001I motion carries, we will 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 all. Alright, just have a couple personal agenda items to take care of, and we'll jump into a little first reading this. So the 3.1, it's recommended the Board of Education approves the personnel agenda as presented. Are there any additions, deletions, or changes? Not here any, just need a motion. So from Jeff in a second? Second. From Chloe, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. And then we will just jump down to 4.15. It's recommended the Board of Education approves all personnel items in section four as presented. I will make the motion, just need a second.
002From Stephanie, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. And our new newly appointed assistant principal at the high school is here today, so welcome Bill Ludie is here, so congratulations. We can jump right into Bobsie. Absolutely. Mr. Halesco, yeah, we'll go with 5674 if you don't mind. So this is a completely new policy for the district. It's not widespread at this point, but there's a push to start getting this into more districts. As you know, cybersecurity is incredibly important in this day and age, and school districts are particularly vulnerable. So this policy would set and establish guidelines for passwords for the platforms we use and the systems that we use to meet the needs of our students in the district kind of across the board. So because we handle sensitive personal information, including grades,
003health records, special education plans, weak passwords are often a foot in the door for breaches and violations of laws like FERPA. So we want to make sure that we're safeguarding that data. Financial and operational systems as well. I mentioned that briefly can be subject to unauthorized access resulting in fraud or disruption of services. And we know that cyber attacks, like I said before, are on the rise, so strong password policies reduce those vulnerabilities. So this policy would ultimately establish criteria for longevity, length, the items that need to be included in the password. We're not there yet, so those are the items that you're seeing in the red. I'm working with Matt McCall, our director of tech, who is doing Yoland's work right now coordinating with other directors across Western New York on best practices and
004figuring out how that aligns with what we do here. Once we have that information, we'll synthesize that and we'll include that and get rid of the red up there to make sure that what we have captures best practice and puts the district in a secure position as possible. Any questions on passwords? So we'll get an updated, like this is obviously not final is what you're saying. So like once Matt, at all, decide on what these are going to be, this will be updated and then correct. Yeah, so the hope is second read will have all those details ironed out for you all. But we wanted to get this in front of you just because it is such an important piece of fallacy. I just have a question, more of an comment, this could be for
005Matt to take a look at around the password link. So NIST, which is usually the government framework around cybersecurity and technology, recommends at least an eight character password. And even they recommend 15 characters. I know that's in the corporate world, that's where we're at. So just something to have him take a look at. I know that's a lot, but something to take a look at. I'll pass it along to Matt. Thank you. For sure. Anyone else? I have more questions once it's like finalized, I'm sure. Thank you. Mr. Olesko, 7410 if you don't mind. You got it. Which one do you want? We do the marked one. So we have not updated this policy in quite some time. There was a new one that was released in 2019 that was almost a complete rewrite. So
006if you look at the marked up version, there's quite a bit of difference there that you'll see as we kind of go through this. So I'll walk through just kind of some of the highlights right now and the differences between the 2011 policy that we had and 2019 policy that's been updated. But the focus of this policy is extracurricular activities and kind of how they're governed and structured in the district. And with the addition of some important language that we've been missing. So first, the 2011 policy, and you won't see it anywhere on there, does not mention ECAs, extra classroom activities. So you see extracurricular activities there and that policy name won't change. But the term ECAs has now been kind of folded into this policy and will be used in reference kind of throughout
007it. So the 2019 policy, the update that we're looking at introduces the formal definition of ECAs as student run organizations not funded by taxation or board charges. It requires board approval for all extra classroom activities and mandates the district to basically maintain a register of approved or discontinued extra classroom activities. So we have a running record of what's run or what is running in the district. And that includes the outline of development procedures and establishing ECAs. So how are we going about creating and approving these extracurricular activities or these extra classroom activities? This one was interesting. So the 2011 policy makes no mention of secret societies. I had to do a little bit of digging when I saw secret society because I was like, okay, I didn't know this was a thing in public education.
008It's really not. There's been no recent issues or legislation or litigation around secret societies with public school districts in New York State. This is very much kind of the remnants of those older private school secret societies that existed. But this language is proactive. And the idea is that the board has the ability to abolish or prohibit frats, sororities, secret societies that disrupt the academic process. And the reason behind that is these societies have proven to be exclusionary in nature, which is not a surprise. And also the hazing that often goes along with these societies. So this would capture this in the new policy, something that was missing from 2011 as proactive language to make sure that this doesn't become an issue here. The next one that I want to focus on the next change is
009the censorship of school sponsored publications. I do want to kind of preface this with there's no new laws or anything like that associated with this censorship clause. It's been around for a long time. It just hasn't been captured in board policy. I know we're talking about censorship. Those are talking about the First Amendment and freedom of speech. Those are sensitive subjects. We want to make sure that we're recognizing that and complying with that. But the 2011 policy has no reference to censorship or editorial control over school sponsored publications or events. The 2019 policy adds a section granting the district editorial control over student speech and school sponsored publications like a school newspaper and activities that are part of the curriculum. It's important to note that this ability to censor is balanced with student protections under
010the First Amendment. So it's not blanket censorship. It's in compliance with the First Amendment. The board and the district has the ability to censor this. If it's going to be disruptive to the learning environment, create an unsafe environment. If it's going to to be divisive, purposefully divisive in nature, the board can act and make sure that those items are not doing those things. So it basically gives the board the authority to protect the culture and climate of a district from things that are unnecessary while still maintaining First Amendment protections. So it's like they can write an op-ed saying like we're mad at Mr. Rolls, but they can't like write an op-ed saying we're mad at Mr. Rolls and here's his address and this is where we're meeting them. Yes. Right. Like that's. Yeah. So certain
011speech is protected and certain speech is not protected. And when you're talking about school districts, there's been plenty. There's been plenty of court cases that have kind of outlined where First Amendment rights begin and end. We're talking about school districts. That being said, there continues to be court cases because these things keep coming up. So this is more just out of an abundance of caution. The district can do this if needed to. I don't at the risk of interjecting my two cents. I don't think censorship should be standard practice for us and I don't believe it would be. But this board policy gives the district the right to do that. Any other questions? Does this include any of like the social media in regards to the extracurriculars? I know like they post things about the
012teams and so would that affect? It depends. So it depends on whether or not it's a school sponsored social media account is the way I'm reading this policy. So I know I know there's a lot of these spin off social media accounts that are student owned that aren't necessarily affiliated with the district but are associated with the team. I believe that would fall kind of out of bounds of this. But yeah, the idea is that it was a school sponsored or endorse social media account. Hypothetically, it could fall under this policy. The next one, the next change I want to bring up is limited open form language. The 2011 policy uses older terminology focusing on the Equal Access Act and compliance with that. The 2019 version expands on language around the Equal Access Act and
013refers to non-curricular related secondary student groups and details our responsibilities more comprehensively, including the authority to ban unlawful groups and maintain discipline. So again, Equal Access Act still applies. But if there is a group that is unlawful or a group that is unsafe or unruly the district has recourse there. Any questions on those four changes? There is one more that's the same across both and that's the student eligibility criteria. So students both policies maintain identical rules regarding student eligibility for participation in extracurricular activities or extra classroom activities. That being students to spend on the day of an event cannot participate. Students have to attend at least half day of school. They must be classing four classes and physical education to participate. So that'll be a carryover from 2011 version to the 2019 version. Any questions
014on that? Did we change anything from BOCES when this came down or is this like standard language? The 2019 one? Yeah. The 2019 one is standard language with the exception being the eligibility criteria is specific to MTAPE. So that's why that's rolling over. Okay. That's it for our new board policies. We did have one other item that I wanted to touch base with you all on and that's Dacia's Law. So Dacia's Law, a really sad story, was named in memory of Dacia Sanders. She was a 12-year-old middle school student who passed away from an cardiac event at a middle school basketball game. So that was the impetus for this law and this change. And the reason that we're talking about it today is because there is now law in New York State designed to prevent
015similar tragedies. That's going to require every public school district to be equipped with not only AEDs, which we already are. We have 15 of them across the district, but also a cardiac emergency response plan or a CERP. So that's something that's going to be getting added. And all public school districts in New York State must integrate a CERP into their school safety plans. So there will be language that will show up in the district-wide safety plan. But the specifics for this, including protocols during an event, venue-specific information, personnel trained to use these items, those will be housed in the building-level safety plan. So those will be specific to each building. Every year, this plan as part of the district-wide safety plan will have to be reviewed by the district and then approved by the Board
016of Education moving forward. Some of the other requirements that it's worth noting that kind of go along with DACE's law and are going to be a part of the CERP are annual school safety training requirements now, including cardiac emergency response, voluntary CPR, AED, and first aid training may be offered to elegant staff. A lot of times it is anyways. There is a requirement to have 10 percent of a building staff familiar with these protocols or five, depending on which number is bigger. So in most cases, it will be 10 percent. Our AEDs must be clearly marked and accessible and maintained, according to American Heart Association. They already are as well. So a lot of this is stuff that we're already doing. Again, it's just being recognized and identified in that district-wide safety plan. They've got
017to be allowed, by the way, they've got to be located to allow retrieval and deployment within three minutes. So if you look at our buildings across the district, the smaller K-2 buildings typically have one. NTI, the middle school, the high school will have multiple ones. And then we have AEDs that are located in athletic facilities and the trainer has one as well. So all meeting that three minute requirement for access and deployment. This is coming forward now and we're hoping to open the published comment period. So that would start today with this meeting. We do have to have this formally approved and adopted prior to January 20th. So that 30-day window, we have plenty of time there. It will be a part of our district-wide safety plan, like I mentioned before. The language is already
018added in the district-wide plan. And those annexes at the building level will be housed there for that specific information. But it'll be something we revisit. And like I said, we do have to have it wrapped up by January 20th. Questions on that? I think so. That's all I got. Perfect. Anyone have anything for the good of the order? I have questions about the district-wide safety plan. It's still a draft. Are we going to have more discussion on that? Are we going to have questions about the language of including disability specialists and the emergency plans? Is that the policy or the safety plan itself? The safety plan. I'd have to ask and find out what we want to do. A lot of this boilerplate language from BOCES. We adopted the safety plan earlier in the year.
019So this is just in addition to the safety plan. I don't think we made any changes on the original safety plan that we put up. I believe we adopted it in September. So I don't think there were any changes from that point. I know we did when we talked about the policy. The actual plan, I don't think we added any additional language. I asked about including a disability specialist. We said if we could do that. That was the policy. We did add that to the policy. I couldn't find it anywhere. This is the plan. Which is different. So the policy is yet to be approved. The policy was to be approved at the last board meeting. The policy was to be approved at the second meeting. That was captured. The addition of the director of
020special ed or their designee was added as part of the district wide safety team. Can you maybe. This isn't the appropriate thing to do that. Can you point that out for me? Because I haven't been able to locate that. Yes. Yes, I'll find it. It's not going to be captured in the building wide safety plan as part of the team, because it was approved before the policy was approved. Thank you. Thanks. Anyone else? I think I forgot to say this the last time at the last meeting, but I have a group of old ladies. They call themselves the view in my neighborhood that I talk to whenever I walk the dogs. And they, we live right by the high school and the, and the multi-use field that's back there. And. And, and, and. And they
021said that, yes, it's loud, but, and it was expensive, but they were like, we're glad to see it's used for everything. So I just wanted to like say that that for the district, like. They've long time residents and they are glad to see that it's getting these. member appreciation month. So thank you very much for all of the work that you do and for a small salary that you all get. But the work that you do for our community and for our kids is amazing. So thank you for everything you do. Thanks. Anyone else? All right. Not to hear any. Just need a motion to adjourn at 619. So moved. Okay. I'll second that. All in favor? Aye. Motion carries. Thank you, everyone. Congratulations again.