Board of Education, Regular Meeting

1. 1:05called meeting to order. It's 5:30 p.m. All those are able, please rise for the pledge of allegiance.
2. 1:13I
3. 1:13pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
4. 1:30All right. Uh Leslie, roll call, please.
5. 1:34Mark, Amanda Grubler,
6. 1:37here.
7. 1:40Kirsten Gustiffson.
8. 1:42Diana Howard
9. 1:43here.
10. 1:44Matthew Macker
11. 1:45here.
12. 1:46Moren Sheridan
13. 1:48here.
14. 1:50And Leona Prova.
15. 1:53[Music]
16. 1:59All right. Um, quickly just going to state pursuant to open meetings law section 104 paragraph 4, Marine Sheridan is participating remotely. Uh, and I'll make a motion to accept the agenda as presented.
17. 2:13Second.
18. 2:14All in favor. That brings us to personnel agenda. Uh, I'll make a motion to approve personnel agenda items A 1 through 5 and B 1 through 11.
19. 2:35Second.
20. 2:36All in favor?
21. 2:44Believe we have a welcome.
22. 2:45We do have one.
23. 2:46We do have a welcome. All right.
24. 2:47I got a chance to meet Mitch Stern both last week and during new teacher orientation. He is most recently he's going to be an ENL teacher for us I believe at the junior high and he was most recently working at Skenctity High School as an ENL teacher and he has some roots in upper valley. He did some student teaching in Kingston. Um but he is very excited to begin his work here and we're very glad to have him.
25. 3:11Great. Welcome to Mitchell Stern. All right, that brings us to uh item four uh resolution uh to authorize uh the appointment of qualified personnel to employment in the district upon the recommendation of the superintendent. Um just to state this was intended for intermeating issues to address uh openings that are necessary to be filled in the short term. Um, and I'll make a motion to accept the resolution to uh for superintendent authority to appoint.
26. 3:53Second.
27. 3:55Uh, any discussion?
28. 3:58No, I think it's I I support this. I think that it's important that schools are able to staff as quickly and efficiently as possible to give kids what they need.
29. 4:09Okay. Uh, all in favor? Resolution passed.
30. 4:19All right. Brings us to consensus agenda. Um, I'll just point out the one item in the consensus agenda. Uh, item B, uh, management advisory group. Um this is intended to temporarily fill the treasurer's role in the district. Uh we just accepted resignation uh as of September 1st. Um and so this will be a uh as written a three-month uh arrangement to provide these necessary services to the district. Uh so I'll make a motion to accept consensus agenda items A through D.
31. 5:06Second.
32. 5:07All in favor.
33. 5:13Uh all right. So that brings us to old business which is the vacant board seat. Um we discussed at the last meeting uh various options for filling it. uh there was some board discussion and uh that is this is an opportunity to continue that discussion. Anybody who wants to say anything?
34. 5:35Well, I'll just continue with what I said the last time is I think that there's just too many things going on in order to have a vote and get nominations and meet the candidates and all of that. So, I think that we should go ahead and just appoint someone.
35. 5:49Yeah. I think I I feel a little bit torn. I think I hear that and there's so many things going on and this is a short-term appointment, right? Because in May someone would have to get signatures again and do it all over again. I think my my one concern or wondering is that um the board looks different than it did last spring. The superintendent is different than they were last spring. And so part of my wonder is just like the context of what's happening has changed. And I wonder if opening it up to the like larger community to have input in this moment is is important to do. Um, and so I think that's something regardless of whether or not we do appointments or or an election, I think just thinking about what what does it look like to make sure that our board is representative of our community.
36. 6:43Um yeah, and I would just say that uh you know the logistics of bringing together um the extra election for the uh board seat uh we did make provision for it with the John Edwards sale that we could um have a ballot initiative, but I do believe we're not going to be able to pair those two in a timely fashion for the legal requirements for filling a vacancy. So, um I I'm inclined to suggest that the uh board solicit letters of interest from the community as has been done in the past and then we make an appointment at uh a future meeting. Um I don't want to set a date on that necessarily, but I think at this point we could request letters of interest in order to uh start that process.
37. 7:34Moren, do you have anything that you wanted to add? Sorry, I have it muted because I have background noise here. Um, I would um I feel the same way um Amanda, but I feel that I believe that by opening it up to And when I was um I don't believe Leslie maybe you can correct me but I don't believe we need to take action at this point to do anything other than to simply solicit interest and communicate that publicly for those who'd like to uh join the board.
38. 8:45Do we need to vote formally that that's the like what we're
39. 8:49you don't have to vote. Can I ask a question though? How did you do it when I wasn't the board clerk?
40. 8:56We were not here.
41. 8:57I was Yeah. None of us none of us in attendance were on the board at the time.
42. 9:01Okay. Um when I was board clerk previously, we would um get the letters ahead of time and be reviewed and then the people would come to the meeting and be interviewed and then we did like a a tally by um vote and then I read out the results.
43. 9:25I wonder if it's helpful. Sorry, this is making like the bubble squeezing out squeaking noise over here. Um I wonder if similar to how we approach policy committee with some like prompting questions, it would be helpful just to kind of have people be thinking about answering a similar flow of questions in the letter of interest.
44. 9:43Um, I think that's a good idea just to to give some structure to what that would look like.
45. 9:54That's a good suggestion. Um okay. Um All right. So I think then uh in general we're planning to solicit public interest in the vacant board seat. Uh and that we should then um present some questions for that. Are there particular questions you have in mind I guess at this point or
46. 10:23Yeah, I'm happy to take a stab. Okay. stab at that and then Okay, present them back out.
47. 10:29We'll send the questions out in the notice or
48. 10:33Yeah.
49. 10:34Yep.
50. 10:34I think we'd like to do that quickly and get the process moving. So,
51. 10:39okay.
52. 10:39So, let me just get clear on this. You're going to do the questions or should we all come up with a question or
53. 10:44No, I think we can all suggest questions and then do it together and then and then come together and talk about the questions. I I would say let's let's email me what questions we want to ask and then I'll coordinate and then the letters will come to me. I'll share them out.
54. 11:07Yeah. Leslie will receive them as as district clerk and and then what's the process for
55. 11:13we'll invite them to the meeting the applicants to the meeting and they have an opportunity to answer questions to speak y and then what's the like process for how a final decision gets made?
56. 11:27We're going to have a vote.
57. 11:29So I mean I I I think it's it's it will happen in public and I did witness one that occurred. I don't know the whole process that played out, but it was basically just a nomination by seated board members and a vote.
58. 11:43Are we looking at coming up with the questions before the next board meeting or like what kind of time?
59. 11:48Um, so I'll just chime in and say, didn't we have the student council come up with questions for um like maybe we could ask when school starts for some input too? Yeah, I think if we're going the appointment route, there's actually not like an emergency sense of urgency on this, right? Because I think that there's a there's the time that started right from Kelvin's departure. But I think I I think like slowing down and making sure we're asking the right questions and that people in the community have like ample time to apply is better than just going as fast as possible because I think the the urgency was if we were going to go the route of like collecting signatures and then getting on a ballot and then getting the election. If we're going the route of appointment, I think I think we have a little bit of breathing room to do this thoughtfully rather than just quickly. Kirsten, do you want to chime in?
60. 12:42Hi, welcome.
61. 12:43It's awkward to to come in and and make a comment that quickly.
62. 12:49We're talking about the board seat.
63. 12:51Yeah, that much I got.
64. 12:53Um I mean I I talked I think about my feelings about it during our last meeting as well. Um, I feel like it's a big commitment and sometimes daunting to folks who are uh maybe running for, you know, who may consider running for the board um to ask them to do it with so little preparation time and to do it um ostens, you know, effectively with such a small um term of service. There it will be a very short um that they're essentially running for because it's only goes through June. I think that's a lot to ask of of somebody to do. This is already a demanding thing to add into somebody's um into somebody's life. Um, I'd like to make it accessible to folks who who haven't been necessarily preparing for this and going, "Okay, I heard about this and and I'm already starting to figure out where I'm going to go for um signatures and and doing that prep and considering how they're going to um, you know, run a campaign. That's it's a lot to ask of somebody, you know, when they're not going to be in it very long necessarily." What's the date again by which we What's the
65. 14:12I believe November 3rd is the 90-day mark.
66. 14:14Okay. So, I think
67. 14:18Yeah. So then I do think we have time to like maybe put together questions and think about the process more and finalize that at the next board meeting and then solicit like does that does that feel too slow to others? I just I think
68. 14:35just so you know, if you if you did decide to go to a vote, um Leslie and I went through all the landmarks that we'd have to meet in order to get to the 40 49 days.
69. 14:48Uh and the vote would be on November 13th.
70. 14:50Yeah.
71. 14:51So that that new board member, if they were voted in, wouldn't begin until the November 16th meeting.
72. 14:56Yep.
73. 14:57So you'd still be within the boundaries of if you decided to vote.
74. 15:00Got it. Yep.
75. 15:01Yeah. I think I think um I mean the temperature here seems to be forgoing a vote um and soliciting and coming up with um you know a a uh process for the appointment. So um yeah, I think we can uh we can certainly work together um to try to come up with what we think the those qualifying questions are. go back to uh the student council candidate forum.
76. 15:32Um and uh you know I understand there is an urgency but I do think we you know should move expeditiously to um
77. 15:41and we don't know how many letters we're going to get of interest either. It might be like one or two people.
78. 15:45Correct.
79. 15:47Correct. So, um I would just suggest that we at least collect what we think are relevant questions um via email this week. And uh you know,
80. 15:58can we call that next week since it's Thursday night?
81. 16:02This week only gives
82. 16:03Yes. Yes. So, uh any other thoughts on that?
83. 16:09So, when you say student council, you mean have the student council questioned them?
84. 16:14No, no, no. They they had during the last campaign season they had done a candidate forum and had asked questions at that time. So it seemed like a reasonable potentially using some of those questions as the pros. Okay.
85. 16:29And then if you can't decide at the meeting, you can decide at the next meeting.
86. 16:34Yep. Yep. All right. Uh important meeting dates. September 9th, 2025 policy committee meeting is here at 5:00 pm uh in the library. Uh September 16th, 2025 facilities committee meeting is in the district conference room 4 to 5:00 p.m. Also on the 16th uh there is a board of education meeting in the auditorium at 6 pm.
87. 17:00Matt, I forgot to put um public forum on there. I was also going to say, Matt, you're so efficient that I missed a little window there.
88. 17:14Uh, we did not put a resolution to appoint Amy Skiff of the MG group as the treasurer into the agenda.
89. 17:21Yes.
90. 17:22Because it was contingent on approving the contract, right?
91. 17:26But the the resolution that we created to appoint because the district needs a treasurer and our treasur will be gone in the next week.
92. 17:33The appointment is within the window of the contract. It ends on November 30th. Okay.
93. 17:37And I just for your information, uh the treasur position is a civil service position. We intend to canvas and see if there's an active see if there's an active list uh canvas. And if there's no active list, then we would advertise and someone would be interviewed and hired provisionally until they took the test and they passed the test. There's a there's a benchmark for duration of the time that that person would be in that position.
94. 18:01Okay.
95. 18:02And listen, he has that resolution.
96. 18:03Yeah. And and thank you for the reminder. Um, so yes, uh, actually Leslie, I think we should pass that resolution for the appointment, um, so that we don't have a gap in our treasurer role. So, if you could read the resolution for the record and
97. 18:15Okay. Um, be it resolved that the board of education appoints Amy Skiff to the position of treasurer from September 2nd, 2025 through November 30th, 2025.
98. 18:29I'll make a motion to approve the resolution.
99. 18:33Second. All in favor?
100. 18:37And the only last thing that I'll say, thinking organizationally, there are open positions in the district office that I do not intend to recommend to hire in the next four to six months because we need to look at the organization as a whole to make the right decision for how to provide the best service to the staff and the students and community. So in the interim I may ask to do the same thing because we have millions of dollars in grants with Dr. Price's departure um there'll be a huge gap in that and the responsibility is great and also we know our Dr. JT left in June. So we have not had someone in the CNI position. So I may bring forward recommendation that we have someone for a few months while we consider what is best for the organization before we commit to a long-term person.
101. 19:30Okay. Thank you for that.
102. 19:34All right. So do we want to do public form?
103. 19:39Uh we can we can have public form. Uh let's see. Uh so it was not on the agenda but um we can invite public form if anyone would like to uh speak or sign up.
104. 20:01We have Jack Horn.
105. 20:04Oh, I'm sorry. And one last thing, I'm so sorry.
106. 20:07Mitch entered the room after we got through his introduction. So, I wanted to introduce Mitch Stern, our new ENL teacher.
107. 20:16Welcome. Sorry about that.
108. 20:22Yes.
109. 20:24I'm gonna stop.
110. 20:26All right. Uh Leslie, do you have the normal
111. 20:30Uh yeah. The board of education recognizes that it serves the residents of the Hudson City School District. So, we encourage public attendance at our meetings and we also welcome your commitments. Residents, students, employees, and business representatives of the Hudson City School District may address the board on matters concerning programs andor operations of the districts other than matters involving personnel. Members of the board do not directly respond to citizens concerning citizen concerns during public forum. If a response is appropriate, either the super either the president or the superintendent will contact the individual in the near future.
112. 21:11Those persons wishing to address the board will be recognized by the chair of the meeting and should state for the record their name and address or affiliation with a district or business. While the board does not wish to infringe upon free speech protection, it must be stressed that the public forum forum is not deemed to be an open forum. The board president will conduct the forum for the orderly and efficient operation of board business.
113. 21:42In addition, any remarks may be considered defamatory or stigmatizing are prohibited and will be declared out of order. All comments shall be limited to three minutes. If you are unable to finish your remarks during the three minute time frame, you can supplement them by submitting a written statement to the board clerk.
114. 22:07Uh, Mr. Hornley.
115. 22:09Hi, my name is Jack Street. I have no affiliation with the district other than being a res of the city of Hudson. And I don't intend to make any defamatory remarks today. And I appreciate that you're willing to listen to us and there's no need to respond.
116. 22:25I'm really just here because uh my neighbor and I Josh came to a meeting I think it was either in May or June and we addressed the old uh constituency of the board and so we wanted to come again and speak to the new board as organized uh about the issue that we're facing on on Mil Street. There's a development proposed across the street from all of our houses which we believe will be damaging uh to the neighborhood in a variety of ways, but specifically we want to address the school board um and highlight the important role that the school board has in resolving this issue.
117. 22:56There's a uh deed restriction in the deed that the land only be used for park purposes. the board. The school transferred this property to the city in 1983 in the context of the men's city softball league that has been running since at least the 70s and uh long into the 80s. And the land still continues to be used for park purposes. The DPW maintains it uh mows it as an open field and just last week there were kids there playing a soccer game like four on four like a full-on soccer game. Um so it still really is used as open space. it's still recognized and used as open space.
118. 23:35And that creates a special legal protection uh called the public trust doctrine. And it requires the the owner of the property, the the city government to go through the New York state legislature in order to receive permission from the state legislature to then sell the property for any other use. Um we explained this to the city government. They move forward anyway.
119. 23:56And um I just want to highlight that legal status and that history for you all because we feel that it's important that any development of that property be be legal and be pursued conscientiously with with an eye towards both its 100-year use as open space and parkland, an eye towards its important uh ecological function of uh channeling the flash flood waters that come down through our little valley.
120. 24:20Um, and my message from June or whenever it was I came here before was just that the school, the school board consider the three surplus properties that it has in the city of Hudson that aren't the school anymore. Um, so John L is being redeveloped and I think that project looks outstanding. I'm very impressed by the materials. There's a parcel underneath it which has no development potential and is uh categorized as kind of a special environmental area because of the flood waters. And then there's the parcel across the street from us which has limited development potential because it's downstream from that the previous parcel I just mentioned.
121. 24:55So I'm really just asking the school board to to think about these three parcels in context of where they are and what's next to them and the neighborhoods they're in, what ecological function they play, uh how they position the city in terms of its climate resilience, etc. I know the school has many other uh considerations and important business in front of it. So, just appreciate you hearing us out and um if you have any questions or want to speak to us, we're easy to find. We live on a dead end road and you're welcome to come down.
122. 25:25Thanks.
123. 25:28Anyone else?
124. 25:29Then we have Josh Kip.
125. 25:32My name is Josh Kip and I live at 230 Mil Street. Anything I wanted to say? Jack really touched on already.
126. 25:41Um again, I've used that field my entire life playing softball and still to this day use it with my kids and grandkids playing kickball and whatnot.
127. 25:54I hate to bring the my school into a lawsuit, but the city rushed, you know, the city rushed this process and we I'm here to respectfully ask the board to remove the resolution. to withdraw the February 2024 resolution. We think the school board should hold on to the reverter until a responsible and lawful plan is made for the property. Thank you.
128. 26:34That's it. Okay. All right. Uh, I've done important meeting dates. Uh, we have no executive session planned. So, I'll make a motion to adjourn the meeting at 556.
129. 26:57Second. All in favor

Timestamps link to the corresponding moment on YouTube. Auto-transcribed, contains speech-recognition errors. Not an official record.