John Boutet, Tom Hernandez, Joe Simson, Dan Drmacich

1. We discussed Joe Simson's letter to the Penfield Schools Supt. regarding the need for suburban school districts to assist with transportation costs for RCSD students to continue to attend suburban schools. Although many of us have problems with the Urban-Suburban Transfer Program, we decided that as long as it continues to exist, suburban schools should assist with transportation costs, since they are gaining some funding. Don Pryor & Joe will collaborate on a letter to all suburban supts., consult with Mark & Howie & then share with the rest of the Coalition for general approval.

2. Dan reported that our proposal to advance the RASE "Curriculum & Testing" Recommendations through assistance from County & City Equity Officers, Cephas Archie & Candice Lucas, is still being arranged. Candice recently responded positively to meet with us. We only need to arrange with Cephas. Dan will push for the meeting asap.

3. Dan informed the group that we are still waiting to hear from Bronx Congressman, Jamal Bowman, for agreement on a meeting with our Coalition & others, on progress with the U.S. Dept. of Ed., for standardized testing flexibility. David Hursh, Eileen Graham are working on it.

4. For the purposes of our own development, Bart showed a short video on "anti-racism" action & facilitated a 30 minute discussion with us. We shared our own experiences with taking the initiative to address acts of individual or systemic racism & alternative actions we could have used. We agreed it was a valuable discussion & look forward to future activities on similar racial justice issues.

5. Bart also reported on the Citizen Action meeting he had attended the past week, which was co-led by Jalil Muntaqim, and also attended by Chojy. He was welcomed and was impressed with their work. The Citizen Action group has also invited our Coalition to partner with them on a community forum focusing on Restorative Justice Practices. Bart will meet with them to get more information on the forum and our expected role to share with us.

6. We discussed Ed Donnelly's email regarding our website. Ed recommends that we need an actively engaged web-meister to assist him and funding to support our membership with a good website host.

We've discussed these issues previously at our meetings and agreed that possible options include recruiting a website assistant from the local colleges and raising funds to support the website, by asking for a minimum Coalition membership donation of $10/year. Dan will initiate these suggestions by sending out special requests to our members and to our college members to assist in recruiting an assistant web-meister.

7. We agreed to meet again on Friday, November 5th @ 4:00 pm.