001we now begin our first public comment period on behalf of the board i extend our thanks to all attendants tonight we appreciate very interesting admissions there for the spring city school district board of education meetings in new york state are held in public so we can conduct business as a district with transparency and maximum amount of information available to the community there are not meetings with the public that involve dialogue but rather are intended to focus on a previously established agenda so the business of the district can be conducted however we do provide two public accounting periods during the speakers today adjust the board to share information to inform our work and we are eager to hear your voices to enable an efficient environment for the board to accomplish the district assistance the first public
002commentary is limited to 30 minutes total while the second common period has no time if your statement requires follow-up the appropriate person will be in touch we ask that you join us as role models for the students in our district in terms of civil discourse and in return we commit to actively listen and consider with open minds what you have to say we ask that you be succinct and try not to repeat previous speakers so more people have the opportunity to address the board we do not allow comments about specific individual employees students are trusted following district policy all persons inside district buildings are required to wear a mask over their mouth and nose we now open the first public comment period each speaker has three minutes and the period will be no more than
00330 minutes old before you address the award please clearly state your name and address and please keep your mask on the first speaker is christine page is i'm here tonight with other parents to respectfully ask the board to consider our request for a swimming pool for our district for phase three of the current capital project we believe strongly that a pool would be good for our student community good for the broader saratoga community and good for our varsity and modified student programs so first a pool is good for our student community why here are some statistics drowning is the second leading cause of unintentional death for children under 14. um 10 people drown each day in the united states and formal swim lessons reduce the likelihood of drowning by 88 so by having our own
004pool every student in our school community could graduate knowing how to swim additionally the pool could be used not only for swimming but for rehabilitative purposes so students injured from other sports teams could use the pool as a way to stay conditioned while they recover all right the second benefits of the pool is good for the broader saratoga community currently saratoga has just one whole community role the ymca having another school in the community could expand opportunities for learning swim lifeguard training and the life not to mention being a revenue generator it's also important to note that the why saratoga branch on west avenue will be home to a new 17 000 square foot senior center which likely will put more strain on the wise pool so having another pool in our community could lessen
005that strength now a third benefit is that a pool is good for our varsity and modified swim program currently these two programs rely on sydnor and the y for full time with respect to the varsity team in particular saratoga is the only school in the district does not have their own team meaning that the time allotted to them for practice is severely restricted in short they're really at the mercy of skin more in particular other teams with respect to the modified team which is comprised of students that have little or no swimming experience at all you're at the mercy of the ymca and again the wise new senior center is likely going to put strain on their pool limiting the modified team school times which could significantly amaze or even eliminate this really really important
006program which teaches kids to swim and involves them in the sport so again the school is good good for the student our next picture is jeremiah thank you just to follow on a couple of christine's points my name is jeremiah wood i reside at ken hawkins place in saratoga springs and i'm here to support andrew and and we anticipate contacting dr patton's office with a requested meeting to discuss in detail as well as launching the general publicity campaign to generate support at the appropriate time in addition to what christine said another significant matter is of equity and inclusion for the student athletes and in that regard the construction project and their support the football team has a delighted stadium facility processes like turf field tennis has its courts and these facilities are all open for
007public use additionally a pool could also be open for public use and in that sense generate a moderate amount of revenue for the district construction of a district pool would benefit our swim teams and elevate their sense of value to that of other teams which already have their own facilities this instruction would enable our physical education programs to incorporate swimming lessons and water safety into elementary education and the construction of a pool would allow the district to host swim meets which can bring hundreds of people from out of town who may in turn require accommodation to stay around town for dinners or other entertainment venues and in the further event that a pool was constructed with substantial spectator capacity the athletic events that it would be capable of hosting could compete against such venues if
008the college through some of the downstate mandatories then you could really have an event center which would do wonders for the reputation of our town and of this district so we look forward to developing support for this project and returning itself time as it may become an official agenda thank you our next speaker is bond good evening my name is andrew i live at four gatewood drive saratoga springs [Music] it's time to scotsman to talk about money no stereotypes there at all the key message this evening is your saratoga school district really does need one central swimming and diving venue did you know that the varsity and this modified teams pay approximately 50 000 per year to use other people's pools that's money we could save and put constructively towards our own facility for the
009district take it from a scotsman a swimming and diving venue can generate revenue and bring significant business to saratoga and the surrounding environs instead of going to buffalo for the new york state championships we could have the championships here in saratoga and bring in thousands of people did you know that large swim meets can last several days involving hundreds of swimmers and coaches those swimmers and coaches bring the parents the grandparents the reluctant brothers and sisters and they're stuck there stuck here and you know they'll be staying several nights in accommodation coming from outside the area going out for meals going shopping in the area it's great for local business very positive for this area not just saratoga but the surrounding times big meets are not the only source of revenue of course we don't
010have big mates every weekend but you can earn money from lessons swimming lessons lifeguard training we've all heard on npr wanc about shortage of lifeguards in the summer we can do that in the training fitness classes involving the community making the pool open to the community at a nominal fee that's all different revenue sources birthday parties christmas parties you name it in conclusion do not see swimming and diving venue as a loss maker see it more as another way to increase inflow of business to saratoga and this district as well as being of enormous benefit to the children of this district and the people of this district our ask finally is we would love to meet with mr patton other key stakeholders to discuss this initiative thank you for your attention good evening my name
011in sarasota is and i have two children at division i would like to thank the district first for hosting two very successful vaccine clinics for our younger kids we were some of the lucky ones to get appointments attending our second one this past saturday we had an extremely positive experience both times and appreciate the work you did i would also like to thank the district and board for your ongoing efforts with diversity equity and inclusion initiatives i'm proud to serve as a member of the district equity and inclusion committee and i look forward to the work we will do this year i think one of the greatest strengths of the committee is a shared commitment to learning and growing together this work involves continuous learning in the spirit of that learning and being conscious of
012the time of year i want to use this opportunity to discuss how the december holidays are approached in our schools the entire month of december in our country is centered around christmas it is my hope that we can get to a place where this is not also the case in our schools as a jewish woman raising jewish children it's not easy for us to be surrounded by people who assume that we celebrate christmas just because many people do this was my experience while growing up in saratoga and it is now my children's same experience here the assumptions are apparent through the decorations that are in nearly every public space through the music that is saved including christmas music on school buses and through the questions and comments that are made to us by friends and
013strangers alike such as are you excited for christmas what is santa many attempts at inclusion while well-meaning and appreciated unfortunately often missed the mark they continue to position christmas as the one true american holiday and further isolate non-christian students a recent district facebook post about the hanukkah instruction at lake masters is a good example of this while i really do appreciate the intent behind it and the attempt that the school was making the instruction appears to have fallen short of its goal of being truly inclusive teaching about holidays around the world only serves to further other non-christian religious holidays that are celebrated not just by people in other countries but in this month my classmates and by neighbors in our community additionally the candles on the menorah in the picture were placed on the wrong
014side it is wonderful that our schools are working to be more inclusive but more care should be given to ensure that the details are accurate because when they are prompt a greater not of exclusion or other gifts this doesn't mean we shouldn't trust but that we embrace opportunities to share and to learn and to acknowledge and address shortcomings how can we teach about non-christian religious holidays in ways that do not other than i certainly don't have all the answers but i do know that it will take ongoing and continuous learning on the part of all of us to create schools that are truly inclusive and able to serve each and every student thank you our next speaker is and very simple i've come up here a few times and have never received an answer from
015anybody on this board that the previous questions that i've asked but not from the district my two questions that i have tonight is i'd like to know how employees not teachers but your custodial state your aid staff how they are today is my second question to you this evening is do you randomly do drug testing on your employees questions thank you our next speaker is um all right i noticed you guys like numbers here especially ones with dollar signs so tonight i'd like to start with some numbers number is easily accessed using the whl's own adverse reaction website a site that for some is being overlooked when you see the data of this volume i think if one was playing a state and put our children's health first this would make some alarms go out
016i wonder why it's not from vgaccess.com there are over 2 million adverse reactions worldwide such as 100 111 000 reported blood and lymphatic disorders 146 000 cardiac disorders you'll also find under general disorders in administration site conditions each section listing debts reporting 13 fifty-five vascular disorders 142 000 spontaneous abortion reporting 3373 reproductive system and breast disorders reporting 123 000 cdc bayer's website is also reporting 894 1445 reverse reactions from code vaccine for 5 to 11 year olds 100 sorry 1 426 adverse events 9 rated as serious and one age death age 14. 12 to 14 year olds shows 23 000 adverse reactions 100 or 1 429 rated at serious and 30 deaths 59 reactions of anaphylaxis that was life-threatening or resulting in death 559 reports of myocarditis 549 were attributed to pfizer alone i don't
017know about you but these numbers are assumptions and it amazing amazes me that tools used by our own most trusted organizations for science and health are not being brought up in our conversations about health whether it be in our doctor's office at schools or even on the news these facts and this information are simply being ignored and pushed aside my family means everything to me now i know there isn't much you can do or at least that's what you keep saying but i urge you to at least investigate further of your own collision we need leaders willing to go against the grade and lead i [Applause] our final speaker is chris the beak i'm sorry you need to wear your mask over your mouth and nose if you wanted to guess this or be in
018this building certainly i already sent you out a mass exemption letter and was told i'd have reasonable accommodations that's why i still class all right thank you good evening ladies and gentlemen of the board only signing up for one public comment but i do intend to address the board of both um i'm up certainly here broadway yes sir i just spoke with him as well so two residents thank you sorry you threw me off a little track and expect all the questions from uh i expected a district to be a little bit more welcome to the residents so again i mean that is constructive criticism you engage and say you want to hear from the parents yet sorry i gotta adjust please if you could next time send me an email not do that in
019front of a room of people please thank you i'm here to address a few things uh my initial attempt was to come up here to give some information to the board concerning mass mandates the potential vaccine mandate that's coming down for schools or districts i do go to many school board meetings across the county i've introduced my group before new york informed and we're here to work with you not against you we're here to provide you with information we're here to learn from you we would hope you would learn from us as well now one of the things that was discussed earlier and i just provided a solution was the diversity equity and inclusion amongst jewish faith in particular i recently celebrated hanukkah with my family i had a lot of people over it was
020nice it was a nice time i had people have all the nominations open i welcomed any questions or concerns i had never had a problem with my kids coming to the school i found a lot of teachers are actually quite interested in knowing a little bit more about the jewish faith and we're more than willing to welcome my wife or i into the school and show them what we do as far as fighting the menorah playing dreidel the purpose behind it so that we could share that with other kids in the class that might be curious about our faith and unfortunately one thing i did find within my community and it wasn't within the school was within my own synagogue and again this is just a message of caution that i proposed because my son
021was recently supposed to come up for his bar mitzvah he's not allowed to do his bar mitzvah in the synagogue because he was not vaccinated there's no proof of his vaccination i can't even go into my synagogue without proof of vaccination so this is a cautionary tale i tell you as a school district consider this when it comes to how many children you may lose if this continues to go on with a potential mandate for a vaccine against the covenant 19 buyers i will be speaking a little bit more i have some information i'd love to share with you there are other school districts that are pushing back they just want to know a little bit more information before they're told to do something and just blindly accept them from the state or from the
022county and again i'll be more than happy to speak about that with each and every one of you i've got some information to share with you because again that's my goal is to work with you not against you i'd be more than happy to share that information with any of the parents in here as well that's the purpose of our group is to inform educate connect and protect especially our children thank you [Applause] natalia um [Music] um jobs so um please note that um back to policy should we just um i guess there was there was just some nuances of language that i think needed to be clarified um before i think we go right we were so i think we're basically hearing members from the policy committee saying please let us have this back
023and we'll work out a little more and we'll bring it back to the board okay so yeah we have a motion and so um with everybody in favor of that motion please signify that um any questions for the policy committee any other committees to report it's not a committee report but a report on the um adirondack school board association me that i attended last month just a quick summary for you the topic was chronic absenteeism it was at the queensbury hotel well-attended a great panel superintendent of queensbury school district a warren county probation officer probation is the agency that's in charge of truancy a political child psychologist and a cornell sociology professor who does work in rural schools around this panel and they discuss the causes the impacts the solutions or potential solutions and challenges
024of chronic absenteeism in our schools well worth it and just letting you know what the overall topic was any questions other so looking over at elementary school the tdis has a very successful turkey trout before break um k-12 teachers will do a peer observation to learn about the new ela program and then the hsa brought back the live book there during the last job which is very exciting for the students um over at division street uh thanks to the vlt and the generosity of parents they are working to provide sensory boxes by january for each classroom to help students with social and emotional needs um they have the k25 is involved in their first pta reflection program along with the collaboration between music teacher megan megan o'sullivan our teacher caitlin mcdougall and library um librarian
025so thanks to those of you individuals in their collaboration um and the i will change the world by blind competition submissions uh we're in and the top two will advance to a state and then uh national level of competition um over at maple ave the quarter one just ended and started the tutoring program for all the selected students on november 29th um the pbis here for the swag shop will be up and running in mid-december and then congratulations to maya roscoe or roscoe for her um for winning the student council mascot contest uh she created the new maple ave mascot and we are all very excited um over at the high school our first in-person concert was held last week and this week is our orchestra concerts and then next wednesday is the choral concert
026so please come out and support our music programs um winter sports are up and running on check schedule galaxy for any games and then lastly congratulations to a librarian jennifer douchey douche uh named school library sister rockstar rockstar librarian chosen because of her leadership and role in her library and community and that concludes the report thank you thanks so just want to thank dr davis for her tour tonight we for the opportunity to look at some of the upcoming billing enhancements uh that will be coming up through the legacy project so both free field and george are included in phase two of the legacy project so i'm really excited about some of the instructional enhancements the program enhancements some of the safety and security uh improving our transportation systems for drop-off and pickup procedures and
027also some energy efficiencies that will be gained here at mcgregor elementary school so uh tina did a wonderful job touring the board before before this meeting and um again showing some of the upcoming work that's going to take place at this time as many of you know the last few weeks for all of us here in the school district has been very difficult for our entire school community as we lost two members of our school family so in a few moments i'm gonna please ask that they'll stand and join uh in a moment of silence uh to honor the loss of one of our students daniel weiss dan who was a senior uh at our high school and also kathy ramo kindergarten teacher dedicated an entire a professional career as a kindergarten teacher at greenfield
028elementary school for the past 25 years both daniel and kathy will be greatly missed and our thoughts and prayers go out to their families and to the entire school community so if you please thank you very much so just want to provide some health and safety updates of the board in the community with our ongoing efforts in partnering with county health department as well as neighboring school districts uh in our work with dr jules uh in sarah county department of health um we are very excited um about to report on the progress that's being made in our newborn school district in southwest falls it just completed a pilot program the first in the state and again a lot of credit to dr fuels and the entire san diego county department of health for coordinating test
029the state protocols to have this opportunity for publishing districts in territory county southwest falls in their program over three weeks had the opportunity to test over a thousand students um and as a result of those tests it saved uh well over 900 instructional days for kids who would otherwise be quarantined so they had some recommendations to other school district county um and we're going to have a meeting actually tomorrow uh with all uh saratov county school district officials um to talk about the potential implementation of tested state protocols uh across saratoga county there are other counties in the state now that are again using saratoga county's pilot program as a model again just to speak to some of the challenges that school districts are facing right now is access to the rapid tests the binax
030tests for all school districts they're they're very hard to come by there's a supply chain demand issue right now so what dr phil is hoping that the next few weeks school districts will have access to finance tests which would allow other school districts in the county to begin the test estate protocol so we're going to learn more tomorrow during our webinar again making sure that all school districts and counties have access uh not only to the tests themselves but then again have protocols that we can follow conversely uh and again experience the type of success that something calls uh has seen again reducing the destruction of having healthy children these are kids who are not symptomatic but otherwise we've been involved in kind of tracing as a result of contact in school um sarasota county
031reports uh as of today the seven day growing average uh percent productivity rate is seven point two percent um so again we are seeing an increase uh again across the region each week we report out the board our total number of positive cases we are at 284 uh parallel student and staff i've covered cases since the beginning of the school year and currently we have 105 students that are out on quarantine and again the school district assists with the contact creation process but ultimately certain county department health is the ones who determine the quarantine and again have been very helpful in coming up with strategies to reduce that quarantine period with some early tests on options that our school nurses can communicate help the families and try to provide as much academic support during the
032time that our kids are out of school so again all of our efforts have been to try to minimize the disruption and provide the support to our kids and families who are impacted by program by the encouragement of the county health department and state health department they've asked for school districts to continue to offer families who choose to do so vaccination clinics hosted here at the school district i want to thank dr sorens our school district physician and his entire staff who have volunteered a lot of time to our community we did a second dose clinic this past saturday for high school we had close to 300 students and families participate we have a second dose clinic at the middle school this thursday evening close to 200 students and families will be participating and each
033time that we put a registration link out those are filling in less than 10 minutes so there's obviously a very high demand for the next so we will continue to schedule additional credits again with the support of dr trump and his staff and all the volunteers who have assisted with the clinics so we are looking to schedule additional clinics in january uh as long as we continue to see the interest in the demand from our parents and community members so that's my update any questions from from the board as it relates to a health and safety questions or concerns so uh lucas had mentioned our music department it was wonderful last week it was the first time in i think two years that we had the opportunity for our student musicians to be up on
034the stage uh performing in person uh last week was banned as you mentioned this week is orchestra and we're coming up on phone concerts as well as the middle school concerts uh congratulate all of our student musicians all of our music directors i see eric and back our music teachers have been working extremely hard and it really is awesome to have the opportunity to see the kids up on stage performing in front of a live audience so if you have a chance to catch one of the winter concerts over these next few weeks i really encourage you to do so and finally next monday night is december 13th we work closely with the ssta and several times throughout the year we have liaison meetings and so i believe i just want to check for the
035board we have up to four board members and participate in the liaison meeting so this week at six o'clock uh in the administrative center in room 221 i'm trying to keep the meetings for about an hour and i know some of you have responded but i was just going to take a quick okay and just that so this time i'd like to uh interview chef wainwright and tim ross jeff's our director of transportation uh kim's our assistant director of transportation for uh their annual report to the board of education on the uh thank you good evening everybody i'd like to thank the board of education the greenfield school and our community for allowing our department to speak on behalf of the entire department and our report on our operations i also want to extend our
036deepest consultancies to the greenfield school staff on the loss of catholic um so i'd like to introduce tim ross who's our assistant director of transportation chuck kansas who usually does join us um has an event at his granddaughter's school tonight for a concert so he asked that he'd be excused but then sent his um his uh appreciation and everything for allowing him to be able to do that so i'd like to first talk about our transportation department organization give you a little bit of information on how our department operates and the staff that we have within our department obviously myself and kim ross is the assistant on the middle column we have judy kahn is our safety and training coordinator we also have our dispatch and routing offices our secretary for our department and our
037fleet supervisor chuck cantor and under judy khan our safety training coordinators our drivers and bus assistants our school bus driver trainers and our trainees that we would have any given time under our supervisor chuck cantor we have his bus maintenance staff and the maintenance clerk so in total we have 11 people in our department that currently work there on a daily basis i'd like to talk a little bit about our operational statistics just to give a little bit of information of how we serve our students and our public right now this year we are currently transporting approximately 5206 eligible students um that is a stark difference over the last year of 3 405 students as you know last year we were in the middle of token 19 and operations were a little bit different our
038fleet we have 105 school buses 44 varied support vehicles throughout our district including facilities and operations our school lunch vehicles security vehicles etcetera we also maintain through a contract with boats and swish emojis in 16 of their school buses that we maintain and have inspected in our facility currently we operate approximately 303 routes on a daily basis this compares to about 588 from the previous year the reason for the big difference is because last year we were operating on an av schedule so we had doubled the routes for many of our schools for most of the school year this um this year with the 303 versus about average was what we see on an annual basis pre-showing i'd like to talk a little bit about a staffing update um obviously i think everybody hears about
039the school bus driver shortage um throughout our entire nation uh not only our school bus driver shortage but drivers in general especially that of people who hope cdl's truck drivers et cetera has become a big source of attention which i feel sometimes helps us a little bit because i think it helps to gain some attention for the need we have seen some applications come in which is a good thing it does it does go in heads and ties you know we do have ups and downs and um we've been doing well this year so far um i think part of that is is the way we've started out our year with our student enrollment process which i'll speak to a little bit our recruitment intention our recruitment and retention efforts are very important um you
040know we do have to recruit people but then we have to find ways to be able to retain them as well so we try to be creative within our own department to make sure that we are welcoming and we are there to help our people and provide them the support that they need we feel that's very important to helping to make a successful school bus driver um give them the tools that they need to do their job better and then right now on this year we're going through um some office staffing changes um due to retirements uh things that we have anticipated unfortunately they all came about at the same time so we're working through that um and i'm currently actually just interviewed for dispatchers today so that is looking good right now but we'll
041continue to do that throughout the rest of this year as we have a couple of more retirements that we are anticipating so um some of the fun things we do i'd like to talk a little bit about our community involvement some of the highlights of what we do on an annual basis and we really did miss it last year with covet is we do try to get out in the public um you know and have our transportation department and not only our transportation but our school district to be represented at uh events wherever we that we can be involved this particular event here was our patriots day parade in sarasota springs on september the 11th we had a group of our school bus drivers and families with two of our school buses that they decorated
042up and did a great job of going out there and just being a great place for our school district and for our kids the next event that we did is something that we really enjoy doing every year is we partner with the children's museum and their big truck day that they have on an annual basis this year the event was held at the maple avenue middle school as you can see we have a very nice tent to represent our school district and we um you know have people for our school buses provide safety information for kids we even use it for a little bit for recruitment just to talk to people about becoming school bus drivers encourage people to maybe consider that if they're looking for a second job or a primaries up that works
043very well for us and we enjoy getting out there and doing that and um a lot of what's really good about this is providing safety information for the kids especially kids that maybe are not in school yet that are looking forward to coming to school in the coming years it gets them out there gets them on the school bus so maybe they're not afraid so much on their first day of school so we really enjoy doing that on a summer basis annual basis i think one of the biggest things that we've done this year this one has helped me very much is this one it's a little bit more into the personalization with our students we were very happy in november after a lot of you know planning to welcome our care students from the
044high school to be a part of their um their job skills internship program so on a weekly basis the the students from the high school come over they perform various tasks and work job related skills to prepare them for their futures it's one of the highlights of our week it puts a smile on our faces every week when they show up they're always so happy and healthy we love being able to work with them um it's a way for for us but also for me to be able to give back a little bit i had a special needs brother who passed away in 2019 and um during his education he was able to be part of some kind of programs like this in his school which really i think helped him so it's nice for
045us to be able to do that and be a part of this but also to welcome our kids to our department and show a little bit more about us and be able to show off they talk about it they talk about it um every week the various things that they do and we get involved with various projects they might sweep the floor they might wash the windows our windows and our front entry have never looked better they get done on a weekly basis and it's just nice our staff enjoys seeing them and it's the highlight of our week so very good thing um if i can continue to brag a little bit about some of the things that we've done our student enrollment this is the first year that we've done this you know we
046have a student enrolling process for our students to enroll in transportation we learned a lot with cobit 19 and one of the things we did with cocon 19 was parents had the ability to say whether or not they wanted to have their students transported we learned from that and saw how that might help us in the future and where it has really helped us is with the driver's shortage by doing a student enrollment for transportation it not only helped us to operate more efficiently you know by having an even number of kids on buses balancing the loads on the school buses it also helped us to eliminate a few runs and make sure that we could um you know have minimal buses at the school bus if we didn't need them there we have buses
047that are more equally loaded um and it did help with the driver shortage we started our year with all of our permanent positions built and at this time our current permanent positions are still true so that is very much helpful with that um dot inspections these are the department of transportation inspections that the new york state department of transportation performs they come in every month and our tuesday they commit every week and um every every year each bus has to be inspected two times so that's a lot of inspections last year we had 217 inspections we only had one bus taken out of service which resulted in a 99.5 pass rate uh we are very happy to be able to report that in the past three years we've had a 99 pass rate so going
048back for 10 to 15 years our numbers have always been like this and i attribute that to the leadership of tuck and the transportation department and our maintenance department and our staff out in the maintenance department to keep our buses on some of the safest in the area so we're very proud of that another thing we're very proud about is our annual safety awards program this year we were able to celebrate our 15th annual event to celebrate the safety of our school bus drivers and our employees this year this past year we had 78 awards from 1 to 15 years and we had 12 awards for 5 10 15 years consecutive so what that means is people who have gone 5 10 or 15 years without any preventable action in their careers with the school
049district so this event is held in our annual orientation day each year and it helps to keep our accident numbers low by honoring and awarding our employees for the hard work they do every day last year i think everybody probably remembers our 36-inch snowstorm that we had and boy what a two-day set was i don't think in my career here over 18 years we've never had a storm that bad or experienced the type of cleanup that we had to do district-wide but not only district-wide but trying to get 105 school buses unburied from that snow that was quite a challenge it was one that our team really stepped up to um unfortunately we did lose two days of school because of this storm it was unprecedented but that's that's what it took to really get
050our buildings and our schools and our buses and our department able to operate again so with that we were able to express the need and have been able to purchase a snow scraper system that you'll see on the top picture here this is a very important piece of equipment for us this will enable us to clean the roofs of our buses on a more efficient basis something that's used for heavier snowfall it's not something we'll use when we have a half an inch or an inch of snow but it's something we'll use when we have several inches or even up to a foot and a half of snow or even more will help clean the roof of the buses off it'll help do that in a safer manner so we won't have our employees using
051roof rates to brush the school buses off we'll just be able to drive them through and then have a power remove the snow into another area it will help operate much more efficiently and much more safely for our employees so this will be the first year we took delivery of this this past summer was delivered installed and we were trained and um i really hate to say that we're looking forward to our personal story um [Music] yeah we wanted to i'm not looking forward to the three o'clock in the morning for having a conversation with dr pat at 5am but you know we are looking forward to seeing how this works for us many school districts in the area um have um this equipment this very same equipment after school districts and with our tours
052and going around the different departments we found how it was very beneficial to help fairfield schools so we uh we wish to really thank everybody for the budget vote and to be able to help us obtain this a little bit about some of our future goals um one of the big things we're doing this year is um technical talk our traversal routing upgrade that we're doing we're actually getting ready to start doing training on that in january we've been long planning the upgrade of our current routing system which is through tyler technologies we've had them for over 30 years now and we are moving into the new realm of routing which will give us the ability to be able to have wealth weapon don't know why based routing over my tongue tonight um we'll have
053a web based routing system it'll give us a improved interface with tyler drive which is the tablets on our school buses but also with our gps systems and our parent courts uh it's going to be a um all of our current platforms that we have with various logins will all be under one platform and i would reverse it it'll also provide improved family accessibility to bus schedules and live group data so if you're a parent and you currently use e-link with one login to look up the schedule and then have to go to the my stop app to see when the bus is actually going to be at the bus stop pleased to report that the ride 360 app will provide that ability all in one app be able to look up the schedule and
054see when the bus is going to be there all one time with one login that you will not have to change on an annual basis so anybody who's going through that you know what i'm talking about so we're very pleased to be able to bring that forward and probably by this spring we'll be using that operationally on a daily basis the next thing that i'd like to talk about a little bit on the future goal is and i'll talk a little bit about this now in a future slide is we'll be implementing our first flight stop arms um as you know school buses red lights and stop signs get many many times throughout the state and throughout the nation by other motorists on the road this is a very dangerous situation for our students a
055very scary situation for our school bus drivers so this new eliminated stop sign provides a much greater visibility for oncoming voters and motorists coming up from behind and will also make it much safer for our students especially when they're crossing the street especially even in imminent daytime hours it's so much brighter for people to be able to see okay that's the school bus there's the stop sign i've got to stop let's hope that's the message they get that's our goal we will be implementing this on all of our school buses hopefully this next school year and all of our new school bus purchases this next school year i'd like to talk a little bit about our school bus replacement plan a little bit early in the process in the year we don't have all of
056our data together at this time but the objective of our replacement plan is to forecast the replacement of school buses over a multi-year period of time we plan to replace our full-size buses every 10 to 11 years our small buses that you see on the road about every seven years and our school suburbans like the chevrolet type suburban vehicles suvs about every five years the good thing about replacing these vehicles is it allows us to be able to have the the best available at the time for our students on our school bus suburbans that we use after five years we turn those vehicles over to other departments within our district to be used for security security vehicles or other department uses so it comes in very handy for that to be able to keep these
057vehicles on the road for several more years this next year we are planning on replacing seven 66 passenger school buses and three 30 passenger school buses so the 66 passenger school buses are our full-size school buses and the 30 passenger school buses are the smaller vehicles that you see that transport many of our special needs populations throughout our business some of the new school bus safety systems that are out there now many of these um we already have in place the first flight illuminated school bus signs and stop arms i'll show you a little bit about the school bus signs that we have um i'll talk a little bit more about the stop arms the electronic stability control system that's on standard equipment on all school buses that makes school buses much safer in the
058event of a base of movements or bad weather conditions helps to keep them stable and centered in the lane much like you have in your own vehicles collision mitigation systems yes school buses now have the same thing that some of our new and modern cars have on them such as lane keep monitors collision systems and over speed alerts so you know we're very pleased to be able to have that many of our school school bus drivers have appreciate some of the benefits from that as well it also helps to keep our kids safe as they can possibly be on our school bus one of the next few things that we're excited to implement this next year hopefully is electronic parking brakes people don't really think about this much but on an air parking brake on
059a school bus the school bus driver has to release that parking brake it's an air valve so tough to push in on and then they have to pull it and it snaps on in order to apply the parking brake at each and every bus stop the school bus driver must apply and release the parking brake some school bus drivers do this approximately 100 times a day so in a way to try and make their job easier but also to possibly reduce workers compensation plans with carpal tunnel we're looking at implementing electronic parking brakes on the school buses this next year um trying that for a couple of buses and doing some testing on it and see how it works out it's a system that's been widely available in tractor trailers for many years one of
060the other big benefits of this system is a rollaway feature implemented into the driver's seat of the school bus so if the school bus driver accidentally gets up or gets up from the seat and accidentally forgets to apply the parking brake when he gets up from the seat this system will automatically apply the parking brake to prevent motorway issues at schools at the garages or wherever school bus drivers or buses so we're very happy to learn more about that and do some testing on that and see if there's something we might implement in our school buses moving forward again just trying to keep our students and our staff and our public safe um in conclusion our last couple slides tonight i'd like to talk a little bit about more about the first night school bus
061signage you may have seen this on our social media pages at the beginning of the school year when we took delivery of our new ic school buses we had one very particular foggy morning out in the yard and we went out and took some pictures of these buses and the drivers were getting ready to pre-trip them and notice the difference between the school bus sign and how bright that is compared to the school by sign on the left and the picture on the bottom which is the current school bus without that again this is a system that we're hoping will increase awareness of the school bus especially at the nighttime conditions for people to be able to clearly identify that it's a school bus and know that there could be fits on that school these
062systems are much brighter than the old-style signs and much more visible so they are being implemented in most school districts around our area and around the country as you may or may not know there are over 17 million stockholm violations in our nation annually of those over 25 percent involved in accidents reported that they did not see the stop school so we're hoping that this helps to lower those numbers our last slide tonight let's talk a little bit more about the first illuminated stop arm that we talked about previously on the picture on the top is one of our school buses that we have as a demo that we've had for about a year and a half now with the illuminated stop arms on it the bottom photo is a comparison of the current sign
063as well as the new site and how that's illuminated so again we're hoping that this is going to raise the awareness of the school buses and make them safer and make them more visible to motorists again the main objective in this is to um is to keep our students safe so this is a very the suburbs a very critical piece of equipment on the school bus and it really is what the motorists react to when the stop arm is deployed so we're hoping to raise again raise the awareness of our ordering public when school buses are stopped at bus stops so with that i would like to thank you all very much and i'd like to take this opportunity if anybody has any questions for you are the new school buses coming with cameras on
064the uh the arms oh no we have not moved to that yet we are closely following what they are doing in other counties um for many years we fought the battle of being able to get stop armed cameras on school buses um in the way the state law was written to be able to enable that it really takes the counties and it takes the legal jurisdictions to be able to enact laws and regulations and then um so what's happening is they're doing that in albany county right now they're just in the beginning stages of this they have enacted the law for it and they are going through the school districts to see who's going to take part in this program it's something that we'd like to hopefully maybe get some interest in saratoga county moving
065forward to consider a law like this and get the school district from sarasota county to go and participate in this as well there's some great technology out there for that on its technology that does not cost the school district anything to have on there it's provided free of charge um however any fines that are collected with that system would not go to the school district it would go to help paying for that system and then once those systems are paid for then it might be a way for school districts to um garner some revenue from that um the biggest priority for having something like that would again be able to keep our kids safe at bus stops not as much interested in the revenue and for fixing the issue with the ass with how there
066are two and you're gonna make one that will be wonderful um and thank you for your participation with the community i thought seeing those slides of your team in the community of the patriot parade and with the cares kids and your personal story it was it was very nice to see so thank you thank you very much we appreciate doing this okay i also have a comment another question but i just am so impressed with our uh driver staff game full um that's such an achievement i feel like every day there's more about the national business and also so many schools in our region that have had to shut down temporarily or take a half day or do all of these different things which really really disrupts the education for our students will be able
067to you i hope i hope follow we're able to continue with that we are unfortunately losing a couple of people so i'm just keeping my fingers crossed because we want to keep those kiddos on the bus and get them to school because that's where they belong after after the tough last year and to find out what an important part of our district is for for most of our students your folks are the first and last district employees they'll see every single day and it's such an important safety issue but it's also a tone that is set and some of us had a chance to ride with you over the past year delivering food and laptops and it was amazing to see people at work um i want to um given this sort of national pressures
068and regional needs you um i want to encourage you to be advocating for yourselves and i i want to sort of say to our administration let's give these folks what they need to make sure we have the drivers we need and to keep our standards so high and you keep improving and innovating it's always interesting to hear the new ideas that you bring to us and the only um the only criticism i have is that i think you've promised us a tour of your facility which has not happened yet and and we're going to hold you through that at some point when it's when it's appropriate i'm going to say thank you for your hearing that it's comments important for us to hear that from the people we serve especially um our doors are always
069open um the coffee is always hot and we more than we more than welcome you to come over to visit us and to give you the opportunity to be able to get behind the wheel and take the bus around the earth anything else and if you do remember we had a board visit in march of 2020 and that was our first meeting i think um [Music] thank you for your leadership and again please pass along the boards and all of our appreciation to our drivers specialists and mechanics you know they again huge challenges over the last you know two years and they've done just an incredible job and although it's great to see this all straightforward [Applause] are there any modifications to the concept um november 21st 2021 and we're changing that to november 24
07022 24 instead of 21. um is now okay that brings us to our second published commentary are there any members of the public that would like to address the board so as i said one thing i want to address tonight there's a few things that are concerned with other school districts i know this is a concern as well uh first one thing this district has done phenomenally well as obviously you reached out in the past we've had shortages of bus drivers uh the local saratoga county chamber of commerce employment training office there's a new director there now her name is jennifer mcclowsky i recommend you reach out to her she's more than willing to post up any announcements for any bus drivers on the web page for saratoga county it's a new page you just
071set up you're getting a lot of traction for that there's also we owe funding available for the training for the cdl training for the bus drivers it might save the district some money to tap into that that money is there it's not being spent it needs to be spent uh so again another reason why we are here is to help you as members of the board one thing with the masks i know that's concerned many parents both sides parents want to see all the kids mass and experience one of the regulations that did come down 2.60 i know that was sort of throwing on everybody at the last minute that was august 27th it was submitted to the state to be drafted uh september 2nd it went into effect you got the interim guidance uh
072regarding the regulation for mass wear now that was supposed to expire november 24th it did not it went back into effect uh there was no public comment that was offered when that was first passed because it's passed under emergency justification i have 2.60 in my hand right here was 16 pages when it was a proposed rule and the emergency justification is on page 15 and 16. i'm sure everybody in this room is well read and reading through that paper thin the empirical evidence that's provided for emergency justification for the wearing of mass with it expiring november 24th they should have at least came up with public comment it's a fifth amendment right that there's a due process whenever they step around the due process by not allowing public comment again that's a concern and that
073should be a concern for anybody who takes an oath to the constitution in order to fulfill an office such as this so again there are schools out there challenging it we do work with other counties again we're about 20 counties soon to be 21 counties and recently erie niagara school superintendents association did just that they took our advice they took our information they took the resources we provided them they drafted a letter that they submitted to governor hogan i'd be more than happy to give everyone a copy of this letter and we have one copy with me tonight i can always email out a copy as well they are not in as a fortunate position with a test to stay option we are blessed in this county that that is being piloted and that is
074going to be an option to keep kids in school obviously that's the most important thing we want to keep kids in school one thing they also did address in here and i just wanted okay can i just read this one certainly they just want to replace open-ended coven 19 related mandates and restrictions with data and science-based metrics for implementation and de-implementation of mitigation strategies there's nothing currently written for that as we speak so again i'd be one happy to provide you a copy of this and answer any questions or concerns michelle king sodamon road in middle grove new york a couple things i want to talk about one is the high school's tardy policy um my understanding is classes start at homeroom however it's worded at 7 57. i know for a fact that students
075are walking into the high school at 7 55 and most of our administrators there at that high school are wonderful but they are sending the kids to attendance to get a target 7 55 7 56 that's not tardy that's walking in and then getting told to go to attendance when they're not tardy so if we could just visit that policy um i think that kids should still be allowed if they're walking in at 7 57 i do realize that we have a major major bottleneck at that high school i have been in it both for pickup um and drop off at times and security is doing an amazing job there to move things along um i think we should give these kids a little bit of leeway um if they're walking in at 7 57
076i don't think they should be told to go to attendance i think that they should be allowed to walk down to their class especially since most teachers aren't actually finishing attendance until around 7 59 8 o'clock um just a little bit of leeway a lot of the seniors are driving parking is a challenge also so that was one of my concerns um with the tardy attendance is wonderful i'm not complaining about them it's just the policy of sending them to the as they're actually walking in the school on time stuff so if we could just you know discuss that i will be glad to send an email anything that you need from me um and give you my information that i've received from my kids along with some of their friends second um new york
077informed i am here to applaud as i have been a huge advocate and you know that because i've been here for multiple meetings for getting rid of masks and definitely not requiring mandates the data does not support masks the data does not support mandates the data basically shows that there is no difference between mask and non-mask wearing for protection and as the numbers are coming out we are finding that there is equal equal issues problems health risks with the vats and the boosters along with actually getting the common cold the flu covered or whatever variant there is so my answer is please as a concerned parent for everyone whether you agree with me or not please sit down and listen to everyone's point of view be open-minded we all want what's best for our kids
078not every kid needs a mask not every kid needs a vaccine we need to do what's best for everybody thank you [Music] that brings us to the end of our second public accounting period and now it's time for agenda planning there's one item we have listed on our agenda that pertains to the board of education workshop on governance on december 14th my understanding well i know in the past we have often had workshops that did not involve board business away from the board of table in private and my understanding is that our attorney who has helped conduct a number of such workshops has suggested we might have a more productive meeting if this was just a board workshop with just the board so that's where we are and um people can share their questions or
079comments with them um three questions were those answers no i think the i think the response was ask him at the table okay all my questions in public okay wonder if mr honeywell wants to share a perspective here thank you um the dialogue i believe is about the workshop next week so under the open meetings law you only have to have a public meeting if you're meeting to discuss public business a workshop on board communications and those kinds of conversations are not public business i need open meetings it does not have to be a public meeting i do a lot of retweets there's another word that gets used a lot before doing this kind of training i have found this more productive in a smaller setting to allow people to speak more candidly that's i
080think the answer so i believe the nature of the question was about the roles and responsibilities of the board and i may not have heard the entire question so i apologize um the other aspect that often happens when i'm meeting with a board is for legal advice which is just two hours virtually with another board by the way and anytime you're meeting with your attorney for legal advice it's also not immediate subject to the open meetings law let's take curriculum as an example you might be seeking my legal advice on what the authority and goals and responsibilities are and that's confidential privileged communication you may then go back into a public session or at a later public meeting and have a broader conversation about that that is very much a public conversation is that helpful
081and then i think i had another good meeting a good question about um so at the end of this because i think it was an email that we would report out to the public so who's writing that reporting report is that something that we would vote on in that meeting not just you're hiding anything it's just not you're not discussing public business so there's nothing that under the open meetings well the public is required to see and again you can have more candid and productive conversations probably sometimes the words are confusing the word workshop to me being maybe what you usually use it for which is a non-regular board meeting about the budget that's very much a public topic the public has a right to observe your conversation probably no this might or not but
082very often workshop you don't have public comments but you do it in public retreat is a word that i think more fits what boards do when they go away to help me to be better amen um public matter because you're not discussing a particular public business or school district there are a series of opinions from the community and open government to support them by the watchdog or you're talking how to better communicate with each other and the superintendent that is not public business is not a saratoga spring city and they were doing intending to do appropriate between stuff communication how do we work better as a board and they chose as a topic let's develop district goals that's a matter of public business so that's something that has to be discussed in public section with
083the administration is to better understand the law which i think again i don't know why that would be subject to public information because it's a law that governs the way that this board but when i do board training there are very there are a lot of legal issues and advice that are part of that but that's within that attorney client privilege of communication i cover open media law i cover foil i cover confidentiality obligations i cover um do's and don'ts so you don't find yourself the victim of a lawsuit is important all that's legal advice which is given by a lawyer in confidence but i do cover those so just to clarify what is our role as far as curriculum goes because i i thought that was the point of original questions in personal decisions
084and what have you so there's definitely some confusion out there on both sides so if we're not involved in that at all that's that's fine if so just to know where we should be and where we should be would be really beneficial [Music] i just want to um see if i understand that if i understand what you're asking for erica in the context of what jeff has um been talking about it sounds like what you're asking for falls squarely under asking about legal advice from our school attorney to define our legal obligations and um sort of the obligations and the constraints about that it falls under the category of legal advice and is therefore a privileged conversation right is it legal or is it legal i'm trying to say that again i'm sorry is it
085legal advice or is it would it bother education um i was actually going to start with what tony started with you're asking me a legal question and 99 percent of the time when you ask your school accounts so there's really no difference between guidance or legal advice it is a topic we could and should cover in the between i'd use my term at the risk of destroying attorney-client privilege i will tell you there is a rule but it's a pretty high level role you have a superintendent cabinet that should be doing most of that work but there is a role and i think i mean didn't erica correct me if i'm wrong but didn't you cite a legal you actually cited a lot from the nisba article that talked about education law so i mean
086that's the conversation started with a legal definition or a question about a legal definition i was actually going to say there was just an article in this one i mean so the question was framed initially as a as a legal inquiry inquiry about our scope under law we jump over um no no it's fine but this is a good example that you might get the legal advice in a confidential setting but then you might come out publicly and discuss how you want to implement or work with that that would be very much a public number lawyers are skittish about airing their leader i think that that was that's the feeling that i'm receiving is that we are accountable to the public and to be transparent so in the spirit of being transparent i think that
087that was the concern that it was there's probably exactly and i've been doing this a long time i've done hundreds of four training sessions um i have never done one in public section the public section and have a conversation about how do we want i think i think that's important for us to actually get clear when we're talking about business meaning a workshop or a retreat or i prefer imagine that um just when i go through examples of all those things i illustrate a party you're still all obviously able to have christmas as a parties um that we get that date on our calendar sooner rather than later than waiting until we meet and then coming up with the date i think we know that once we meet we all do need to talk because
088when this was initially brought up it was it was obvious that there were some board members who weren't even aware that this law that this wording this information from disma even existed and i think we were probably disliking those of us who are supporting this initially we're just looking to have that conversation you sort of got brought into it separately which was i think it kind of threw us a little bit so that's kind of why we're being private yeah so i think we know so um i think you're saying you would like us to commit to after having a retreat having this on an agenda for a business meeting and let me just look around and see if if we need to devote them as we can or do we just sort of feel
089okay about that i don't know if it's an agenda if it's something we need to really flush out and discuss i see um well i hear amanda asking for that that's what i thought let me ask jeff if have you seen sort of um healthy combinations of of private candid discourse with attorneys and then some more public first for that and what is the question well and i think curriculum is a good example you would have the private conversation with school council on what other rules of the road for lack of a better phrase and then could very well be a discussion topic again every district has different terminology with their agendas action items agenda items business items but to me it's a discussion item to put on an agenda to discuss roles regarding curriculum
090and i would think unless you're learning to meet over christmas it would probably be your january meetings i'm also not sure this is when lawyers step over you know i don't know what your processes for putting things on such an agenda but what you're starting to do is not uncommon look around do people want to do that like um just to clarify for folks how it physically works there's a series of reports that we expect over the course of the year which you and your team plan out and then stuff pops up um and trustees always have an opportunity which we are discussing right now to add stuff to the agenda and then the present vice president meets the superintendent to help to treat the timing of things sometimes and it's a little hard to
091add a meeting just because people are busy but i wonder if would it be okay if we added this as an item to a scheduled business meeting after our retreat um i don't agree that you know what to expect for our meeting next week and we haven't had that meeting yet so planning for like next week to be a short meeting and then planning to have another conversation after we haven't had our first conversation yet which is like [Music] now in anticipation of um wanting to continue a conversation extending from uh retreats with the eternity and natalia i think you're suggesting that we should see how that conversation retreat goes with the attorney and then decide what to do next am [Music] but also looking for a public conversation about a law i don't think
092about it [Music] but like you're saying um or training i think i was hearing the same thing and i think you can have a public conversation about the parameters around curriculum and the roles for people might you be better informed after next week as to how to do it when to do it so you can do it is does anybody want to do something other than what we have in mind and if so can you be specific and any further action can be spoken about at that time any other questions or comments figuring these things out is tricky so thank you all for the conversation and thank you mr well for being available for i'll be here for your exact session on a different topic and i look forward to meeting with you okay are
093there any other agenda planning items that trustees one then this is the time for board member comments anybody have any comments um [Music] um but i did also just want to note that during covis swimming was the only approved space force for some time and the swimmer slammed 8 p.m to 10 p.m at the y and it was the only time that they could see their teammates and it was it was a lifeline for a lot of those kids so um can i get a motion to move into executive session to discuss pending medication negotiations and dramatically for the appointment of particular persons is offered the motion god is second to all those that say the signifier motion passes unanimously we are moving into the regular session thank you you