July 2022 Jericho BOE Meeting

001[Music] oh [Music] or write it down um [Music] hey guys oh and we started um i've got a long list of things [Music] is um [Applause] um oh and with that i would like to ask everybody to please stand for the pledge 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 overall i would ask our district clerk to please square our new board member dr raise your hand by christopher barnesville do you solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states of the united states and the constitution of the state of new york and the constitutional state of new york and that i will faithfully discharge the duties of board of

002education trustee for the jericho school district congratulations just as uh as we begin and as chris is signing the book i just wanted to share uh with our community uh and with those who are here this evening that the board spent much of the day together in a retreat again i think a very very successful opportunity for the board to spend some time um looking at the board and ford function and their role and responsibility as we move forward and continue to move forward in challenging times and i thank the board for giving up uh a chunk of their day today to to do the retreat and again look forward to outcomes from the retreat and look forward to uh future future meetings uh with with similar positive outcomes and with that i would open

003the floor for nominations for the president of education do i have a second second all those in favor sounds good the floor is yours and the capital is yours i just found out that i'm allowed to use the gavel [Music] do i have a motion for election of vice president chris uh nominee all in favor um appointment of district clerk be resolved at the board of education appoint victor manuel assistant superintendent for business affairs to serve as district we can move the whole lot and then make some changes so moving three through 34 and then in our discussion we can make some modifications to some of the numbers do i have a recommendation to approve from numbers we are revising that number in from 30 100 to 9 000. thank you oh i thought that

004was someone jericho [Music] board of education was a stipend of ten thousand dollars with services for its new skills those are the only two correct those right thank you all in favor do i have a motion of the organization welcome to our july sounds good i've got a couple of items just informational items the calendar has been finalized and we'll be going to the printer i believe within the next day or two denise to the calendar to the printer this week so you will all be receiving the the calendar probably within the next two weeks or so those people who participated in the goals workshop received a draft of the recommended goals we're going to ask to put that on our september board meeting for the board to review that will give the board an

005opportunity to again revise revise or add those goals because technically those goals will be the board's goals for the school district construction update i can report to you that we're doing very well through our tremendous amount of construction work going on this summer things are so far unfolding smoothly and in a timely fashion and we will continue to update the board as we come into our august meeting but at this point we are optimistic that all is proceeding smoothly we also are in the process of moving over to our new website and we anticipate denise that that's going to happen within the next two weeks where we our new website will be up and running additionally we have representatives from altaris attending our august board meeting for an update and we look forward to pat

006ryder attending either our august or september board meeting we've also invited greg sloan to attend our august 15th board meeting to continue our conversations uh on waiting and valedictorian salutatorians after tonight's board meeting uh it is our belief that we are 100 hiring hired sam if school were to open today what's the current administration's view on any covenant restrictions or if it were to open today basically everything would be done we would go back to full trips concerts no hybrid activities um anything like that at this point that's correct would there be any types of quantity required students testing or anything like that at this at this point based upon our our recommendations from the state and county we see no restrictions whatsoever at this point we are aware that the city uh the city

007has uh moved toward recommending indoor masking but we have not seen any recommendations coming out of either nassau county or of the state for school districts in terms of summer school summer school programs i tell you our summer school program started today our middle school and high school program we received some updates from both chad and dave and they reported that again the first day uh opened smoothly and opened well um that's also with regards to isolation if someone just trusted you know again the restrictions in terms of a positive test is still in place in terms of we're still planning on broadcasting sports concert other events regardless of that yes does the superintendent have any specific initiatives that they plan on implementing over the first over the 22.33 there there are some plans that

008are still in discussion yes nothing we enlighten us nothing that yeah until until you know any any plans to confirm we're in discussion okay [Music] getting necessary corrections and we'll get the approval of the minutes of the regular meeting dated june 16 2022 um now we'll go to opportunity for the public to be heard if you'd like to make a comment question please tell us your name if you're represented in the specific group if you'd like to you're saying in a minute or email as always public discussion on that according to staff and students at which their reputation privacy are right to due process for those of others in some way being violated is prohibited good evening michelle uh good evening my name is ron padarov i'm the president of the jericho teachers association i'm

009here tonight i represent over 320 of the educational professionals who provide instruction to jericho students every day and i'd like to make some comments on the board agenda item entitled reading of alternate policy number 3430 diversity equity inclusion in the district a comprehensive board of education policy on diversity equity and inclusion should not limit the scope of capabilities but challenge the entire jericho school community to build on the work that has already been done over the last three decades jericho is world renowned as a school district of academic excellence and cultural diversity we have attained this level by providing equitable opportunities for all students to be successful regardless of their learning needs ethnicity gender identity sexual orientation economic background or ability this didn't happen overnight or just recently just because you are here in the

0101990s when we included students who learned differently from their peers doesn't mean it wasn't hard work and that we didn't have growing pains with mainstreaming and offering the full breadth of jericho's academic program to all students who attended jericho schools just because you weren't here to experience the growth and diversity of our student population in jericho at the turn of the 21st century doesn't mean that significant work wasn't done to embrace the traditions and cultures of our students and families from asia such as removing language barriers and stereotypes just because you weren't here when after september 11th our muslim students felt ostracized because of their religion doesn't mean those of us who were here didn't struggle to help our students see that we are all here to live and learn harmoniously just because you may

011not have experienced the struggles our lgbtq students have experienced in our hallways does not mean that we don't need to continue being allies and working toward making jericho a safe space for all students and their families just because you have not experienced the racism and obstacles our black and latino students have experienced does not mean that it doesn't exist or that we should turn a blind eye to their needs the language and the diversity equity inclusion policy should not have the intention of being exhaustive or constraining the language should have to provide a comprehensive foundation to be built upon in providing opportunities for our students to experience multiple perspectives and learn in a safe accepting place that values all viewpoints and voices stripping down a policy to avoid acknowledgment of traditionally marginalized or excluded groups

012is a disservice to our students an embarrassment to our district's reputation the changes in the substitute policy demonstrate a failure to recognize students that have been historically marginalized due to inequities associated with aspects of their identities and their context the substitute policy attempts to supplant the commitment of educational equity with critical thinking skills as it relates to family community engagement the changes as proposed will not encourage participation from all groups as there will be no effort to translate official communications nor will the board seek assistance from nassau county and local organizations with expertise on dei the jericho teachers association strongly supports the district's adoption of the full policy number 3430 as read at the june 2022 board of education meeting and that's not the substitute policy being presented here this evening thank you dear members

013of the board of education having served with the jericho board of education for the last five years and having been one of the three trustees to pass the first reading of policy 3430 on june at the june board meeting i cannot underestimate the importance of having a dei policy in place specifically this policy this is a strong policy as it is currently written all necessary changes have already been made this policy will help to foster a school climate of compassion that values the unique aspects of what makes each person who they are and to embrace differences i support the opportunity for students in an age-appropriate manner to expand their knowledge of themselves and others who may be different in their life experiences worldview customs beliefs and experiences learning from multiple perspectives encourages critical thinking in

014turn the strengthens problem solving increases empathy awareness of others and fosters inclusivity a diverse equitable and inclusive environment will encourage our students to adapt to the ever-changing world with people from diverse backgrounds and experiences long beyond their years here in jericho the tone of this inclusive policy emphasizes that all perspectives are valuable culturally responsive classrooms foster respect and understanding of cultural and individual differences it nurtures conversations rather than create divide fear or misunderstanding to be silent on these these issues in the classroom or curriculum simply silences voices and creates barriers culturally responsive classrooms teach to the whole child and enable each student to feel safe in their learning environment teachers and staff equally need to feel safe in their ability to teach a comprehensive policy welcomes the inclusion of the community that encourages all stakeholders

015including parents the opportunity to build bridges a connection and have meaningful dialogue i wholeheartedly support and encourage this board of education to both pass the second reading of this policy and to adopt it this evening this is an alignment with the new york state board of regents that have asked districts to implement such a policy with fidelity and thank you pam wasserman heath former jericho board member anyone else thank you um so the order worked out we're now um discussing the adoption of policy 3430 diversity equity inclusion in the district the resolve that the board of education accepts do i have a um give you a second any discussion i think it probably at this time it makes sense for not to have two separate discussions right so do you want to just talk about

016anything very well i mean um you know in pursuit of our new desired collaborative effort perhaps mrs citron and back doctor valchandra can explain to me what the advantages of the crs framework are and why it's appropriate for the jericho school district we're adopting a crs framework under this policy but what are the advantages of that and why are we adopting that specific framework well i think that we discuss but i think we discussed this a lot you know i think students feel more engaged with their learning they do better that's been established they take more away from their education if they feel seen supported included in the in the learning process why the crs framework there are other frameworks out there and i'm trying to understand why we chose that as opposed to one

017of the other alternatives what are some of the alternatives i don't i can only do so much research in a matter of weeks but i mean the the second question i guess is at the last meeting the draft that mrs citron suggested removed the concept of empower students as agents of social change i think she said that was in response to community feedback under the board of regents a key component of a crs framework is exactly that empowering students as agents of change so it's a little disingenuous disingenuous of us to say that we're removing that as part of our policy but then adopting a c what we're saying is a crs framework when empowering students as agents of social change is explicitly part of a crs framework so i'm trying to understand how how

018we reconcile those two things um and i'm not going to put you on the spot and have the answer the second part i have is in relation to certain comments i've heard you know there's been a lot of discussion about how the board of education should stay out of curriculum yet here we are adopting a quite comprehensive policy that is dictating exactly that we're dictating a framework we're dictating what teachers should teach how they should teach it and it seems inconsistent for people one month to argue that let teachers teach don't even question you know a two-minute thing or a ten-minute thing and yet here we are not educators putting this in i have not heard any recommendations from administration about this policy specifically in fact in any conversations with the board the superintendent has

019said that he favors a broad policy that doesn't dictate very very specific actions because that's what the administration and that's what the faculty are meant to do so again i look at the alternative policy and you know it says in here that it was submitted by a board of education member i'm happy to take ownership of that and say here's a policy that i basically just removed things that were limiting to what our administration and our faculty were able to do i think there's many things most of the concepts are included in the alternate if there are specific things that individuals think should be added back the proper way to write policy is to add those back on an individual basis not to take a sample policy that no editing was done for even though

020we said we we excluded three concepts we actually only cut out two so again this just doesn't seem to be the correct way i am a hundred percent in favor of adopting a dpi policy i am a hundred percent in favor of having our children understand all these concepts but it is important that we do this in a responsible way we have spent one year the administration has spent one year writing a 400 word dress code policy that we've customized here we are taking a 1200 word policy that impacts every area of our of our thing curriculum hiring training discipline and we're basically saying in 60 days let's just take a sample policy now as all the board members know our law firm ingrid smith represents many firms on long island i requested from them

021a copy of every dei policy that they have implemented with their districts over the last 12 months anger and smith delivered 13 policies not a single one of those policies looked like the board of regents policy not a single one of those policies included a crs framework i stand to be corrected but i've reviewed those policies now a couple of times i did not see it again the policy we're adopting here is a sample policy that was suggested by the board of regents for the whole state of new york and yes the jericho school district has done well in this area could we do better absolutely could we benefit from an appropriate dei policy 100 and that's why i put in the effort to look through this and see what wasn't necessary what should come

022out but still put in a dpi policy that covers all the sales points that gives all the protection that faculty members want that the administration wants and i still say the administration has never commented on a policy on dui other than to say they want a broad policy if you look at the draft that was proved last month it has very specific very detailed instructions as to what the faculty has to do and in any conversation we've had notwithstanding the comments that are puzzling me that we've heard tonight we don't want to do that because why we why are we handcuffing the administration and the faculty of how we go about teaching this we've done a really good job we'll continue to do a real really good job but we need to set the goals

023and this policy is about goals it's not about the details and then the final point i really would like to understand whether it's from mr powers mrs citroen or dr balachander can you please explain how this policy plans to eliminate terms and phrases that perpetuate negative stereotypes yes this is a goal it's a goal statement no it's not it's policy it's policy so that's our goal how does that not mean that we need to eliminate any teaching material that includes those types of phrases or words i mean i understand it's a goal but if it's our policy to eliminate that if a parent comes to us and says this book has this term in it i find this to qualify as that elite are we required to eliminate it that's i i i mr powers

024can chime in here that's what the policy says the policy says to eliminate these terms so if it has the jim crow era word for a black person which we will all agree is a word that we don't want in this are we required to eliminate every book in our curriculum every book in our library that includes that word because that's how i read the policy and i don't understand how you can read it any differently so a couple of things please um sir i provided to you thirteen different policies um that i pulled from our clients in nassau suffolk and westchester um interestingly of the 13-7 were before the board of regents even issued their may of 2021 directives the school districts so really down to six so what we did was there's no

025party fast rule as the exact policy that you need to adopt in any school district and as you saw some are as short as one paragraph and others went on for seven or eight pages only one but it was quite lincoln it was ridiculous so it was quite detailed so you as the board of education have authority and total discretion to accept either the two policies or revisions there too as you sit here tonight these are high aspirations they are they clearly are but the issue is also a great one if you sit down and read what the board of regents said in may of 2021 they're providing to school districts an issue that needs to be addressed and turn to you knowing that you are the ones that are most familiar with the constituents

026here with the community here in jericho to come up with a policy that fits what you need to do here so in terms of whether on the two policies a or b which one is appropriate the board has complete discretion as to which one to go with i will say this i compared a and b to what the board of regents issued in may of 2021. a more so aligns with what they were saying in may of 21. that i can't say but okay stop and i appreciate that one of course it does because it's a verbatim copy prepared by the board of regents as a sample policy consistent with what they dictated so so of course a is going to align more than b does because a is the sample policy prepared by the

027board of regents so so i think that is a complete just uh unnecessary or just completely immaterial fact because that's obvious that the board regions put together a policy that aligns perfectly with what they published in may of 2021 of course that policy is going to be but so now we go back to the fact that this urgency that we've heard about that only six of your clients have actually adopted a policy since the board of regents said we had to do this with fidelity and urgency so this whole thing that we need to adopt a policy very quickly after only two months without having actually drafted it without having to actually embedded it when we spent a year drafting a dress code policy i i think it sort of negates the idea that we

028need to approve this policy tonight second of all my more pressing point from a legal perspective is whether it is a goal an objective a mechanism our policy says that we are looking to eliminate those words we are looking to censor those words we are looking to get rid of those words from our school environment that includes all of the books all of the learning material any of the videos any of the music any of the various media that are out there that are going to be conveying those types of images i personally am offended by that type of censorship i am offended by the fact that we are undercutting our teachers ability to teach things that they have been comfortable teaching and have taught well for many years and i personally trust our teachers

029to teach that in an effective manner i don't know why you're smiling but in an effective manner to do that and here we are sitting here saying okay is someone so i'm trying to how does this policy not say we have to eliminate those books from our curriculum is there is there the interpretation a literal little translation or interpretation excuse me sure i think there has to be a certain degree of discretion built in to a policy these are very very much uh in motion they are policies that need to be looked at tweet here on the first level of analysis here it's the first time you're adopting this and if for some reason sir this becomes an issue we're finding it's an overburden to the teachers in our classroom that you trust so much

030we all do then you can take a look as to whether or not we've overstepped with this particular policy so take either of these two a or b implement it and then you can certainly down the road take a look to see whether or not certain other provisions need to be amended in certain ways i'm not trying to cross-examine but the policy is dictated in in the first policy says we're looking to eliminate these words explain to me how day one i don't have to eliminate to kill a mockingbird beloved the color purple explains me how i get around that language i don't think that's cool i don't like this i don't think sorry this policy requires us to go through every book in this library and remove defensive words i don't think it says

031that at all i think what it says that we have to have a goal we have issues that we need to address we have a mechanism that we're going to use to address that you as a board member and the board collectively directs your administration to implement the policy if and when there's a time for the policy to be re-examined you'll certainly do so but there is with all policies certain amount of discretions building especially sir for new policy like this one and i understand that and i'm simply saying since this urgency doesn't clearly exist in most of your districts it says we'll seek to eliminate the use of terms and phrases within the district again i'm confused as to how that doesn't mean we need to eliminate those terms today we'll seek to eliminate

032is an aspirational goal it says this is what we're trying to do this we're trying to accomplish and i think that's what it says sir i think that locks it in it's the point that the board is discussing i think regardless of what whether we're going with airbnb i guess we can all just continue to have a discussion i think that i i agree that that specific sentence needs to be removed um i don't agree with you sam that this is very specific and directive i have let's leave that sentence aside um i don't think that we're prescribing what the teachers have to do i have immense like view more so even trust in the teachers and i think that like hank said this is aspirational this is a goal and this is a framework

033it's not giving them specific instructions that you have to teach this this this and you can't use this list it's a general framework with the goals of inclusion um like historically marginalized maybe you know when when you took out into the second policy the first policy that we had brought that was brought to us months and months ago you and i both agreed that it didn't say anything it was absolutely useless because it didn't say anything and i feel like you your policy that you're a match that policy it doesn't have anything any meat to it because it was just we may as well just teach anything anything we're teaching is fine i think it's very important that we say have these specific things that we say that we want to teach be inclusive be

034traditionally excluded individuals so again what what is missing from the policy because here when you say that you're not talking about specifics okay implement a framework that embeds the ideals of diversity that are from cultural identities foster positive academic outcomes develop students abilities to connect across lines of difference elevate starkly marginal voices contribute to individual student engagement develop curriculum that incorporates diverse perspectives these are all very very specific you know include academic discussions about racism and bigotry these are all things that we do things that we should do but everything that we put into a policy show me another policy where we're providing this level this granular detail of what needs to go on in the classroom if we put this and reverse this somehow and said a teacher can't do this the teachers would

035be like wait you can't tell us what we can't do which which it goes back to why are we giving these all of these specific and as i said if there's a point a year or two points in here but most of the points that i eliminated were were purely superfluous orders they were thin some of the bullets i incorporated into the main part i think the problem with our policy book as we've seen we've got for everyone who doesn't know this is our policy book okay there's very few people who read it there are policies in there that people don't even know about curtis discuss something or in the other room and so i'm looking at this policy and i don't understand why we are not going through a process of writing this policy

036as opposed to just adopting a policy that clearly has flaws that the crs firmware doesn't work explain to me the crs framework now we'll show you the board boots and says empower students of change you said that was coming out of our policy now it's back in how it's not backed up it just sort of this is this is the type of situation where i haven't heard any answers from you or dr balachandra so how that is i've heard i haven't even heard an answer from mr powers is that how a policy that says eliminate these words doesn't mean eliminate these words like i don't understand it i mean dr hardneck call them up and say by the way half your half your book list is out because it uses these words i honestly i'm

037not aware so that's why i'm trying to lean on you as a lawyer or mr powers as a lawyer to say to me we seek to do it it doesn't say it's an aspiration we're gonna seek to do it we're gonna seek to look at the other stuff and say we always say we're seeking to it we're not doing our job if i say i'm going to seek to provide lunch to every student i'm providing lunch to every student i'm doing my best if i see a kid without lunch i'm giving him lunch if i say i'm going to seek to provide sports equipment to every kid i see a kid without sports equipment i'm going out and buying him sports equipment if i say i'm going to seek to eliminate these words that means

038any place i see these words i'm eliminating them i i don't understand from a legal perspective how it doesn't mean that i assume someone at the board of regents thought about this so i'm hoping that there's some legal analysis that i don't understand but it says this is what we're trying to do and by the way it gets worse we oversee the jericho library if we adopt this policy does that mean that the general public library now has to eliminate only not overseas okay then at least there's some good news there it's only our school library and all of our school classes like no one has adopted this policy so i don't know how we're supposed to to even get comfortable with this sorry i think you you kind of answered the question your statement

039which is on page three of five teaching and learning districts will strive to advance inclusive and culturally responsive teaching we'll seek to these are aspirational goals we seek to affirm cultural identity we seek to foster positive academic outcomes we take that structure we provide it to the boots on the ground the teachers in the classroom you say here is our policy implemented that's what this does it gives the teachers the flexibility to do what they need to do in order to compile ddi policies that's what this i don't read is i don't read that language as censoring books and taking books i think reading the books in the right framework with the explanation of the teacher who explains this is a bad word you shouldn't use it but this is how it is used then

040and it's done in a way that's culturally accepting and it's educational you know using the words in the hallway is very different from reading it in the book with the teacher in a setting where you're instructed if you'll write that in the policy i i i'm not arguing with you i i agree with you but that's not what the policy says change the word seek destroy no that's not changing teaching kids is an aspiration because i can't guarantee you that you put a teacher in a classroom that kid's going to walk away with the concept of a culturally equitable approach if you tell me that i'm going to eliminate these words from the school then that's an achievable goal that i could do tomorrow you said it you go through you get your 100 books

041you go through your curriculum and oh by the way we haven't even dealt with the issue of what words we're talking about yes we're all going to agree with the jim crow term for a black person but there are a whole bunch of terms replying to lgbt people to women to other minorities we could end up with a list of five words we could end up with a list of 500 words and so again i'm not saying that the aspiration is wrong i'm saying that that's not what this policy says and if there's any confusion about it again change the wording rewrite it make it so that it reflects what everybody here's saying like why are we interpreting this why do we want to deal with the parent who comes in and says here board

042policy 3430 which as nicely as i can mrs o'connor if you hear i i believe we already have a policy 3430 so i don't know if we're getting which has nothing to do with this so we still have to change the number on this policy but why don't we write a policy that that reflects what we want to do that's all that's all i've been saying for the last two months we took a sample policy jericho is not a sample district we do things better we should be doing things better we're starting off from a much more advanced point than where everybody else is we're starting off with a much more educated parent base a much more educated student base and yet here we are adopting a sample policy it goes back to something that

043mr powers said a couple months ago he said oh this policy is sufficient he never said sufficient for what and and when was the only time and i was stealing stealing someone else's language when have we ever said that this is sufficient for jericho would we ever go to a teacher and say oh what you taught was sufficient you know what that was sufficient no we want the best policy that reflects what we want to do this policy doesn't do it why because we haven't put the time we haven't put the effort into it and i would challenge anyone here take the policy that i wrote and show me the two things the one thing that you think is so vital to go into this and we can add it back but i can show

044you five or ten things that have no business being in this policy so how about everything that you took out in curriculum and learning okay hold on let's let's go to that you check out the entire section this is especially vital you know it's not for us to cherry pick to what um dei initiatives are applicable to it's really applicable to the entire educational process you know in order to make all children feel seen supported included and give everyone equal opportunities to succeed you can't just pick and choose where you want it to be applicable the entire you took out the entire curriculum and learning everything is taken out of helping with advancement of all groups to try to eliminate barriers that have selectively affected some groups more than others um why don't we want

045to ensure equal access to opportunities and resources that part was taken out as well um would you just refer when you do this can you just tell me which page and which paragraph you want so i could follow you when you tell that curriculum okay okay so so explain to me so you're talking about page three of five teaching and learning the very good let's start with the very definition of equity we've removed the whole concept of striving to identify and eliminate barriers that have prevented the full participation of groups i'm not i'm not trying to go line by line here because i'm just my point is just that so much of what was removed is at the very heart of dei and it just it doesn't make sense to just again pick and choose

046where it's applicable yes but that's how you write a policy you actually do go line by line just to take it one step further we have we have the blessing of our teachers that you're saying this is taking away a lot of their freedoms and how they teach and what they teach so many teachers at this meeting last last i'm sorry the last meeting spoke up in favor of this very policy and and i will say and again i won't call out there are people and again these are people who've been attending a lot of board meetings who after the last meeting and these are not people who you know i speak a lot who said to me oh sam what's the problem this was just the first reading you can change it next month

047to which i said to them no no no when it goes from a first reading to a second reading it needs to stay verbatim otherwise it goes to a first correct that's incorrect really how much can we change in this 1410 is your policy of policies and it said the adoption of written policy shall occur only after the proposal has been discussed at two successive meetings that would have been june and tonight and voted on affirmatively at the second meeting of the board of education the policy draft may be amended at the second meeting then i've just learned something that's great so but i'm saying like dr balachandra i'm not really understanding thing so equity includes but does not limit to seeking the fair treatment access and opportunity for all okay that to me that's

048the definition of equity if you look it up the superfluous part that's added by the board of regents while striving to indemnify and eliminate batteries that have prevented the full participation of all groups that that's really not what how does identifying what matters are we limited then how else do you help with advancement if you're not understanding what obstacles people face to advance because you can write this into a you know probably two-page definition i believe that the definition as listed there and i've seen that in other dei policies is purely is completely sufficient to say what equity is there are definitions of equity that go much longer there will be three or four sentences but that's what it is i understand what you're saying i believe that brevity and clarity are much more important

049than trying to come up with something that we're trying to include every single word the same way when it's like okay the dei committee may include a b c d e f g yeah it could include lots of stuff do we need to list everything in the policy no because it makes the policy you know just become unmanageable and then you go to the teaching and learning section i mean most of these things are rudimentary into how you teach we're going to strive to advance inclusive and culturally responsive teaching and learning that's it like to me that's what we want to do that that's our goal like all these other things again we don't have policies where we go into the pedagogy and the curriculum to this detail that i'm not familiar with like i

050said i've gone through the policy book maybe i missed it i definitely make mistakes but again what is that adding to our policy it's not it's simply making it longer and as mr powers said there are things here where it is and in terms of the teaching i honestly can't understand that i i i personally can't because last month they were yelling at us that we were trying to um and we weren't but someone said oh we're censoring them this whole thing is full of telling them what to do i haven't heard from the administration i said the only thing i've heard from the administration was they wanted a broad policy this is clearly nothing but that's the last meeting i think you heard from us that we supported the region's recommendation sam and and

051again as i don't look as it all okay well then let me go on record and say administration supports the board of regents policy and and again having in our policy affirm cultural identities foster positive academic outcomes develop students abilities to connect across lines of difference elevate historically marginalized voices there's nothing wrong a matter of fact and again i think that that is an important statement it is it is jericho it is who we we are and who we've been for 25 years but i think i think there's nothing wrong with us in a policy stating that loudly and clearly and i also think that the spirit of you took out what made the spirit of this policy and it's the spirit of the policy is that what the aspirational policy that shows we this

052is important to us all these all these phrases that we have in here this is important to us to show the community that these are things are important to us it's not to nitpick each little thing that goes on in each classroom the teachers can read the policy it's it's to show the community that this is very important to us all of these all of these phrases cultural identities positive academic outcomes um to diverse perspectives students or talk from multiple encourage academic discussions about racism and be like all these things are important to show that this is important it's more in the spirit of it than expecting each line by line to be followed to the letter i just heard two opposite things one person said i took out the meat of the policy the

053other person just said i took out the spirit of the policy well if i did that then there's nothing there exactly again i would tell you that the thing i definitely tried to keep and i'm gonna tell you i did keep was exactly that the spirit of the policy the spirit of the policy is there and the last thing i'll say on is that's fine okay i honestly don't understand how we draft this policy without even having a drafting session when as i said we spent a year drafting a dress code policy and we didn't have anything to do with it again this is a this first of all a dress code policy could easily be part of any code of conduct but you're right but but if we're jericho and we're taking that type

054of time to draft a dress code policy that's one thing second thing and i don't use this word lightly and i apologize for it but basically what you said to the community last month was a lie we are not taking out the idea of empowering students as agents of social change you explicitly said that was coming out of our dei policy but by using a crs framework here i can show you the board of regions paper that is like these points are just the cls framework empowering if you have a crs framework you want to say that one of your underlying criteria is to empower students as agents of social training and i will tell you that is a completely wrong thing to have any policy i do not believe that that is what is

055even meant because again there's a fair amount of um hypocrisy that goes into that because people want social change when it agrees with what they believe but they don't want social change when it's a social change that they don't want i think we're seeing that right now in our world where there are decisions coming out of the supreme court that people agree with oh that's great social change or others do that's horrible social change but that's what we're talking about these are things that change over time and then finally i'll say it for the last time we're saying we have to eliminate books here now i do not know if mrs citron or dr balachander have an answer as to what we're going to do with these books maybe they're planning a bonfire at homecoming

056i don't know but what it says here as clearly as day to eliminate these books and our council has said nothing to dissuade anyone here of that notion that's what it says it doesn't matter seat strive goal you achieve what goals you can achieve if it says we're going to seek to do this well we better well try to do it i think our attorney did say that it's an aspirational goal it's not black and white i think i heard chris say that nothing in the policy or even in the crs framework that i've read do they make any mention of censoring materials is a 64-page document that you know everybody can view on the new york state department of education website convened by a panel of experts in 2018 um you know from what

057i can gather based on my reading of it i mean there's nothing in there that would suggest that you have to it's a framework you talk about dress code sam i think all these things are important and the framework actually encourages boards and administrations to revisit those types of policies uh with respect to uh you know staying in line with the framework but i think it leaves a lot up to the to the district i think it leaves a lot up to the teacher in the classroom you know i i think that's that's at least you know my opinion is that that would be our intention i have not heard one word from from the teachers objecting feeling that this is censorship i've not heard one objection to this policy based based upon the notion

058that it could be censorship uh i mean and that's great i'm not sure teachers have read it i'm not saying they have or they have it i'm not saying they interpreted it again i understand the position i think the position that i'm hearing from some people here basically built on quicksand and this is a policy as i said they came out with it a year ago no one's adopted why probably because they've uncovered the same problems that we've been discussing here tonight okay i don't know what went on maybe mr powers was part of other meetings where people discuss this again this policy is flawed this policy is not right for jericho as currently structured and i'm not sure if we're arguing over what it means to seek to eliminate these words change the language

059people and if you're telling people that you're getting rid of creating agents of social chains mrs cichron then take it out but you're saying you're not taking it out you're leaving it in there so i don't even understand but i i i see where the discussion is it's basically not a discussion and that's fine sam what if again just thinking out loud what if something was was placed within that policy to just express our intention that this policy in no way is is meant to um provide for censorship of educational materials that's a step in the right direction again i think we're all that's all i'm saying that's not the intention i understand your concern again i'm open to opinion on this but it's also i think but i don't think that the word that

060words just apply to these folks i don't i don't like right and it is not the intention of this policy for any censorship on definitely a instructional forward and but also just going back to teaching and learning i think that since we talked about curriculum i would really love to like understanding dr sherman today but to discuss curriculum and old content how do you how do you you know include dei and math how do you include cpi certain subjects before books and instructional materials maybe a also when we adopt the policy that policy can be amended literally that policy can be amended next month and month after in the month after we have the ability to obviously amend policy if there if there are flaws we have the ability to amend policy at our next

061meeting august meeting september meeting october meeting feedback from from iv feedback from the teachers feedback from me from principals we have the ability to amend a policy that we adopt but why not do that before you adopt it that's the way you write policy i'm confused are we not having a discussion to try to get this done tonight or are we just going to go back and forth because i know like we did this already a couple of times so let's have a discussion what what you're good with what i'm good with what sam's good with what everyone's good with and let's move on keep going keep going in circles what are we here i mean and we're okay let's just let's go let's go section by section so me i suggested the board under

062teaching and learning there are a series of subdivisions one through five so it's teaching and learning then the next subdivision is called family and community engagement and i recommend to the board the statement quite simple it is not the intention of this policy to serve as a form of censorship censorship for instructional staff or for instructional materials or instructional staff of instructional materials and material instructional material i'm sorry can you repeat that one more sure it is not the intention of this policy to serve as a form ship of instructional material i like that i would put that just before a family former board members members of the jta members of our administration again i think this should be a constructive process i'm in favor of letting of opening up for public comment just to

063hear maybe there are people who have suggestions out there it's not like we're overwhelmed with people here what are we getting five three comments right so this is a this is a meeting of the board so we get to speak first and then if we decide to open it up but people in the camp in the audience cannot interrupt the discussion of the board they're not interrupting the discussion because we're trying to see if there's maybe inputs or what can be going on you want to ask if you want to we all want to decide to ask the community to have input that's fine but not if they just fall out but that's what i just suggested i suggest that right now the board asked for community input that's all i was saying mrs cichron

064to say that now is an appropriate time potentially it seems there are conversations going on out there between various people if they have something to add let's see if they're created my suggestion was just can we just go section by section let's not make it super lengthy if there's anything that's someone would like to add or delete and then i don't mind having people bring it you know public comments maybe they have some another suggestion to make can we can we do that yeah but let's let's forward first yeah i'm saying can we do that ourselves so we start with the first section overview i would make a suggestion work off my copy because it's redlined and then anything you think that i've deleted that needs to be added back no i don't like it

065advancement over opportunity in advance i would like to remove the word advancement because i feel like advancement it's for all no leave for all i know but you have a problem with the advancement yes because i believe advancement has to be earned i don't believe it has i don't think it's the right definition for equity at all it's not saying we're advancing when we're helping right so giving giving opportunities for everyone right which it already says access an opportunity so the word advancement is unnecessary there it's an extra work which i believe has a different meaning and so if it means opportunity so we already have the word opportunity i believe the common thing to say for equal opportunity i don't i don't really agree with that okay i like the use of the word

066advancement in that sentence what does the word events mean what just like i i like the use of the word advancement yeah what does it mean to you i think others get ahead giving people what they need to be able to have equal pudding right to advance to move forward right which is already it's not a definition of equity if you if you're gonna look up equity assignments you're not going to see the word advancement anywhere well i don't want to say it anywhere but i don't think it's the proper definition for everybody i think in other words fair trade fair access opportunity which is which is exactly what we're trying to say jericho school district will provide every opportunity for students to to get ahead if they do the work so i think advancement

067is not the right word here we don't just give it away the students earn it by giving them the opportunity i don't think it fundamentally changes the meaning one way or another so then get rid of it take it out anything else on facebook what does it mean to share power narrative better sounds more forceful it sounds more it doesn't i mean there's a lot of words that don't change a lot of the words here don't change the meaning but it's simple but but also in the spirit it sounds more in the spirit of yeah okay so when you talk about spirit you're just talking about buzzwords that's what that's what spirit is is buzzwords so inclusion include inclusion includes but is not limited to bringing all individuals and or groups into processes and activities

068why do we have to specifically mention traditionally excluded like there we're looking to bring all individuals in groups it's the same exact thing without the buzzword but it highlights it highlights traditionally excluded which i think is an important statement i mean we do that we already do that but to make the statement that we're looking to bring traditionally included individuals in excluded sorry i think that i think i think it's important once again i just i don't feel so comfortable with literally the whole paragraph because we talk about curriculum and i really don't even know what we're talking about so what would be a compromise because either someone has to explain to me what what is getting changed in the curriculum nothing is getting changed but it says it is we'll strive to advance inclusive

069and culturally responsive teaching and learning through me through the following meet so curricula in the content areas certain books will be maybe added well i don't know if that's the plan so like what do we what's getting added what's getting changed in the coming i think we're doing all these things already i mean i think the crs framework just okay so we're not trying to change anything maybe we can just change the wording like we will continue to continue to strive continue to teach we will continue to teach you i don't think it was ever any question that that you know our teachers weren't already doing these things but this this sounds like like we're trying to make a change yeah i i would agree with that i don't think we're trying to make the

070change i think we're trying to continue to be aware and again the crs framework is something relatively new uh i'll be the first to tell you you know until i you know really started you know becoming more interested in what was going on in the schools i i was completely unaware of it um but you know i read up on it and i think if you take the time to go through that that document that's published by the state a lot of these things and this actually came up to meet the candidate i was talking about it a bit and you know we were asked about social responsive learning and social emotional learning and you know i think you know the state realized that that they needed you know experts on the subject matter and

071they developed it so i think we'd be remiss if we did not take advantage of the expert panel that put this all together because again trying to come up with this on our own number one um you know i'm not sure we have the the experts in each particular subject who could necessarily weigh in um and really to harness the experience of everybody statewide to identify best practices and what's really going to matter in the classroom but again i don't think there's ever a question that we weren't already doing this and doing this really well but first we're discussing the policy i understand but if you look at the way the language is it sounds like we're going to be adding or changing something and so if we're adding or changing books and instructional materials

072you know shouldn't the board be like where what you're not talking about adding you want to continue in our mission to advance inclusiveness it says we'll strive to advance the way the words are sounds like it's something new it's not something that really exists this will continue continue i don't really like that but how about continue in our mission to advance inclusive and culturally responsible so we're trying to cut words we're going to try to end all right so change but we're trying to also you know again sam you know you've talked about drafting sessions i mean this is essentially functioning as one let's let's put in what we want to put in and and get this done chris so the wording is the district will continue to strive to advance inclusive long-term responsibilities no

073that's not continuing whatever that continues to strive like we'll continue to advance inclusively remove the word strut because then it's like the district will continue to advance but then can we just shorten some of the stuff or do we want to leave all this i think right like i don't know what some of these refer to and then we're talking about professional development professional development is something that the school pays for it's taxpayer dollars we're talking about approving future professional development and i know it's not we're not proving a certain dollar amount tonight but what are we talking about like what is there certain professional development that's out there that we have not already been doing that i'm sure it's part of our current professional development activities we budget for professional activities professional club activities

074i'm sure that that is part parcel of professional development that's taken place for the last many years they're just trying to keep every word here for reasons that i can't even fathom but that's fine anything else on page three i would like to remove number five empower students as agents of social change we did that already i don't know which one i'm looking at okay so now we're on to opportunities for students to actively participate in experiences that prepare them for a lifetime of civic engagement and contributions to social justice from the word contribution to social okay i think that's okay so we removed just the word contributions to social justice and then can can we just change we changed it last month to say encourage did that not hit me no i have encouraged

075you somebody said include them oh i think last month we said we're going to change this i haven't been encouraged i haven't encouraged it absolutely we said [Music] because the next line says encourage someone might be looking at that by actually i think some people were looking at that accidentally good keep it okay okay so for diverse schools and learning opportunities a eliminate the use of terms and phrases within district schools so what are we doing with this this is so that's where we ended chris's language that says we're crossing that out or we just we're leaving i think what we would leave it in with chris's wording about censorship essentially the intention of the policies is not to censor materials right so what is the purpose of that if it's used in a non-academic

076way if it's not not just like itself maybe it should be regardedly in the cafeteria isn't that all under like that it's specifically under teaching and learning and calling someone a derogatory name is already covered under our code of conduct in in five different places on your regular code of conduct or daca you know people i don't remember the names we have like four policies if the discussion is happening within a classroom and what's the matter with restating it in many ways where would you put it i mean under i think it needs to be in it maybe someone tell me why does it give me this one i'm trying if it's already covered in five other problems you're not eliminating diversity you're not including them anymore and i'm not sure based on our definition

077how it's included but by using a pejorative term whether it's racial or whatever you could be excluding somebody which is at odds with this policy i think it's important under the same section right it's not the intention of this policy to serve as the kind of censorship of instructional material i was recommending to the board that you insert that just prior to the family engagement and it's not a letter it's just a separate correct so that's on page four so but maybe can we add what whatever you just said but like for example pertaining to books or textbooks or whatever so we can understand what we're talking about i don't have a written download why would you just put it as part of b right so i thought you would just add it to c

078as a c right there you see where so a b c a's eliminate the use of terms b is great first yeah that's where we were before eliminating some terms but he's adding that i know i'm saying why don't you add it as c under that section that we wrote before under teaching oh he's just making it apply to all of teachers okay got it all right it should be right so so actually chris for jenna's point that section when she was looking at was diverse schools and learning opportunities should we repeat that sentence there as well okay sure or should we put that in the beginning of the polis in the overview so what you can do jill put it in an overview yeah before you get to the definitions of defining the diversity

079equity in the equation there yeah that's where i can prevent the biceps every section so um for training it's the first sentence to foster dei in its schools the district will provide dei training to staff which is understandable and students what what does that mean and how does that how does that get presented in the classroom what kind of training are students having had and some of those recommendations could come out of the dui but which but would you class like which type of class those recommendations would come out of the committee age appropriate but staff would be getting trained to then go teach what are students getting trained to right bei awareness but isn't that what the whole policy is talking about right included in all different types of hearing curriculum so now we

080have in addition to that we're going to have a training i assume recommendations will come out of the committee training refers to having some type of task that you're learning again i didn't even have this out in my in my draft so i'm actually thinking mrs martin has a very good point what are we training them to do training them to be facing i think basis it's my supporter of diversity equity and inclusion which we're already doing are we going into this with with the school of thought that our children today in school in our schools are not dei sensitive in any way so we this has been ongoing in our schools right so it's not like tomorrow or they're going to come into school and it'll be the idea this will be continuing i'm

081just very curious mr superintendent when we had this conversation a couple months ago you were very much in favor of a broad policy this is anything but broad policy i think that was before i saw the regents recommendation once we saw the region's recommendation as we bought into that in after a year because i believe the rest of the policy already speaks about students i believe training should because we don't train our students we train staff yeah we teach students we teach students but we teach students like we talked all day about compromise there's nothing we're getting up on the word of truth and teaching to students but with training sessions but and we'll talk about students in the above in the above paragraph so why we keep repeating and repeating and repeating and repeating

082when we've already accomplished most of what you guys wanted it's a state again it's a statement of again aspirational goals and a reaffirmation of the importance to this district to recognize our diversity i i i agree with that statement and i think we accomplish that everywhere i'm asking there's no downside in adopting this i i don't like the word students in the paragraph training i'm asking for that's beautiful like if you guys think that i'm trying to remove this because i'm trying to get one value because it's not we're already adopting this policy we're past that now let's try it we're cleaning it up making it a little bit a little bit better i don't know i think we could have done a little bit better job but i'm okay i'll be able to sleep

083at night tonight i think students does not belong in treatment because it just sounds bad like we're going to work we're heightening awareness we're heightening our kids awareness about about other cultures about sensitivities when when a sikh kid is wearing a headdress where we're we're ensuring that our kids understand the head covering of a seat a seat belt i get the point that you're making that this can be a little bit redundant just in the interest of building things well what's the impact of this paragraph i mean that we're providing training professional development activities so is this training to me like when i just look at the work training um right away i think about the staff and development that's the first thing that i'll think about before i even read through it and then

084we can talk about it increase awareness promote a welcoming inclusive environment for old district community members you're not really talking about students now but in the first paragraph i'm not a student i'm sorry student is so i believe students should be removed from here because i believe this whole paragraph should be devoted to staff because we already talk about students in multiple other areas in this ddi promoting a welcoming and inclusive environment for all disney community members that can apply to kids yes but no we said we refer to students as students we refer to the community members as parents members increase awareness of the content of this policy i think this specific area of students does not belong there's a reason why nobody has talked to this policy that we're seeing it right now

085we don't know that nobody just know none of chris's clients stopped at the whole statement that would make them all the none of the smartest districts who've hired ingram and smith to represent them are we okay to remove students considering we literally spoke about it everywhere else it's not like we're removing a paragraph or i'm trying to weaken this policy in any sense i just don't think students belong here because it sounds like training students well i think but you could probably just remove staff incidents you just provide the eye training you don't have to specify no i think i think training is a good paragraph because that's a good thing i just i just get rid of get rid of staff as soon as you just have it out there and that way nobody

086feels compelled done dei training but we but you're not saying that if it's not there but then we should be specific who we are treating them so chris what you're suggesting to force the dui in the schools that this will provide for ibi training and i think that's great you wouldn't ask the question about training with cool retraining well not necessarily i think we just i think we're aspiring to be able to provide training but you don't have to specify necessarily you're giving it to you right now it could also correct me if i'm wrong i i think one of my opinions i feel like you took exception and feeling like you know we would be training the students and if you remove that it's not specified so that you could argue that okay yeah

087of administration sure so in terms of the policy number but i would recommend the board let's change it please to 3431 because there is a 3430 thank you on page one of five we're going to be adding the center shift language that we have discussed and essentially language is as follows it is not the intention of this policy to serve as a form of censorship of instructional material you can put that in just before the bold words defined in diversity equity and inclusion there was a request to in sub-paragraph c the word but it's not limited to seeking the fair treatment access and opportunity to lead and advancement advancement comes out on page 1b yep thank you i have one more thing i wanted the district will continue to advance inclusive and culturally responsive teaching

088correct so that's on page three three or five things and then with page five of five page five and five were you know under the training subdivision dei and schools editions will provide ddi training we're going to cross out to staff and students for that sentence we'll now read to foster dpi in schools and schools the district will provide eei training as appropriate and those are the subjective changes that i heard can i just have one last question i haven't said anything for 20 minutes crs framework includes empowering students as agents of social change is one of those philosophies this is citron are you going back and changing what you said last month that that concept was coming out of this policy so i was not familiar with that concept being in sierra's philosophy i

089was happy taking the language out because it is inflammatory but the concept as a whole i support the crs concept as a whole and i leave it to the teachers to implement it as basically so you're saying that we are going to center learning environments that empower students and agents of social change that i want to make sure that i understand what we're saying here so we're saying that we are leading that concept in which by the way just just so just so we're clear we could change that culturally responsive sustaining educational framework to all lowercase and it no longer becomes the formal crs framework we could just say we're doing a framework that does those five things that we have in there and you would accomplish the same thing by calling it a capital

090letter crs you are by definition incorporating that agent of social changes if you're really trying to get rid of it you can just go lower case on all of that or just change that in the framework wait hold on doctor chufo had accomplished i i think you could maintain the the substance of the policy or something taking out crs completely and say implement the framework that embeds that are you not tied to that framework or the philosophy behind it but you're tied to the five ideas that are listed here yeah take what we what works for us good good suggestion so we'll say culturally responsive sustaining education framework and lowercase but without parentheses correct okay um you're just removing parentheses [Music] um under definitions diversity a i would like to add political or ideology the

091definition of a diversity includes race color ethnicity nationality goes on multiple definitions i would like to include at the end political affiliation or ideology i'm okay with that yeah i think you would sketch that before jeff i think so yeah political affiliation or ideology or political ideology can i understand why we didn't like dr chuffo's suggestion and just make it a framework so that we can then incorporate another whatever other frameworks we want i think that if you can't you still can't implement other things if it doesn't exclude you from incorporating what is the award of culturally responsive sustaining education those words will almost become meaningless if you make it lower case you just say no no and again i i am sorry that 30 seconds ago i made something but i thought dr chufo

092made a better suggestion no i'm saying dr chuffo then made a better suggestion he he built upon my idea and he came up with what i now view after listening to him knowing that with his decades of experience he's meaningfully smarter more qualified to write this policy and hence anything he says in my view just about should be treated as gold he simply said framework just about and i thought that was a great idea but if everyone disagrees i'm okay with that it'll give you a little bit more leeway it'll allow you to include whatever framework that you choose i don't think so now you just want to implement it anymore framework well i think it's important to keep the culturally responsive concept there can't we just take out sustaining education and just make it

093culturally responsive it gives [Applause] culturally responsive frameworks mr before we vote why don't we take those comments from the public if they have it without conversation if they haven't they may have been exhausted so um chris in on page five of five when you say in paragraph i eliminate the use of terms and phrases that perpetuate negative stereotypes so let's say i come back next month after we adopt this policy tonight and to use the board's words i'm a traditionally excluded student or traditionally excluded student's parent and i say last month you adopted this policy that's going to strive or seek to eliminate the use of these terms that perpetuate negative stereotypes so i come in next month and complain that you adopted this policy last month and you haven't done anything yet to eliminate

094those words and phrases and i ask you when are you going to do that i ask the board when are you going to do that i think you can certainly strive that eliminating every negative board and that's where we had to turn toward teachers and to frame the issue ira so they're in compliance with the policy without going about eliminating every negative word in our books so chris i would tell you that i believe in a lawsuit in a lawsuit the word eliminate has real meanings so forget about me doing it next month if i come back a year from now and those words are still in instructional materials on our library walls how could you then say oh well we're going to get to it we've been needing to get to it maybe we'll

095get to it next year and i say okay and i come back the second year and i say those words are still here on our library shelves how can you possibly defend the word eliminate after some period of time without remove without actually removing things that we don't want to move i don't think you need to remove to be in compliance with this policy [Music] will strive to promote diversity then go to sub a limited use of terms and phrases that perpetuate negative stereotypes that's where it'd be the responsibility of the teacher to describe those negative stereotypes and how how long they are i don't think but but i understand that's the teacher's job but there are printed materials that we have here that use those words that we don't want eliminated at least i

096don't i don't think the teachers do i i you know i would hope that not there aren't too many who want to eliminate those pieces of work but you're saying that it's a goal to eliminate those horrible words at some point you're going to have to eliminate them and and and i will you know add on to that the fact that you had a sentence that said it's not meant to encourage censorship of instructional materials i know it's not meant to but eliminate means eliminating it doesn't have you can't interpret the word eliminate other than to me disappear take it away i that again i know it's coming in a different direction here but listen you know we get paid to read words and that words eliminate that means get rid of i read strive

097to is a great it's a great you know sunset we want to strive for that but we've used the words here eliminate that means we're going to eliminate that one time or another can i answer it you know just uh can i respond i i agree with you but that's why i think sam and i i won't speak for him um i was trying to change that because i also interpreted that way and as they have explained to us that it's it doesn't but i still don't read it that way i don't think i think many parent people in the community would not read it that way because they would have a case to say well you said that you're gonna eliminate it but you haven't and then you have it and you have it

098so i again i think i think the goal here i think this goal is to not eliminate those words i think we agree on the goal what's the word i don't i don't think you could use the word elimination that's what's what's the alternate word minimize minimize um no you're not bigger minimize no no but it's not so here again i i know it sounds picky but it's not picky because because we don't want those things taken away i guess might be that kind of i guess if we lose minimize [Music] you know i i hear what some people are saying about this i think it's important to read the sentence in its entirety and say that when you're you're looking to eliminate the use of terms and phrases within district schools that perpetuate negative

099stereotypes that is a very specific definition and how those words are being used which i think also to the point where this is included in ideas and concepts of teaching and learning i think we need to expand our view of the classroom as being the four walls that have desks the classroom is anywhere we are encountering students and have an opportunity to teach them something which is our hallways our playgrounds our cafeterias and i think as far as um as a teacher being concerned about someone objecting to materials that i'm working with we also have board policies that specifically address that you're actually strengthening one of your board policies between some very specific timelines about when people when parents may object to instructional materials or other materials which i think clearly addresses this whole issue

100in that other board policies that if a parent does object to a book a textbook language a teacher is using materials teachers using that parent can then address those objections via that of the board policy so i don't think this eliminating the use of terms and phrases within district schools that perpetuate negative stereotypes and minimize student opportunities i think that's a you know not a constraining statement and i think it's actually a very good statement to have in there so i wouldn't worry about that it might it might not constrain you in a four-walled classroom but in in and again i think the library is a full world classroom i think the soccer field is a four wall classroom you have materials that are on the shelves right contains that contain these terrible words sure

101and you say you're gonna eliminate those terms and phrases within the districts the point you were making was that if someone objects to that district and say eliminate the inappropriate uses of the terms and phrases within district schools that perpetuate the users if that goes to ron's idea are we there sounds good yes go ahead oh i'm sorry thank you um that was a good suggestion thank you um um i wanted to just touch base as a now retired teacher um enjoying the summer uh on the question of that mr prominent raised about objecting to the language about um agents of social change and encouragement and the agents of social change i think that i would like it if you all would trust teachers to um to implement that in the broadest possible way and

102you do and you don't i can speak for myself i never did that in any way that was directed i had a class where i mean first of all i think we want to encourage our kids to be active citizens should be active citizens and when i would do that in my classroom i would say think of something anything at any level that you would like to see it doesn't have to be you know one of the controversial political issues one of the kids in class came up with something about their lunches you know and i think it is a good thing to to give kids a sense in whatever small or large way they want to be engaged in something that they'd like to change to learn that they can do that that there

103are that there are mechanisms and structures that they can advocate with that if a kid has a problem with something about the lunch policy they could come to a board meeting they could talk to you guys you know and i think so and i actually think that's a part of it and i would hope that you would not take that out thank you mrs just so you know that that was something that was taken out by mrs citron at the last meeting i was simply asking if we were keeping it out or if it was going in through the proverbial back door i understand your point i not being as as educated as you in this area don't look at the lunch program as being social change i represent i think it's changed i think

104the perception at least my perception of social change is meaningfully different than getting changes to the lunch program but as i said i was simply clarifying a change that mrs citron proposed in me at to replace that that that encourages engagement in if social change seems like too much of a buzzword something about we have civic engagement is that not recently okay is that not i mean we think that that is actually covering what you're talking about in civic engagement i do believe that's very important and like and like i said it wasn't the intent to take it out as a book saying we can't do that it was just that that was inflammatory to a portion of our community and you know conceptually it's still available to you but it's just the words thank

105you and i have one more question on on the edition that you just made about um adding political ideologies um and i think that's what the other word was affiliation [Music] can you discuss that maybe and be careful about that because would that include nazism political ideology that's a political ideology you're the teacher like i i i want to i think you should discuss that i [Music] very hard to do that because this is art scene i know you know these are popping up and we have things in there that you know the curriculum that incorporates diverse perspectives you know that there are people out there who are trying to argue that anne frank was the beneficiary of of white privilege or you know other in my view crazy ideas so so there is a

106fair amount of trust that's going into this policy i think as mr checker was pointing out and this is why i was in favor of a more pared down version you're just opening yourself up to potential trouble i won't necessarily say liability the way you know mr checker was was you know indicating but just opening yourself up to trouble where again the spirit of this is that we want to be as inclusive engaging welcoming as humanly possible and having to tell teachers this is what you should do or shouldn't do i was under the impression that that's what teachers wanted they wanted the most freedom they wanted the most ability the greatest ability to teach in the way and the material that they thought was most appropriate and i still believe it and i think

107this policy has come a long enough way where i think i can support it but i would still want to see it in a perfect world or even an imperfect world or more perfect world still paired back because i still think it is telling you what you need to teach in the classroom and i think you guys are the ones who are supposed to decide that and not every teacher is going to make the same decision but with the various hurdles you guys are already trying to manage why are we creating another one for you when really all we need is the spirit of this rule same sam in that vein now that we've allowed everybody to speak and we've gone through the document thoroughly um and you mentioned that you feel a little bit

108more comfortable with it i'd like to make a motion to all the questions okay can we stop with this motion to call the question that started last night it's just a really really offensive turn when we're in the middle of a discussion mrs ornstein made a point i was simply responding to her i was done in two seconds and like suddenly last month let's call a point like like why don't we just wait until the conversation takes the shirts it takes to serve it because if that's the type of approach that we're going to take this is going to become a very hostile environment again we do have a policy on citizenship i think it's 82-41 but there is but there is no term citizenship in this new policy which i think would be somewhere

109a good word to have but i think we have 8241 i don't know any exact house but i know there's a policy on this and uh all in favor thank you so we have scheduled um to move to executive session to do some interviews and we have candidates weeping so patiently so if we can um go to the new business and adopt the two policies the plans and the schedules and then um all the rest of the policies that we were going to discuss tonight so we need to adopt our district-wide safety plan and our special ed plan we need to adopt both of those this evening everything else we can and in terms of new business old business everything else can be failed for our august meeting and then we also then need to

110adopt the schedule so we can pay our bills okay so can i have a motion i just want to point out that i actually don't believe if another board member can put forward two policies that those policies would have been referred to i may be completely wrong on that but i actually do it is so not personal and also it's not just the ones yeah oh the adoption of policy 7611 children with disabilities policy 8441 home instruction and the first reading of 6410 staff acceptable use 722 departmental potential options for students with disabilities and 8330 objection to instructional or other materials um to adopt the district-wide safety and emergency management plan second there's a list of phone numbers that contact people every single one of those people has a school district phone number if our

111if there is actually an emergency or a safety issue that phone number will be down that nassau county police department has cell phone contact information a couple of people on that list are people who no longer have children in the district is that intentional as as there are people there yes he is still president of sector okay um six thirty six through two three because there was a summer school bus that we needed and we do an emergency contract while we're going out to bid so that's a cop yes why would we check once and believe this one was there yeah yeah i just i didn't know if that meant i told there was no special reason it was a there was a sale sale price price do we have an expectation as to your

112money pre-covered how much we used to spend on our cafeteria as of now it ends in august a month ago it was supposed to end at the end of june and they extended it through the summit um so as of now yes it's going away but i can't it may they may extend to the end of the year i'm not sure um all island investigation any idea about how much we spent last year because i think about a thousand is there anything positive that came out anything coming out of all the best um one um and then finally under uh one two six two two and four two nine health services for homestead public schools for five students why is it a thousand dollars a child for for health services so for health services every

113district culture calculates it in a similar way we take all of our nurses psychologists um any employees that we're required to provide services in that particular private school if it's within your boundaries you divide it by the number of students not only in your district but including that school and you come up with a number it's usually in the i would say 900 to 1500 depending on the district for health services i think our number's about 1300 1400 it's a formula sam based upon you know number of kids so we charge um for any students attending luhi that are residents of another district will charge them for the health services we pay our staff for life and it works for our number's about 13 1400 if i remember okay thank you anyone else all in

114favor of schedules [Music] so you are you are now [Applause] all right folks we're adjourning with an expectation we will be coming back into open session with the possibility of taking action and it will be approximately one hour not so fast sat down way too much yeah