and i get that you know we have some challenges ahead of us but i also would not want to force the administration to put money in any budget line and assign it without understanding what the implications might be and i do think as a board we have an obligation to look at every single budget item line that we possibly can squeeze it to the maximum so that any cuts that we know we're going to have to make are minimized as best as possible

184so with that said i'm going to ask for a motion to table this until the next finance meeting in january can i get a second second okay motion to table goes directly to vote people uh cannot comment i i would note that not everybody's had a chance to speak an underlying motion but i i can't so because there's a motion to table so all those in favor of the motion table indicate by saying aye aye no oh i think i mean i uh i i heard two how many eyes were there madam clerk mine was not an eye by the way i was just like if you can do a roll call um for this one i'm sorry okay that's that makes sense commissioner adams hi uh i'm a no commissioner lebron hi vice president

185elliot yes uh commissioner malloy aye commissioner clark hi uh commissioner powell no uh and that's it so it appears that the eyes have it i i counted four so the motion the resolution has been tabled and uh it will we didn't get a a for a date certain can we get a date can we get a date that the four members can agree to madam clerk yes yes um the next available uh special meeting will be january 5th actually i asked for it to be at the finance meeting part of my motion and the next finance meeting is january 19th january 19th all right so i will assume that that was uh favorable or agreeable to the four that voted for it unless somebody was in the other 54 five all right my math isn't

186so good dr myers will tell you that all right so uh it has been adjourned to the next finance committee meeting and uh that's where we'll take it up again um so and that applies to both 570 and 579. is that right commission lebron that was your motion to table before because i noticed you said you didn't have any opposition fives from that but i don't but i would still like to hear from administration okay absolutely okay so it's been adjourned to the next audience committee meeting that's 578-579 uh and i would suggest that um commissioner powell since you're leading this particular effort that you speak to administration in advance of that meeting and speak to commissioner lebron and making sure that that is uh put on that agenda for that day all right my

187conversations about fund balance have already begun with the administration and um i'll keep you all posted excellent okay all right that leads to new business and there is none uh that was unfinished business by the way and uh the the we do have some matters to discuss an executive session it is nine o'clock folks for those uh citizens that are watching this board of education meeting uh we do find ourselves on occasion having to discuss matters with our council or discuss matters relating to uh issues like contract negotiations or individual employees so i need a motion from a colleague of mine to go into executive session for the purpose of discussing a particular person and or getting uh legal advice from our council i heard vice president elliot make that motion is there a second

188seconded by commissioner malloy all those in favor going to executive session for the purposes just described please indicate by saying aye aye any opposition all right ladies and gentlemen folks watching we probably will come back we most certainly will come back out of executive session we have to do our poll we may even have to vote on some things uh we encourage you to stick around if you can't if you can if you can't good night and be blessed it is 9 42 and as promised we came back into public session because the board of education does in fact have some business to take care of there is a resolution is it it is called resolution 580. i need a motion to advance for conversation resolution 580. thank you commissioner vice president elliot seconded by

189commissioner clark um any questions or comments regarding resolution 580. it doesn't appear that there are any questions so madam clerk we're going to go ahead and take a vote all those in favor of resolution 580 indicate by saying i i i in the opposition we uh are now going to take our survey and uh close it up as soon as that survey is done as my colleagues finish up the the um survey i want to on behalf of the board of education wish everyone uh listening and those that are not a happy kwanzaa happy hanukkah and a merry christmas are we all set madam claire we are waiting on just two more so there are no meetings next week correct no there are no meetings until january 4th and i just want to let everyone

190know that i will not be in office starting tomorrow until the time you said there was such joy [Laughter] and no emails i will i'll be back on the 28th to prepare for the organizational meeting will you be there if i drop something off though for you yes i have to do who sends tomorrow so i will be in the office but i'm not supposed to be working but i will be in the office thanks will you be in the office available to take the cookies from leslie if she happens to bring him by no i hope for myself let's see why you look at me like that i'm just trying to get beautiful um mike schmidt told me we've got squirrels in central i know you got i know you got mice and rats

191up in there i do know that i have seen them all right is there a motion to adjourn well let me just say first that um just wish everybody a great holiday great christmas and um you wish you all well and uh you know we've got to continue to do this work on behalf of our children and families so just enjoy your time off too um as i will with my family so happy holidays happy merry christmas and uh happy new year happy new year happy holidays everybody did we take a vote to adjourn no we didn't we need a motion i think that your wonderful comments vice president elliott our emotion is seconded by commissioner adams all those in favor say aye happy holidays everybody be safe