001foreign motion carries um if we could please say the Pledge of Allegiance 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 right we can't have a recommended motion to approve tonight's revised on October 11th meeting agenda as presented okay I'll second any discussion um John I'd like to make a motion to move item 6-5 student board member report up above the papasana okay so noted any other recommendations can I have a motion to approve the movement that um Chris wants to make a motion to prove oh second any discussion all those in favor of the new revised agenda all right any opposed motion counties okay um I just want to make sure that
002everyone hi I'm Dawn I'm the president of the school board I know a lot of people are here to make comments um we do have a public comment form it is behind this gentleman right thank you very much um he had no idea he was going to be showing and telling here um so if you do want to speak you need to fill that out and then you need to bring it to our district clerk and then you will be given three minutes to speak I want to make sure that everyone understands that we do not mention um anyone's names just to make sure that we're respectful in our public comment okay thank you Dr Morgan okay the first oh you don't that I would like to discuss with this thumbs up um there have
003been a lot of questions about taxes there was a significant change in the equalization rate uh now the equalization rate is provided by the New York State real property tax office and what it does is it if there's not an assessment done of property the state real property office comes in and says this is what the tax assessment on this particular piece of property or town should be so and this uh spreadsheet right here all right let's see that um you can see that the equalization rate um on um let's see last year for the tunnel of Marble Town was 93 that's what that number right there is 93 which means 93 and what that's saying is that the property of Marble Town is assessed at 93 of its actual value it's not at 100
004it's at 93 you'll see Rochester was it one that means the property in 2021 was 100 of the the assessed value was 100 of its real value and you'll see Rosendale was and what we're seeing was 91 percent and 2022 you'll see that these uh Equalization rates changed you'll see that Marble Town is now at 70 percent Rochester is at 72 percent uh Rosendale is at 74 and we'll wash things at 81 so that means that the actual value of the property is a only 81 percent of the assessed value so if you'll see in the next okay so what happened is over the last year the full value assessment of all the property in the school district Rose 845 million 240. almost a billion dollars so for the past year the full value of
005all the property has gone up significantly and that's reflected by the change over here and the Equalization rates and you see that the equalization rate in Rochester dropped the largest and then Marble Town then Rosendale and then world warsane so if you go to this next column right here this is a percentage change and the total value and you'll see that Marble Town dropped 0.31 of a percent Rochester increased 1.71 percent Rosendale dropped 0.69 of a percent and we're worsen dropped 0.71 also the share of the school um tax amount row so this uh Tab and this spreadsheet shows the variance from year to year so over on this side just to bring it down to real numbers so the variance year over year from 2021 to 2022 was taxes in Marble Town went up
006three percent as a dollar amount on a 500 000 assessed value it went up 289 dollars if you had a five hundred thousand dollar house if you lived in Rochester your value went up eight percent or your taxes went up eight percent a dollar amount would be a 663 dollar increase if you lived in Rosendale your taxes went down a half or two percent and that would be a drop of on average 216 on a 500 000 house or if you lived in what worst thing it dropped one thousand one hundred and eighty dollars which is a 13 drop on average the increase and the taxes on the collected taxes went up on average by house around three three point three percent now these are averages so if you had um there have been a
007lot of questions and when the tax bills went out on the tax bill it showed an increase the increase in the levy the increase in the levy last year went up 5.16 but when there is an increase in the full value assessment and also the in a change in the apportionment people's taxes changed so um is there any questions about that so it's not it's not just the pro or the house but it's also and there is that's all it's all rolled into one yes correct I'm sorry you have to thank you Joe for sharing this we we did review this in our our budget uh meeting um last Tuesday I think it was um and the intent is to use these data as a driver for how possession attacks levied um in the coming
008budget here audit report so recommended motion that the Board of Education except warrant number four number five number six and number seven as presented I'll make the motion any discussion all those in favor any opposed motion carries I recommended motion that the Board of Education except the minutes of September 13 2022 and September 27 2022 board meeting as presented any discussion all those in favor any opposed motion carries Emily we moved your section up front because we're sure that um you know what you have to say some people want to hear so um can you give us your student updates thank you Emily you should feel comfortable being able to share what you want to share if you want to share a little bit and then we'll ask questions and you can answer us that's
009fine too um I just have some quick General updates outside of the high school but for those of you joining us for the first time or in a while I'd like to introduce myself my name is Emily Bartow I use she her pronouns and I'm a senior at Valley High School I'm one of two student representatives for a District Board of Education Sierra ik cannot join us tonight because she is a soccer game so good luck to them this is my second year in this role and my job is to provide the student perspective to board decisions and activity and facilitate communication between students um some updates outside of the high school is our High School parent teacher teacher conferences or this Thursday October 13th from 5 to 8 pm and Friday October 14th from
01012 30 to 2 30 this year we also have a fundraiser through the senior class for first BBQ on Heritage 13 from 5 to 8 P.M we also have a college night on Tuesday October 18th and talking about choosing a college campus visit applications deadlines entrance exams and more that's expand the high school library or virtually your link sent to All High School families and the following week on Thursday October 27th there will be a College financial aid night from 6 p.m in the high school library yes I have some written words for what I've seen everybody so as a member of the board student Congress and our high school is no place for 18. I have been intimately involved in this process these days the decision to change homecoming king and queen to royalty
011is not created this year last week or even a month ago this system was first implemented class of 2023 had our Junior the terms were changed to allow every student to self-identify meaning we asked every Court member what they would prefer to be called a nominated or elective whether that be king queen or royalty these non-gender specific words were used to create places for candidates and not gender gendered boxes for them to squeeze into inclusivity involvement and student voice are things not only important to me my peers in our school but the district at Large our very first goal for our high school no place for a meeting this year was verbatim student voice and involvement to increase opportunities for student voice and involvement and decisions to provide that voice here are some perspectives from
012students of our high school a junior on publishing on pushing towards inclusion and safe spaces with an extracurriculars wrote for me it was a new experience to be in an environment that truly saw me from who I am and respectively seeing my friends being accepted and getting the support they needed was one of the best things that was happening a senior wrote I appreciate the changes to nominate problem royalty based solely on popularity because it gives a better chance to all of the nominees it makes me along with others feel more clear however I think the teacher selection should be more diverse in their choices if we go through this change I think we should work on picking students from many different kinds of sports and extra creditors a sophomore wrote as a girl I
013feel no negative feelings when hearing the news on homecoming in fact I find the changes made to have a positive effect on the school I sincerely hope that you listen to students watches in the matter and please don't bring us back to square one a senior wrote I personally feel like of course Rhonda should always be pushing for diversity equity and inclusion and that should be one of our top goals for our students is making everyone feel welcomed and safe in the building for whatever they may identify as even if I or anyone doesn't agree with your beliefs or vice versa I want people to respect me from Identity and beliefs even if they don't necessarily agree with them another senior wrote in my opinion I didn't mind having two homecoming homecomings when I read
014the Google Forum I assumed this would be an outcome due to the wording of quote unquote royalty and not quote unquote came in between I feel as if this board meeting and the outrage by some is an overreaction homecoming royalty is essentially just a popularity contest the two nominees with the most the highest votes won so I personally see it fair to promise between zip code those who say force of sexuality on others don't really make too much sense to me did we assume past homecoming winners to be in a relationship no so why is it different with these women that centers heteronormativity I understand the argument about leaving the girls out but how many of them have you asked for their opinion there may be mixed feelings throughout the girls and I can understand
015that yes but the top two homecoming Queens will announce to advance a student in the rondout Valley high school and a member of the lgbtqia community I believe that this step towards inclusion in our school is necessary and thoughtful all of these statements were gathered from students at the Rhonda Valley High School via online messaging because of limited time in school advisors I have my statement which is personally as a member of this year's homecoming Court I find this new system a good start and step forward into a more inclusive School environment the whole home homecoming course is a popularity contest in its nature and the two most popular candidates won non-gender terminology doesn't restrict opportunities for people to identify with the agenda binder but opens access to students of every identity I urge you
016to take this time to reflect on your own biases and truly think about and build these conversations should accept their students thank you thank you so boy do you have any questions for Emily okay at this time um thank you Emily um you should be very proud of yourself [Laughter] are you Mom no because I could cry so um so um at this time we well we have the does anyone else have a public comment Forum to give foreign we stacked them up in order as they were received and that's how you will be called you'll have three minutes again we are asking um that you do not um give specifics to names we want to make sure that we um keep this um professional at all times Brianna Casey you're up first three minutes
017yeah oh yeah I am a parent um and I want to thank Emily for sharing the student perspective and her home is that you're a great woman I did write some stuff out to try to remain grief um while I was reading social media posts today regarding the homecoming Court I initially felt compelled to come here tonight and share the statistic that at least one lgbtq youth attempts suicide every 45 seconds I wanted to encourage our community to consider the impact public statements as I continue to read comments today I just become our concerned um I'm going to share some of the public posts that was on Facebook today written by a teacher I'm not paraphrasing anything but I'm not going to read the entire thing because it was 19. this teacher wrote in my
018opinion the Dei Advocate continues to try and divide the student body and teachers into coercing our students who are brainwashing our students into thinking that this is something the students must change and accept the main framework that's educated Advocate should be to make sure all students feel inclusive and are safe from their gender that they choose but when reverse discrimination occurs I have to draw the Line in the Sand and demand that the Board of Education stop this nonsense please attend the meeting on Tuesday to let your feelings be known that the action s of the eye Advocate will not be tolerated or accepted next I want to share the Board of Education policy for employees and social media which states the following the board print if it's all conduct including online activity which may
019constitute bullying harassment and or a violation of board policy state and federal laws including the dignity for all students while the Board of Education doesn't determine the makeup of it is responsible for following federal laws and upholding units I'm here to encourage the Board of Education to further develop a climate that lgbtq is funded affirming including upholding the dignity for you're ensuring that all stack deduct themselves in the manner that promotes thank you next is Jim Mount yes oh I'm sorry my name is Jamal from the parent and a teacher at the high school I live in the district I've always felt that my role as a parent and a teacher has been to keep all students inclusive and safe in order to achieve these goals fairness and Equity are two essential factors that I
020pride myself in I'm here tonight because I'm concerned about the gross inequities that are incurring occurring in our district I commend the district for hiring a facilitator to train administrators and staff however there has been trainings offered by a biased individual who's promoting his own political agenda he is co-director of Innovations in equity and systemic change I would like to inform the board the former School Board of the negative effect that this training has had on our school and community but first I'd like to share some quotes from this trainer's blog posts and Twitter account from his blog on 12621 he States quote is my job both personally and professionally to build capacity in sustaining the everyday journey of white anti-racism and alleyship particularly as I engage with my white family and the white participants
021in my trainings it is critical that I actively engage in movements for larger political gains or larger political shifts unquote end quote second quote a critical part of my library are books pertaining to critical race Theory end quote third quote this time if you really want to make a difference in Black lives and not have to protest this again go reform white kids because that's where the problem is with white children being raised from infancy to wildly black bodies end quote and for the for the board members educational institutions and administrators recognize that you're forced reactive Equity plants are irresponsible and often violent half-assed and anti-racist curriculum and training is not and will never be an adequate response to your historically oppressive institutional practices and there are more quotes by the blog that's where his
022Twitter account and his block [Music] here are some examples of how the decision making of the district and the inequality that I have that I'm concerned about have negatively affected our students and staff there is a mural in the kurhas elementary school that was painted over because it did not uh meet the standards for Equity even though the person I wrote it said they followed all the directors and directions that were that they were supposed to do on that particular day it ends up being that that particular mural was painted over by the same teacher who paid it trickle down the frizzet we're now not required to have students get dressed for phys ED but in a middle school in grades six through eight they are required to get dressed for them but nine through
02312 they're not again this is trickled down from the powers to be the outside bathroom allocations have been something that obviously the board of event is discussed I don't have to go into that and then obviously the halftime homecoming disaster that uh you know they're more which which have negatively affected the overall morality students and staff in the business someone in this room did not do their homework on this guy who gave you those trainings the facilitator of that program the program that's still running today the program that still has meetings going on later this month someone in this room did not do their homework these trainings have adversely and ultimately affected our students and staff let's correct the situation and make it right yep I'm gonna wrap it up what happened to us as
024a community this past weekend is absolute disgrace we need to do what's in the best interest of all students in closing as I stated I always thought my role is to keep kids inclusive and safe we are clearly being exclusive and the schools are becoming less safe through the diminishing standards of academic protocols and discipline if there's anything I can do to assist the district in moving forward from this please seek me out thank you [Applause] thank you um Aaron Bush okay I'm sorry I thought you came up do that okay um my name is Aaron Bush and I am not only a graduate um child that attends um what is homecoming um the Cambridge Dictionary defines it as quote a celebration at school or college usually including a dance and a football game with
025people who were students there at an earlier time can return to visit the tried into Merriam-Webster Dictionary list homecoming is both the return of a group of people usually on a special occasion to a place formally frequented or regarded as home especially an annual celebration for alumni at a high school college or university so to summarize homecoming for alumni such as myself it's for the community and homecoming is for the students such as my son that currently attend around at Valley Pacific School what happened on Friday night is upsetting for many reasons and leaves me with several unanswered questions were there ever any rules that prevented a transgender boy or transgender girl from winning the title of homecoming king and queen were there ever any restrictions prohibiting a gay bisexual trans individual from being crowned
026as pain or clean well I understand that there can be a need for change at times what I don't understand is how and why a decision to change the voting policy was made without considering the greater good of the student population that we're going to do this regarding of regardless of your opinion is quite honestly of Orange my understanding is that the new director of diversity Equity inclusion came from the Portland Public School System which oversees 49 000 students to be wrong conversely around our Valley Central School District school just overseas less than 2 000 students the demographics of each of those Public Schools so students are vastly different where the demographics analyzed and taken into consideration before this change is made or was a one-size-fits-all approach taken quite honestly I here's my opinion here
027I am um I think that the Roundup Valley School District should be changed to themselves they've taken a time-honored tradition and ruined it for many including me an attempt to try to include everyone essentially more children are excluded and that Chasm between the most popular students and least popular students have been exercised in making this change everyone listens to all students or just a select few did you get buy-in from the community or other stakeholders and most importantly the hurt cause many hard feelings within the community the community that you're all hired thank you Richard Witt y oh I'm sorry I'm the Reverend Richard Witt I was the co-founder of the parents Association at the high school a number of years ago and I want to applaud the students for their process that they created
028first and foremost broadout is an educational Enterprise and my understanding of the process was that the students learned about democracy the students learned about inclusion the students lived into the mission statement of rondout and they are the ones that made the decision they're the ones they're living into it and they're the ones that get to continue to be with it and learn uh and the issues from it we can accuse them being influenced uh by others but I think that makes us subject to Adultism in which we assume that our young people aren't capable of making decisions and in this case I think they were very thoughtful and it was a very long process and it's a process will be ongoing so thank you students and thank you to the administrators and to the board
029for supporting our students as they explore what it means to live in this world thank you thank you Ken thank you I'm like Ken Walsh the real question can anybody raise attended this question does anybody is anybody here in favor of including our planet raise your hands great is anybody here in favor of being mean on purpose great so we can just establish that a general the student body is reprised of a bunch of different people Miss I applaud you I think your comments were biased because I I think that the ones you represented were represented one star uh Pastor I'm strong believer in God I think you're wrong we we don't talk about specific individuals for people of faith that come here and think that this was a democratic process or an expression of
030democracy you're wrong it wasn't voted by other hosting the council there is reasons that we have laws in place that people who are certain age can't buy guns or shouldn't buy guns they can't drink they can't drive why because they're they're not fully developed and I think at this point in time there should be just common sense if you can believe that the student body is in fact inherently good we're not looking to damage the LGBT community that he hers how they identify but at a certain point in time this or represents not only the students you represent the community that Lord you represent me as a taxpayer you represent everybody not just the students but what's happening is we are you know I wanna it's like in my own personal opinion I think masculinity
031and I never believed in toxic masculinity until I raised myself to be truthful with that say that's such a common I love him because they're not with that state this is not about the gender it's about identifying biologically what is right we had my son's telling me that we have ferries they identify as cats it's just they're doing harm not only because we're not representing the student body in general we're doing harm because the real world doesn't work that way it's not a popularity contest you don't get pulled over and the cops comes oh hey you're doing 80. oh I love their sneakers are you friends with someone so and you can't say well officer I identify as a race car driver it's not the way the world works you your identity and how you
032perceive yourself should be respected but it's absurd it is absurd to hold everybody else through a a standard towards one or two or even 10 people identified with them what you've done is is disrespectful to the women of this of this process of the Court my sons are wrestlers my daughters are wrestlers to think that avoid who identifies as a girl as he did in Texas and wins two state titles is equality is absurd muscle mass bone density National I mean natural uh strength they're not equal we are not equal I will wrap this up thank you but why can't we just respect the differences in not only our personality but in our actual physical gender because it was really disrespectful to the woman and if I believe if I'm I correct both in general
033that got this gave it back so we did something wrong you're giving them away at work and they don't want it Frazier [Applause] uh sorry if it's a little scrambled I didn't know about the three minute time limit so we'll give you a couple more thank you um for those who don't know me my name is Evan Fraser I'm a senior here at Honda I found around my entire life um I am also the secretary of the senior class and just I'm usually very involved with just anything um today I'm here not really to give my opinion like others I just want to walk everyone through the process at least that student Congress went through of how the new voting system is created um I can't speak for everyone on the student Congress but myself
034and a few other members uh do agree that it feels like we want to listen to um and that we've been really formulate these structures for voting as a congress in general um so to back this up end of September we are I think probably the last Community seconds last week um we were planning out homecoming and as you know we have many days off this time of year due to different holidays and superintendent conference meetings so we meet as a student Congress Monday after school we were going to miss a Monday after you exactly what date that was but we were going to miss a Monday and it was a key meeting that we needed to finalize homecoming prep so we came up with the idea actually of students to have an emergency meeting
035we were the ones that presented that to the advisor and everyone agreed so we were told following week that we were being pulled into a student meeting um I'm paraphrasing here I do have the actual quote I'm short on time we were told that we're going to be pulled out following Monday during sixth period to discuss the food truck festival homecoming dance and prep and just finalize everything and at least for most of my other senior Representatives they all were under the impression that we were going to finish dance prep we didn't really know who the DJ was yet food vitalized and we still need to figure out who's going to go decorate so that Monday we get pulled out of our sixth period classes we meet in the cafeteria with three advisors oh but
036um so we all met as a congress first thing we do is we sit down um and we're told that our student Representatives so to back up for those who don't know how the class Congress works there's a president vice president secretary and Treasurer and then we have four Representatives those Representatives um for the senior class we had two of which were there right away before we could get into any discussion told that those Representatives had to leave and that it was an officer only meeting we were under the impression that this was a standard student Congress meeting that we had on Mondays and it was just shifted to during school because we missed the previous meeting and we just had work to get done so it was a little awkward we have a certain
037member who because of sports she wasn't able she's usually not able to attend the meetings so she really wanted to stay to be involved and wasn't sure why uh Representatives wouldn't be wouldn't be allowed to discuss homecoming when we could the week before just in a different room but so they asked to stay and they were still told to leave so it was very awkward our Representatives ended up leaving so it was only the officers left in the room from every grade minus the freshmen because I think they weren't fully finalized yet on their vote um so the entire meeting was not what we thought it was or what we were told in the email prior to it that it's going to be about what you thought it was going to be the planning for
038the dance and homecoming uh we walk into the meeting and we're told that we have to find a new voting structure to make more people in the district feel inclusive for homecoming king and queen and we have to reformat it somehow so we began some discussions and um we all agreed that you know it doesn't be marvelous us being Juniors last year as Emily had mentioned sorry for the name thing but actually that she mentioned previously we did come up with a different system last year um and it you know it worked we didn't really run into any issues with anyone of that Community being in the list as far as I'm concerned so we didn't really have as many issues as we did this year so as we were discussing meeting we all the
039students were coming up with different ideas of how to change this voting process and as we were coming up with these ideas it seemed like every idea we had kind of got them we did have some discussion but it felt if anything the students said that day didn't really get taken into consideration we had a lot of just opinions and different ideas we had one solution and our response was that or sorry their response to us was that it's that that solution would be reactive and that we want to be proactive that's referring to what we did through the junior prom which under you know my understanding for the junior prom we had the standard selection of students and we decided whoever um in that list if there's anyone known to identify the different pronouns
040or any any gender that we'd ask them hey when what would you like to be called so you feel comfortable um we suggested why don't we do that again because it worked for junior prom and we were told that that was reactive not proactive we want to prevent that um we we approached them the advisors with other ideas and they still were kind of shot down and it seemed like they almost had their own plan in place and that plan to my understanding was that uh taking the traditional way voting was done for those who don't know voting that for homecoming at rondout has been like this for the last few years where staff members and teachers are told to pick 10 students they used to be told to pick five guys and five girls
041and then it'd be 10 students in your class obviously and then those 10 would be put into a voting poll for the entire student body voting so by the end of the meeting they had finalized the idea of having 10 students still get picked but without any gender uh you know amount or anything just 10 students in general and then these 10 students got voted by the student body instead of king queen it was royalty one royalty two um I will say there was some issues with the voting system as I saw many people do you could vote for everyone at once um system because of their not being individualized categories kind of this flawed also this just all felt like a very last minute preparation and by the end of the meeting the Bell
042ran because we only had six periods of talk so that was you know a short 40 minutes and we didn't really even Vote or finalize anything um and it's referred to as Robert's rules that use here we typically use those during student Congress and that meeting we did not use them so it's just kind of interesting to me how for a big discussion like that our Representatives aren't allowed we didn't even have prior knowledge we're going to be discussing that topic and we didn't really have a point though um I did hear some chatter today that uh we were told that there was a vote in agreement the next Congress meeting but there wasn't we actually just continue discussing homecoming it was a very short meeting um so my big issue was that the students
043at least spoke with from a senior class feel like that they were misrepresented and we truly don't feel like we came up with this system it felt like the system was already the idea was you know created and we were kind of told what we were doing because none of our ideas or aspects of the problem were implemented into this new system so you know just personally we feel like we didn't create this new beliefs abilities and I just wanted to lay that out here for everyone to know because I know a lot of people here especially from Community or aware of that and you know and then personally I just feel like you've done better um I think with this issue being such a prominent issue in the school as it seems like it
044handled weeks ago not a week and a half two weeks before homecoming and maybe it could have been a bigger discussion Maybe maybe you could have had more administrators in could have had more students out of student Congress maybe parents or community members to see how they felt as well maybe it could have included those of the LGBT community so we could directly ask them how they want this situation to be handled and how they'd like themselves to be included into our new voting system I feel that's just the best way we have a problem I feel like the best thing to do is you know ask the person being directly affected and it seems as though we didn't do that so that's all I came here to say I just wanted everyone to understand
045how this system was created and uh just how the students have been feeling about it thank you [Applause] thank you Evan we appreciate you um we did give Evan extra time um he's the student and um just like we gave Emily her time you know so I do um I do like to be fair but um I'm not going to stop um uh next up is um Glenn dubrowski did I say that right yeah too good oh hi how are you I'm so sorry okay I'm a former board member I served in the 70s a long time ago what happened why I'm here I was at the football game and I saw two football players uh get their rewards you know and that bothered me a little bit I was different to students and the
046students I was sitting next to I was in the student area kind of different they were surprised as far as always concerned they didn't know what was going on okay and so I look at this thing and I say hey we had homecoming there's always been a queen and a king and now we have two boys and they take the most popular vote well it's football season the most popular vote is going to be the football players the basketball season will probably be basketball okay and boys are boys and girls and girls and girls aren't built the same way as boys are and you know it's a lot of different teams you know somebody wants to be different that's all right I mean I don't see any problem there where I see a problem is
047the way the program was run okay you don't take and run a program like that and I see tonight you're voting on this guy or this girl whoever it is going to be appointed to that position I can't see the board passing that at this time I think they better take a better look at it and look at this guy and see if this is what we really want as far as I'm concerned it's not thank you we're not voting on voting on something tonight all-inclusive stuff oh for the empathy yeah it's different than than this it's um well it's just a guy that came with all this stuff yeah sorry about that no that's okay I just wanted to make sure you knew that you know let's make sure I knew we weren't doing
048it um Val inappropriate comments on your post and as we know today there are lots of high Executives and amount of coaches you know in the football leagues getting terminated for their jobs now but I want to know who's responsible in accountable to us in the public to let us know what the outcome of that is um so I would think that in we don't typically comment and respond to public comment however um I am making some exceptions what would happen is it would get voted upon confidentially and then um those things are made public events on this we will go back and we will evaluate and we will let you know [Music] um this still is a public meeting and I still am allowing for us to respond which we typically don't do so
049I would I am asking for the respect to allow that conversation to continue okay when we can expect something from somebody whoever's responsible for that because obviously it was worth in this meeting so I do feel that there's like a level of responsibility to the public I don't disagree and Dr Morgan is saying the next board meeting perfect so okay thank you at this time I have no other public comment forms is that correct does anyone else want to make a public comment thank you oh I'm being told our new policy doesn't require forms that's changed right now yeah I don't know I don't know I'm sure right we just want to make sure we respond also go ahead um and in our communities the children are hurting um people who have parents who support
050them can cut that suicide we've got the wrong priority sometimes and a child's life is a lot more important than my traditions thank you I'm sure I'm sure [Music] do you have public comments because if you want to have a problem all right so you'll um please address me okay what are the statistics of children and adolescents that kill themselves that are not energy I don't have those statistics I I don't have any of the statistics that I would readily and honestly think the last few years [Music] I can understand that thank you for your comments um yes if you have a comment if you could address me it's probably just because it's the same thing like the lgbtq and the knowledge is here they're the same they're all do you have it right exactly
051so so thank you um so the comments that we are going to have need to be directed at the board it's not an engagement back and forth in conversation according to Robert's Rules okay so just trying to keep the meeting in order anyone have any other comments yes I'm sorry you had your comments I really have a question um we don't do questions um in public comment we can talk about that after the meeting if you have a question yes um like garbage situation that was after a homecoming because I was sitting um section as well I mean or anything but I feel like I feel like it was another thing that added on to a lot of people trying to write homecoming was just the amount of payoffs thank you Dr Morgan's making notes
052so we'll alleviate the garbage today foreign do we have any other comments okay so so typically we don't respond to public um we did have students um courageously speak in front of in front of a lot of adults who um don't necessarily have the same opinions as each other or the adults in the room I want to commend the students for speaking I also want to let everyone know that um as a board of education we are elected by the community to represent the community and represent our missions and our values we take that job very seriously um we do not get paid this is a volunteer job and we work tirelessly to try and do what's best for all of our students we do um believe that this is something that needs to be
053looked into um we believe that there is something that um we that could be done to make sure that all the students are in agreement and the community is aware of the situation or something that's going to change when we're changing tradition in this way as we do support our students of all times we want to make sure that everyone feels comfortable coming to school and being able to celebrate who they are in the safety of the school including online if um I did hear that people were upset that there were um that we had two kings um a crowned on Friday and then we had two queens crowned on Saturday that was a recommendation by me if you are upset that we did that I did that for the recommendation went to the um
054the superintendent I did that to make sure that all the students knew that we heard them we may have made a mistake in not telling people what happens we're going to own that mistake and we're going to do right by the students the best we can do I make mistakes all day every day um I I do if you're upset about that be upset with me do not be upset with our students our students did the best job they could to be democratic to be thoughtful to be inclusive they are the greatest kids you could ever meet they include everyone I I yearned to be like these kids so if you're upset be upset with me take it out on me not the students okay I made those decisions to crowns with Queens I know
055that there's some people in this room upset about that I recommend business so Dr Morgan thank you for enacting that um I just want to make sure that if you're upset with something else like the two queens um um that's on me so um hurricane and that they even listened to the full suit body I think you're more sure so I'm not looking for feedback right now I'm just trying to let everyone know what's going on the board of education the board of education does care very much as well as the administration are people upset with what happened yes we are trying to right the wrong um but we are also trying to guide our students in the Democratic process it sounds as though there were some gaps and we're gonna work to make sure
056we mitigate those gaps and help them really learn how to have a board meeting and hopefully make controls better than I did this one I did a great job um so thank you all for coming thank you all for being a part of this thank you for speaking um for those of you that spoke and I don't think you're blaming the students but I wanted you to know some decisions that I made as of the board president I wanted to make sure that you were placing plane correctly if you were okay okay say something of course yeah thank you Don could you please spread back a little bit I would like to everyone to see our new uh Vision uh vision mission and values um we work on that over the past year with our
057strategic plan uh we saw community in input and we had significant Community input in this and I'll just read it to you um we want our students uh we'll grow into critical thinkers lifelong Learners with Integrity confidence and compassion our values are diversity kindness creativity and growth our mission is to create an inclusive welcoming education Community where all students can find their purpose and achieve their goals that's what we're trying to do and as Don said do we make mistakes yeah we make mistakes but we're trying to move some really difficult uh work forward because we want an inclusive community we want all of our students to feel welcome we want our students to be safe and to tell you the truth we just did a survey of all of our students and our community
058and we didn't find that in the survey that uh the response we received from students is there's a good portion of our students that don't feel safe in our schools and that is what our work is so we're trying to move that forward as I said what we make mistakes yeah we'll make mistakes but we're trying to make round out a place where everyone feels safe everyone feels welcome and everyone gets what they need as far as an education so I just wanted to put that out there I know people are upset but it's difficult work and they'll be there'll be bumps in the road and but we need to keep it moving forward so thank you [Applause] hands up um public comment has really ended so um and let I you can stay after
059and we can talk but um you all had your time to talk we had our time to let you know why we did what we did and the mistakes that were made so um and you can ask me a ton of questions after the meeting but um you know if the meeting so um next up is cell phone discussion in the schools another really good topic tonight thank you oh so um foreign okay so um we are having um another discussion about cell phone discussion I don't know how lazy this is Board of Education what do we want to do do we want to continue with this conversation on cell phone discussion do we want to table it to the next meeting foreign yeah like an introduction to like what is currently in place and
060sure so what are the rules I'm invited uh the principals to uh share what what the um practices are in the building so um maybe we could just go up it doesn't have to be elaborate if you could just give us a couple of bullets what patent just to get conversation going so we we know how it works if you own manufacturer start with the with the elementary schools us hi for those of you who don't know me and Jackie the nasda principal courthouse in elementary school we are increasingly School so cell phone use that kind of thing on a huge factor for us on a day-to-day basis we do have students that do bring devices to school they tend to stay in student Tech facts if anything comes out of a backpack when you
061have a conversation and that will often all you know involved parents well but we are living in a world right now where we don't have any students in our building that were alive before cell phones so all of our students need to learn how to use Technologies appropriate approc appropriately safely so that's our job one of the things that we're doing this year that we're really seeing including digital citizenship as a part of our instructions our school counselor who will be using um a website called commonsense.org it's easy it's easy to look at it's very parent friendly lots of great parent resources teaching children about the basics of Internet safety and appropriate use of devices and that's how we're going able to start at our end of work yeah thank you that was a very
062good brief summary okay that was Reaper um very nice job on that we'll just say every other word because it works um you know we also said parents expect their students to have cell phones security with complicated lives after school and whatnot in our building we've started a digital citizenship program through program of a keyboarding without tiers you're actually addressing with our students but our policy is pretty strict you know you know cell phones are a huge distraction not only professors but also in just basic socialization and you know cause more isolation than within a good school part of what they're doing Saturday to each other so at the junior high the expectation for students is to leave their cell phones in their lockers it actually is working out really well this year quite a
063bit area we see the Wikipedia so that's another reason why we try to keep the phones in the lockers throughout the day is because of times that kind of look so that's and then they're the bathrooms pounds which we've learned we can control as well as we'd like to and um fortunately this year it's been pretty quiet as far as cell phone use of the bathrooms but again in the Intermediate School I've not gone so far as required of the cell phones be kept in lockers and some security concerns downstairs with that but students understand cell phones should never be out during school they including recess and March and when that does happen regard let me confiscate the cell phone return at the end of the day the second time we inform the families to
064get their support so that's that's how we handle it the following time thank you high school and at the high school to do what everyone said you know one of the things that we noticed coming out of the pandemics our students were so connected and they were hoping they were sometimes moving on two to three or four devices and toggling between tabs and just being really connected that when they were coming full time back in the building um it really was becoming a distraction for us from where I so it was because of struggles but a lot of feedback that we received a lot of the staff so unfortunately took this year was a school apply approach after also watching and you know on the news so you know some reality school districts in this
065County and other counties of going to a zero intolerance policy on other schools going to active students and do a building storing their cell phone his little block of device but we have rocked out we wanted to give the students the opportunity on to demonstrate that they can be responsible with their calls we also believe in value of teaching that skill and that addiction is Israel even us as adults there's a lot of research that there's a you know about dopamine every time that we get a notification Girls Just Want to instantly you know check it and research says that 78 of our students check their phones with every every hour um so rather than going kind of the zero tolerance um every um teacher of Staff editor for every block there's a two-minute Tech
066break or a brain break and that's to leave the classroom but if you know they can either keep the cell phones away on them on that person or if the teacher has an established system so we were really kind of moving on just things for the application clear and consistent bring it out of the gate and also really communicating to the students whether they're in physics and then they go to PPE or music class each of the teachers committing to clearly communicating when that two minute break would be so students don't have to be like when's or two minute breaks really anticipate it to help also alleviate that anxiety patients high school and we were just monitoring and it's been working really well great thank you does anyone from the board have any questions um
067it's a really good to hear what everyone is doing in the building um do we need does anyone feel that more discussion is made on that topic or is it working I just encourage people think I don't know yeah I don't know I do we feel that we need more discussion or if if the administrators need our support I think we go from there I mean I think that it's a cell phone world so we don't do questions um okay you'd like to get the information down okay great thank you you're welcome um next up is Administrative reports do we have any admission reports are you guys good you can wait till next meeting it's all good I know I think I would oh [Music] thank you okay sounds like it was a democratic process
068so we'll let it roll sounds like a short straw process democratic Ians even better is do we use the last time going on that we want to invite you so that I can't get into relationship s but but irregardless we had we're probably one of the best football festivals we've ever had last Thursday a beautiful fall day we had um so many things for the students to do and just to give you a historical sense when we started our Fall Festival in fall of 2000 2017. we did it again in the fall of 2018 and that was the last time we could do it because of the following 2019 you'll remember this but it rained for the spring of 2012. I didn't let me tell you what happened so for us it was very exciting
069to hear from students who had never been through something like this before that it was it's your Victoria joined us for part of the junior high and I heard kids saying things like you always want them to say this was the best day of my life they're fun that I've ever had this was great we had in the back of the building all kinds of group initiatives for the students to really build their skills of communication and conflict resolution uh we had karate work we had archery shootings we had uh fire trucks we games for them to play and they had a blast and for us it was again our belief that all these fundings sometimes would make a mistake administrators when I know Victoria's plan a trip for the next few weeks we're trying
070to do things that are community building in the containers here and and I know you can show our buildings were trying to model that so thank you for your support please forgive me for not inviting you but it's not that I will watch you there you are forgiven it's all good everyone I mean I'm around um thank you is that all of the image um board timing committee reports let's start with bacon I do not have any committee updates um I do want to point out that you know homecoming was greatly attended it was a lot of fun um field as beautiful as my first my first one so uh yeah that's awesome yeah and I heard the road a lot of like food trucks a lot of food trucks a lot of people nice
071nice beautiful challenge um from Athletics a couple of things uh first uh The Good the Bad and the Ugly so throughout all the the sports uh teams you know we've suffered a lot of injuries this fall but with that um I do want to take note um we have an amazing athletic trainer and kudos to Dr Morgan for finding him and scooping him up because he he's he's absolutely um amazing with our athletes um and he's incredibly caring um and and is very knowledgeable and I think it's it's a new it's an incredible asset that we have and as I travel sometimes to other schools and stuff they don't have what we have there and I think it's noted that we're definitely ahead of the game on that one so kudos to the district for
072um for having him with us um all the good with that being said congratulations to coach Clinton and our golf team which clinched the mahals for the second straight year nice coach Simeon and our field hockey team have been playing well and are leading the league and their division we will be hosting the field hockey Mahal semifinals on October 18th we will be hosting the field hockey sectionals the semis and the finals on October 25th and October 27th and once again we will be hosting the field hockey regionals on Sunday November 6th at noon at 2 and at four um so and Coach Panic would like to uh thank Steve Stevens and all the maintenance guys for keeping our Fields looking really great throughout this whole season three thank you no pressure for field hockey
073but I hear they're doing great Dean um I have no update I was unable to make the last okay great Nicole um educational delivery committee has not met since the last time foreign um kind of facility everything seems to be going well in phase three and yeah great Chris yeah thank you Lucy for touching on some of those things so we did start to look at as you all know every five years we need to build building conditions survey um we are now receiving the uh the data back from that in terms of what um yeah Palumbo has found in terms of items that need to be fixed what might be at the end of their life and I know it's kind of crazy to be talking about those records we're in the middle of
074a capital project now but there's always things that are starting to reach the end of their life or lifespan are going to be close to it within the next five to ten years of that's being flagged in this report um Dean wasn't at the meeting but I did speak with him um Lucy and I in the meeting did give a recommendation to Dr Morgan I don't think our community is ready for another Capital project right now we're still in this phase of finishing this one off so what our recommendation was to Dr Morgan was let's take this building commission survey let's pop it in through three categories the first is what can our current maintenance team our current facilities team take on themselves so the low hanging fruit you know maybe the things that are
075a thousand dollars here four thousand dollars there let's see if we can fix those internally with our existing team or maybe even bring me in contractors so Dr Morgan was going to look into that um the second option is that so every year we have Dr Morgan explain this better or even Alyssa we have the option of putting in a hundred thousand dollar um portion of our budget that would be Capital product related so we we could get state aid um that and anything we bucket into that uh component is part of our budget so we've asked Dr Morgan and the team and Alyssa on the team to go through the building's business surveys see items maybe can be bucketed into that stretching out over the next you know three to maybe five years right
076and kind of phasing it uh when we do do the work and then the third the third category obviously is the capital project so what are some of the big ticket items that we don't feel we can afford um to put it build into a budget um that maybe we do need to have a discussion about putting them into a capital project for those items we would intend to um as a committee do a walk through of you know the facilities the facility what we did during the last couple of project planning um and give some input and recommendation to Dr Morgan see if we can come up with other strategies to maybe fit those those items in so that's that's an update on the building condition survey by the way I do want to
077make sure that our assumption is right at the four degrees what is all of your field invested more in terms of another Capital project now okay okay so um in the last like this current capital project the timing was such that when the last Capital project fell off this one started so I think that would be healthy so that we don't see the dip and then a big spike yes so it's a good point on it I think that certainly we can talk about that but we also need to remember we are putting some some funding into our capital reserve so it could be possible we might be able to look forward to some of these projects sooner than later but thank you it's good to kind of hear that you're you all feel similar
078to what our recommendation was that is that it's it's not the time now to go go into a full Capital project um we did have a follow-up on the gender neutral bathrooms the last meeting we had um there was discussion about what would the timeline be for Pavilion Pavilion um and ensuring that we can have the school open for events so that there is a gender neutral option um on the latter indeed Dr Morgan has admitted that we will have the buildings open so we will have a gender neutral bathroom available um on the form or the Pavilion so the reality of building Pavilions to be honest is not in the next year maybe not even the next two years I think we'll have to discuss this as a facilities committee see how we could
079fund this so the reality is what what Alyssa you were thinking maybe a five-year potential when we might actually see a pavilion come through is that what we said okay so long too yeah so I just want to follow up and give you all that uh that update because it was it would ask that you had of us at the last meeting Chris there was another ask to see about monitors in the bathrooms for safety concerns was that looked at yet or no sorry we forgot about that um thank you great um budget topic so uh Lucy mentioned the um the equalization rates that Dr Morgan presented tonight we did have another discussion on the senior tax exemption that will continue into our next meeting um the intent of the next meeting is we'll actually
080have real data with the new um exemptions based on classification that we can um as a committee say yeah you're an aeon um and then the attack would be to print that before for ultimate approval um we do have a formal committee charge now um and is that available Melissa on the if not we'll make sure you all see it just so you can see what what our charge is for both budget and Facilities um and I think that was it I I want to comment quickly on a comment that um not homecoming comment but this is so it's nice to hear a different different topic tonight but the garbage in the stands and honestly we put so much work into building this beautiful Stadium money time I do want to just ask students right
081and if you can please spread the word let's take care of it right if the community comes in the pastor has come in and see that we're not taking care of this stuff but they have paid for it's a real bad image where we try to do the next process right we're going to build something else so um if you can convey that to the to your peers it'll be really great um I love seeing the kids have fun this fans right but I think if they're pouring ice cream on the bleachers and stuff it's it's it's very disrespectful um so and Dr Morgan if there's any way we can convey that a little bit more globally um as well looking good yeah yeah there are no garlic fans of the bleachers so it's a
082good point Lucy we might want to consider There's a garbage can right there the face right there's one at the base okay um last last thing for me so um I greatly appreciate hearing from the suicide right honestly I could care less here from the adults sorry to say it but I think adults sometimes don't bring a rational point of view right and you all are living this so um Emily and and Evan I appreciate you coming to the table right um I do my perspective of hearing people I think there's some conflicting you know perceptions of what happened um and how this all came about um I'm confident though I think you all coming to the table where he has a suit in Congress you all can work through these my observation I think
083this has happened very quickly I think it was too short of a time I think we probably should have invented more time to have a thorough discussion and evidence suggested bringing in many different points of view love it I love that idea and I would encourage people to bring those types of things back to um to the table to student Congress um I I have to say I was really proud to hear from you both speak tonight um I have my own personal feelings about what went down um I have four daughters I think I'll let you uh imagine what what my belief is um but I really don't feel the need to get into it which is I really am confident that we have these great students here who are going to lead the
084charge so thank you to both of you and good luck working through it I had a question for Chris Chris with the senior tax exempt there's a deadline right because we missed it last year that was the whole when is the deadline yeah what was it so we we're still we still have plenty of time right the intent though is at the next board meeting which is beginning of November um as a committee we will have our piece finalized for the intent to go have it go to the board um either end of November early December I think Melissa was going to look into the different race Canadian districts okay well thank you everyone recommended motionless Board of Education approve the agreement between the roundabout Valley Central School District and Dr Julie Cohen effective July
0851st 2022 through June 30th 2023 is extended I'll make the motion any discussion all those in favor any opposed motion carries recommended motion that the Board of Education I'm going to consolidate two and three if that's okay that's perfect that the Board of Education approves the consultant Services agreement between the Rhonda Valley Central School District Carlos Perez and Paul scarpati effective October 1st 2022 and June 30th 2023 is presented I'll make motion second discussion all those in favor any opposed motion carries recommended motion to accept the recommendations of the committee on special education and committee on preschool special education and to authorize the arrangements of special education programs and services for the students as presented I'll make the motion any discussions all those in favor any opposed motion carries Nancy recommending motion that the Board
086of Education approved the revised Personnel report recommended by Dr Joseph Morgan superintendo I'll make the motion discussion all those in favor any opposed motion carries um Alyssa recommended motion of the Board of Education and through the Surplus list in the high school as we'd exit and make a motion sorry any discussion all those in favor any opposed motion carries recommended motion of the Board of Education improve the food service worker summary at 15.50 per hour as presented a second any discussion all those in favor uh any opposed motion carries recommending motion of the Board of Education accept the corrective action plan for the trust our free BOCES internal audit and in June 30 2022 for the Roundup Valley Central School District as presented any discussion all those in favor any opposed motion carries are you
087allowing us to go back and ask questions about something we've already passed I I don't know I mean I'll let it go this time sure that's why I know in the past we haven't been allowed I know let's be flexible okay food service worker right because we're Contracting hell I just I don't understand what that is so uh when we first at the labor schedule to Woodson's uh pretty much it was set in stone because over contract for a year of people at Labor schedule decided to resign or quit we have to fill that position so one person did so we're kind of using a few sub workers to kind of create that voice okay thank you Nicole caps Levine lost my voice do you want me to read it for you okay so this
088is Nicole um recommended motion that the Board of Education improves the Consultants Services agreement between the rondout Valley Central School District and teaching empathy Institute David Levine effective October 1st 2022 through June 30th 2023 as presented I'll make the motion any discussion all those in favor oh oh look at me go zip right by that okay who's the other hand it's impossible to to get like a given outline of a thought for Levine's covers in his um station just in general that one thanks thank you so I was just a little confused at what they were talking about was this the person they were wondering it's a different training yeah this is a continuation of work with this particular contract is to start working earlier before the tunnel program around social emotional learning gotcha I
089don't want you to think I'm questioning your choices and I just just so we have information and what's in our email yeah what what was brought up separate separate sorry for the confusion yes will we have a conversation about that email sure how we can do it at the next executive session thank you unless you want to go into Executives okay I mean that was my guess so any other discussion all those in favor and he opposed motion carries recommended motion to adjourn the September 20th October 11th 2020. um any discussions all those in favor any opposed motion carries everyone be well and be safe what the thank you