Okay. >> Good evening. Welcome to December CC20 calendar meeting. We are here tonight at PS 331 which is overseen by principal Lisa Lynn. Thank you so much for hosting us. I would like everybody to please stand
up and face the flag for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag United States of America which republic and one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you.
Um Kevin, can you please take roll call attendance? >> Yes. >> Great. Uh John >> Ratel >> here. >> Elizabeth Chan >> here. Wen Mingchenic.
>> I'll speak up. Uh Wen Mingchen Nalin. She's running late, right? >> Yeah, she's running late. >> Uh May function. >> Yes. >> Stephen Mahoney. >> Stephen. Yeah. Fabiola. >> She's online.
Samra Stern >> here. >> Kelly Clancy >> here. >> Ken Lee, >> do you hear from him? >> No. He said he's supposed to come. >> All right. Alina Lewis >> here. >> And Kevin Zhao.
It's running late. We have seven people in person. >> You, too? >> Mhm. >> All right. Tonight we have interpretation in Arabic, Mandarin, and Spanish. You should see these interpreters names in the participant list and they will post their
information in the chat. They will now share directions for anyone who needs interpretation for the meeting. Could our Arabic interpreter please introduce yourself? Okay. Uh the following announcement will be in Mandarin. Thank you. The mandaring is done. Thank
you. This is the announcement. Good afternoon. Arabic announcement has been completed. Thank you very much. >> Thank you, Mr. Alamiri. >> Thank you. >> Could our Spanish interpreter please introduce yourself? >> Good evening everyone. Spanish announcement.
Thank you. >> Thank you so much, Mr. Sebastian Gomez. Thank you. As a reminder to speakers, please try to speak slower than usual to allow interpreters to keep up. Now, we will share the agenda for tonight's calendar meeting. Kevin, can
you please share the agenda? I will now share instructions for our public speaking sessions. If you would like to speak, you can sign up on the Google form on our website and the link has to be shared in the chat. If you are in person, you can sign up using the sign-in sheet.
>> Yeah, it's online. >> Yeah, go ahead. >> You can come here, please. >> So, as of right now, Mr. Stanley is speaking for Councilwoman Susan Zang. Is there a microphone? >> Um, just >> Yeah, you want to speak?
>> No, it points up. >> Good evening. My name is Stanley Ang. I am the office manager for council member Susan Zong. I've been asked to come by to talk about two bills or two laws that been recently passed.
The first law is that we now have a law that requires the department of health to visit every complaint where rats are concerned because many in our community been complaining that they have rats in their building, rats in the apartment,
and no one's coming to to check out. So, we have passed a new law that requires the DO to come and check out the complaint. The second law, our local parks are treasures within our community
and we have people that use the park all the time. Unfortunately, not enough resources are allocated to these parks. The new law requires the parks department to come up with a report telling us every quarter how much
resource are being allocated, how often they're being mandated, and what's being cleaned and everything else. So, the future is our kids and the kids will have use of the parks. Last thing, this past Sunday, we our office gave away
1,000 toys to 10,000 kids and many of them came from district 20 schools. Okay. Other than that, I wish everybody a happy holidays. >> Thank you so much. No one online. >> I would like to recognize several guests
here with us tonight. Superintendent Dr. David Pto, family leadership coordinator, Bill Chin, family support coordinator, Sylvia Jazinski. Anybody else in chat? >> I don't believe so.
>> You get We're going to start with the presentation for Mark Rampson, chief of safety and prevention partnerships for the Office of Safety and Youth Development. Is Mark on? >> Yeah, he's here. >> Good evening. Good evening all. Can you
hear me? >> Yes. >> Okay. So, it's more like an overview, less of a presentation. I appreciate the opportunity to be before you. Um, thank you for the invitation. Um, so the ask was that I come on and share sort of the
state of the school system as it relates to safety security. Um, so I want to share some highlevel overview data with you. Um, and then open up uh for questions. I know that there's also a question around how we can become better
community partners to ensure safety and security in our respective school communities. As it relates to level ones to five infractions which are incidents in schools, we are seeing a slight increase a two 2.4% increase with our
level ones to three incidents which are our lower level incidents seeing the greatest increase. Our most egregious incidents, our fours and fives are seeing a 9% decrease decrease. other incidents as it relates to suspensions.
Overall, we're seeing a 9% decrease in SP suspensions um this time versus last year. Principal suspensions are down by 6%. Superintendent suspensions are down by 19.5%. As it relates relates to bullying
complaints, we are seeing a reduction of 11% decrease and in the area of violations, we're down 34%. that is after investigating determining that it is in fact not bullying uh the complaints as it relates to incidents of
posting distributing un using an I mean un unauthorized material by way of cell phone or electronic devices we are seeing a 25% decrease preliminary this is the work that um is
manifest through the ban on cell phones in schools so happy see that we're seeing promising uh returns in that respect. In overall crime for the NYPD data, we're seeing a 11% decrease in overall crime with the seven majors
seeing a 10% decrease in violent crime seeing a 17.4 increase as it relates to schools. Uh again, this is NYPD data kept um for our school addresses. They're not specific to um schools that are in campuses. They
are single addresses. As it relates to weapons being confiscated found on in schools, we're seeing a 5% decrease decrease. And as it relates to firearms, we're seeing a 56%
decrease in um firearms found in school from 9 to 4. This is not work that is done um on part of New York City public schools alone. We pride ourselves on collaborating, communicating, and being consistent in
our efforts. We respect and appreciate all of the input from our community partners, such as our caregivers for our young people, our local businesses who we depend on to keep our young people safe as they transition and transition
to and from, and frequent business uh business uh locations. our community-based partners and organizations that help support our schools after hours and and students as they transition. Our faith-based partners of which we open our doors to
and receive them as partners as we continue to do the work to keep our kids safe. And our elected officials, one of which you just heard from a representative. We appreciate the partnership in that respect. and most of all our student ambassadors who represent our schools and we rely
heavily on their support to to ensure that they're talking to their their colleagues and making sure that they adhere to all safety and security uh regulations. So, I want to thank you for allowing me to give you this brief overview and um I'll hang around for a
little bit for questions if if any should arise. Thank you very much. >> Any members have any questions? Any members have any questions? >> Oh, let me ask. Hi. So, do you work
closely with the um computer people uh to see on the what's going on on the internet keeping eye eye on our students? >> I'm sorry. >> Do you work closely with the um
>> cyber security? >> Cyber security. Yes, that's the word. >> That's a different department. However, anytime the cyber department finds um an egregious act um post posted by a young person um it is my office of safety that
is that they reach out to as well our partners in the NYPD and we collaborate to address those concerns. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Mark Rison. I want to know if um the school safety trainings are starting yet. If the school safety train school safety
trainings are ongoing currently, there are about uh I want to say between 50 to 60 school safety agents in the academy currently and there are those are replacement agents and there are assistant school safety agents in the
academy as well. Remember those are the the the uh ladies and gentlemen who support um school safety agents as a supplement and they're only assigned to elementary schools. uh want there will be a graduating class in late January and we are anxious to have them deployed
out to our schools. Uh we are waiting to hear from the new administration. What is the appetite to continue to get our school safety agent numbers up to ensure that all of our schools are adequately supported and covered? But every every New York City public school has at least one school safety agent. Obviously, you
know that there are others with multiple, but at least one agent in every one of our respective New York City public schools. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. Stephen has a question. >> We have uh spoken on some of the data with the New York City Police
Department. So with the reforms you now were uh especially as it pertains to juvenile justice where a lot of the juvenile offender laws were uh changed, the age limits were changed. Um, is there an increase in children under the
age of 18 years old um, having to answer in family court? Because they did they changed a lot of the juvenile offender laws to get rid of them because if they were 13, 14 for certain crimes, 15 and uh, and anyone 16
and older would be charged as an adult. So that's been revised, that's been changed. Is that reflected in the numbers that you said were a decrease? Is that data being collected to look like with our children whether or not it's uh the
numbers that you reported with the police department that crimes are down? >> The data that's reflected in my sharing out is specifically about specific to New York City public schools. It does not reflect the entire city. It's only reflective of um
incidents in New York City public schools involving students. So this is the all activity um regardless to age and some of the activity that I described um is any person entering a New York City public school i.e. a
parent who enters a school and something happens and a parent is arrested that information is reflected in this data as well. So this is a full complement of anything that happens on New York City public schools premises. So let me give you let me give you let me give you a
for for for example sir um something that happens when school is closed and it happens directly in front of a New York City public school. The NYPD documents the address of the location where the incident occurred. That address would be a school. It would show
up on that school's respective data. What we are specific in asking as it relates to data is only data that reflects our New York City public school students. As it relates to um whether or not those cases are being adjudicated or otherwise in family court, I wouldn't be
able to answer that question for you. >> So I asked this question because when I was a student in high school, um I was the victim of a robbery. So that would then be reflected in the data you're talking about. >> That is correct. >> Okay.
If it happened in a New York City public school or on the perimeter of New York City public school, yes, it would be reflected in that respective data, sir. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Hello. Is your office open during the
holiday in case um there's students that might need safety and prevention? >> Is our Well, here's the here's the good thing. Many of our schools, obviously, you know, New York City public schools are closed during the holiday break, but many of our principles reserve the right
to open schools and allow activities to occur for young people. DYCD, they also run programs over the course of the break so that kids are not forced out into the street. There is a place for them to go. So, the good thing is many of our schools are open and available. As it relates to my office, I don't
close during the holidays. I continue to to sort of work through to support the school system. >> Good to know. >> And do you work with health and wellness in case um there's a depressed kid going
through something over the holiday? >> Yep, we do. We do we do a pretty good job of getting information out to schools to remind our young people that there are phone numbers that are available to them 24 hours a day. um we could forward some of that information to you and uh to the superintendent's
office so they can share with you and you can um share that information with parents so that if we do have young people who are struggling whether it's uh at night during the course of the day or otherwise that there is there is people available to provide support to them. So yes ma'am
>> oh that's good to know because during the holidays a lot of depressed people of students. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> Thank you. It's a great question. >> Thank you so much, Mr. Represent. >> Thank you for the invitation. I hope
everybody has a great rest of your evening and a great holiday if I don't get to talk to you again. Be well. >> Happy holidays. >> Thank you. >> So, up next is going to be a presentation from District 75. We have a special guest, Dr. Kesha McCoy from D75. She's the superintendent.
Oh, she's >> You can come see here. Make s >> the black laptop has a camera to the speaker. >> Okay. So, here. >> All right. Hello everyone. My name is Dr. Kesha McCoy and I am the new acting
superintendent for district 75. I am grateful to be here tonight. Um, first time I am meeting this entire team and one of my colleagues. Um, thank you guys so much for inviting me. I'm here if there's any questions to be asked. Um, one of the schools that represent is
231K. Um, the principal is principal Ruda is her name. Elizabeth Ruda. Um, I was speaking to the D75 representative, Mr. >> Mahoney. >> Mahoney. Mr. Mahoney who I just met today and we had really great
conversation um and I'm definitely going to have more conversation with him. So I'm here to support in any way and I'm just happy to be here. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. >> Steve >> Steve next.
>> Oh >> yeah. The next is going to be a presentation from executive director Vaja Ramjatan for New York City office of prevention of hate crimes. >> Can you hear me? >> Yes sir. >> Excellent. Good afternoon everyone.
I share my screen really quickly. Okay. So, as mentioned, my name is VJ Jatton and I serve in the capacity as the executive director of the New York City office for the prevention of hate crimes. So, I'm proud to say I want to say to all of
you, thank you for your work that you do on the CEC. I was the president of the 28 CEC for the past 6 years and then I resigned to take this position over here. So, I appreciate the work that you're doing. I know it's a uh you don't get paid for this. So, it's really hard work that you're doing. So, thank you
for the hard work and dedication to the community and I applaud you. So, um today we're going to speak about hate crimes, my office, what we do and how we can serve your community and what work do we do for the students of the New York City, you know, communities. So, the first step I want to talk about is the office for the prevention of hate
crimes, also known as OPC. So, OPC was launched in the summer of 2019 in response to an escalation of hate crimes happening across the city and especially uh more funding was made to it after the pandemic and we saw a rise in in hate across New York City.
Um, next we want you to know is that uh this office was uh made through the city council. So, it's an actual law just that executive order that you can just change because of administrations. But this office remains across various administrations and New York City local law 46 47 49 is the ones that was
adjusted to ensure that this office exists to combat hate crimes and prevent them. So the mission of OPC office for the prevention of hate crimes is to take a holistic approach to preventing hate crimes by developing and coordinating communitydriven prevention strategies
focused on education, building community relations, healing services for victims and their communities. And we work with over 60 plus community partners including the DOE and various city agencies to ensure that we are doing all we can do to prevent hate crimes across the spectrum.
And I want to focus your attention on this slide over here. So did you know that the New York City population is close to 8.5 million people that we know of right? This is all census based. So we think that he has more people but this is what we can report on. And you can tell from the slide here the context
in which we live. Right? You can see here in Manhattan we have close to 1.5 million people 1.6 we Brooklyn has the most you know residents in New York City close to 2.6 6 million people on Staten Island of course has the least amount of close to 500,000 people and the top five
religions in New York City by affiliations you know big categories is Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. Others do exist as well. Now this slide I'm going to show you here is I always try to share the slide when I present because I think it brings
hate crimes to the forefront to understand exactly what's happening. Right? So if you look at the 2018 you will see there's zero hate crimes. The reason I put that column there so you remember our office was established in 2019 by city council. So that's when the
first time hate crimes are actually started being recorded by the NYPD. And we can see here in 2019 there were a total of 219 hate crimes. And the key word you want to watch on this slide here is reported. This is hate crimes that people actually
went to the NYPD precincts and made a complaint. Now, in 2020, I mean, we all know what was happening there. It's the pandemic, right? And you may say, well, we were all remote. What happened? How did healthcare hate crimes happen? They actually moved online, right? They moved online and and this is where a lot of
hate crimes happened uh during the pandemic. And in 2021, you see there was 531 all the way up to last year, 2024, we had a total of 648 hate crimes reported. And you may say a video that's not does that make sense? There's only 640 hate crimes in a city with 8.5
million people. So I'm asking you to think about something here that we also know too. We know that not every hate crime is reported. We know there are that there are language barriers. There are some people who don't feel comfortable culturally going to the police. So we know that hate crimes also
not everyone that happens is reported. So one thing from this slide I want you to know is that we need to start reporting hate crimes right we need to do this work to make sure that people are educated about this stuff and then we go to the next slide here you may ask where these hate crimes fall and from
this slide we can see here 53% of the 640 hate crimes were anti-semitic hate crimes 11% were anti-male homosexual gay hate crimes 7% were Muslim hate crimes anti-lack 6% anti-Asian 5%
anti- other ethnicity 5%. What does other anti-thnicity means? Sometimes someone tells a student or tells another adult go back to your country. You don't belong here and they hurt them or they the crime was committed towards them. That's recorded as anti- other
ethnicity, anti-transgender 2%, anti-female 2%, anti-atholic 2% and also anti-Hispanic 2%. Though the those were the top 10 hate crimes complaints by bias motivation in 2024.
Now you may ask me, well I don't see my category there. I don't see hate crimes towards this group or that group. Well, not doesn't mean they didn't happen. They they were not the top 10, but also too maybe they were never reported. So we do want to highlight again that we have an issue with the city and making
sure people report hate crimes to their local nearest uh precinct. And you say, "VJ, does this really happen?" So, I want to give everyone a quick trigger warning. The next slides I'm going to share with you here may be triggering. It may be uh a little uncomfortable to watch. So, if you do
not want to see these images, they're not uh uh anything pornographic. It's just graphic um and what you're going to see. But I want to warn you, if you don't want to see them or they're upsetting, please do not look. So, you may ask, does hate crimes really happen? And we say it does. You look at these
slides here, you can tell these are actual things that happen where people express hate and sometimes these uh acts of hate is followed by violence, right? And here's another slide that talks about different
communities being targeted. There's another slide here. And for a second, I want to talk about what is a hate crime. So hate crime. So first of all, when we talk about hate crime, a crime has to happen first and then that crime has to be motivated by
hate. So for example, let's say I'm walking down the street and someone says, "Hey VJ, I don't like you." That's not a hate crime. Anyone consider to like you. Let's say someone uh looks at me and said, "VJ, I I I don't like you." And they shoved me to the floor. Well,
that's that's a you know, that's a crime because they assaulted me, but they did not say anything to me. They may think something, but they didn't say something. So, let's say they I'm walking on the street, they saw me, and they say, "Hey, VJ, uh, you're you're you're from the Caribbean. I
don't like Trinidadians. Go back to your country." And he hits me or they hit me and shove me to the floor. Then that's a hate crime because that hate crime was motivated by my ethnicity or where I was born or where I came from. So, when you go to the NYPD, you go to report a hate
crime, they'll ask you what happened. It asks you what did the person say to you or what did they do? Did you record something? Did you hear they say something to you? That's important to understand u when a hate crime is happening. And as we move forward um we ask you know what are we doing about these hate crimes, these bias
motivations and these you know discriminatory acts. We're turning awareness into action. So we have for those 60 different organizations that we work with, we have what's called path awareness days. PATH stands for partners against the hate that we work with 60 different organizations across New York
City who provide services in language access and culture responsive care to different communities. We also here is another program that we have these are programs that we do in the schools and also in the community. So if you look at this slide here we
have what's called NYC youths moving forward against hate. this program, we go to the schools because we realize that if we are to curb hate crimes at the top where adults commit them, we have to start somewhere to educate the younger ones what is a hate crime. We firmly believe that the first time a
youth knows what a hate crime is is not when they commit one or when they're being charged for one or when they one's committed towards them. We also have what's called a heartwork against hate where youth ages 8 to 18 years old they go participate and we have what's called a YALP program the youth ambassador
leadership program that we can share flyers all of you where we have a pipeline of creating the future leaders of New York City through the youth ambassador leadership program. It was the first year we did this this year and we had 138 applicants from across New York City, five borrows applied and we
are proud to be partnership with the DOE in this initiative and we have what's called also NYC office of provincial hate crimes interfaith council for words and symbols of peace and hate. These are some of the different ways that we serve the community aside from our 60 organizations that we work with. We have
what's called community project grants that we offer to the community where we annually we give out $10,000 to 10 individuals 14 years or older or organizations to work in in collaboration with us to provide community based work on hate crime bias and discrimination. Anyone can apply.
The the application just closed. We got over uh 300 applications just came in. So these are ways that we can support the community and you can get involved. Anyone ages 14 and older can apply for this. You don't have to be 501c3. You don't have to be an organization. All
you got to do is have a great idea and tell us, "Hey, here's how I want to support. Here's what I want to do." And we can help you do that if your application is chosen. We also have what's called Women Forward New York City grants where we we award $10,000 with three different organizations or groups that is focusing on uh uh
economic mobility, health, and public safety and housing stability for women or women identifying individuals across New York City. So, a bunch of different different initiatives we have here. Here are some of the pictures that we did with our NYC youth um ambassador program. As you can see here, there's
youth from across the city sitting down, learning leadership skills, getting funding to do initiative programs in their schools, in their churches, and in the synagogues, in their mosques, in their mund places. We also go out to um different uh religious or faith-based schools. here is the largest imam
training school in New York City in Queens where we went there and we trained and we talked to different communities about what is is what is a hate, what is bias, what is discrimination, etc. Here's a different picture here talks about ifar in the city where Muslim and Jewish youth come together. So we bring communities together to build community
relationships. Here's building communities with different communities in the in Queens and with the Asian communities and we do a lot of work with them. Here we at Wagner College of Holocaust Center in Staten Island and we do some work there. Here we are at junior high school 196 in
Forest Hills where we did a program with them there educating the community. We city tech over here Jamaica we in PS121. So we do a lot of different programs in the churches in the communities. We are here there and everywhere. And I want to bring your attention to this next slide
here. This one I'm going to leave you with my two more slides to be finished. This is our hard work against hate. These are some of the winners that we had last year for youth ages um from grades five 3 to 12 who submitted artwork. And on this slide here, if you get your phones out, you can scan this
QR code here. If you want to share this flyer and this information to your school community, to your youth group, to anyone in your family that want to submit artwork, they can submit their artwork. Again, it's anything that's creative. However, they see art and they want to express uh you know their
sentiments, their feelings about hate, peace, discrimination, New York City, um they are welcome to do so. And they get first prize $500, second price 300, third place 200, etc. Um and they have a moving art exhibit across the city. And lastly, this last slide tells you that,
you know, our office takes a holistic approach to solving hate crimes, bias, and discrimination. And we target the whole family from the babies to the adults, to the grandparents, and we try to do our best to make sure we do that in collaboration with all of New
York City residents. I'll take any questions if you have any. >> Any members have any questions? >> No questions. >> No questions. Thank you so much for joining us. Just I saw a hand was raised. I'm not sure if they had a question for me or
they had a question for you all. Marisol Negrantes. >> Uh yes. Am I able to uh answer uh ask my question? >> Yeah. >> Okay. Um is uh is Mark Grand still um
with us? >> No, not right now. >> Oh, okay. So maybe someone else could uh assist. Um so I my son's friend has been getting bullied in the schoolyard. Um it happened twice already. Um and uh I
tried to talk to >> We're going to have to talk off air. It's a personal issue. >> Okay, no problem. I thought it was something they could help with. Okay. >> Thank you all. Have a good night. >> Thank you so much. As of right now, we're going to call
Assemblyman Lester Chang. Please step up. Thank you. >> You could face us, space them, but they can hear you. Well, on >> you here. All right. Thank you very much. Uh thank you for the board. Uh thank you, uh Superintendent Pra here, and thank you for the board to be here.
Um just a quick one announcement. This Saturday at Ourly Perpetual, that's on 59th Street and uh 6th Avenue, I'll be holding a toys giveaway uh for everyone. So, that's that's a simple one. Uh next
month, I'll be going to back in Albany and uh I may or may not able to attend the meeting because I'll be up in Albany. So, this might be the last one for for this year and I wish you well for everyone and happy mer happy holidays for all. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Want to speak? >> You want to speak? >> Okay. Thank you. >> All right. Up next is the presentation from Steve Gonzalez, the school construction authority. >> Steve came back. >> I don't think he came back yet. 6:40.
>> Yeah, he's not back yet. I don't know if you want to move. >> All right. So, we'll move. We can move to Kelly's presentation. Kelly, you want to move to yours? Okay. So, we'll do the um >> Right. Yeah, we're moving way quicker than I thought. >> All right. So, >> we'll do that. Now, it's time for our
superintendent, Dr. Predto, to make his report. >> Ready, >> Dr. Predto? The floor is yours. >> Sure. Thanks so much. Hold on, Dave. I think something's wrong. Good evening district 20 back I think.
>> Yeah back laggy. >> All right. Can I give an update presentation on a couple of our PCP priorities? Priority one uh and priority two. >> It's not. You can't see it. >> No, you're
>> I saw your face. >> You saw my face. All right. Let's see. Can you see that now? There we go. My apologies for the amazing Wi-Fi here. >> If you want, I have good signal if you want. >> You have good signal >> and then I can we can use this laptop.
>> Let's go. So just a reminder on uh our goals in decreases students the 40th percentile targeted increases for our uh students with disabilities and
just a reminder around the action plan for priority one uh students across the district who are below the 40th percentile in reading nationally have been uh identified as appropriate for researchbased intervention programs. Parents are uh in the have been notified
and schools in the process of monitoring the progress of these programs to see whether or not these programs are working and accelerating uh reading growth in students who are uh reading far below national norms. uh in the upcoming month, actually starting tomorrow or the next day, we're
going to be surveying all of our district 20 literacy teachers around two shifts that we made uh in the implementation of the curriculum. One around uh some unit design and others around the shift of assessments. And then finally, and this is something I'm going to share some more detail in my
report is around some school visits that myself and the executive director always uh conduct. uh this year we have woven in a few meetings to kind of uh you know both you know observe uh practices at school but also get some information from parents from teachers and from
students around the progress uh in some of the work that we're doing in the district. So today I'm going to share some some feedback that I've gotten from uh from students uh and from and from uh teachers. So we've been meeting with students uh on all of our school visits. We
conducted 36 out of 43 visits. We've got a few more left. Uh so the the uh the overall uh uh takeaways that I'm about to report are from uh the visits uh at 36 schools upwards of 250 students that we've spoken to. Uh and we've asked them
some simple questions. You know the first question we asked them is just what are you reading? And they've been uh they've been reporting out a variety of responses. Uh so they they report uh frequent opportunities through the curric so curriculum novels. Here's some examples. Uh Percy Jackson, the Giver, inside out and back again. Oh, I just
got kicked off again. >> You can still hear me, but just >> they can still hear me. >> Yeah, because you're speaking this mic. >> Gotcha. Let me see if I can get the presentation back. Uh and also referenced uh genres and uh text types. So uh reported reading short
stories, poetry, non-fiction, and a variety of genres. Uh we asked independent reading came up uh and it seems to be available in most grades sometimes through the classroom library sometimes through the actual school library visits. Uh schools have also developed some school specific reading periods. That's a school choice. And
then book clubs has been a uh a way that children have been engaging in reading. And then some students noted uh and one of the questions we asked them was like what would you change about reading? You know if uh if if you could change one thing what would you change? Uh and one thing that we kind of found was that students reported that some of the independent reading is kind of like
around unpredictable time that uh they frequently end up reading when the the period is over. Uh and uh and then also a lot of kids like to read and they prefer to read what they want to read rather than what they're reading in class. So uh you know that was definitely some feedback that we heard
from some students. Uh the second question we asked was do you like what you're reading? Uh and overall students reported they liked what they were reading. Uh and then they found the text interesting. Uh and they they they talked about this especially when the genres that were being studied align with their interests. So we heard
a lot of examples of where the children would say like, "Yeah, we're reading poetry. I don't really like poetry. I prefer manga, but uh you know, but but but that being said, the poem was good." So, you know, we got a lot of that type of uh feedback. Uh students did say that they liked that they were reading
different stuff. Uh they liked that there was different uh there was some variety. uh and also that they were reading about different experiences. So a few times uh the immigrant experience was referenced when talking about what they liked reading about. There was a big Native American unit going on at the time. So all the students were really talking about how much they were
learning about Native Americans, but also like big life lessons. They were talking about, you know, the kind of themes uh that they were learning about. And there was also a sciences where a lot of students were like reporting out on how they really like the non-fiction, especially learning about the environment. Uh we we also
heard some students say what they didn't like. Uh some students, you know, we we heard a lot around uh they didn't love poetry and they didn't love grammar exercises. Uh sometimes uh students reported that the text felt too easy. We got like a range of uh responses around like the ease of the difficulty of the
text. And also that having to write uh short responses and paired essays, which is something that a lot of schools have been engaging the kids in because it's a it's something that uh children have to engage on the state exam. they find uh that these responses and par essays can be challenging uh and that the students
felt like they were unnecessary. So uh that was some feedback that we got around whether or not you liked what you read. Uh we asked them what they were learning uh in class and they reported kind of across two ideas. They talked about learning skills. So they talked about learning how to find the main idea and summarize but they also learn talked
a lot about note-taking. There was a lot of discussion around how annotation and note-taking was a big part of the expectation in class uh and that they were taking a lot of notes and then they were learning a lot from it. Uh and then they also talked about learning about ideas. So it wasn't just skills, they're also learning about ideas. So uh
cultural perspectives, the hardship that immigrants face, a lot of life lessons. Uh the units are aligned to uh these enduring understandings that are talking about these larger kind of life lessons that we we want the kids to take away uh and connect across the text. and they were able to name those as well as the
skills. Uh, and we also had some students connect uh their reading to what they were learning in writing and how they were learning how to uh revise and to write essays uh as well as uh the the growth in vocabulary. Um we got we asked them more about like
what would you change if you could change one thing about reading in the school. So they wanted more ability to choose books uh including book club selections. uh they wanted to be able to some students were talking about voting on class novels uh opportunities to read in other subjects which is something that we're heavily focused on uh
especially leveraging social studies and science. Uh they wanted uh more reading uh independent reading time uh and some predictable schedules and less time reading aloud together. That was something that came up across the schools. Uh and then some student we we
talked about the short responses uh and the paired essays being uh challenging. Uh and they also talked about wanting access to previous lessons. They we had a few students from AC across schools saying like hey I really wish I had access to uh to lessons that we had previously which was something that you
know obviously and just for context all these meetings happened with the principal there too. So like the principal was there with the students. So all the feedback that you know at individual schools uh were not just for for me but also for the principal. And then difficulty and variety and this was interesting. you know, some students
wanted more challenging texts and then other students wanted, you know, easier versions of text. So, it was kind of a mix around uh the kind of perceived difficulty level of the texts. Then some overall themes, you know, overall across the school, students really value reading uh and they enjoyed
a lot of the texts that they were provided to uh read both in the curriculum as well as uh by choice. uh this idea of more predictable independent reading time uh they appreciated learning both skills and ideas you know it was really interesting unprompted asking children kind of like what are you learning and getting a
mixture of both which was uh really interesting and frankly I was I was happy to hear that I was happy to hear that it wasn't just about skills and also wasn't about ideas uh and the the one thing that was a a pleasant surprise frankly as a former English teacher but also superintendent uh the emphasis on
note-taking that uh that children were referencing both in um elementary school and in middle school. Uh and they also said that and this is something else that I was happy to hear that the access to both classroom libraries and school libraries uh was a tr a strength. Children talked about being able to get
books and know where to get books in the school. Uh but when talking about the curriculum and you know uh the novels, book clubs as well as the text uh in the curriculum, they talked about a limit in choice. The second uh piece of feedback that we
took in the school visits from teachers. So we asked teachers a lot about uh you know primarily the the shift in the assessments from the module assessments to the weekly assessments and the end of unit writing task uh and also around the curriculum planning. Most of the feedback we got around was around the
the assessments uh and overall the the the feedback was positive from teachers. So they found the weekly assessments helpful for reteing small groupoup instruction, monitoring student growth, uh supporting special education students and uh we I met with teachers during
teacher team time. So teachers uh in the district on grade levels as well as departments sometimes in the middle school uh meet in meet in teams weekly to engage in co-planning and uh curriculum design and and other pieces. So uh they were able to talk about how uh the assessment data was supportive uh
in their the the collaboration amongst the teacher teams uh and they and we asked them specifically about flexibility uh around you know you know uh when the assessments needed to be administered uh as well as the pacing of the units and they said that they they felt the the flexibility um and then you
know they also talked about just the impact in instruction. They talked about the how the assessment data from the uh weekly assessments as well as the end of unit writing task. You know, we're really supportive especially for identifying for inquiry focus for students who they uh you know we we engage in a process where we uh hone in
on uh specific groups of students to accelerate their learning. Uh and they found that the assessment data was helpful in uh in their efforts to do that. uh and also they also reported that the assessment data kind of provided clear guidance for how they grouped kids uh as also for planning uh
win periods which is an acronym for what I need now. Uh this is a period that's a lot of schools have developed to uh meet the the unique needs of students in small groups uh across the week. And then overall things from the teachers, they they found the shift to
the weekly assessments and the end of unit uh writing task positive uh and that they were praised for the actionable data uh and for the flexibility and when flexibility specifically flexibility administering them when they had to administer them. They liked being able to set the date for when the
assessment was given. All right. And then moving on to priority two. This is the other uh goal we want to provide an update on. Uh last month I described how part of the Oh, I don't think I just and actually I want
to see if I can share my screen again. Let's see here because I have some data to share here. Keep it. >> Can you see my screen? No, you can see right here if it pops up. I'm watching.
>> Is it coming up? >> Sorry for the delay. >> If you want to try, you can email it to >> I don't know how fast the email is going to come through. >> Hi. >> There we go. >> Yeah. >> So, priority two. Um this was our this
was our uh student health and wellness goal and we're specifically looking at uh an increase of positive responses uh to questions from students around bullying. Uh we and I'll just show on the next slide how
this goal started from a lot of feedback from the community uh over the last couple years around concerns with bullying. We even heard a parent uh you know raise bullying as an issue. And we also matched this up to uh school survey data. I just got kicked off again. So last year
last year 53% of students in the district uh had favorable responses to questions around bullying and respect in schools. Uh and we named this as our target for how we're going to measure whether or not we're being successful in our action plans to reduce bullying
across the district. and we just administered a survey to all fourth through eighth grade students in the district using the same questions that create this uh data point in New York City public school survey. All right, so I'm back.
All right, so test again. Yeah. >> All right. So again, just this was our uh baseline. So we were looking for an increase from 53% to 73% positive responses to these questions. So we just administered the
survey. I'm going to share the results. Uh we surveyed across the district. And just for context, the nursy public school survey is for sixth through eighth grade students. So 9,400 students last year were surveyed. This year we at the district level we surveyed students
in fourth through eighth grade. Uh we wanted we felt like our up elementary students could answer these questions. We were curious what they thought. We did not disagregate the data beyond their grade level. So you'll see like how many students in each grade level answered it, but we did not disagregate for English language learners, students
with disability. It was an anonymous survey administered by you know teachers at the school level. Uh we uh like I said, we administered to students in grades four to eight. It was anonymous. We administered it digitally. We did this over the last two weeks. So
it just finished in the middle of last week. Uh and we literally took the questions from the New York the New York City public school survey from last spring. And I'll include we had 13,000 students complete the uh survey. It took them about three and a half minutes to complete.
And so here's the grade level breakdown. Uh so we had about, you know, anywhere between 22 and 2,800 students per grade complete the survey. So pretty even across the grade levels. And the first question from the survey is students treat each other with
respect giving each student the opportunity to have a positive experience while in school. This is the first question in the survey. Our goal again was to have 73% of positive responses. For this particular question, 85% of the responses were positive. That's the combination of
strongly agree and agree. The second question is at this school students harass, bully or intimidate students. Goal is 73% and this administration was 70% of positive responses. So the combination of uh strongly disagree and disagree together
is 70% of the responses. For the third question, at this school students harass, bully or intimidate each other online. So this is this online specific one through uh mobile phone, social media, uh email or other forms of electronic communication. Uh
the the amount of what we deem positive responses was 86%. Combination of strongly disagree and disagree uh answers. And then uh the next question is during the school year most days I have felt safe when at school uh 89% of students
uh responded uh positively to this question. a combination of strong strongly agree and agree. And then the final question is most students at this school treat each other with respect and 81% of students responded positively uh to this
question. And you know, we use this data to monitor the progress towards the goal. And this is the first administration survey. I'm going to be honest with you, the the the benchmark that was set at last year is so far below the responses that students
were giving. You know, yes, I want to give some credit to the action plan that we're putting in place. We have AP institutes. We have a lot like the city is rolling out a kindness over bullying uh respect for all over the course of the year rather than a month. like we're really focusing a lot of our attention
and priority on improving school culture in the district and the city. So I I obvious obviously want to attribute some of this these responses to those uh to those. However, that being said, typically the school survey is administered in the spring. This is this
admin this survey has been administered in the fall. So like the time of the year that we've administered it is also kind of reflective. It's a difference from the data that uh we started from. So that's something that you know I definitely have to say out loud and I you know to what uh to what uh to what
extent that the time of the year has an impact on the number of positive responses. We'll see. We're going to administer the same uh survey again in the late winter early spring and see you know to what extent the the plans that we have in place uh are are working and also to see whether or not these numbers
hold or hopefully increase. uh obvious definitely the one around question about uh whether students uh intimidate bully harass the school that was the lowest percentage of positive responses uh but still we we overall we're happy to see what we saw we we see it as good news uh
but definitely are also like aware of the timing of the survey and unsure about what impact the timing of the survey has on the the quality of the responses. So, you know, I'll definitely follow up with the survey uh in the spring and obviously report it out. Um
just upcoming progress monitoring the teacher survey uh of the same questions that we were asking teacher teams during the visits that I reported on earlier. We're going to be surveying all teachers across the district with those same questions. Uh so that will be going out starting tomorrow and we'll share that data as well. And then finally for
priority five uh you know our our goal in priority 5 is to increase parent perceptions around whether or not they're in you know have opportunities to be involved in school. This is, you know, PTA, SLT, uh, Title One DACK, as well as like other just parent student
specific opportunities at school, parent teacher conferences, uh, you know, family Fridays, all the different types of opportunities that, uh, schools, uh, put out there. So, we're going to be sending that survey out either tomorrow or the next day, and it'll be open across the district. And I'll report out
on, uh, on that on the results of that survey. Again, that survey's questions were the lowest uh scoring in the district. It was 91% positive uh in the district. So, we're looking to see uh how, you know, the efforts that we're putting uh in place in the district are
going to have an impact uh on on parent perceptions there. And uh that's my report for the that's my report. >> Thank you, superintendent. >> Yeah, no problem. I'll take any questions. >> Council members, >> I have one. Um you mentioned researchbased intervention programs for
the students that were flagged um by the reading assessments. Yes. >> What are those programs? >> This the city has approved a small set of them and the schools select from the menu. Uh there's >> the most common ones that are happening
in the schools are sound sensible in K1 um spire in grades two through five. uh phonics for reading in grades three to six. Rewards uh is one that's most common in the upper elementary grades and middle school. Those are the most commonly seen uh programs that are being
used for uh intervention. But there's a couple other options that schools have. >> And when would those be supposed to have started? >> So school when they supposed to start? >> Yeah, >> that's a good question. It's it it's a mix from schools. By now they should
have definitely started and part of our school visit process is meeting with with these MTSS teams uh and looking at the identification process the administration of the >> need it >> I don't think they do that's fine >> they do they do >> microphone's good
>> yes >> cool I got you I'll hold it away from my mouth >> uh yeah super loud >> um uh so we've been meeting with schools in the fall by this time if student is going to be uh engaged in an
intervention program in the fall, they they most likely would have done. The only thing that would hold that up is if they were identified for a program that the teacher for some reason or another hasn't been able to be trained in the program yet. Uh and also sometimes when administering the secondary diagnostics and like I because the purpose of MTSS
and matching up to the program is to make sure that the students uh identified need matches up to what the program delivers. Uh and in some cases that was fairly predictable uh based on the grade levels that the schools had. We recommended a bundle of assessments that they should use that would capture
like the reading competencies and the grade levels that are in the school. Uh however like for some isolated programs especially what was especially not sound sensible because we have very few kids doing sound sensible
blanking on the name of the program but there was one program where all of the training was really booked up and we weren't able to get teachers in front of the training. So we did not want to put kids in front of a program or ask teachers to do any uh program that they weren't trained for. So there's that it's a small number that fall under that
category but by and large uh would have happened. Now what is also happening is uh here the the reality is there are going to be more students who match up to an intervention program that the school may have capacity to deliver in the fall. Uh so we had a process where
schools were prioritizing students for intervention based off of their level and being able to ensure that whatever students were in intervention program that we could actually monitor to see whether or not it was effective. making sure that they were engaged with a trained teacher that they had the materials and that the program was in
you know the the the group size is important but not as important as the frequency. It was important that the children were engaged in the program at least four times a week if not five times a week separate from core instruction so that we could actually monitor to what see whether or not the
program was working and that was the kind of the biggest challenge that uh schools really had and had a lot to do with uh decisions around uh when students started uh and how many students were in uh each program. >> Thank you. >> Speak about the bull. I think you said
14,000 >> microphone. >> Pass it down. Pass it down. >> Speaking about bullying. >> Could have got the acoustics better. >> Approximately 14,000 students took this survey out of >> 13,000. >> 13,000. Out of how many were eligible?
>> I don't know off the top of my head. I have to go back and count, but that's pretty close to about how many students we have in fourth through 8th grade. It's a it's a it's a it's a representative sample >> as far as that. And I noticed the
questions um like the way you read them all. >> Yeah. >> Um >> was that the same way it was presented to the students? >> I Yeah, that's those so when I administered the survey, I administered it through Microsoft forms that
Yeah. Yeah. So, that's exactly how they were presented to the students and that's exactly the way they're presented to the students when they take the citywide uh survey in the spring. >> And they taken that survey in school. >> Yes. Every they've taken that sur they take that survey in school every year.
They only administer that survey to sixth through eighth grade students. They don't do it for elementary students. We decided as part of our um you know our goal in the district to administer it to fourth and fifth grade students you know the older students in the elementary school uh to to get their
take as well. Uh we felt like it was you know we felt like it was appropriate and it's an anonymous survey. So uh we didn't feel like there was going to be any uh damage or harm or misunderstanding. Again when we speak to students when we do school visits we talk we talk about school culture. We talk about bullying. Bullying is a big
topic not just you know amongst parents but also amongst kids. So we talk about it as well and in our discussions over the last several years you know we we felt like it would be really valuable to you know get their take on how this is happening in the schools and be able to use it to monitor progress and also kind
of make changes if necessary. You know this data is I'll be honest with you I think it was a little bit more positive than we were expecting. So that's why I shared my kind of initial thoughts around the timing of the survey. Uh and you know hopefully we see the same thing
in the spring. Uh and but that's also something that we're really uh putting out uh with our you know principles with teachers with our school staff uh as well as with kids. You know this is we're letting everybody know is really important to us. Uh we want to make sure that schools are safe, schools are fun, and kids are happy to be there and that
we're not going to tolerate this stuff. So you know let's work together. Can you pass the mic? >> So in essence, what I'm thinking about is some of the children who may say
there isn't an issue of bullying maybe because they may not be aware of it. So they therefore would be given a statistically more favorable response because not that it doesn't exist, but they may not be aware of it that it's going on. So they're going to like say,
"Well, no, there's no issues here." Um, and usually the people doing the bullying aren't doing it in a public forum where somebody can see these things. So like statistically, I understand that like for the positive feedback, but it's in looking at the data. Well, why would someone select
this answer? And then one thing that comes to my mind is because they may not be aware of it. Therefore, they're going to say, "Yeah, there's no voting in my school. Wearing hopefully that's true, but then sometimes if you're not aware of something, you're just going to check because you're ignoring them. You may not be aware of it.
>> It's not zero. You know, there are students who did report uh you know, answers that would indicate that there's that they are encountering bullying or disrespect. You know, we didn't get zero. We didn't get 100%. We got 89, 85, almost one was 70. Right? So there's still, you know, 70% of, you know, 30%
of 13,000 kids is still a lot of kids, right? So I'm not I'm not saying that we've gotten anywhere where our work is done. But what I am saying is that given the context and the starting point that we were at, I mean the city survey last spring said 53% it said that 47% of kids
said that you know things were you know that they were encountering bullying that this that there was a problem which is a bigger problem than what this communicates. I'm not saying that there's no problem. Uh what I am saying is that I was you know encouraged by uh
the percentage that the that the size and the scope of the problem uh may be something that is a little bit different than we were originally anticipating or maybe some of our efforts have at least had kind of like some schoolwide uh impact. If there's a child in a school,
if there's 85% of children in school who are not perceiving that bullying is going on, I would prefer 100%, but I think that's a lot better than 53%. So that that's kind of where I want to start. And it it kind of gives us some more insight into what our problem is
and how we're going to attack the problem. Right now, we're attacking the problem. I have assistant principles designing school culture action plans and, you know, putting them in place in schools. uh I have I have principles forming student councils that are specific to school culture and having those students look at this type of data
and give their recommendations on what they think the school needs to do uh in order to improve things and those things are being put in place. So we're doing specific things that are you know that are meant to be done schoolwide. We have uh we have recommendations for peer mediation. We have we have a lot of
different strategies that students are recommending uh and staff are recommending and and that the data uh suggests like so this data is just very interesting to see and it's just kind of giving us some more information about a how impactful have the things that we've
been done so far and b like what do we need to adjust? So this is it's just come here. So now I'm going to look at it with my team um and share it with principles. who are sharing school level data with all the principles so that they can think about you know how these responses you know match up to the work that they're doing in their schools and
they can use it in the same way. Uh so you know uh I don't disagree with you that uh a student who answers that they don't see bullying maybe because they don't see it but I also on the opposite end the more students that do that like
we want 100% of the kids doing that so uh giving that type of response. Well, I think as as you continue the communication and dialogue, there's a a public awareness. Yeah. >> Between the students and the administrators that not that necessarily there's a problem, but there's different
reces and action. And I think that hopefully that will that will continue, you know, not just say this school year, but as it because obviously that's something that as it improves, you want to maintain the improvement. >> Yeah. Talking talking a lot about it is
part of the plan. Yeah. Thanks. >> Um I like the expansion of your physical um uh teams that you've been doing in the elementary and middle school level, but I also want to say um in the news a
young basketball player, he hit his head and um and nobody checked on him and he died. So, I just want um what are you doing for the professional uh training development of the PE the people that are heading our sports department?
Because when I went to a game recently at Dwey, I like that the referee stopped and checked on a player that hit his head near the benches. So, I I hope that our teachers that are running the sports program because at the elementary and middle school level, they shouldn't be
as competitive as varsity and j. So I'm wondering what are your thoughts on that? >> I mean safety's first everywhere including in the sports programs. Uh I can talk about this the design of the entire program starting with uh Anthony
Corano who came and presented uh last month I want to say. So Anthony Corano is the PE instructional lead for district 20 and he coordinates the sports programs. He also does all the professional learning for all the physical education teachers in the district. uh and he has he has a lot of
experience uh doing this work. So we work directly with the schools where the games are held. We have trained referees, nurses on site, like we take safety very seriously and I and and I do want to say that I've attended several of the games myself
personally. They take a lot of care and attention to explaining to everybody the expectations uh not just for students and for but also for spectators. You know, that's, you know, a big part of youth sports is not just the students and students, you know, playing hard and having fun and making sure that we all
walk out of there and some while someone wins and someone loses, but also that the spectators, you know, treat the the experience as a uh as a learning opportunity as something that's supposed to be fun uh and that we're not uh encouraging anybody to uh do anything
harmful uh or in other way and otherwise be unsafe. So, and uh the coaches, the principles, uh Anthony, they do a great job of communicating that in a really productive way. >> Oh, because I just want to be mindful of that because when I do see games because
last year I I I saw a lot of the basketball uh games >> and the kids were crying when they were losing and I just want to reflect on that we shouldn't only think about winning at this at the younger ages at the younger stages. It's more about
development. I absolutely I understand uh and we really try to communicate that uh to the kids the coaches uh and and from the district level uh you know winning and losing is a part of the competition but uh it's also about challenge and uh getting better and developing and all that we and we really
do uh you know we really do work to communicate that and celebrate everybody that you know everybody uh you know everyone participating and and and competing is getting something good out of it. So >> thank you. >> I hear you loud and clear. question with the um the competitiveness
is there a mercy rule as a youngster playing bold there would be a mercy rule the game would stop and then you would have maybe to mix both teams together >> I'm familiar with the mercy rule I have to get back to you on whether or not we've had a need for a mercy rule uh the
the few games that I have attended have been like pretty competitive and a lot of fun uh and you know it I'll be honest and I competed a lot when I was younger as well and it's really fun to win and it stinks to lose, you know, like and I and I and I understand that and we really try to be mindful of that when
we're working with the when we're working with the kids, but at the end of the day, it's the the message is is meant to be very positive and that no matter whether you win or lose, like playing the game is supposed to be fun and you know, working as a team and these other kind of like larger life lessons are the things that we try to
communicate along with, you know, whether somebody you know, who who ends up winning or losing that that game. And that's the fun thing about a league. There's more games. Like we lose today, there's going to be another game. >> Mix the teams basically if they're if they're too well out.
>> We haven't I have to be honest with you. I I can't think of an example where this has been an issue. You know, I haven't it's never come to my attention. So, I can't really speak knowledgeably on the issue of needing a mercy rule or anything like that. So, I'd have to get back to you.
Any other questions? >> Any other count? >> Yes. Yes. Uh yeah. So uh because my daughter in the four grade, right? >> Oh. >> Okay. So because my daughter in the four grade in the public school. So I think
the four grade is the five grade is really important for the um private middle school. Right. So um I have the question about this one because I showed my um one teacher they were um out of
the school two month and then and then the um school have the another teacher will um complete to continue >> to that. So um >> is this situation it be normal it
because the teacher is out of the two months you know in the school uh continue to um like >> teach the student. >> Yeah. So, so may change it a lot because
may um normal the math teacher is miss person but this the teacher is after two months and then another teacher will take care that okay and then back to the after two months and then back to the normal teacher like before right so the
before teacher didn't know how what is the going out of the this student how is continue so I Just want to know this situation is be normal or how is each school have to allow the teacher how
long will be this if they can >> I I think I think I got you. So if I understand you correctly your child started the year with one teacher and then after two months that teacher >> left. Yeah. >> For whatever reason and then another
teacher came in and is teaching your child now. >> Yeah. So after two months they come back to another teacher again. Yeah. If for the first one teacher. >> Yeah. >> So so it's back full. So because the I think is the because the teacher know
the each student what's the going on right. So now it's important the ngree four grade five. So they will change a lot. How do you monitor the kids is will increasingly >> good question. Yes. like how they're
doing >> in reading and yeah so I just have want to know so is the what what's the what is the it's is the how long is the it the
um school have the allowed the uh teacher how long will they can leave the the teacher uh school >> so is there I assume you mean is there any rule >> I hear two I hear Two questions I hear.
One question is like how does the school monitor how your child is doing >> in reading and math even though they have more than one teacher? >> Yeah. >> And also is there some kind of rule about a teacher like leaving and a teacher another teacher coming in? So I'll answer the first question is easy.
The second question is a little bit more difficult. >> And the second question is how long how long they can they can take the leave of >> and then come back to. >> Okay. So the first question I'm gonna answer, you as a parent and the school can monitor how your child is doing
>> through like that's one reason why we administer those the I Ready academic screener. So at the beginning of the year, the middle of the year, all children take this screener and you and it will give you the approximate grade level that your child is performing at.
You also use the grades uh because all of our schools your school uses a curriculum. So whether the teacher who was on leave is teaching the curriculum or the teacher who came in after, they're going to be teaching them the same curriculum. So the expectation is that your child is engaged in the same
level of work in math, in reading, in science, no matter who the teacher is. And that's an expectation that you can expect from your school. And that's something that's a that's something you can ask your principal uh and the teacher that is teaching your child
currently. Um so their grades uh are reflective of work that they're doing in that curriculum. Uh and that's another way that you can monitor whether how your child is doing and you can and you have the right to ask your teacher your child's teacher how is my child doing on the tests like how are they doing in
science how are they doing in math how are they doing in reading uh not just on I ready but also on the the tests that that are given you know in uh in reading they're given a test like every week to two weeks it's short one but you can and you have and you have a right to see that information and
>> yes I know But >> also I have a question. Can you start? >> I think Okay, I know the point prefer same teacher teacher. >> I agree. But I have the professional
So the point is that students respect their parents that the subject teacher is teaching in a very different way >> and in addition to that the parents also value the subject teacher who not really are not familiar with the students so they may not be teaching on the same
page. >> I hear you. Yeah. And furthermore, after finally they get used to each other and they switching. >> Yeah, I I hear you. >> I hear you. No, and it's and it's difficult. I'm not going to lie. Like I hear you loud and clear. The the there
are there are there are rules >> that, you know, employees in New York City public schools, teachers, uh you know, different titles have contracts, you know. So, uh teach you know, and those Contracts are used to develop how
an individual like how one person and their situation applies to uh you know what they need uh as an adult and that and that really dictates how long someone may go out on a leave or come back. Uh and it's really I hate I know
you're not going to like this answer uh but it's really a case by case basis. It really has to depend on that individual and their circumstances. Uh it's it's there's no kind of like one set like length of time that someone could or couldn't take a leave like it really has to deal with that one individual
circumstances is the best way I can answer the question >> Dr. Um Kevin, go ahead. Yeah, >> the VA have to abide by the medical leave act and if one of your teachers has something they're not going to they're protected by HIPPA, but if that
leave is based under reason for their medical condition or immediate family members. >> Yeah, they have the right upon that incident finishing. >> We observe we observe FEMA. Yes,
>> we obser Yes, we we observe FEMA. So then they would go back to their original. >> Listen again like I can't like it's impossible to discuss any further than that because it's going to like that's a personal issue and that's it's really a case by case basis. >> I'm saying like under the opaces the unknown future
>> it's not and it's not just fem law. There's other there's other structures that you know kind of determine whether or not someone's going to you know >> take a leave or not be with a class. Well, the family is one specifically the family medical leave act.
>> I know. Yeah. Yeah. >> That's that's that's one that's that's one option. >> So would they have the right then to the original son? >> It has. >> Yes. Okay. That's all that's all I would like to know. >> Yeah. I still have question. >> Yeah. Go ahead.
So um the question that you know we have is I mean especially on a fourth and fifth grade when we are I mean when we apply for the junior high >> you're worried about the grades because we're going to apply to you know apply to middle school and you know the grades.
>> So how would the teacher be able to give a reasonable grade for the >> set time of the semester? I hear what you're saying and the ideal situation is and that some children get it but but these things happen unfortunately.
The ideal situation is that you have the same teacher, the best teacher and they're with your child all year. And I'm really sorry to hear that like there's inconsistency. I am I'm sorry to hear it like and it's happened to me as a parent. I had a couple years where my child's teacher was out for five months,
you know, and there was another teacher in there. Uh and unfortunately in one case there was multiple teachers you know with my kid over the course of a long period of time and it's it's really challenging uh and it's uh you know in terms of the grades the grades count the
same when it comes to the application process whether your child is with the substitute for a few months or they're with their same their child's teacher all year you know they they they count the same >> we have to I mean >> as a matter of fact I mean one is the teacher They might not be familiar with
the student and second the learning might be interrupted because they're not familiar with each other. >> This is this is part of the this is part of and this is part of our job. This is part of our job. my superintendent, the principal, like part of the principal's
job is to support a substitute teacher or a or a group of teachers who's going to work with, you know, your child and everyone's child in the time when >> sometimes the substitute isn't there all year and we know that the teacher is not going to be there all year. >> I think they'll be there'll be a better
solution if something you can just stay. >> None of it is ideal. You could say >> the ideal situation is when you know the child the teacher that starts the year ends the year and you know that happens a lot but sometimes this has happened that and and I don't want to I don't want to uh ignore the fact that it's not
something that we want to have happen and you're happening to you right now. It's happened to me >> uh and it's not an ideal situation. But one thing that you definitely can do and you should do is you should be in communication with your principal. You should be in communication with the teacher and you should be able to know
how to get the information that you need around how your child is doing, what their grades are, and how they're doing on in reading and in math because all that information is available to you. >> Uh, and that's going to be the thing that's going to determine, you know, ultimately what grade they're going to get. And if you have any concerns at any
time, like this, this information, you can get it today, you get it tomorrow, you should be able to have regular access to it. So at at any point if you're concerned with what you're seeing, you can make the teacher know, you can let the make the principal aware
so that they can let you know how they're going to help you with the concern. >> Well, for example, in this case, I think they were talking about it's a math teacher. >> Okay. So, um, what do you suggest parents to do with their >> I would suggest that if the parents are know who to contact,
>> that they know they contact their teacher, uh, and and if their teacher isn't giving them the information that they're looking for that they need >> to, uh, contact the principal and, you know, I expect that everybody in uh, every parent in the school knows how to
get to uh, that that person, whether it's through the parent coordinator or through an assistant principal like a lot of schools have different structures. I'm not going to uh you know blow up your school's spot right now and but what but what I but what I am going to say is uh I expect that you're going
to be able to get in contact with your school's principal if you're not getting the answers that you want from the teacher and if you have a hard time doing that like reach out to my office like we'll we'll we'll we'll help you get in touch. >> All right, we're going to have to take the Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. Thank you.
>> Yeah, no problem. >> That concludes the superintendent report. I'm going to call up um the presentation actually. Um council member Dr. Kelly Clancy, can you please step up? >> Works. It works.
>> Let's see. Transformation. >> Am I What am I looking at? >> You can see yourself there too. >> I can see myself. And then Faith has set up that >> Faith is co-host and she's getting the chat and the vlog. Uh hi everybody.
Thanks so much for being here tonight. Um so the next little bit of our uh meeting tonight is going to focus on the issue of studentf facing artificial intelligence in New York City public schools. Um this is something that uh me
and several other members of the council have been thinking about a lot and talking about a lot. Um talking with Dr. Poto a lot and the principles at our schools. And so we wanted to start to have a conversation about this topic um in district 20. And so I am absolutely
delighted to introduce to you Faith Bonninger who is uh here with us tonight from New Zealand. I didn't know when she agreed to talk that she would be here from New Zealand. This might be a record for the guest coming from the furthest away. um she is with the National Education Policy Center and she's been
doing a tremendous amount of work with schools across the country and I suppose in New Zealand and across the world um on the topic of how you can think about the role of ed tech companies in um in public school and what it means to have
a conversation. And so what I asked her to talk to us tonight was to share some of her insights into the way that tech companies um try to use try to relate to our students and use data that our students generate, but also help us think about what it looks like to have a
conversation with each other about the future of AI and what that looks like for our kids. Um and so I'm so delighted that Dr. Boninger is here. I'm going to turn this over to her for her presentation. Afterwards, I'll say a few words about my resolution that I that a number of people here have uh
co-sponsored with me. Um, and then we'll talk about the resolution. So, Dr. Moner, thank you for your flexibility. Thank you for your patience. Thank you for being here from the other side of the world to talk to Brooklyn. Um, and I'm going to turn it over to you. >> Um, thank you. Uh, first question. Am I
loud enough? >> You're perfect. Sorry, I'm very loud. But yes, it's perfect. Perfectly. >> Great. Um, well, first of all, I'm really pleased to be here. I love that you all want to have these conversations
and that you're um you're noticing what's going on and u and working on it proactively. I'm really impressed with that and I'm so glad um to be part of helping you with that. And also, I started out as a product of Brooklyn
Public Schools. I you know my 55 year academic history started at PS222. So I am um quite proud um to be here even from New Zealand. Um and I'll I'll get to AI and the future and what we can
expect and what we could think and so forth, but I wanted to start by um by stepping back a little bit. So, I've been um researching edtech and AI um for about the past 10 years, but I came into
that through research on commercialism in schools. Um and um that commercialism schools is basically how companies um try to market to children in schools and turn schools
into profit centers. Um, and this is something that they've been doing for a really long time. So, um, for over a century, in fact, people with products to sell have looked to schools, um, because schools need
things, you know, as you well know. They need books, they need curricula, they need desks and refrigerators and basketballs and, um, computers, learning management systems, data security, so many things. Um, and they also provide a
relatively uncluttered marketing environment and a captive audience of young people with their whole buying lives ahead of them. Um, so I mean it's trit, but it's true. Uh, money is key
and corporations have since before our grandparents were born eager to turn public schools into profit centers. And so from the beginning until today, the rationale for corporate marketing
efforts in schools has been to provide schools with things they couldn't otherwise afford. So another way of saying that is that schools have always been underfunded. Um, and just a few ways that they may do that are by providing sponsored curriculum
materials, um, by entering into exclusive agreements with schools to provide a particular service like soft drink vending or provision of um, devices. Um, by appropriating school
space such as by funding a ball field with the corporation's name on it or providing um, uh, computers or programs with the corporation's name on it. Um, and so you can see I'm hinting that
edtech is part of this whole history of corporations marketing in schools. Um, if you go back to the 1920s, um, psychologists Sydney Pressie and BF Skinner, uh, separately, um, but both
psychologists developed teaching machines that they tried to sell to schools. Um, and their efforts to do that established a pattern for how machines of all kinds would be pitched to schools all the way until now. And let me review for you the pitch. I think
you'll find it familiar. Um, students could use the machines individually to master a predetermined curriculum that would be inputed into the machine. The machine would move each student forward along the path of learning as they
mastered each element. um because every student could move independently through the curriculum at their own pace. Um teachers wouldn't be incentivized anymore to teach to the middle and that would be good for teachers, better for teachers and better
for students. Um and then the machines would free teachers from the drudgery of grading and lecturing and let them devote their time to things that that mattered to them, which was coaching students and developing relationships with them. Um, and so if this sounds
familiar, it's because it's the way very many uh edtech platforms are currently marketed. Um, and in fact, you can go listen to McKenzie Price's interview on Hardfork on the podcast from the New York Times very recently. Same pitch um
for Alpha School. Um what's new uh since the 1920s is now digital platforms can provide data for teachers and administrators that they need to um fulfill reporting requirements and make
decisions about things like student progress or procurement scheduling staffing a lot of things. Um, and so, uh, a few other highlights from the history of edtech.
Um, in the early 1980s, uh, Apple donated 9,000 Apple 2 computers to California schools, um, in an effort to accustom school children to its products. Uh, and then in the 2010s, Google launched a successful campaign to
flood schools with lowcost Chromebooks. um that essentially established Google as the dominated dominant mediator of learning. And then we all remember in 2020 the pandemic moved us all online.
Um and that included at that time willy-nilly the teachers who'd been skeptical of edtech before the pandemic and there were many. Um and at that point the um the tech industry was very eager to create a new
normal. Um and if you look at schools now um and how prevalent um uh digital models are I mean it it was successful. And then um in 2022, another thing that we all remember is that OpenAI released
the large language model chat GPT and that stimulated an arms race to incorporate large language models into products that schools already use um uh or into new products to sell them. And it's important it's important to note
that AI is a marketing term. Um and right now the emphasis is on developing um large language models, LLMs and incorporating them into the products that were encouraged to adopt in
schools. um and uh a tidbit um of information that I I think is really important in um indicating just how important schools are to the whole marketing model of AI is that um uh even
before OpenAI released chat GPT, they had approached Sal Khan of Khan Academy to develop and market the program, the product K migo right so from the beginning before it was released the
thought of marketing to children and getting children to use these products um I think that tells you something so um to sum up the historical part of my presentation schools with their procurement needs their captive audience
of student consumers and those students data are a gold mine um they always were and they're ever more so now. And so given that um what do we expect for the future?
Well, we're likely to see more and more new products that claim to be AI and also more incorporation of large language models into products that schools already use like adding Gemini to Google Workspace for Education or
adding PowerBuddy to P school. In that way, AI just kind of works its way into the products that schools are already using. And um AI amplifies the threats that my colleagues and I have been noting about
edtech platforms more generally. Um and two particular elements of this um concern me. The first is that the public doesn't have access to how products using this technology work. Um, and that's because corporations have
proprietary rights that deny us access and also because the calculations that are made by the large language models are inscrutable to everyone including their developers. Um, and then uh the second element is that these products are by design
chaotic. Um, and Gary Marcus is a cognitive psychologist who shows over and over that they they just don't have a model of reality upon which to base their output. Um, instead they're trained on vast amounts of training data
to enable them to basically predict the next word in a response. Um, so in that sense, what they're doing is they're mimicking the way that people use language. um they're creating an automated simulation of a response to the words in a query, not a real
response based on an understanding of the question posed. Um and because that this method is probabilistic, um these models will generate incorrect information some percentage of the time. I mean, you know, the um the expression,
it's a feature, not a bug. This is a feature, right? Mistakes are a feature of large language models um and any product that incorporates them. And we can't know when or how they'll be wrong. And we can't can't depend on anyone
being able to catch and correct those errors. Um so let me just review some risks that these two factors pose. Um, the first is that AI products will distribute information to misinformation, excuse
me, to students. And not even all of them together as a textbook that has misinformation might, but individually through each student's individual action with the product. Um, and they or their teachers may may sometimes be able to
identify this misinformation, but a lot of times they won't be able to because teachers don't have the time. they're not able to to follow everything that's going on with 30 kids in their classroom um and and kids working at home. Um and the students don't have the expertise to
um to identify misinformation. Um a second set of risks involves entrenching a narrow reductionistic approach to schooling that assumes that knowledge is universal and um packageable.
Now we know that learning is a complex and very human process and there's a difference between going through this process and um producing an artifact like a research paper that's supposed to indicate that you've gone through that
um internal developmental process. Um, emerging research has been suggesting that in the long term, the use of AI to learn is likely to inhibit uh the development of children's cognitive, social, and critical thinking skills. Um, and that that's a problem that I'm
real concerned about. Um, a third risk is overemphasis on historical norms. Uh, because LLMs entrench historical biases that are found in their training data. Um and one
way that this could manifest um is um in generation of IEPs. Uh recently some researchers from Georgetown found that um when they did a controlled experiment u varying the the gender of the child
that the IEPs were biased and they could assess that because they were doing a controlled experiment but in in a real life situation it's not controlled you just get the output. um and it becomes very difficult again to to identify the um the error that the um large language
model is making. Um fourth, there's there's a very real risk of programs making decisions about student understanding or progress that are biased or wrong um and or that don't take into account the specific contexts
of a student's experience. Um, and when that happens, my concern is that teachers won't be able to understand or justify the decisions that the that the programs have made. Um, because they're they're made inside the product. Um, and because
there's no oversight or accountability for those decisions that are made inside the product. um uh it it is just it you know opens um schools up and people up students up to real problems. Um and I
have an example of that that's not pedagogical but is really significant. Um a few weeks ago a student in Baltimore was physically accosted by police because the AI product that his school was using misidentified a bag of
Doritos as a gun. Um, I can't even imagine how traumatic that kind of thing has to be for a young person, for anybody. Um, and it's not the first time that students have been falsely accused of planning violence um to theirelves or
others or accused of cheating. Um, and of course, black and brown kids suffer more frequently from these kinds of accusations than white kids. Um it's really horrific. Um and then a final risk that I'll
mention is that um the use of large language models in schools can amplify the surveillance of students and the use of their data by people they don't know for purposes they don't know um or and
can consent to. Um, and so just an indication of the kind of concerns that um that worry me are flagging students as um possible criminal risks or determining what interest rates to charge them for their health insurance
or for a home loan. Um, uses like this are subtle and unidentifiable discrimination and they extend so far beyond the school setting. Um so now um
that was all a lot of doom and gloom. Um but the this this push to integrate AI into all aspects of schooling. I think that the upside is that it provides an opportunity for healthy response which
is exactly what you're doing right. Um it provides the opportunity for school communities to step back and evaluate what it is that you want to achieve um in your schools and how you might best achieve those goals. Um you know the the
pandemic led to an acceptance of digital technologies as essential to the infrastructure of schooling. And you know that might have gone on. It might have just gone on that way. You know, but AI is such a shock to the system that it's it's getting people like you
to stop and think about um and talk about what you otherwise just might have accepted. And and I think that's really a breakthrough. Um and um I would um I'd recommend that schools
take a wait and see approach to anything marketed as AI. um while you engage in discussions in these discussions to articulate your visions um determine what it is that you want to get out of schooling um how how best to achieve
those things whether they be uh through digital programs through non-digital programs um but meanwhile hold off on the AI u because of the kinds of risks that I mentioned and um you know you can call that resistance you can call that savvy
Um, I'd call it both. Um, you know, we're being told that AI is the future. Um, it's not going anywhere. We'd better get on board the train. But what if we didn't? You know, like what if we slowed down and waited to see how it plays out and, you know, not be
the early adopters, not offer our kids up as guinea pigs. Um, wait until the problems are resolved or or perhaps not resolved. Um, and another thing that I hear often is that um, the current large language models are as bad as they'll
ever be. Um, they'll only get better. Um, what if instead of jumping on board right now, we say, "Okay, great. You know, come back when they're better because if AI really isn't going anywhere, there'll be ample opportunities to get on board in the
future." Um, but if the kind of things that I'm worried about play out, a school that decides to wait and see won't have missed any opportunities. Um, but in instead will have avoided some real dangers. Um, and with that, I will
let you get back to the rest of your meeting. Thank you again for letting me tell you my thoughts um about this very important issue and letting me contribute to your discussions. >> Thank you so much. I really appreciate and the the thoughtful and measured
framing and the way you gave us a lot to sort of think about in our discussion. Um I don't know if you would mind putting your email address in the chat. If people have follow-up questions, they can contact or they can contact me and I can >> put you in touch. Um great. >> But I I really appreciate
>> um everything that that you had to say and like the the way that I think sometimes we forget that this exists in sort of a a continuum. And so AI doesn't just exist in a vacuum. Um, do any does anybody on the council want to ask Dr.
Boner any questions before we let her go? Um, >> Tamara has her hand up. T >> um I thank you for being here because as a um a parent that has child in high
school um I see um a lot of the programs that you mentioned are actually being used now in my child's school. You know what I mean? So um and that has been a concern for many of us when the this whole AI phenomenon started coming to the forefront and was pushed
specifically you know by the previous chancellor and everything like that because like when they do get to high school you know there's certain programs that they use in order to apply for colleges and some of these programs end up taking the kids data and sending their information third party to a lot
of these colleges and they get all these mail and information and they're being specific specifically targeted by certain colleges, you know what I mean? And um and as and as a a parent with black children, you know, I already anticipated
about the already the biases that some of these programs already have. And I'm glad that you brought that up because I was actually going to ask if you've been seeing um if this has been concern across the board whoever is using it because I I know know there is um
I I don't know like I'm not for this AI stuff because like it like I I do agree it it it decreases critical thinking and that's that's an issue and especially as a stu as a parent with a student with disabilities I want to make sure that my child is can think clear and freely on
their own and I'm not having a program telling them what their thought processes are, you know, going into the future. So, I really do thank you for this presentation and and just letting us know the the pros and cons, although I feel like there's more con than pro at
this point point in time. So, thank you for that. >> Thank you. I I really appreciate that. you know, um I heard somebody today um talk about potential um you know, because we hear a lot that you know, AI
has the potential to change everything and you know, etc., etc., and you know, in school settings. And he said potential is what it's not doing now. Um and I I thought that was a really good way of of putting it. Um you know, maybe
there is potential. Um maybe there isn't. you know, maybe there's potential for some negative effects, too, like the ones that we've been talking about. Um, and so it's important to to step back and and have these discussions and um
and your contribution as a parent is um is essential u in terms of what you're seeing. And I'll I'll also um I'll also add that you know some of the researchers who were doing the best work the best critical work outside of the
corporate setting on AI are um are black women. You know I mean they're all over this stuff. There's a lot of really good stuff out there written about um the the problems with these models and and why
to be concerned about um adopting them whole hog. >> Yeah. Even if you wanted to just email me some of the names of researchers, I could share them um with with everybody. Okay, that'll be good because it'll be
they'll be written down. >> Yeah, just send me anything that you think would be like things to follow up on what you've said and I'd be happy to distribute it. >> Absolutely. >> Yeah, >> I'd love to. >> Oh, um, so could you talk a little bit
about like why why AI would even be considered in schools right now? Um that's a that's a very good question. You know, I think that like part of the framing that I tried to provide gives
some indication of that, right? In that um the way we were set up just by historical circumstance um right before uh the big push for generative AI and large language models is that um the pandemic put us all
online, right? And so we're assuming u edtech, we're assuming education that's mediated by computers in a way that that we didn't do, you know, up until even up until 2019.
And um the push to adopt AI is so strong. It's like it's a fullcourt press. Um, and I I think about this a lot actually um that there's so much money so much money invested in the
development of AI and the only way for the tech corporations to recoup their spending is to make money. I mean, they need adoption. They really need adoption in order for this to be um not a bubble.
I mean, I I imagine you've heard you've seen in in the news about this potential AI bubble. Um, for it not to be a bubble, people have to adopt it. Um, kids have to adopt it. They have to become dependent on it. we have to
incorporate it into our systems in such a way that it won't be able to be um extracted you know and that's um that's my big fear about AI in schools is that once we incorporate it into school systems it becomes very difficult to
extract without trashing the the systems themselves. Um but that that would serve the tech corporations very very well. Thank you. Does anybody else have any questions for Dr. Boninger?
>> Okay. Um, uh, Tamara also says, "What's the alternative? Computers aren't already reliable, so what happens when it goes offline without any backup?" Um, I don't know if that's a question so much as a just like a chiming in to agree that
over reliance on computers can be problematic. Yeah, it's um it's very true. I mean, you know, we saw that during the pandemic, too, when there are kids who didn't have access had to, you know, go sit outside McDonald's. Um I, you know,
uh I see uh issues all the time like that. You know, I was on this um was the National Telecommunications and Information Administration listening session um that they had this morning and um it was
digital and some people couldn't the they couldn't unmute, right? They were supposed to speak at this meeting, but they couldn't unmute because the system wasn't allowing it, right? And besides being horrified for the people who intended to speak and couldn't, I
was thinking, well, that's what happens in schools all the time, you know? I mean, you have a classroom, there's a product, maybe it's Microsoft like this was this morning, maybe it's not, and it's not working. And the teacher has to spend so much time and effort trying to
troubleshoot the tech for the students. And and that's learning time. That's just it's just gone. Yeah. >> So, I agree with you again. >> Yeah. Uh I want to be mindful of your time. I know we took up so much of your time today and thank you very much for
like giving us things to think about and to talk about and I know that we'll be following up with you via email as well. So, you're welcome to hang out, but also I know there are better things to do than to be in the rest of the session. Um and if other people have questions afterwards, I'll definitely email them to you.
>> Yes, absolutely. >> Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. >> No problem. Thanks for inviting me. >> Of course. Thank you for spending our your time with us. Um, so I just wanted have a good night. Thank you. Uh, I just
wanted to say I think we have about six minutes left of this session. So I wanted to say a few words about the resolution and then we can move to vote on it. Right, John? Is that what we're doing? Okay. Um, and so one of the things that I really appreciate about what Dr. Boninger said is this idea that
we as parents and as community leaders and as teachers get to decide um together what education can look like, right? And so when we're told AI is inevitable and we have to adopt it now, um it's our sort of obligation to say, "Wait a second, no, it's not." Like
nothing's inevitable, right? We can have a conversation about what we envision for our kids and in our schools and what we think serves them best. Um, and so I think that one of the things that we are extremely lucky about in district 20 as I've been talking to parents um, and
other CEC members in different districts is that we have a superintendent who is really thinking thoughtfully and critically about AI based on our um, my my conversations with Dr. Breto. He's urging principles to be cautious and to really take a step back and to think
about it, which puts us in a tremendously fortunate position, I think, in terms of what it means for how um we can be community leaders and talk to our schools about it, talk to our SLTs about it, talk to each other about it. Um and you know, the reason that all
of us are here is we want our students to be able to think, to critically solve problems, to develop knowledge, to become good citizens, to do well, right? all of the things we've been talking about here. But the reality is that all of the research about AI right now says that that doesn't happen. Children do
worse on assessments when they're taught by AI than by teachers. When they look at the cognitive use of children, their their cognitive use is lower. They use less of their brain when they ask AI to write a paper with them than when they
write papers on their own. And then that lasts. AI has a long-term impact on memory. it hurts people's memories. Um, and it leads to what's called cognitive offloading where you stop thinking because you expect a machine to think for you. Um, and in addition to all of
this research that's coming out about how AI actually hurts children's ability to learn and do well. Um, and children use it to sort of take shortcuts instead of struggling and, you know, really working hard and trying to solve problems. There's also all of these hor
horrific stories about um the mental health impacts of AI. And so um children who use AI at school in the ways that tomorrow was talking about a few minutes ago where they're told that they have to um are 30% of those kids say that
they're in a romantic relationship with chat bots because they start by using it to like help them with their math homework and then they ask it to be their friend. There's all of this evidence about um about cyber bullying that comes from AI being present in
schools. There's all of this evidence about AI bots coaching children into how to die by suicide. Um, and you know, we heard tonight that bullying is down across the district and across the city because of the cell phone ban, but all of all of the districts, all of the
evidence indicates that places that that AI is being adopted in school, those those instances of cyber bullying are going up again. And so, you know, and then one of the things that Dr. Boner said that I think is really important is we actually don't know how AI works. So, like I have to sign a permission slip
when my kid gets fed a popsicle at school, right? Like literally they're like, "She will be fed a grape popsicle. Is that okay?" And I have to say that's okay. But I can't be told when my kids data is being used, how it's being used, how their biometric data is being
collected, how those are being used to train machines. And the reality is that that people can't tell us those things because people don't know right now. Um and so as a parent and as a member of the CEC what and right their pictures we
have to send we have to Mary Ellen said in the chat about their pictures we have to send 17 permission slips for them to do school picture day right um and yet and yet in other I don't know if it's happening in district 20 in other districts in New York City children are speaking into a mirror for 30 minutes or
an hour a day that's capturing their voice their biometric information that way and parents are being told that they can't opt out. They're not being asked about it. And so, you know, one of the things that I think is really optimistic is that parents across the city,
teachers across the city are starting to say we need to wait and really take a thoughtful approach to this. And so, um, I'm not going to read the entire resolution because I got excited and wrote a very long resolution. And so, Elizabeth told me that I could maybe
just hit some of the highlights. And u the hard copy >> and you have the hard copy and the resolution is in the chat. Um and then I can read it to you later personally if you would like me to um but I don't think anybody does. Um and so um this for this is resolution five
which is urgent caution and discussion over generative AI in New York City public schools. Um whereas the panel for education policy has repeatedly rejected contracts with AI companies due to concerns over student privacy. Whereas New York State Assembly has passed laws
to regulate tech companies and their interaction with minors. Whereas New York State Assembly member Robert Carroll recently introduced a state law banning students in grades K through eight from using AI because of concerns over literacy and critical thinking loss. Um whereas New York City public
schools are out of compliance with laws prohibiting companies from profiting off student data. Whereas all New York public city stu school students have a right to an excellent educational experience to prepare them for critical thinking, problem solving, contributing to their community. Uh the next several
things is just sort of the summary of the research that I talked to you about before which says that everything we know about how students learn well is not does not take place when AI is being used instead. Right? Um and so you can look at the research that's cited here
later and that's my favorite thing to talk about. So if you want to talk to me about this research then nothing would make me happier. Um but whereas there's no clear articulation of the circumstances under which AI would be used thoughtfully and intentionally for instructional planning, diagnostic or
studentf facing instruction and when the technology would not be used. Whereas there has been no citywide conversation about the risks of AI or the way in which the DOE plans to roll out the technology in an instructional capacity whereas the technology is already being
introduced in schools without parental knowledge notification or consent. Therefore, be it resolved that communic that community education council for district 20 advocates the New York City Department of Education institute a two-year moratorium on student facing AI
in grades preK through 8 except for circumstances required by any IEP during which time two each district should hold a series of listening sessions with teachers, parents, and students to hear about concerns over the use of AI and use those listening sessions to craft a
plan that involves critical thinking over whether and how technology will be used. During the conversation period, the DOE should adopt a posture of AI minimalism, caution, and skepticism, educating teachers and parents about the known risks of the technology. Parents should be informed of any use of AI that
collects data about their students, including for grading, assessment, or diagnostics. Parents should be given the right to informed consent and to opt their children out of the use of AI that collects information or intellectual property. All schools should be required to maintain a nonAI option for supplemental
support including tutoring. And in this until we engage in a meaningful conversation about the use of AI, the PAP of the um panel for education policy should refrain from awarding contracts for studentf facing AI technology. >> Well, no, I skipped the whole research
part. It's like seven warehouses, but I read a lot of >> um so now I think we go to the vote. >> Okay, John. >> Um
voting on resolution five. >> John Watson, how do you vote? >> Yes, Chan. >> All right. I I I wanted to mention that during COVID we needed um these computer work but but we also learned during
COVID that students learn more with people teaching them. So we know this and then we al and then Tamara brought up a fact about the re reliability of Wi-Fi. So it doesn't really help us be more equitable because some you know
kids that could afford better Wi-Fi will have better service. So that was another factor that I never thought about until she brought it up today. So I I also have a lot of thoughts about those. So I do believe that we should have conscious
um and discuss um AI for New York City school students. So I Yes. >> Yes. Uh Wening Chan. >> Okay. I'll come back. >> Nalin. >> Oh, yes. >> Yes. May function.
>> Okay. Come back. Steven Mahoney. >> Yes. I did go offline way. But >> Kelly Clancy, >> yes. Ken Lee, >> yes. >> Alina Lewis, >> yes.
>> Kevin Zhao, >> no. >> Okay, >> I have a question. So they use the student. >> Wait to come back. >> They do use student data >> but they because you know the AI the
computer >> the profile information that's you >> and it's not just very you know that last time I mean during the co that happened so >> y so we had there was a conversation
that happened last week or the week before where this question was raised >> and they said that AI the the the the people in charge of cyber security for New York City expected there to be more information leaks and that their pl
their plan was to provide students with credit monitoring if it happened. Um but all of these programs train like use student data and train their models based on that student data. So student data is not protected with
any of these these models. Oh, >> oh, did I do Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> I'm not very sure. >> Well, first of all, I totally agree with the data protection and privacy part of
it. But what I'm hesitating over here is when when we said we need to wait but how long we are going to wait AI only in evolve in the last five years and it changed dramatically evolves dramatically from five years ago and
there are a lot of concern about say I hear a lot of concern in the conversation before saying um it impact children's on their thinkings impact have children like they cannot
they spend too much time only talking to the AI one the point over here I have it is we need to know how to deal with AI it doesn't matter today but tomorrow I mean I agree we don't protect the privacy from that but when are we so when is my
problem over here with this one is we need a timeline to say when we might have to revisit it >> if we really want to with your corresponding because it changed American from five years ago to now is totally different
and how much harm it children. Um I really don't know about that even though we know even though we say we have a lot but we are not sure what it is. Yeah. >> So, >> well, I think >> but I'm drawing back to others like a
game boys we had before >> at that time were totally say oh I grew up with game boy by the way and my parent was like no you shouldn't play game boy they hide it >> and to my parent generation they hide TV remote for the kids
none of those really become so >> devastating for them it's part of our growing it's part of our societ try to change and then are we going to say our kids shouldn't grow with that wait until they become teenager
well another story back is when I before I was a teenager I was like protected in I tower did not touch a lot of things but what happened is after I was one day when I really seen the outside I I was so
fascinated by what the bad is out Yeah. And I try to own all own possible bad things and get track of everything. So, but we don't want our kids to repeat that story with the AI. So, I do not think I totally agree the privacy part. I also agree there should
be some kind of control, but I don't think we should remove our children from >> Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I agree that Kevin said because the right now um I think in for my
example my >> I I always use I always use the Google search or something like that really like the um more it's a really all the
time to wait impact to me to think about that how is uh to do that and then what is the happening something like that so I think but my for my right now I totally agree that Kevin so I'm I'm
saying no >> did you get Tamar's >> one and Fabola >> Fabola yeah I'm just waiting to I lost connection but I Tamar can you hear me or Fabiola >> I can hear I just I can't hear I don't know who's speaking because I just see
you and Kelly on the screen so I'm not sure who who's speaking. I know >> Kevin and who else was speaking before. >> Uh we just took a vote for them. So now we're moving on to you for your vote and if you want to speak you're we can hear you. So just let us know what your vote is.
>> My my vote is a yes because like my children's privacy information has been breached. Like two out of three of my children, you know what I mean? And because I have um black children, African-American children, and um the
pre the presenter basically said that, you know, some of it is some of this program is biased against which we like we we already know that I know that and I have a students with disability. So I I am for something that um stops them
from getting my children's information and I for something that's that's you know increases critical thinking and not having to depend on something to do the thinking for for for any of us. And it shouldn't be starting with our children. It should be starting
if they're going to be doing this. It should be adults only. leave our kids alone so they so they like mentally able to really think and make the decisions on on themselves. So mine says that mine I'm yes for this resolution.
>> Thank you uh Fabiola if you're there. Fabiola, >> I don't think I saw >> she was online at some point, >> I believe. John, did you say she gave it to you? >> Okay. >> Okay.
>> About one minute. >> One minute. Yes. Okay. So, the resolution passes with 10 yeses and two nos. >> Thank you everybody. >> Give me back your
>> John. John, >> sorry about your name. >> John, >> it's okay. >> You need to move on. >> Resolution pass. >> Thank you. All right. So, now we're going to call the presentation is going to be from Steve Gonzalez, School Construction Authority.
>> Okay. Thank you. Good evening. >> No problem. Steve Gonzalez from School Construction Authority and uh making our annual presentation of the capital plan amendment. I'm going to share my screen, but before I do that, I wish to
recognize two uh members of our staff at the SCA who are on this call. Iette Knight, who is director of external affairs, she's waving, and Elias Stampus, who is the senior project officer for the SCA and all our projects
in district 20. So, Elias, thank you for your patience and for hanging around. So, I'm going to share my screen. Okay. So, I'm screen sharing. So, basically, um, this is the 5-year capital plan November 2025 amendment for
CEC20. The agenda for tonight we're going to talk about is an overview of the November amendment to the FY fiscal year 2025 2029 plan highlights uh capacity program
which is building new schools annexes capital improvement projects doing uh work in existing buildings resoa projects funding from our city council members and from the burough president's office our MWLBE minority women's
localbased enterprise programs that uh the SAA sponsors and it's been sponsoring for uh over 30 years of the CEC priority project request and questions and comments. So we'll start off with the November
2025 amendment to the fiscal year 202529 5-year capital plan. The total amount of this entire plant citywide is $20.9 billion. Capacity uh allocated $6.98 billion.
U hefty chunk for new buildings and for additions and annexes. Healthy schools uh allocations for 2.30 30 billion which includes the existing electrification of schools, heating plant upgrades, physical education
projects that includes athletic fields, swimming pools, playgrounds, and what we call health and nutrition projects such as learning gardens um or what we did many years ago in District 21, the edible schoolyard. Um capital
improvement, $7.92 billion. Uh basically these projects are built to ensure the safety, well-being and security of existing school buildings. The vast majority of these uh projects are exterior of course
and uh they're small smaller minority for uh interior projects and mandated pro programs that account for 3.72 billion which uh involves funding includes funding for local law uh
requirements, city agency mandates, um asbestous remediation, building code compliance, and emergency projects. So, citywide highlights, we'll talk about new capacity projects, $6.13 billion. Um, I've already described what
that uh in involves. Electrification involves 1.4 billion. That uh involves the electrification of existing buildings to phase out and eliminate reliance on fossil fuels and providing a cleaner and
s sustainable environment to our schools. technology uh involves $1.25 billion which uh uh assists classroom instruction through smartboards, computers, and laptops. Uh
accessibility, $800 million, which involves to providing better accessibility to our schools, involves building uh elevators and existing older existing buildings. We we're doing an elevator project at PS 180 uh at this at
this uh juncture. Uh widening partitions and doors. Uh we're also looking to make public assembly spaces uh uh ADA compliant and also installing wheelfair uh wheelchair lifts and ramps. Physical
education space. We've allocated $40 million for upgrades to playgrounds and gyms. And our cafeteria enhancement experience. Uh we've allocated $150 million for upgrade of our cafeterias capacity program $6.98 billion. Um again
the uh new capacity 6.13 billion for new buildings and uh annexes and uh additions replacement programs. We're developing $400 million we've allocated and this helps to develop seats for
schools that have to be relocated. Capacity to support TCU removal, that's self-explanatory. It's $200 million. It's basically adding seats to existing buildings where TCUs are being removed. Uh playground redevelopment. We've
allocated $51 million for uh new playgrounds where TCUs have been removed and early education projects. Uh basically this is the pairing down and the finishing up of the existing prek
center initiative that was done citywide. So district 2020 20 capacity highlights. Uh we have 23 seats over PS48 anticipated occupancy next September. um is 631514th
Avenue which we know is the old St. Rosalia Church site 461 seats and that's anticipated occupancy in September 2027. PS8 uh 88802 of Fifth Avenue. That is
the old Santandra Bank site for 547 seats. Anticipated occupancy September 2029. And uh PS at 7120 New Utre Avenue. Um that was uh approved by the city council
last year. 451 seats and we are having anticipated occupancy at September 2030. I believe one of these schools has also a D75 seat component for 96 seats. So cannibal improvements. Now I will
describe first of all we have building conditions assessment uh survey consultants that go and I know there are several principles. I see that Rena is on Suzanne's on uh on on this call. Uh
Miss Kadat's on on this call as well. Miss Nola. Um I went again if I stress to those principles on this call and all the principles in district 20 and I'm sure they're all doing it. But I just as a reminder to please when the Bcast
consultant comes to the building, please walk with that uh uh consultant since you are the stewards of the building. Nothing against DSF, no disrespect to DSF, but we rely upon the principles for
their input. Um DSF reported issues. Um when the DSF has issues that they cannot handle, it's beyond their capacity to handle uh terms of ability and costwise. Then they red dotted uh to us to handle
the uh DSF uh issue mandated repairs uh resoa which I'll talk about in a couple of minutes and then your requests from the CEC projects that are fall under capital improvements as described here
exterior masonry windows parapits flood elimination roof replacement accessibility projects I have already described but it involves of elevators, uh, uh, wheelchair lifts as such, uh, playgrounds,
auditoriums, gymnasium upgrades. District 20 highlights, as you can see, in terms of capital improvements, the vast in terms of dollar-wise is exterior masonry. We've allocated almost $14
million uh, right now for uh, uh, 25 26 and uh, that's three projects. We have parapits three uh three of projects going on at 9.2 million roofs always uh
a an issue of uh in especially in CC20 uh in many other Brooklyn school districts because of the uh age of the schools. Uh we have about $8 million allocated for roofs. All right, moving on. Resoa, these are
projects that are cap eligible. They're school specific capital improvement projects or enhancement projects and they're funded but they're they're smaller in terms of dollar wise and of the size of the project and they're funded by the local city council
members. Um want to give a special shout out to all our city council members in district 20. Uh I want to give a special thanks to and I know that he is uh now leaving uh his uh position as city council member to Justin just Justin
Brandon and welcome in Miss uh the new city council member Santos Suso. So wish her all the best uh in her new position and um also thank uh I think Miss Bernok
does some in district 20 one or two projects. Um Calman Joerger is also has some projects in uh not Calman Joerger uh oh the the former state senator and he he's now new city council member um
uh reso8 budget timeline we have let's go through it January to March uh elected officials uh contacting schools to identify potential projects city budget negotiations and approvals through the months of May and June
The city fiscal year starts July 1st and uh schools are notified of the awards by the sponsor in the summertime. Late fall and early spring sea receives the final budget authorization from the office of management and budget and then
the sea begins project scope and design process and schools are contacted by their project team one month following the office of management budgets approval. District D district 20 res highlights auditorium
we have 34 projects total estimated cost almost $44 million that's been the vast majority of the projects uh in district 20 20 science labs almost $5 million and uh we move on to our minority owned
womenowned and locally based business enterprise program it's dedicated to increasing the participation of minority owned and womenowned and locally based business enterprises. We run a mentor program which provides key support and access to capital and business opportunities for qualified emerging
MWLBE. District 20 MWLBE highlights in fiscal year 2025. We awarded in district 20 $13 million in prime contracts for CIP work to seven MWLBE firms at seven projects. This
represents 41% of all contracts for CIP work in school district 20. Let's go over CC priority project requests. Now, I want to thank M. John for participating in last month's uh seminar that we held with the CEC's. We
did that citywide. And uh what we did, we we talked about the following items I'm going to go over. Uh each number of CEC's are asked to complete a form identifying top five priority projects in their district. Forms are due in mid January and they're
emailed to cinputnyca.org. Um consultation and review. Uh CEC's would review capital eligibility guidelines ensuring project meets thresholds, costs, strain, area, etc. determined by the New York City
controller and enforced by OM. We review the capital plan identifying what plan projects are already funded in the district. Um you would identify a project in the capital plan that project might be classified as cap capacity CIP healthy
schools etc. Uh CEC's review projects with the custodial engineer DSF for maintenance andor repair items. Um since DSF division of school facilities they're responsible for the maintenance part and we do have uh a working relationship. We work closely with them
um and our projects. Uh CEC's consult principles about projects in ensuring agreement on priorities uh submission guidelines. CEC's would prioritize five projects on the request form and the SEA does major uh capital
renovations only for building maintenance or projects that are ineligible. PR principles can request repairs from custodians and or the DSF capital plan presentations. The SCA's annual capital plan presentations provide an overview of any changes to
the plan and highlight specific projects and funding in each district. Now, today's presentation is not for reviewing or discussing individual CEC requests or submissions. If you have any questions, you may talk offline or email us at at the SCA. Uh I would like to
note I I don't want to uh forget that when BCAST comes there and does the ratings when they do and they walk the the school um because I think someone had had asked in an email earlier today uh to our staff that basically the
ratings are on a rating scale from one to five having the the highest four to five or more likely to be in terms of what the the consultation from the BCAST consultants their their ratings
mostly fives would be uh would be uh eligible for a CIP project. We do go and consider four uh four project rating projects as well. So I just want to point that out that the higher the rating the higher the number of the
rating four to five uh is especially at five is a very good chance of being eventually being uh uh funded for a CIP project. Having said that um final page external affairs manager myself Steve
Gonzalez at at uh I'll give you myself it's 3475390157. My email address is s gonzalez@nycsca.org. External affairs director is evet. Our number is 7184728199.
ivet knight at nycsa.org. Our director of reszoa projects for those principles, those are on this call today and uh and those throughout the dis uh district 20. Any questions, please contact Brian Mcinn 718-4728370.
His email address is bckin nycsa.org. And of course, the CEC building combat form information seeput at nycsa.org. That completes my uh presentation this evening. Open for comments or questions. Thank you.
>> Any questions? >> Go ahead, Steve. >> Steve, sorry. >> I will mention concerning electricity. So I don't understand two things you mentioned concerning electricity. Can you please briefly
explain what does low voltage electrical system? It was over a million dollars. So what exactly is that low voltage electrical system? >> A low voltage electrical system is fire alarms. It uh PA system, anything to do
with electrical. Um, and that's I mean there's a lot of uh work that's done in in the building with conduits and wiring. It's it can be intensive. That's why when you see that kind of number million dollars or more. Um that's why
that's why you're seeing that kind of funding figure. >> Thank you. And and the second one you mentioned electrification of older buildings. Um is that going to be replaced in boilers? Is that >> Yes. Yes, it is. That's there there is a
there's a list um of schools that are picked uh each year that are chosen to uh uh for electrification and for the phasing out of their boilers. Um I don't have the list on me, but uh there is a list
>> and are those boilers oil or gas or coal? >> No, no. Coal. No, no, no, no. Coal was coal. co the last coal uh the last coal boiler was back in two I think it was 2001 in fact the former governor George
Pataki he was he was the one who he he did a photo op and he was the la last governor to to uh to shovel coal into that school I forget the school was school's name it was I believe it was in Queens but uh that's no coal has been
out since 2001 one >> and for St. Anthony Bakery on for the Parkway. They finally went out. They sold and they were also >> Oh, okay. >> So now, and the power that's going to be supplied electrically is going to be from Con, >> correct?
>> I'm going to Elias. I'm going to defer it to Elias. >> Elias, are you there? >> I'll answer. It is Keter. Yes, we're Yes. >> And And how do they generate their power? Is it wind? Is it uh nuclear? Are
they >> I am not aware of that level of detail >> that I don't that I don't know. Elias, do you know that answer? >> Oh, no. They they have different different ways of getting there. >> Let let fossil fuels are going to be burned somewhere else. So, we made it
someone else's problem. >> I I'd like to let Elias answer that. Elias. Well, uh, Steve, like you like I bet said that's, uh, you know, the Coned is, uh, regulates that and they have different sources, I guess, on how they're going to providing the power. So,
>> we don't determine their sourcer. We just utilize their um, >> their service, >> their capability, their service. >> I got it. >> Anybody else have a question? Thank you so much, Steve Gonzalez and your team. >> Very welcome. Thank you.
>> Thank you for having us. Happy holidays. >> You happy holidays. Goodbye. >> Oh, is that a question or just wishing us a happy holiday? >> No, we're leaving. I think we're done. >> We're good. >> Happy holidays. >> Thank you very much, everybody. Happy holidays to each and every one of you.
Thank you for having us uh on. Thank you. >> Thank you. Yeah. >> Now it's time for our second public speaking session. >> No. What happened? >> No. No. >> As said before, if you would like to
speak, you can sign up on the Google form on their website and the link has been shared in the chat. If you are in person, you can sign up using the sign-in sheet. Speak is limited to three minutes. Kevin, who is who's our first person to speak? >> There is no one stand up.
>> All right, great. Thank you. Moving forward. >> Yeah, that's a muted business. That concludes our second public speaking session. >> All right. So, >> think you should mention what this
meeting. >> Why this business? Right. >> Are we inviting the kids to come? >> Yeah. >> So business is for us calendar. >> All right. So then you could So the
first vice president Elizabeth will be speaking. >> Oh no. I just wanted to mention that we have our welcome back December 19th. So the community could come in and get some uh donated coats or new coats. Um some new coats from John. And we have canned
foods. So, we'll see you December 19th um uh at William T. Samson uh PS160 at between 4 and 6 PM. Thank you guys. And >> thank you, Elizabeth. >> of the November.
>> So, what do I do now? >> Approval of the November calendar meeting. The last item on the calendar meeting agenda is approval of the minutes from last month's meeting. Kevin, can you please share the minutes on the screen? >> They're shared. Are there any changes to
the minutes? >> Yes. >> Hold on, please. >> So, looking at the minutes, we voted on resolution four. So,
of the things that we voted on, only one is listed on the minutes. I believe that we voted. Let's see. Therefore, be a resolve that the New
York City DOE and the administrators of the summer program immediately revamp the admission system to ensure it is inclusive, transparent, and equitable. Be it further resolve
that any child with a documented disability included but not limited to diabetes be granted equal and non-discriminatory access to some rising regardless of whether they are in
general ed ICT or district 75 settings. We further resolve the New York City DOE public release the selection criteria and prioritization used for summarizing admission and
ensure that is accessible, understandable and applied fairly. Be further resolve that summarizing establish a clear appeals process for families whose
children are denied access particularly in cases involving students in any of the >> groups guaranteed preferential access. Be it further resolve that we ask the
New York City Council to wear diabetes or any federally recognized disability to the approved process for summarizing. These have been omitted.
I would like those to be added above the one paragraph that is included because that's the uh the only one that's reflected in the minutes and we resolve unless I'm mistaken all the
other points that I just that that's what was voted on the resolution and it should be reflected in the minutes. So, I don't do the minutes. >> No, it's just asking do you want to add the rest of the points from the old resolution to the minutes?
>> Can you just link it to the resolution? >> To add to add all those things because that's what we voted on in block like we didn't strike one, we didn't strike two. >> That's perfectly fine. He's gonna he's gonna admit it and edit it. I'll do it right now. Sam,
>> do you have Yeah. >> Yeah. Um my vote I didn't abstain. I actually said yes. for that one. >> Thank you, Tamara. >> Okay. Sorry about that. And then
all right, I added the points all the points from the resolution. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Kevin. We just >> Is there a motion to approve the minutes? >> Motion >> as amended. Is there a second?
>> All in favor? >> I. >> The minutes are approved. >> This concludes our December CC. >> Oh, John. John, can I just say something really quickly before, just so everybody knows, I put in the chat the link to the Burough President um application for
capital planning for all your schools. It's not open until January. So, like I could send that out. I'll send it to Kevin like the link that he could share out with all the other members so that you could send it to your schools that that's another way for them to um to
apply for funding if they're doing like a any capital planning projects. I just wanted you guys to be aware of that. >> Thank you, Tamara. This concludes our December CC20 calendar meeting. Is there a motion to adjourn? >> Motion. adjourned.
>> All in favor? >> I >> The meeting is adjourned. Our next calendar meeting is January 14th at PSI 170, the Ralph A. Frazzio School. >> Thank you for everyone for attending. >> Thank you.
>> You guys want to start the business meeting? >> Yes. >> Unless >> Good evening. Welcome to the December CC20 business meeting. Kevin, can you please take roll call attendance? >> John Ricatone >> here. >> Lizard Chen
>> here. >> Wing Chen >> here. >> Nalin >> here. >> Mayong Chen >> here. >> Steven Mahoney. >> Fabiola. >> She's having issues I think. Tamara >> here.
>> Kelly Clancy. >> Ken Lee. >> Yes. >> Alina Lewis. >> Yeah. >> And Kevin Zhao. >> Okay. Tonight we have interpretation in Arabic, Mandarin and Spanish. You should see these interpreters names in the participant list and they will post their information in the chat. They will
now share directions for anyone who would need interpretation for the meeting. Could our Arabic interpreter please introduce yourself? Could our Arabic interpreter please introduce yourself? >> Good evening. Good evening. This is
Samir the Arabic. You can call us at 347 9664114. The ID 68400624. Yeah. ID number. Thank you so much. Can a Mandarin interpreter please introduce yourself?
Mentoring announcement completed. >> Thank you so much. Can our Spanish interpreter please introduce yourself? Simpio. Message completed. >> Thank you so much. Thank you. As a reminder to the speakers, please try to
speak slower than usual to allow interpreters to keep up. Now we will share the agenda for tonight's business meeting. Kevin, can you please share the agenda on the screen? Old business. Approval of November business meeting minutes.
>> That's the first item. >> Good night. >> Can you please share the minutes, Kevin? level. >> Bro, >> bro, are you tired? We wanted to make the account to like whatever superintendent
we have. >> Can you >> So we can use our funding to do that. >> Okay. Hold on, guys. >> Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah. >> Approved. >> Are there any changes to the minutes?
>> No. >> No. If there's no changes to the minutes, they are approved without a vote. Is there a motion to approve the minutes? No. Is there a second? Yeah, that's fine. >> Yes. >> All in favor? All right. >> All right. >> Yeah. >> The next item on the agenda would be >> just moving money. So
>> moving money is >> Yeah. So May fine was absent last meeting. So we can just move 125 to events. >> That's fine. >> Oh, I say the the the >> No, I didn't. So >> you don't want it. Okay. So then
>> so I tell before >> I told before I didn't see maybe I did the >> Okay. So then do we're moving 375 to events. Is that okay with everybody? >> Yes. >> So maybe we go get the code for the
>> I don't think that that's enough for that. >> Um okay. What >> they're saying they want. >> Is there anything else you want to speak at during the >> meeting? No. I don't even hear anymore.
>> Um I wanted to I wanted to ask um we discussed the um the committees like is there a specific date that you guys want to start the um social education committee? >> Which committee again? >> It's a special education committee that
we spoke about >> last month. Yeah. >> Tamar, it's up to you. Whatever you want to do. Whoever's on it, I think, should decide among themselves whenever they want to start. >> Okay. Does it does a Tuesday work for everybody? Maybe like the the second
Tuesday like or the first Tuesday, do you know? >> So that So Steve, are you going to sign on to this um committee, the special education committee with Tamara? >> I'm not going to be able to. >> He's, you know, he can't. >> Oh, so it's just going to be me and you,
John? >> Yeah, I'm fine with that. Okay. So, like Tuesday. >> Okay. What time? Like five, six, which >> whatever is good for you. >> Okay. Either time is fine with me. >> All right. >> All right. >> Six is good, right? >> Yeah. So, you want to do like the first
Tuesday of the month? >> First Tuesday of month. Yep. And then we'll be back. >> All right. >> All right. Thank you so much, M. >> So, so did anybody uh collected any cans or coats from their schools at all >> for the gift back?
Did anybody collect canned goods or coats? >> From your liaison schools. >> Okay. >> All right. Uh so, um is there anybody that will be able to go there to help us sort the jackets and how how do you want
to do it? Like you guys want to put the size or stuff? >> Like, right. >> Yeah. >> Do size order, I guess. Right. >> Size order. Are we going to get hangers or try to get racks or no? Just put it in. Someone knows someone who has a component store they want to let us borrow for a day. If not, we just put on tables.
>> Just put on table. >> Okay. Put on tables. Okay. >> Maybe a little sticky note with it. Some size small kids youth or whatever. >> Okay, good. We can sort that. And are we going to wash them or No, >> that's a good idea. >> That's going to be too much. >> It should have been washed before they bought it. >> Yeah, >> you can sort it. If it's dirty, then we
>> Yeah, I just bought it. >> Okay, good. >> Also, um we're almost 6 months in. >> Okay. Guys, >> we're almost 6 months in and we need to visit our leaison schools. We need to know what's going on with our leaison
schools and what they need. So, we're almost in January. July is it's almost over. So, you guys have to visit your leazison schools or at least call them. >> Okay. >> And then report back to Kevin or myself. >> Okay.
>> This concludes our December CC20 business meeting. Is there a motion to >> adjourn? Motion. >> Is there a second? I have a question. Hello. >> Yes. >> Go ahead. >> Thank you. So, last month we voted on a
resolution and from what I recall there were two other members. I think they both said they they did vote yes, but they had questions. So my question is, is it normal that you have a discussion
prior to voting so all of our members can make an informed decision or do we just >> The resolution was already voted on. >> Okay. >> So whatever they want, if they want to get back to me, they could do so. >> Resolutions in general, if I could just
get my question out there so we all understand what I'm trying to get. So he >> after the after the vote was made a couple of people commented that they would have liked all information. But that so like my question is is there a
time limit? Is there a frame? You know if people have something to talk about concerning the resolution or do we just hit the gavl and take a vote? >> Yeah, that's in the bylaws. Everyone should actually be very familiar with
the bylaws. So if you want to look, but there's a whole procedure in terms of if we don't agree to have the vote. So that you have to look in the bylaws and then typically >> Well, I don't have a copy of the bylaws. They're on the website.
>> Everybody should have those. So >> I don't have a uh printer, so if I could please have them printed for me. >> Yeah. No, it um Steve, it's the booklet. When we when we get, you know, when we get um when we get it voted in, they
normally we we uh go to one of those um professional development um introduction. Did you go to one that you know for all the CEC members that got voted in? >> I didn't. >> And we also got the booklet mailed to us.
>> I I got No, I got a book handed to me at a meeting. >> Yeah. But as far as the time frame for discussion, is there a spec specified frame by? >> Yeah, it's in the bylaws. >> And how long is that? >> Well, it's not. You got Again, it's very important that everyone on here
familiarize themselves with the bylaws. They're specific to our council and there is a specific component of the bylaws that says what happens. It's either you agree to not hold the vote. that that has to be voted on. So I
would say to look in there, but another comment. >> Well, I know you could defer the vote. I know that part, right? >> I'm asking the time frame. >> There's no specified >> whatever it falls. Is it you're allowed? Just like the public speaking, they get two minutes or three minutes. Is there a time frame?
>> No, there's not. If we decide we want to move forward with the vote, then we can move forward. >> Okay. >> Because I I was still be speaking and I was dabbled. So that's why I'm bringing up that point. non hit the gavl. We had a vote and that was it. It was a done deal. >> The other thing
>> so I'm asking about a time frame if I'm speaking. >> I don't know about specific time frames >> and and that's that's the point like is there a prelim time limit 5 minute? I'm okay with whatever the limit is. I just want to know >> that I would look in the bylaws. But another standard practice is that the
resolutions are shared in advance. So everybody here has access to that as a document. Um and there's any conversation people want to have beforehand is they can have >> Oh, and sometimes the president do um for the time
>> also discuss something before it comes up for >> we do we're doing it in the business meeting shared as a document. So we all are looking at it before and then we have the discussion and that's subject to the bylaws again the
specifics of that >> but we all have the resolutions in advance of the meeting. It's not a surprise. >> No no no the point I'm making collectively. >> When is it discussed collectively? At the business meeting prior.
>> No at the meeting that it's voted on. >> Oh right. So then that's why I was asking as far as a time frame if I don't and sometimes the president has to rush it because the school even last week when we were here they were saying that immediately we have to leave at 900 p.m.
because we don't have the permits all day for the the schools. >> Correct. And then if you can't have if you can't have a discussion then it should be tabled. >> Well that but again that's up to the council as per the bylaws. So you have to look at the bylaws for that. Well,
that's another vote. If you were to ask, you could say I put a motion to vote to table this and then they would vote. >> Well, I understand time constraints in the building. >> But then if someone's doing the bus discussing it,
>> you just cut them off. You got to get out of here. Let's have a vote. Or if that person cannot finish their thought or their statement, >> should be tabled. Well, >> that's up to a vote. So if you feel like you need more time, you can say, "Hey, I want a motion this for next meeting." You can do that. >> We We could all like the majority could
vote like if there's enough people, you could table it. >> But also, we also have to be mindful that we don't have all this time because even the next meeting will be a long meeting because all of our meetings been long. I'm just saying it's not to be rude and uh it's just to be moving the
the agenda along and and putting all our ideas out. >> Right. And we're very generous with our public speakers that some >> the public speakers have they have a time limit. >> No, no, no. Well, I don't mean the people in the audience. I mean the people presenting they do go past 15
minutes or the allotted time on the agenda at times. >> Yeah. So that's why the president has he could tell >> that impacts us on the back end having a discussion. >> Yeah. The but the president could Yeah. Can I recommend Can I recommend that
like because like like like everybody stated before, we do get these resolutions and if you have questions that you you don't want to ask online but you do want to ask at the meeting, you come come to the meeting with like a list of questions like and then we we
and then you could ask it. Then I think what what happens is because that meeting we only had a certain amount of time before they were kicking you guys out because we couldn't even finish really most of the stuff in in our business meeting that we're discussing either. You know what I mean? So like maybe maybe that might be helpful to
people if we're going over a resolution that you you you want to look over in depth before a meeting. Come to the meeting with questions or issues that you want to bring up at the meeting and that time. So, and then maybe maybe you want to give a time like a time limit
for everybody to bring up a um their concerns based on the resolution and then we move on. >> I have a whole page. I I did my homework, but I was not allowed to finish my thought. That's the whole point. I did look it out on my own. I
think collectively when we're in group is when it should be discussed. Not that I talk with one or two people online or send an email this way. Collectively when we're taking care of business, we discuss it. But yeah, I did my homework. >> You could go.
>> I did it. Just didn't get to finish it. >> This concludes our December CC20 business meeting. Is there a motion to adjourn? >> Motion. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> All in favor? >> The meeting is adjourned. Our next business meeting is >> adopt the calendar meeting
>> after the calendar meeting. Yep. Thank you everyone for attending. Thank you for your interpreters. You are dismissed. Byebye. So, I was going to say that