for for e e can you hear me at home now could you if someone could chat type in the chat how is the volume okay I'll take loud
over over not over non-existent [Music] [Music] you guys think got that should be better [Music]
he e we haven't spoken this that's why the sound is gone we're not talking as soon as I'm talking put it back point uh I think we can begin okay I'd like to welcome everybody
to community Community Education Council District 2's uh meetings my name is Craig slutkin I'm the president of the council I want to thank everybody for coming tonight we can have uh everyone's attention uh hopefully we can have a little no side chatter in the in the
audience is this better I'll have it very close uh so I'll start over again uh hold on one second I just for [Music]
sorry okay can you hear me okay my name good welcome to communic Community Education Council District 2's August meetings my name is Craig slutkin and I'm the president of the council I'm going to move directly to the calendar meeting in the in the absence of a secretary I will take
attendance prai prai is absent Allison Bowen Allison Bowen is absent Daniela egaro here danela egov is here Gavin Healey here Gavin Healey is here Charles love
Charles love is absent sonal Patel sonal Patel is absent Jessica Savage Jessica Savage is absent Sarah Shaka arenburg Sarah Shaka Arenberg is absent Sabina sarin Saina serines is ABS excuse
me absent Leonard Silverman Leonard Silverman is absent Craig slutman Craig slutkin is present just for the records Sabina sarin and Jessica Savage have excusals and that means we have three members present we do not have a
quarum so as I I said unfortunately we do not have a quum for tonight's meet this evening's meeting as such we're Limited in what we can do including any voting on resolutions any resolutions from this evening will be held over to our September meeting unless there are any objections from the fellow council
members I will also postpone the annual meeting where we would be voting on the three remaining vacant officer positions any objections okay so for this meeting this is what we're going to do I'll give a very brief president's report then we'll
go into the superintendent's report which tonight will be presented by the deputy superintendent Kelly shanon then we'll go into a public session where members of the public may speak on any issues they deem relevant to our Council from there we will adjourn the meeting I do apologize for anyone that came down
expecting a vote on resolution 259 but feel free nonetheless to speak about it in the public session if you care to on the president's report not a ton that I wanted to go through this evening but first we have appointed two new student members who will start with us next month superintendent and I believe
Jennifer greenblat have met with both of them and are very excited for them to be joining us as a reminder we are allowed to have up to two uh student members they participate uh they do not vote they do not have a formal vote second as a reminder we have a
vacancy on our Council I will encourage anyone who has interest to apply remember this is the elll seat so to be eligible you be need to be the parent or guardian of a child in District 2 Who currently is or has been in the past designated with ell you can find out
more details on our homepage www.cc d2.com after this meeting but please remember you apply directly to fa don't send your application to any of your council members uh you can get the application link from our website we did
receive a couple of applications but unfortunately neither none of them were eligible for the seat the reminder that the first day of school is Thursday SE September 12th I believe 5th sorry 5th and finally we'll talk more about this next month when the fall Council will be here but many of you so that Jennifer
greenblat our amazing and longtime family leadership coordinator has announced her retirement effective this fall she has been a wonderful force in our district and will be missed greatly but let's talk a little bit more about that next month okay so before we go this
superintendent report we do have a signup sheet in front we will have one sign we'll have one public session because we're not hearing resolutions tonight so please sign please sign did you raise your hand Craig yeah um the the agenda has has two public sessions
and I don't think the the speaking sessions are contingent on the resolutions I mean many people speak in the second public session after the superintendent report because something in the superintendent report you know like is is important to them and they want to talk about it or they can really
talk about anything but I mean we have it on the agenda people have as long as people have signed up for the first and the second and people want to speak we should let the people speak well that's why we have the super that's why we have the public session after the superintendent report if they have any comments they can I depending on how
many people we have I have no objection to extending it past the two minutes so we don't have that many people here tonight will we have the first public speaker session on the agenda before the superintendent and unfortunately we don't have a full meeting we don't have a formal meeting because we don't have a form under the under the requirements of the open meetings law and we went
through I went through this with face we're required in this event to have one public speaker session we agreed on the agenda and if we're going to if you want to change the agenda we should have the consent of seven members of the council to change the agenda unfortunately we don't have that we don't have we don't have a meeting we can't change the
agenda we don't have a meeting tonight we're going to have one public session you don't want to listen to the people I'm happy to listen to the people we have a public session and I'm just said I'm willing to extend it past the two minutes let's see how many people sign up and let's let them speak how about we we do we will have one public session
which is the requirement under the education rule under the education let them speak for 4 minutes we'll we'll see how many sign up I I don't I can't see from here gab you might have better Vision than me but I I cannot see from here how many people signed up so if people want to see Deputy superintendent
you may you may speak now you may you may [Applause] [Music] preside evening everyone it's pleasure to be he Community with all of you thank you to our CBC members and to all of our community stakeholders this evening a
few updates from this summer I want to start off by first giving um gr gratitude to Dr V Higgins are my partner and Deputy superintendent to help organize and support summer rizon which was a great success in our distri we
finished a really successful summer program we stay strong and have many students in attendance over the summer our elementary and middle school students Contin high quality reading right and mathc and we focus on
foundational literacy in a very deep way with our early grades as an ongoing continuation the work of our district this year we included the dream summer program for all our l and m Lial Learners at PS1 to build English
language acquisition skills as well as offer instruction in stash it was a very successful program at ps224 partnered with the artist of Mingo Z conducted and taught ining literacy
with art skills and the students create really inspiring beautiful pieces I person the opportunity to see visiting [Music] sou um I want to give a thank you to the district to
this summer a set professional learning opportunities mathematics literacy and climate culture we had two CS of grade teachers who [Music] [Music]
pringo focusing on practi schol our school counselors workers and teachers I want to thank all the school leaders our distri team and our teachers who show up this summer in great numbers to be part of this opportunity it's
always Jo for me [Music] begin support [Music] and visits and you'll be host a Series this year of visits that will be open to CC members SLT and PTA members to really
give a glimpse into the practices in action across our school communities um the same thing we look ahead for our New York City work New York City Sals work um so much of the emphasis is on job and that it supports e
Greg already mentioned this but um I could not speak tonight without recognizing um and expressing the Deep sense of gratitude we all have in our in the district for the work that Jennifer greenl has done for 21 plus years in District 2 she's been a thought partner
Mentor colleague friend and a fierce advocate of all that we want to do in District 2 and continue to do we will be honoring Jennifer and the fall but it was really important that we take this opportunity to thank her both personally as someone who's been friends with her
from a long a long time when she knew me when I just became a principal many many years ago all the way up until this new role so thank you to Jennifer greenlet and all that you have done for our district and I end on this note I always think about this time of year and I've
been visiting schools this past week I was actually at one of our schools before I came here this afternoon and I want to just highlight the excitement and joy of our school leaders who are getting their buildings ready to welcome their teachers in to then welcome our
children in to welcome our families in and all of our community members um there's this this moment that happens when you realize there's just a all this possibility in front of us for a new year to create that sense of belonging and inclusion and opportunity for
children to really be excited and have enjoyful sense of learning both that is academically Rivers as well as helping them celebrate all that they bring to our school community so we look forward to first day of school to seeing all of
you at next month's meeting and the ongoing work of District 2 thank you for allowing me some time to present this evening questions from the members of the council for our Deputy superintendent and I'm going to note that uh council member Bai has
arrived okay thank you so uh see how many people and take up take both of them please how many do we have we have [Music] total 11 okay
I have no obing it we're only having the one session to four minutes or there any in two minutes or there there's not that many people in general are there any objections to that giving people four minutes okay so go council member will call out the
names and she will time people keep it to thees the the elect turn is over there uh and please uh speak into the mic whenever you're ready so we'll start off with good evening everyone we'll start off with
Miss Daniel yes [Music] where oh gonna break I'm gonna break it all my bad I should just try and do teacher voice and skip the mic but I guess we're talking online um good evening everybody
um so glad for the folks who could turn out and we appreciate the um four council members who came out tonight um Sorry I wasn't expecting to be first my bad nope I'm good you know it's small
enough today anyway that we're probably just like yeah and I I wasn't stressed about two sessions um cool um so my name is Elena Daniels and I am my pronouns are she or they or really anything other than he um I'm an I'm a white queer
trans neurod Divergent non-binary trans teacher I think at this point basically everyone in the room knows me so why I bother introducing myself I don't even really know maybe it's for the folks who online um I have the honor of having been a teacher in New York City schools for this will be my 13th year when we
start in a couple weeks um mostly teaching middle school science activism sex said um these days I'm also the co-founder and executive director of transformative schools um an after school program for Trans and career kids that's launching a middle school in a year
um you know the main thing I want to say tonight is thank you um thank you to Gavin uh sonal Jessica and Sarah In Absentia um for authoring and sponsoring tonight's resolution um my favorite sentence is the last one therefore be it resolved that cc2 hereby resins
resolution 248 doesn't that sound great um I believe that passing this resolution next month I guess because it's being held off for tonight because we don't have a quorum um is really important is a way to try and step back some of the harm that has happened and also to listen to all the
public who keeps turning out after meeting after meeting after meeting um and so thank you all for being here tonight too um particularly despite the fact that my invitation came this morning um and thank you to again for everybody who's here serving you know in the middle of August too many things
um over the course of um in my 12 years at New York City Schools I've been the first adult that at least 75 students have told they were queer trans um I like to think this happens because I make my classroom a safe space or a safe enough space where
they can see themselves in me and in the curriculum um and coming out is an incredibly F fraught emotional process that's hard for assis gender heterosexual people to understand since you're so used to existing in a world that sees your gender and sexuality as normal coming out especially for Trans kids
requires sharing a deeply personal part of oneself it requires incredible bravery in a world where trans youth have been taught that there's something fundamentally wrong with them since the moment they were first born and a doctor glanced at their genitalia and assigned them a label that would permanently Define their life um I'm so proud to
have been the adult who could make these students feel safe enough seen enough and loved enough to share um it's not my career but rather my Ministry to reappropriate my Catholic upbringing um to put myself between these incredibly vulnerable students and the violent
depression that exists in our world um I hope and pray daily that I can make my classroom a space safe enough for kids to learn to do math and science to read and write and to grow as leaders and activists in our world um however existing in this world as a woman and as a teacher whose visibly trans is
exhausting it means being erased traumatized and often attacked basically everywhere I go um it means being forced to teach my students from a political Math and Science text books that include problems such as there are 120 students in sixth grade 70 of them are boys what
percentage are girls um it means watching panels of powerful cisgender people make decisions about your life without including anyone with lived in professional experience in the decision making process both here today um and the meeting I was at on Monday with the mayor and at CB um cb5 which was Craigs
former board um a couple months ago or last month I don't know it's all starting to blur together in summer became a wormhole um and it means that every time I lead a field trip my students need to experience well-intentioned adults in our city stopping them to let them know that their teacher is a dangerous man it
means having students parents and grandparents grab my breasts during school assemblies and give me backrubs during ter future conferences it also means being virtually powerless when my 13-year-old and I will save this till later because I hit my four minutes um other than to say thank you again for
drafting that resolution and I really hope we can pass it next month it's all good we we are a quiet small eaing tonight anyway um and also if anybody wants some pizza got a bunch left over it's fresh and from across the street
next we have to make a nurse Carter we have the and I apologize sorry testing testing one two three everyone can hear me clearly testing thank you so much for having me
here I would like to say as a proud Native New Yorker someone who went to New York City Public Schools my entire life and someone who is myself 19 and trans and queer and has the wonderful privilege of living with a trans and queer person who goes to New York City
public schools and having known many wonderful transs and career people who go to New York state public schools and having been in youth leadership programs such a student government myself I can very easily attest to the amazing power of youth leadership and the importance of trans inclusion especially in after school activities I think the main
reason is because I feel like being young is just such a very vulnerable place not just in public schools but everywhere because everyone is telling you what to do who to be and how to behave and so having safe spaces and access to people who let them speak their mind and express themselves and
have their own voice it's just such an important thing I feel like a lot of how students are motivated not just in New York City Public Schools but it's across the board has a lot to do with external motivation you must do this be punish if you do that so having Youth spaces
centered around their interest and a place for them to express themselves and building their in motivation and self-esteem is so important especially in clear and trans students who are more likely to not have those spaces and also to struggle with self-esteem because
self-expression is V is vital to a child's self-esteem and self-development and so having just youth leadership based spaces and queer and transf friendly spaces especially after school programs that are based around their interest and not their academics and performance is incredibly important and
something I'd like to see more of in New York City Public Schools I've heard people talk about social emotional learning and uh having trauma informed counselors which is very important another thing I like see more of in in New York City Public Schools is public
demonstrations or um PSAs regarding real lived experience of signs of abuse and Trauma in students especially regarding inhome domestic violence as as for my lived experience unfortunately I can say that that increased that having
intervention of people who have lived experienced at home domestic violence decreases the likelihood of bullying and school violence and having people who are trained is important and I think I think the biggest thing I want to get out of here because I'm a little scrambled I'm
sorry thank you so much for listening Me by way is just having a a space especially for clear and trans young people in yourk AC in schools across the country but especially in this lovely city of New York to have a safe space to express themselves and to have a safe
space in nonacademic settings to build their self-esteem and intrinsic motivation with youth leadership I think we need word you leadership and in places like after school sports and I can um and if I and if anyone wants to speak to me what I know regarding that
you free to contact me however you like thank you so much for listening to me and I hope everyone has a wonderful day thank you thank you so much next we have Liz Where's Thomas
Edie [Music] welcome turn turn it on pleas yes can you hear me all right hi my name is Liz my pronouns are sheer and I am a queer
sis parent in district 15 and I have meetings for quite some time now terrified public speaking but I'm doing it tonight so two years ago due to a transphobic PTA in administration at my
child's school she was granted a safety transfer by the district superintendent's office at that time my child was only seven years old do any of you have children that have had to request a safety transfer
do any of you have children who understand the safety in hiding their identity do any of you have children that ask whether a newly elected politician will protect them have any of you had your child's existence questioned
publicly every day why would you choose to hurt an already vulnerable child in your community when you applied for your role here in this Council you agreed with your signature to be driven by the needs of all students not just your
own by continuing to support resolution 248 you are not supporting all students and you should be ashamed of yourselves thank you thank you hi everyone oops turn it off hello
everyone all right apologies for my tardiness welcome back I hope that everybody got some sun and some rest this summer my name is Dr Megan Pamela Ruth Madison and my pronouns are she her and hers I
am an educator facilitator and author and I have the distinct honor of chairing the board of transformative schools a Visionary after school program led by ro and Elena that serves trans kids here in District
2 the main thing I want to say today is thank you Thank You Gavin son Jessica and Sarah for authoring and sponsoring today's resolution my favorite sentence is the
last one therefore be it resolved that cc2 hereby reins resolution number 248 doesn't that sound so good I believe that passing this resolution will be an important step in
the process of healing and transformation for our shared Community when I lead anti-racism workshops for teachers and families one of the things that I teach is the difference between intent and
impact intent is what we were trying to do what we were hoping to achieve with our actions for example last school year I heard PRI Len and Craig justify their support of resolutions 48 by talking
about the benign intentions the problem is that intentions and impact aren't the same thing quite often in my own life and all of our Lives we can have really good intentions and still cause
harm resolution 248 is a clear example since it was passed we've heard clearly and consistently from members of the trans community that regardless of your attentions the impact was harmful when this happens we need to be
accountable for our impact we need to listen to the people who are hurt and then play an active role in repairing that L today's resolution begins that process we can have a great school year this year let's build it
together Daniela I know you didn't like my first book our skin a first conversation about race but I written more than one and this most recent one called We Care a first conversation about Justice is a road map to healing
and transformative Justice the kind of healing and transformative Justice that I believe that all of the kids and families in District to deserve so I brought you all a copy I'm happy to sign it it belongs to you all thank you I mean as far as I understand this
resolution is about uh setting up a panel to look into uh whether or not um female identified males can compete with females in in Youth Sports is that correct yeah you you we have two choices
essentially we can either allow anyone to compete with anyone totally open category essentially you know re redistributing the the layout of what female Sports ends up looking like very drastically which is fine you know I I
have no skin in the game there I do have a daughter but you know Sports is sports whatever um or you have to you have to acknowledge biological sex uh those are the because it's a protected category right the female
category it's protected right and you know so either we have the protected category which is you know biologically based or we don't in which case like I said like some sports won't be all that affected other sports you wouldn't see a
female ever again um either way uh I'm not big into sports I'm indifferent but let's not delude ourselves I'm not into affirming delusions generally so let's not delude ourselves as to what going down this path move you know playing the
movie Forward all the way what this would Le would lead to you know generally speaking either you have a female category or you don't that's it is there anybody else here tonight who did not get an opportunity to
speak who wish who wishes to speak sorry okay and there was nobody on I I can't I I don't think there's anybody on the there was nobody actually was nobody on the second second signer uh sheet uh that being said uh our next meeting will
be Wednesday September 18th we'll hopefully have a quum and be able to set a schedule of meetings for the for the upcoming year that night I wish to thank everybody I apologize again that we did not have a form and we could not consider the resolution uh I suspect that we will do that next month
otherwise have a public session's over we didn't have it back and forth I I will stay a little bit after if anybody wants to have a one-on-one with me I'm happy to stay the next we don't know yet that I don't know we'll Victor and I will work together and we'll figure out a place uh thank you very much enjoy the rest of
your summer everybody and uh we'll see you in a few weeks and uh remember September 5th we stay of school sign yeah