001[clears throat] The regular meeting of the South Colony Board of Education is called to order. Roll call. Thomas Blakeley >> here. >> Brian Casey >> here. >> Stephanie Kogan >> here. Vincent Fenzo >> here. >> Rose Giggleello >> here. >> Jennifer Hulahan >> here. >> Michael Keane >> here. >> David Keel >> here. >> Christopher Larab >> here. >> Robert Misik >> here. Pledge to the flag. If everybody would please stand. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Welcome [clears throat] everybody. Thank you for attending. Agenda item number three, approval of the minutes. If everybody would please take a look at the regular meeting minutes of the November 12th, 2025
002meeting. If there are any edits or comments, we'll hear them now. Having heard none, I make a motion to approve. Miss Giggley, seconded by Mr. Keane. On the motion made by Miss Giggleello, seconded by Mr. keen that the minutes of the regular meeting of November 12th, 2025 be approved. All in favor? >> Any opposed? Motion carries 9 to zero. Agenda item number four, awards and recognition. First up, boys cross country. Mr. Romer, I will have you start, please. >> Yeah, absolutely. I would like to recognize Owen Townley. Owen's back there in the doorway and his coaches. Palmer Johnson. Anybody else out there? >> Come on in a little bit so we can see you. Owen, come on up front. Come on in. >> Owen, you know Owen's a senior this year, which is hard to
003believe. >> Yeah, you know, the coaches don't believe it. Don't want to believe it. He's done such an integral part of our program for the last five years. Um, sorry to see him leave. He's heading to University of Wyoming. Next year to learn cross country track, but this year he won the servant council cross country championships. Finished third at section two and then 10th in states. Uh coming off another terrific year this past fall. Also competes in the winter and the spring and does great things in each of those seasons. But uh we will miss Owen a lot as a department and specifically a cross country program. and we'd like to recognize him today obviously for everything that he has achieved. CONGRATULATIONS. [applause] [applause] >> Did I miss anything that you want? >> I think
004one cool thing to note is Owen holds every school record for every course that we've competed on. Uh those records go back at Saratoga State Park until I think 1984. >> Queens Berry since 2004. And uh he is second or third fastest all time at Queensberry which has been the site of the state [snorts] championships numerous times. >> That's great. [applause] >> Owen. Owen, what are you going to be studying at the University of Wyoming? >> Kinesiology. Excellent. Excellent. And why did you choose the University of Wyoming? Uh, I thought the location was cool and you know, cross country training, high elevations. >> Yeah, definitely. >> Snow. >> Very good. Well, best wishes to you. Thank you for all you've done to college. [applause] >> Yeah. If we get squeeze and get a picture. Yeah.
005>> Okay. >> Coach. Yeah. Yeah. Coach Johnson, don't be shy. >> [laughter] >> smile for everybody. >> It's a long way from running at softball practice, right? >> Right here. Right here. Thank you. [applause] >> All right. Next up, our wonderful field hockey team. Girls, thank you so much for being here. Mr. Rome, can you go with you? >> Yeah, absolutely. Uh, we have two teams here actually. We have the modified team and the junior varsity team. I'll say one thing. 24 months ago, we kind of sat here, you know, discussing whether or not we wanted to bring field hockey on as a sport. And I think the proof is right here this evening with the number of girls that we have participating. The efforts that they've put in um as athletes and the coaches
006that have put in to support the program have been incredible. Uh we started with JV this past fall of 2024. Uh coach Barken was the [laughter] coach of the JV then and then she moved down to modified and coach Hunzinger uh stepped in this year as the JB coach and we didn't miss a beat and uh both levels modified and JB were very competitive. Um, again, we've we're playing against some of the best teams, not only in the league, but also the state, uh, in many cases in the Suburban Council. And, uh, again, they're showing up every day for practice, showing up every day for games, and they're ready to play. Coaches have it ready, and they're given maximum effort, and they're intense, and they're competitive. I see it. And, uh, it's it's proud u
007to see. And we're looking forward to what the future holds in the field hockey program. We're looking forward to uh having varsity uh in the near future as another additional level [snorts] that these girls can look forward to playing in the future. >> Thank you very much. Appreciate it. [applause] While we have everybody here, um let's read off the names. The modified team, Ella Bonder, Arya Buddha, Allison Cerny, Laura Charlton, Avery Dell, Ava Depalo, Liliana Jeppi, DPI, Sophia Dunn, Mia Ferraro, Julia Field, Nora Grove, Selena Kokchi, Mariela Lang, Jordan Mikare, Mikari, Sorry. [clears throat] Haley Rest Rustto, Lyla RH, Mia Sheiley, JB team, Joanna Baker, Marina Beverly, Emily Buck, McKenna Ava Coons, Jacquellyn Dile, Audrey Eddings, Natalie Field, Ariana Fowls, Natalie Fowls, Jordan, Avery Hodson, Veronica Hodling, Gabriella Ljoy, Kelsey Lamper, excuse me, Lamparello, Talia
008Lopez, Carly Mulligan, Lindsay O' Conor, Juliana Penna, Alexis Restapo, Lauren Roselli, Satie Rosenway, Amelia Sapionza, Emily Shalloo, Marissa Turulo, and S Sarah Tulo. Girls, thank you very much. IT [applause] IS and I would be remiss of a mom who has been here with my athletes. Thank you very much to the parents for keeping your gas tank full and your wallet full. Very, very important things. Very [applause] modified team first for a picture. Modified team and coaches. Let's get a picture. >> I'm gonna be taller than Coach Golden and Coach Walker. Very good. Come on in. >> Are we okay? We'll make it work. We'll make it work. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Good luck. [applause] >> All right. coaches and coach could not >> very good. Thank you very much everyone. [applause]
009And as promised, that's the end of the festivities. If you'd like to stay to the meeting, we'd love to have you, but I certainly understand. Thank you for coming out. Seth, I got one question really quick. Mr. Ror, the greatest thing about adding uh sports to Colony is we have more scholar athletes up the pipeline. So, [applause] Thank you. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Thank you. >> Well, if the rest of you would like to move up to the front of the church. >> Apparently not. All right. Agenda item. Thank you so very much. [laughter] >> Agenda item number five, superintendent update. That is you, Dr. Perry. >> Wow. Well, it's a tough crowd to follow, but I'll do my best. Uh, congratulations to all of our fall athletes. Uh, and proud to recognize a
010few of our outstanding student athletes tonight as well. Um, last meeting we had a special education um, update. Melissa Wman was here to talk a little bit about uh, what we've been doing as part of our self audit for the last uh, year and a half. the initial uh ed benefit review is what it's called is designed to identify um consistencies within our programs. So we've worked with staff at at all levels K4 58 and 912 uh to provide um a review of our IEPs. Uh we've uh continued to work on uh the planning of u future PD sessions. Uh we've done goal alignment. Uh that's one of the the major things we're focused on this year is the goals that we put in IEPs are aligned to the the students needs. Um and then
011uh moving forward through March of this upcoming uh 2026 and into the summer, we'll continue to do additional uh staff development and training related to this. So, um, we're touching, uh, not only the group that's involved here, about 40 individuals are are heavily involved with at benefit, but staff at every single level. So, well over 150, um, staff members, teachers, TAs, support personnel, school psychologists, and um, and other um, related service providers are part of this ED benefit review. Um, again, we'll have a follow-up um sometime next fall of 2026 to uh let the board know where we stand um with our department and what recommendations we have moving forward. Um, this again is a a self-evaluation, but I think it's the individuals that are working day in day out in our programs that can
012provide the best feedback. Um and ultimately our goal is to be consistent from um one school building and one program to the next. And so far that's been beneficial. Um appreciate Melissa's uh leadership in that area along with uh Brian Skezo and the committee that's been involved. Tom certainly overseeing it. Any else you want to add to that component? >> No, I think it's just very nice to see where it started from. opens up an organic dialogue for us to really start asking more thoughtful questions about the processes and the teachers are realizing a lot of good things that are going on but certainly areas that we can correct. It's being you know autonomously autonomously driven by them as far as the next sort of directions. Uh Melissa is taking that and really building good
013robust experiences each time. So I like what what's happening and where it's going. So, we'll provide uh you know continual updates as the uh year progresses and uh um keep the board up up to speed. So, thank you. Um I want to turn uh a little bit over to uh Mr. Catcher for a brief uh update on where we are with artificial intelligence. We have coming up in 2026, Mr. love it is going to come up and talk about um a presentation on artificial intelligence. But tonight >> brief promise. Um so I just shared with you just kind of a one pager document that you can peruse through where we are right now. Um just so everyone knows we're on the same page. Last year we opened up um second semester for a pilot of
014teachers. We have roughly around a hundred of them take advantage of Magic School as an instrument in instrument, a tool, a resource to help with what we deliver as far as instruction. Um, how we look at, you know, content delivery from everything from K all the way up to 12 and all sorts of these tools that are implemented in between that are part of Magic School as an overall functioning um tool or utility for us. There's about 80 different components to it. So, there's a lot to go through. the folks that were involved with it. Some of them got in pretty deep. Some of them, you know, sort of surface area, but in the end of it, they found it to be a pretty decent resource that we followed through with an investment and we're
015looking at using it or we are using it over the course of this year. Um, and we've provided over the summer and we continue to provide over this fall and will be in the spring. Um, [cough] some professional development training opportunities through a variety of different ways. We have some teachers that have gotten so deep into their exposure with this that they are pretty much professionals on site. Lisa Giuliano being one of them is a tremendous resource and has been sharing a lot of the practices that are going on out there. So where we are with all of this is the folks are kind of dabbling in a variety of ways of what's comfortable with them. They you're finding in conversations of what they are discovering as best practices. They're sharing that forward with their
016morning meetings or however else they have opportunities of getting together with uh structural supervisors. sometimes at the helm and they're just looking at how it saves time. And that's really the critical analysis and [clears throat] what we want to put forward here is how is it that we can rescue time for our teachers to be able to have a better realization of getting back into um some of the teaching and learning that they want to do and uh less of that monitored or focused on some other components of their day that might be more ro. So what we're doing as we continue to evolve, I'm going around and speaking with select stakeholder groups. Right now I'm talking [snorts] with the elementary u um groups and they're giving me some quality feedback as far as what
017they're seeing, what they need more on, what are some of the best practices and the best practitioners that are out there and where we really need to go as far as developing targeted PD in the future. We are looking to use October of 2026 as solely dedicated for our superintendent conference day of being like a an AI symposium. We're going to have a variety of different modules that are going to be made up. Some of them are going to be part of our best practitioners best practices. Some of whom we have yet to discover because we haven't had enough people really dabble into it to give us uh more feedback. I'm going to go again on a listening tour with our middle school folks and then with our high school folks over the course of
018February and March and really script up for ourselves what we need to hone in on with what the tools are, what are the ones that are the most effective or efficient uses that we have in there and how can we better supplement um the practices that are going on with our our teachers um and make sure that we have better student experiences overall. So, it's this really nice open gate that we're looking at it right now and how we can again rescue time and make better use of, you know, how our teachers really see um the teaching and learning especially in a high quality tier one experience. How we see that unfolding >> um last thing, uh just wanted to um >> Oh, I'm sorry. Apologize. >> No worries. I'm just wondering um what [clears
019throat] we're doing relative to sort of crafting a district vision around AI um and also what we're teaching the children about AI. >> So the district vision is coming out of these conversations. So that is kind of really what my summer work's going to be. The children are going to be the second part of the pilot that's coming out next year. So you have magic student as the other component of magic school. We have to make sure that our professionals are prepared enough to how to use this tool in the right way and then put up the appropriate guide rails that we feel can be kind of governed in a K6 and 712 management >> and thinking more about sort of like the philosophy piece of it like because kids are using it they're already
020using it right and they're already light years ahead of where the grown-ups are >> um and I you know having a recent graduate who is taking three AI classes at U Albany right like he's illquipped to talk about sort of you know his mindset was it's cheating to use it right it's that is not how the university is that's not you know he has to site his work right and they have sort of you know so one of the things like Alban's participating in the ILO group with Boseies um to draft the plan and you know we're thinking you know like the stop sign when is it good to use it when is it not good to use it when you use it with guardrails and um I'm just cur you know curious sort about
021how the teachers I know they have to experience it through the lens of their own kind of planning and and to learn the benefits but I'm also seeing a lot of sort of shutting down of you know that mindset around you know it's like when the calculator came out right like the calculator's cheating like right but that's not reality >> it's an ethical balance between teaching them appropriately >> and and setting those guardrails we're not there yet we're certainly trying to >> um develop what that will look like over this next year. But it constantly evolves. So I think the the first thing is that uh we don't want to um shut off the the power of artificial intelligence because there are a lot of good things but also we want not only our students
022but our staff to understand what the parameters are and how to use it effectively for instructional remedial and and also uh for planning purposes. But uh ultimately, you know, the the the staff that are going to be experiencing that this year are going to try to provide us that feedback from a policy level. We wanted to make sure that our policy is flexible enough that we don't have to go back to the policy committee every every time to change it as the programs change, as the right, >> you know, uh technology changes. But it's exciting. um you know we're we're certainly going to embrace it but uh we want to make sure um we involve partners with the university because I I do see it from my own students that have gone on to colleges
023some colleges are taking the approach of um you know don't bring your computer into class you're taking old school notes right >> um to go back to the basics of how to take notes and then you can use the uh artificial intelligence it's kind of the calculator once you know your math facts then you're okay using the calculator so it's it's a little bit of a blend and I think um hopefully we're going to learn as quickly as the students, but they're definitely ahead of us. There's no doubt about it. >> Yeah. >> What are your thoughts on that? I know that >> like the teachers have very varying stance on stances on them and you see a lot from English and social studies teachers they don't want anything to do with that because they
024see their essays and their DBQs being completely justated and it's it is a problem but like what Mr. Kadorian and Mr. Dr. Bar said using it in a respectful and intentional way where you're learning still is something that's very important. And I've used magic magic school before in my AP US history class and it was very cool to use and I think that's a good direction for the district. >> Yes, exciting times. Um, any other questions on AI? All right, the the last thing I think uh we we talked a little bit beforehand, but [clears throat] um we had done an outstanding uh effort this year for our 19 Toys for Tots experience. Um we're going to bring up in January many of the people that were behind the scenes working hard. So, I don't
025want to steal the thunder, but I do want to recognize real briefly, we as a community uh helped to collect over 200 toys at our eight sites, including the village of Colony. Uh we collected uh over the last uh 19 years um uh tens of thousands of toys but Sergeant Ted mentioned um that the Capital Region Toys for Tots is the largest in the United States or the world. >> World largest in the world I think is what he had said and they had collected uh and and helped to provide uh over 650,000 children with toys well over uh a million toys. So kudos to uh Sergeant Ted, all our community members for stepping up and but we've got a lot a lot of folks we want to recognize. So we're going to bring them
026up in January to recognize them. Uh Amber, thank you very much uh for all your efforts and uh and for your team as well. Very much appreciate it. [applause] >> Thank you very much. Agenda item number six, new business. [clears throat] Mr. Casey. >> Thank you, M. Kogan. I had the good fortune, and I'm sure a lot of others have also to attended this last Saturday, the lights at the high school with all the fire departments, the MS, first responders, etc. And that was my first endeavor is actually working the sidewalk, if you'll call it that. Wow, was I ever impressed with the Mr. Ryan and the chamber singers, everybody that was there, uh the the generosity of the people pulling up to the curb with their with their toys for Toys for Tots. Um
027Miss McCarthy and I had a nice conversation. We brainstormed a couple ideas for next year, which I think will make it bigger and better. And I appreciate Mrs. McCarthy listening to my crazy ideas. Maybe we can implement a few, not all, but a few. Um and again thank you um to Vince and and your IARE team and if you pass that information along I I would appreciate that. I was I was very very impressed. Um the other item the [clears throat] faculty recital. Now we may have discussed that in a previous meeting but I have to tell you sitting there watching the teachers perform their expertise if you will now I know how we have students making it to the NISBA is it called >> the music. >> It's unbelievable the talent we have at
028this school with the teachers in the music department. I'm I'm very very impressed. Again, we see there's the students excel again out. So, if we could just make sure that they're recognized, I think it's Mr. Canistrai and the rest of the team. >> They're also coming up in January. >> Mr. Great. I think it's welld deserved. Again, I can't carry a tune in a paper bag, but just listening to those kids, it's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. And the teachers, too. So, again, [laughter] nice job. Don't forget Miss McCarthy's >> well especially got a little insight on Miss McCarthy there. She pitched in here one of the ceremonies we had on the hill and unfortunately I missed that but I'm sure I could find some video somewhere. So thank you for doing that. >> Thank [laughter] you.
029>> Very good. Very good. Thank you Mr. Larby. >> Uh just to piggy back on that I just want to say thank Vincent uh Mccarthy and then also all the other uh Mr. Burl and the and the rest of the AP back there. Uh we're all in attendance on a Saturday. Uh thank you for taking the time out of your especially being there all week and uh you know other people who are there but you a lot of things. [laughter] So you know it's but uh so thank you to that uh you know just always a fun event. >> Yes, very much very much. Thank you very much Mr. Blakeley. >> Um I didn't have I was ill so I missed a meeting. Uh but I did want to just give a kudos to Dr.
030in the district for stepping up to help our less fortunate families during the potential food stamp stoppage. And I meant to say thank you for that. Um, our district does a lot for our underprivileged families and I think sometimes they don't know that the resources are out there for them or maybe they're embarrassed to use those resources, but um, definitely take advantage if you need it. You know, nobody deserves to not have a meal or warm clothes or whatever they need to get through the winter holidays. So, thank you Dr. Barry and everyone for stepping up in what was a very big time in need for a lot of our families. So, thank you. >> Thank you very much, Mr. >> Um, also got to I only drove through. Um I don't know who won.
031If I'm giving my vote, it was the bus garage again. >> Yeah. >> Lot lot of effort put put in there. Um I also got to attend um PTA council um last month thanking Mr. Patch Dorian for coming out and giving the portrait of graduate. Um really great dialogue, really great insight from, you know, to just sit there and listen and um I I think it was helpful for folks to understand the the direction where where things are are going. >> Very good. Thank you very much. >> Anyone else? Vincent, >> I have a few things that I was asked to talk about by two of the old high school student. Um, piggy backing off of what everybody else said about holiday lights, it was a great night. Um, we did we got nine plus
032boxes of um, toys from the entire night. And a huge shout out to the Col Town Board and Alvin Gamble for donating coats to the district. Um, great. The Colony Police Department uh had a generous donation of about two boxes full of toys that they gave out and the Colony um high school's yearbook club also participated and with help helped us with a lot of um expenses that we had on the night. So that was very helpful. Um I Care is also planning chili cookoff again for next year. January 23rd is the date. More information will be coming out very soon um within the next few weeks before break. Um, Wolfpack Fest meetings have started. Also, um, we start early around this time to, um, get started for our biggest event of the year. >>
033And, um, our next meeting in January will be open to like board members and district cabinet so we can all share our vision about what we want it to be like um, this upcoming year. Um, and if anyone is interested on the board, like I know Miss Gello helped a lot last year with the basket raffles. Anyone else wants to um be a part of it more do whatever you are wanting to do dunk tank again. >> Dunk. >> Yeah. Just got to work out the legs a little bit more beforehand. [laughter] >> Also, um I care is helping [clears throat] housing coalition with homeless health bags and it's going very well. Many people have been doing generous many generous donations. Mr. and Karthy we got I remember you told them today >> over twothird
034of the items on the wish list have been purchased actually from that wish list and then some other items that tick the box we're looking for so we definitely have enough to make 50 bags right now and our goal is 100 >> thank you to everyone that has have donated um out there in the community um also all of you have gotten a hard copy of the student sen senate agenda for their speakout a few weeks ago Dr. Har let me know that you all have a digital version. The student senate president wanted me to give you the hard copy. And the one thing that I um would like to push out um that cannot be like resolved within the high school would just be many clubs including um and especially the um executive clubs
035for each of the grade levels and having an online availability for fundraising. And that's just one thing that I think many clubs and I've bothered Miss McAllister. Um >> it's just something that we can work on and just um I know people at the high school be very interested with the district. Um, and lastly, before I um [snorts] because I wasn't at the last meeting, which will haunt me for the rest of my life, [laughter] um I would like to say the academic hall of fame and the National Honor Society that um whole entire night I got to see all those seniors. I've known them since I was in kindergarten and they are fantastic people and I just want to say congratulations >> to everybody out there. >> It was a great night. >> Vincent,
036do you have the date for the World Fest yet? It will be May 16th. Thank you. >> May 16th. >> Yes. >> Thank you. >> Um [clears throat] Jackie, is it because that every platform has a has a cost to use? Um it's security >> and it's um there's no good mechanism for a school to sign up as the receiver of those funds. We have certain um we can use link connect. We can use like put products on there like this the the food service software that we use. We can use um we can add products to there. So somebody's selling a t-shirt, you can add a t-shirt to that store who can buy the t-shirt. >> Um, taking in payments as like a donation. Yeah. >> Is very difficult on electronic platform because you
037need a social security number. It needs to be attached to a person. >> And so there's no way to do it other than having it attached to a person. But like PTA uses givebacks and I feel like there's other organizations that have been using givebacks >> rather than a Venmo, >> right? I can look into that. Um there's always talk on our like full business what we're using and everybody's like nothing meets the criteria. >> Um yeah, >> there has to be something coming. >> We can do products. It's we can create a store and we can create products. So if somebody's selling something, you have to have something. But if we're taking donations or doing a raffle, you can do it. It just have you just have to be in real time looking at
038it hand over the product. We've offered that solution to business. Um we we've been getting it. We get it all probably once again request for Venmo. Um PayPal, Zel, all of those are the same. Um we keep looking. Um, snap raise is another one that some districts are using, but that's just donations. So, it's not a way to like say I want to put out a shirt or a um a ticket or something, but we can use golf for ticketing. We can use there's a lot of we have a lot of options available. They're just not very as easy as them. [clears throat] >> Sure. >> So, we'll keep looking. >> Thank you. >> Absolutely. >> All right. Very good. Um, and we did talk about I'm sorry, we did talk about this again and
039we did say if ever you want a board member does not need to be the president or the officer. We're always welcome. We're we we are willing to come and talk to uh to you folks at the student senate. We think this is just a great idea. We are a resource. >> All right. Uh Mr. Kim. >> Yes. Continuing the accolades. Uh Honk Jr. Well, it says a honk on here was the the San Creek play just before Thanksgiving. I I counted up that uh on stage according to the program there were 86 students >> on stage at anyone at various times. Uh 67 in the crew. There may be some overlap I think but and then the 41 adults too that helped out with that. So it was marvelous. Again, we as you can
040hear, it's it's wonderful for all those kids to be involved. >> Well, it's great. Um, Dr. Perry and then uh talked about it as well as uh Mr. Casey, the uh zone 7. I went to that concert at Proctor's because we had uh eight students participating and there was a jazz band and an orchestra and a band and a another orchestra and they were just terrific. This this is not just the South Colony kids, but my goodness, what talent those kids have. They were they were marvelous. So, as Dr. Perry says, we're going to honor those students as well in the future because they are terrific. >> By the way, Vince, do you know if anybody's of our colony kids are going to uh be in the Melodies for Christmas? >> I am not sure.
041No, >> I haven't heard it. I don't know. We'll try to find that out. Yeah, it because they're they're equally as uh worthy. >> Miss, maybe >> I think we I think we may have one. I think it's um I think it's Abby Sansbury who's a lovely young singer. Um I think she she asked me if I was going and I'm not able to make it, but I'll I'll try to watch on TV. So, I I do believe she's >> very good. [snorts] >> Okay. Okay. Well, the the next thing I'd like to discuss is the fact that last week we had the meeting of the uh curriculum review board. Uh you saw the information. I'm not going to read all that stuff to you, but you saw that in the uh um Friday bulletin.
042There were 19 projects that work were worked on last summer. Think of all the teachers involved there. There we also heard from four different uh curriculum. What what what I would say? you have the uh the councils that uh talk about uh we heard about the science K through eight and the libraries K through 12 stu student support services and the uh tech as well. So all those things that uh we heard about from those people and that's all that work that's being done as well. So that's terrific. Um you you you saw all the different that that they were presentations or uh what they did what they worked on from various 19 different areas of our our academic uh achievement. So uh terrific. It's it's great for the teachers to get together and do
043that and it's great for us to encourage them because they uh are working for us as as we know working for our students. So that's terrific. And in in uh January we will have I believe [snorts] around not 19 proposals but uh a day's worth >> 15 proposals where we will decide whether they should be funded as well. >> So that will be another wonderful day. And then everybody's talked about toys or tots, but there's there's nothing better than standing there watching that stream of kids come out of the whatever school it is with their packages that they picked up from the stage or whatever and walking into to put those toys in the bags. It's a terrific site. It's good for them and it's good for us and uh the kids are are just
044super. That's wonderful and I'm I'm very happy to be part of that that little bit of it. So, >> thanks to everybody. >> Very good. >> That's good. >> Thank you very much. Anyone else? Very good. I will just say Toys for Tots was certainly my uh top uh job these past two weeks. I I made seven out of the eight. The Sorry, Shaker Road, my home [clears throat] school. I missed that one. Um and I must say, as Rose Giggle and I discussed many times, Amber, thank you so very much for all your work. to Wolfie, to to our our admins, thank you for being there. To Cara, and to Dana for for being there. Sergeant Ted, my goodness gracious, my ears are still ringing. The man does not need a microphone. He is
045he is a force to be reckoned with. Um, and it was just terrific. I did did learn something new, though. The is is the high school's collection separate than the rest of our districts? No, it all comes >> It all goes together. >> Yes. >> Okay. Okay. I had some misinformation. That's good. I'm glad to hear that. [laughter] Um, apologies to Lisha Kill. I missed their spelling day. >> Yeah, I did too. >> There were some tough uh words just before the uh Thanksgiving break. >> I didn't know about it, Dave. I I wasn't on the calendar. I was not aware of it. I never miss >> better next time for it. I apologize. >> You didn't know about it either. Okay. >> Usually like sometimes they'll send like an invite. >> I didn't know
046about it until the day because >> the judges were going over like, "Oh, there's a spelling date." >> Sometimes we know, sometimes we [clears throat] don't. >> Okay. >> Oh, and a shout out the high school people. Thank you very much. on the electronic sign. You guys publicized the board of ed meeting tonight. >> I'm loving that. >> I know. Thank you. That was just great. [laughter] >> Everyone left. I know. I know. But hey, we're here. Burn's here. I just I just love that. Thank you for [laughter] promoting that. I I like that. I like that very much. All right. Thank you very much. I think that's it on that part. All right. Agenda item number seven, communications. >> Nothing online. Nothing here. Moving right along. Agenda item number eight, board committee reports. First
047up, 8A, academic achievement. Mr. Ke, is there anything you would like to highlight? >> You you hopefully saw the report. Unfortunately, some of you weren't able to hear the report made that night. It was uh very well done. And Dr. Perry told you about the fact that it's not done. It's ongoing. That's the important thing that uh we're going to continue to look at the uh all the special education presentations and uh and uh learn more and more about it as we go. >> Thank you very much. Item [snorts] B, policy. Mr. Larby, you have a whole sheet to go through. Well, uh I like Vincent uh personally apologize for missing the last uh board meeting, but I did make the policy committee meeting uh that I chair on November 24th instead. So, um I
048uh I do have one uh before actually does anybody have any questions on uh the readings or single readings or abolishments? Okay. Uh as the chair, I do have a question uh if you don't mind. Um uh just for all those listening at home and stuff like that when we do these kind of things and we have something that says abolish uh Dr. Perry can you just speak on that really quick if you don't mind? >> Uh certainly yes these are not abolishing positions. Uh these are policies that talked about a position. Um, and uh, we worked with our New York State School Board's Association uh, policy uh, committee who makes recommendations as to policies that are required, policies that are uh, not required. These policies were either outdated or not required. Um, so we're
049recommending them to be abolished, but they are not tied to any particular position. In some places, they just defined what a support staff member was. That's really an HR document. Doesn't need to be board policy. So, we're kind of cleaning up um a number of policies there. >> Perfect. Thank you so much. Um okay. On behalf of the policy committee, upon the motion made by committee chair member Christopher Larby, [snorts] recommendation is that the revisions made to the above stated policies be approved as presented. >> All in favor? >> Any opposed? Motion carries nine to zero. Thank you very much, Mr. Larry. Agenda item number nine, reports for information, tax collection report. Miss Mallister, >> yes. Um, so every year we collect our taxes. Thank you for paying your taxes. Um, we collect our taxes
050and we have our three towns that we are in jurisdiction of. Uh, Colony, Estherland of Colony, the town of Colony. We are 97% collected and at Miss Yuna 98.36% collected in Gilderland 95.36% of the balance that is to be not uncollected right now goes to the county they collect for us and they they make us whole. So um our tax levy of 83 million we collect star exclusions and then we have our taxes collected and of that 2 million is for you to return to the company. Um we did sign the um forms that recognize all of this. Okay. So that is our uh tax collection report for um colony. All right. Any questions? Hearing none. I'll take a motion. Mr. Mis Mr. Blakeley on the motion of Mr. Mik seconded by Mr. likely that
051the above stated tax collection reports be accepted and the list of uncollected taxes be approved for submitt. All in favor? Favor? >> Any opposed? Motion carries nine to zero. Agenda item number nine B, high school academic update. Assistant Superintendent Thomas Catadorian, high school principal [clears throat] Bill Barl will give a high school academic update. Gentlemen, >> so this is a quick glimpse of of where we're at [clears throat] with portrait of a graduate. Um it's it's very much so in its infancy stage. Uh started talking with a lot of stakeholders within the school community. Um and I know that that's broken. Tom will Tom and myself will start to break out to the exterior of the community and um but again very infant stages and kind of what we already do and what we're looking
052and where we're looking to go to this works [snorts] >> if you did not know What what is portrait of graduate? So portrait of graduate, it was just back in July, adopted by New York State regions in in New York State, they're looking for a high school graduate to be academically prepared, a creative innovator, a critical thinker, an effective communicator, global citizen, and reflective and future focused. Again, they're they're the state's goal is to have this fully implemented by 2029. We'd like to be ahead of the game this way. My goal and I think Tom's goal as well is is to be able to say to the state, "Hey, this is what we're already doing." Yes, they're going to have things that that are unknown from them, you know, that they'll be pushing towards us
053and we'll implement and adapt, but we want to be able to show them we're ahead of the game. This is what we're doing and this is what we can add. [snorts] have them. [laughter] >> So, starting in the with the cohort of 2027, students [snorts] will no longer be required to take and pass regions in to graduate high school. Does that mean they're going away? I don't think so. Um, but what the state has already said, they want financial literacy classes, which we we do have in place. Um, it'll be our job to look at the numbers of students that have already taken our financial literacy classes to make sure that by that 2026 next school year that all of our students by the time they graduate are taking that financial literacy class. They've also
054come out recently and talked about they want climate education and that's something that it could be a class, it could be a unit within a class. Um, that's something that they'd like implemented within 2027 school year. So what will there be ultimately capstone projects they've definitely talked about that uh community service based stuff workbased learning which we're already doing with CIP and I'll talk about later in another slide what we do what we already do or what we already do and what we're looking to do um like I talked about will there be tests yes in what way will there be they're not going to be affecting graduation we'll be looking at where we compared everyone someone else. Um, and will there be credits? That's the one question I've gotten a lot from my staff
055members of, well, how do we know if a kid is going to graduate? We still have certain certain number of credits, but how they earn those credits might look a little bit different than the pathways, the simple regions pathways that they're on right now. So, our approach, we'll continue to revamp, create new pathways for our students. The next slide I'll get into the pathways that we we do. These are two that within surveys and with in knowing our students what we need to start implementing business administration. I know we just hired a.5 and two or three years ago brought back the 1.0. Um you'll see in in the classes that I explain a little bit we need that that five to go to a 1.0. Um this way we can create different pathways offer different
056classes such as business ethicals, business law and ethics, sports management marketing, inter international business. Those are like the four newer classes that we're looking to bring in for business. Um AP [snorts] seminar is is a class that we've been dying to have within the high school. I know Vinnie over here is shaking his head. Yes. Uh leadership studies we actually started this year. Uh Mr. Rockmore is our teacher for that. And it's it's amazing what's what the students are talking about in there. They're really learning what what it is to be a leader, you know, whether it be on the athletic field or whether it be in the classroom or in the community. Uh I know we talked about AI earlier today. Uh technology classes are looking to bring in principles of AI and we'll
057cover a lot of different things when it comes to AI and then also within that that nursing field, medical terminology and introduction to nursing. This is just a a small bit probably half threequarters of what we're looking to create for this coming school year. Um Bill is ahead. >> Yeah. Existing staff. >> Yes. >> Positions for these. >> Yep. >> What What is AP Seminar, please? >> AP Seminar is Tom, you want to touch on that? >> Sure. It's part of a [clears throat] a twocourse system. So you have AP seminar and you have AP research and that leads into being an AP capstone course. Um AP seminar really gets into the foundational beginnings of a research and and getting kids to be I think more communicative and outreached toward almost like a WBL experience
058but more within a classroom. >> WBLE. >> Thank you. >> Um so we're teaching them more research. We're teaching them more about how to then take the research and have interactions with human [snorts] beings. It's a derivative off of like an AP Lang course. >> Okay. >> How are [clears throat] we determining what we want? So, I look at the sports and entertainment marketing because it's been the hot buzz over the last five years. But looking at the market and the number of opportunities that are out there, [clears throat] >> I think that's going to phase out. I think there's other, you know, looking from, you know, my my lens and I think there's other opportunities to broaden the skill sets rather than going so deeper into a role like or a course like that.
059>> That was one of the main things that students when they took surveys within Sue Stones's intro business class that they were very interested in. Um, we'll continue to do those surveys and and but I agree that the broader touches upon more these these classes might be some of those capstone classes that you're getting 15 20 students in one section of the class and now they're coming up with a capstone project and and it could be CIP based where they're going out community doing different stuff with >> might also be reflective of how we run some of our technology courses that it's an every other year rotation. >> [laughter] >> so that we could kind of >> know like there's a gaming one that we did as well and you know again just looking at
060the foundational and then allowing that deeper dive at >> you know there's interest but is there every year interests >> I know um Mr. Bro brought up the 1.0 I know for the um business teacher, I know the state just recently announced new requirements for financial literacy going all the way to kindergarten forward. I think next year they want 5 through 12, correct? So, are we are >> K through eight next year. Okay. So, are [clears throat] we looking at bringing on the 1.0 and in anticipation of that or >> that won't necessarily be taught just by a business teacher that could taught by math teacher taught by a classroom teacher. may be taught by the home and careers teacher who's teaching some financial. >> So there's no blame. >> It's really more of an
061emphasis on where that fits in uh you know at a K4 level versus a middle school level versus >> and it's great that we've been a we were ahead of that you know having that partnership with U Albany to to offer that. >> You'll notice from what Bill's going to present and what he has presented we're ahead of a lot of things. Now it's how do we hone within all of those different pathways? very offended. >> Um, [snorts] of these courses under the new classes, are any of them going to be through like Sunni or HBCC or anything like that or are they just going to be like local classes? >> Principles of AI, I know that Tech has been talking with you, Albany. Um, there there's a possibility of of us diving further into
062like I know the nursing stuff. I know that uh the one teacher has been talking with a couple different community colleges and university high school >> with a lot of things like when we initially made our big transition into offering more UHS courses calculatedly you have to develop something locally and see how that that curriculum then overlays itself to what is being offered in the the higher ed institutions and what fits sometimes it just name it fits but not necessarily in concept um some of these I think are poised for a one to twoyear type of local experience and then we can start to really push it forward like with leadership studies. A lot of that curriculum we initially took from a U Albany course and we [clears throat] one of the um possibilities with
063the the benefits the pathways it may open up opportunities for students to take courses during the summertime. You know where traditionally locked into that September to June calendar and kids schedules are so jam-packed. We we saw it at the speakout where you know students are scheduled nine periods a day and they're taking lunch on the go. So it may allow for some courses that may be of interest sports and entertainment marketing to become a a a summer type approach uh if the state provides that flexibility especially when it's not tied to a regions exam and other things. So >> I was just talking to Mrs. Misk about some of these concepts today and what we've done before. Do these credits transfer? So to what types of schools do they transfer to and what gened requirements
064are they fulfilling that's irreplaceable if they fulfill a gened requirement which is nice and we look to do that at the the forefront of when we design these courses >> with the nursing isn't that traditionally a Boseis kind of >> yes and nursing is interesting because traditionally only nursing courses can be taught by nurses and that's the bugaboo about it and we don't necessarily have a nurse on staff but when you try to make the argument with universities about intro to nursing you're not necessarily teaching them technique or how to administer an IV, teaching them maybe about the history of nursing, maybe about some key figures in nursing, about conceptually how does the nursing organization, if you want to have, you know, a career in nursing, how does that function for a child that might
065have a deeper interest in it. So there I think is a way to get kids who are interested in nursing that exposure to it to know if that's a field they want to continue. >> I see. [clears throat] All right. >> Yeah. And having a family that is completely all nurses, I think that's great because everybody says they want to be a nurse, but nursing is a tough, challenging >> sure >> field. And being able to have students try it out a little bit in any way before they actually want to maybe go into that is >> and as you can imagine, it's it's almost impossible to get some kind of CIP placement in a hospital just because privacy and things like that. But we're starting to get students with high-end work ethics getting their
066foot in the door and starting to build a quality reputation for us, a good name for us. So, we're going to get repeat customers. That's the hope. >> So, I know this is smaller, but uh what we already do, what the future might hold. Our current pathways within business, we have accounting, entrepreneurship, marketing, and advertising. Under health sciences, we have pre-health sciences, healthcare technician. Humanities, we have communications, literature, education, fine and perform, fine and performing arts. Uh social sciences, we have behavioral health, emergency responders, associate law and internal affairs. Steam, we have computer info, data science, cyber security, engineering, digital graphics, media, and skill trades. So those are what we currently have. Again, the goal from creating all of this is to ultimately get our kids talking about the pathways that they're on, right? Like
067we and I think that's part of the goal of portrait of graduate like we Yeah, it's nice to have a kid within their four years of of high school, global nine, global 10, US history, echoing government, but what what is that getting you? What is what are you learning from that? like what do you from that pathway what do you know what you want to do in the next phase of your life. Um, so on top of all that, our certificate programs that we currently have, uh, we have an EMT cert, uh, certification program. We we have our skilled trades, the OSHA 10 certification. They come in for two days. Um, and we usually get about 20 last year we had about 22 students, I believe. Um, for two days received their their OSHA 10
068certification. We have our teaching assistant program. We have our Cisco uh, certification through Hudson Valley. And then we also obviously have our CTE programs through through BOSUS. What we're looking to explore some newer pathways. It seems to me like we always have a pocket of students that are going into some sort of environmental science or climate college, right? They're they're looking at forestry. It seems we have five, six, seven students every single year that are doing something like that. Uh patient care technician certificate certificate. Can we bring someone in that by the end of their senior year they can walk out and and be job ready through their their patient care uh cert certification CDL preced experience. We've already been in communications with someone coming in to to allow our students to get their at
069least their preCDL. I think it's another step to get their actual CDL. Um and like I talked about business administration. We're we we do we're looking into our seal of of work-based learning. Again, the state is is pushing a lot of work-based stuff. I know I had conversation um with Mr. Casey about our kids need to get out, >> right? There's only so much you can you can learn within the four walls of the high school and we're expanding that. But let's let's get them out into the community to get them that that real life [clears throat] stuff. Um, we've also talked about how we can get that a a work credit program going for some of our alt ed and or special ed students that are in different programs. So, that's a that's actually
070a conversation we're having next week about how we can we can get all of our students from all different backgrounds out out doing things and and getting them the experience that they need. >> How do you see the patient care program differing from what Bosey's offers with the PCA CNA programs? it would be much lighter in in what they're what they're doing. Um, to be honest with you, I haven't really looked into it a whole a whole lot, but okay. >> It it would definitely be on the broader scale of of them than what the Boseies program is doing. >> Some of these are like micro credentials that we have college maybe two courses like versus going for half a day over to the for two years. Yeah. >> Program for two two days. Um,
071I think as you look at our current pathways, there's a lot of overlap where kids can go, but it's giving uh opportunities for them to come away with some skills that are deployable right away, but also can expand. The teaching assistant grow your own [snorts] program is certainly one that we're going to have to develop and look at ways to grow our own teachers in the future. The TA spot is just a component of that. We're also going to have to look at how do we follow students from becoming a teaching assistant, uh, going to community college, going to a four-year school, eventually becoming a teacher back in our own district. That that comes in mentorships and some of the things we're doing to help support them in their success. >> Yeah, we always look
072at numbers. We talk about we want to have our seniors, at least two thirds of them getting a CIP experience. We're still trying to crest at that benchmark. You have five and you have 18. You have your five core pathways and you have your 18 branches that are within there. We want to try and expand that to get to around 25. But we have to do that kind of calculatedly. We don't want to add on additional FTE that's not sustainable. We want to make sure that these are relevant professions that our kids are interested in and hence the constant surveying of where they are now. Certainly in seventh grade when we look at them in 11th grade and if we can grab a hold of them four to five years after they graduate. I also
073think that some of the best things that will come out of these pathways is students understanding what they don't want to do. >> Yeah. >> You're not spending thousands of dollars at at higher ed >> and then figuring out, oh, I don't want to [snorts] do this. You know, let's give them the opportunities here within high school where they they can figure out who they are and what they want to be without costing them thousands of dollars. >> I know we're tracking the number. It looks like we have around 30 to 40% of our students that are graduating with a full year or a full two semesters of credits acrewed from our our classes that we offer. And I think we're at 53 uh college accredited classes, 52 college accredited classes. um depends on whether
074we're on or off network. >> So like I like I started we've met with various stakeholders from middle school high school levels you know broke it up into six different groups looking at how we can incorporate portrait of graduate and and the six pillars then into our pillars within South Colony. Um we defined what each pillar meant. Uh again, like I just said, I'm looking looking to bring in what the state's looking for and how it fits within within our school community. Um I am and myself and Tom has have started meetings over the summer and have progressive meetings with Ed Vista. Ed Vista does all of our um evaluation, our evaluation platform, but we also [snorts] do a ton of other things. Um I'm looking to create some sort of readiness dashboard for the
075students. Um this will be kind of like what pathway that they're following and what the the littleer things the smaller things that they're accomplishing which in within each pathway. Also some of the other things that may not fall within a pathway like you you what is what does your readiness indicators look like? Have you taken the SATs, right? Do you do you have a driver's license? like that. Those sort of things that we want students to be able to have accomplished before they leave high school. Does it always associate with things directly in school? No. But we want to know that they're they're on the right track for whether they're going out into a career or whether they're going into college. Um, so again, I've been working with Ed Vista to create a dashboard and
076Ed Vista told us told me at least that we were one of the only districts to come to them and and start to create this sort of dashboard. Um, so that's kind of cool to be on the forefront of that. And they're kind of using us as as their guinea pig as well. And myself and Tom running document of of what we'd like to see and and how we'd like it to look. and they kind of shoot us an update every so often of what their tech people have come up with and and then we continue to modify from there. Again, I want it to be studentbased where the students are are controlling what they've done and then an adult administrator counselor, they're going through it and that's that's what's leading a lot of their
077conversations with their yearly meetings with with the counselors. Um I've also joined I was lucky enough to [cough] to join the redefining ready that through New York State. I did it down at Kixaki nationally um which was through um ASA ASA which is a superintendent uh guild. This one they created is just through for New York State. Uh it includes two site visits. We went out to late October went to East Syracuse Monoa. They are a high school of about 1,400 students but they are very very tech driven. They do a lot of I think it's like 80% of their Boseis programs are in-house. Um so it was kind of cool how how they did things. I enjoy going out into seeing different high schools and how how they operate, how they're looking at portraiture
078of a graduate and what they're doing. Uh there's monthly meetings that go along with that cohort. So a lot of administrators, some superintendent are all on these meetings and and people are just sharing out their ideas. We we have guest speakers that come in um that are from other states that are already doing it as well. So it's a great asset to have. Um again, we met with all the supervisors, all the coordinators about, you know, touching upon everything that we're doing and looking for. We want to know from the people in the classrooms what they want their students, our students to accomplish within their classes, within their departments. you know, they're on the forefront. They're they're the ones that are teaching every single day, and they need to know kind of what our students
079goals are, what their goals are, and it's important to have the people that are that are on the ground running, knowing having a part in all of this. Um, and again it broke down into then myself going into each department and talking about portrait of graduate what what they could be doing to be a part of it whether it be creating new classes or what they want their students to be able to take from from their learning. [snorts] >> That's it. >> Yes. >> Bill, do you know how many students we have at Boseies in any of the uh the trades plumbers or >> Not off the top of my head. I just looked at >> we usually have about 35 to 40 students every year attending. >> That's something I think we've got to
080I think we should be that should be on the list is what I'm getting at because that's another avenue for these kids. Not just collegebound or put, you know, graduate and go get find a job. We've got to we've got to give them if they are so inclined, they've got to go become a plumber or [snorts] a welder or a mechanic or whatever. We uh we need to push them on that. >> Yeah, we we need to open those spots up. I think some of the things that we're looking to try to do here is if you're undecided, you're going to get an opportunity to have an experience in many of those same fields versus it's all in on plumbing or it's all in on electrical trades. Having some of those introductory courses also gives
081students an idea of say do I like it or not? Whereas the Bosey's approach is I go over to electrical trades, I find out after the first semester I don't like it. there's not really a lefthand turn on the reverse track. So, we're trying to give kids more experiences not only in the middle school level, the high school level. >> Well, I think it's great that Kristen's bringing in, you know, trade schools and and for them to come in and talk to students that want to just hear the about the basic information of it. >> There's definitely a need, Mr. G. There's no doubt. So, every uh you know, we all see the jobs that are out there. we're living it every day when we're trying to uh do the construction projects that the pace
082that we are building things is contingent upon staffing uh whether it's electrical workers or plumbers and things like that. Um you know that's that's definitely a need in our area. So >> yeah, Kristen had over 210 speakers come in last year to address different classes and of those obviously it's going to be college and career readiness but then in the career aspect of it. we were pulling in an awful lot of individuals like Australia's talking about um and it it is always a welcome audience that is coming to them and sometimes it's you know standing room only in Kristen's classroom and we have to find other other ways to to present that information there's a need and we're addressing it >> still pathway right >> we do it's in um steam >> when does boseis
083start usually 11th and 12th grade >> 11th and 12th grade and when is it introduced uh in terms of the the courses, it's introduced usually at the end of their uh middle or sophomore year as they're starting to look at their classes for their junior year. >> Conversations do begin as early in se as seventh grade though. >> Okay. >> As far as like this is this is the spectrum of things that you can consider. >> Piggybacking on that, are we limited to 11th and 12th grade or can they >> that's when those courses are there? um they they don't typically um offer them up to 9th to 10th graders because of the prerequisite skills. It's everything's been based upon graduation credits. So, you need to have your English and math skills in our 10th
084grade before you're able to win it. That may adjust and change. Um >> you know, we see uh look at Albany as an example. >> They um run many of those same courses in house because they have our students. They developed a program that was recently in the newspaper for Barbarine. Yeah. Uh, [snorts] fantastic. We don't have that right now, but you know, can we piggyback off on that and see if maybe some of our kids would be interested either have a work-based learning experience to do that or potentially go to to somewhere like uh Albby High School to to >> collaborate to come see >> outanding. So the size of the school certainly allows for greater opportunities and for our kids we want to provide those opportunities right uh to explore things give them
085pathways so they understand if you're going this pathway here are some of the the jobs you may be able to get into but that doesn't lock them into a one-sizefits-all approach and >> they typically a a student says about 30 or so would go for half a day at the Bosei center and then half a day at academic >> correct yeah they're usually an am or pm cohort and typically in some programs are two years, some some are one year. Most of the one year or senior driven PET tech and some of the newer courses, but electrical trades, there was a newer program that they opened up a great new facility that's uh underscribed, but it's um >> equipment. >> Uh no, it was uh call it maker space type of activities. I mean there's
086a hodge podge of of everything from a little bit of electronics to lip design uh safety and things about heavy equipment is a new program that they've got over there. >> Um and you know that may give students a direct pathway if you know that as a junior or senior. >> We got a lot of kids who aren't quite sure where they want to be and change courses. So having the opportunities to have an interest in nursing may spark uh an opportunity for a student to go on to nursing school without taking the the the Boseis group. >> Could could a student at Boseies get Hudson Valley credit for example? >> Um they may I don't know if Boseies is offering university and high school credit courses. Um I don't think they do currently. Not
087that they can't, but uh I'm not aware that they're offering >> but they have employ like especially in the trades they have employers there at the the job fairs. It's >> the job placement for students that are graduating through many of the Boseies programs is [clears throat and snorts] >> the opportunities are outstanding for high school kids moving up. Let me go to the other [clears throat] end of the spectrum here. What about the student who you can identify whatever means that entails that has no interest in that stuff? How do you how do you draw them? How do you get them on the hook and reel them in? What do you do? And I'm sure there's some some that are left or right or whatever. They just don't want anything to do with it.
088>> What are you doing for them? It's creating that relationship to find out what what they are interested in. They got to be interested in something. >> Who does that relate? Who works with them? The classroom teacher, the counselor. >> It's a little bit of both. >> Somebody that you may see in the hallway or one of your assistants. >> Yeah, it's it's a little it's a little bit of everyone. We have our a mentoring program that we that we started last year with our freshmen. Uh we are working towards doing a peer-to-peer mentoring as well. We want to know that every student has someone to go to and that that go-to person is ultimately the one that finds out if they're not willing to share out with anyone else what what they're interested in,
089what what's going to keep them here, right? Because we all know chronic absentee is is a huge thing. So what what can that adult be doing or that that friend, that peer to get them to be in school? What's going to push them to be successful? Okay. Yes. >> So, one of the things that um I think was most notable between draft one of portrait of a graduate and draft the final draft [snorts] is that CRSE went from being one of the components to being the center. And I didn't hear anything around how integrating culturally responsive and sustaining education framework is going to apply here. So I'd love to hear what work you've done about that with that. >> Honestly, that much. >> Okay. Um that's something that we'll be continuing when we when we
090do meet with more of the community members and then also deeper into the departments what we can pull out of them within classes that we offer and with within the broad spectrum of of every department. We obviously want that to be a big part. >> Yeah. Well, it's supposed to be the center right at the center of all of it. Um and so I think that that's really important. I agree with my board colleagues around like some of the offerings we have are tremendous. Um I think we've done an outstanding job of aligning coursework with Hudson Valley credit or you know we do ALB credit or you know Sunni credit whatever um but there is a demographic of students that we are underserving. Um and I would say to Mr. Keel's comment and Mr. Ke's
091comment it is some of the students who don't have a [snorts] niche. they they haven't found their niche. Um, and I would guess that if we were to look at some of those demographics, it will absolutely be um some of our black and brown kids, some of our um economically disadvantaged kids, our students with disabilities, etc., etc., that are sort of already margin marginalized folks that are at the center of this model for a reason. [laughter] Um, and that is what New York State is telling us. So I would really love to see at our next update some real deep understanding of what we are doing to make our existing curriculum really um the English curriculum is a perfect example. It is not culturally responsive um it is majority culture um almost across board um
092as has been you know the experience that I've seen. So, I would really love to hear more about that. And I'm also wondering, I know that one of the disadvantages of the Boseies program is that it's not until they're juniors and seniors. I'm wondering if there's an opportunity to create some sort of exploratory course in the nth and tth grade. Nth grade CTE is is aable now, right? like so what kind of intro to CTE class might exist where students could do sort of a representative sampling of the different things that might be offered at Boseies to see what they might be interested in. Um and then I my last question is have you had any thoughts about partnering with the department of labor to Mr. comment earlier around like some of the stuff is
093great if kids are interested in it but if there's not a job market for it right um like where you know we have to sort of which is why I'm thrilled to see nursing right like we are in the capital region where there are ton like not only hospital jobs but right like home health care and all of that stuff like and it's a if you look at the department labor's data on the most in demand jobs that can't be filled like those types of position itions are really really high on the list. Um we had the department of labor come in twice already this year. So I'm just suggesting that that be an avenue um that one consider. Do we have any teachers that participate in the department of labors ambassador program to teacher
094ambassador program? That's like a paid experience. So teachers can get paid over the summer to basically go out in industry and understand how to connect their teaching, you know, their framework, their curriculum to the labor market. So I can put you in touch with that person if that would be helpful. But that's a really awesome program that is paid for teachers. >> We do have an intro to skilled trades course that's a second year semester based course. It does give that that type of exposure targeting nth and 10th grade. >> Awesome. for the exact reason that you said. >> Very good. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Agenda item number 10, reports and recommendations for action. This is letters A through N. If there's any specific commentary, >> I have my favorite question on letter
095F. [clears throat] >> Change. I know you didn't spell them out here, but what's the total change or minimum or is it a lot of zeros? >> We had a lot of discovery this summer. Um, so there are some large ones. um the high school, the framing, the framework that attaches to the wall. Um the the new windows that went on the structural steel was attached. So we had a large order there. Um the Lisha Hill discovered abatement um asus problem in the windows was also a large one that we saw. Um those two alone were about 600,000. We do have contingency. We have a plan for it. Um there are some small ones in here that are also details, >> but I could look up on the different stages. >> Each um has a
096list of change if you have any specific questions about them. Um >> I'll be happy to go line by line with you, Mr. Casey. [laughter] Um some of them are, you know, um miss scope, some of them are discovered conditions. Most of the large ones are discovered conditions. Um so it's something that we it was not planned for couldn't planned [clears throat] for once you open a wall and you see that the pipe has right as best fitting you know most of them are wall >> the wall doesn't go up to the ceiling or the infill at the high school was a large one as well summer they took down the walls to redo them in the F-wing and the social English social English social English social English social English social English and social studies
097wing and there was a gap so it wasn't fire rated from the hallway to the classroom we had to infill it to make it fire safe so um also >> after all these years. >> Yes. >> Once you touch it, >> once you know about it, [laughter] >> once you know about it, you have >> once you expose it, you got to fix it. >> So those are discovered conditions um that we we had to address and for the safety of our students and our staff, we have to do them. Um happy to go line by line with you. >> All right. Thank you. >> Do we know do you remember what the contingency was in the original budget? So 3% in the total budget. >> Yeah, we we had there were a few contingencies
098built in. There's a 10% design contingency. There's a 5% um we do a specific 5% um discovered condition contingency. We are over that for some of these. But um there's some where some contractors we are getting a change order deduct because we didn't go through all of our allowance or all of our so it's a balancing act. We are a little over point is there's a contingency built in the budget original budget. Yeah. >> Yeah. There's about 30% undiscovered areas and and allowances. [clears throat] >> What the donation from Hanford Health funds means the principal supplies that feels counter like counterintuitive to the goals of Hanford Health like what kind of supplies? >> I I think it's uh >> just the code that it's being >> Yeah, it goes into principal supplies. that it's able
099to be used for student needs. So that could be a backpack. It could be >> that's the funded >> not office supplies. >> Yeah. Not >> not >> but thank you to Hanford and thank you for to students >> for this generous. [snorts] >> Any other questions? Hearing done >> typewriter. Can I go to a museum? typewriter can go to music. >> We have a lot of them around here. >> There are [laughter] I'll take a motion. Mr. Blakeley, second Mr. Mis on the motion by Mr. Blakeley, seconded by Mr. Misik that the above stated reports and recommendations be approved. All in favor? >> Any opposed? Motion carries nine to zero. Agenda item number 11, personnel instruction. These are pages 11 through 14. Dr. Perry. >> Uh yes, we've got uh some uh new hires
100on here. One of note is a technology teacher. We've been able to hire for second semester recent graduate and we're happy to be able to fill that spot. Some others are for um previous resignations. The art teacher, we had a resignation from high school art teacher and we're able to uh find some really good candidates and recommending Riley for that art spot. Um some others are just due to uh leave positions uh being filled with uh no way that these are extended. [snorts] Any questions? Hearing none. I'll take a motion. Mr. Casey seconded. Mr. Keane on the motion made by Mr. Casey, seconded by Mr. Keane that the instruction personnel changes listed on the attached sheets dated December 9th, 2025 be approved. All in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries 9 to zero. Agenda item number
10112, personnel support, pages 15 through 17. Dr. Perry, personnel support uh some additional um driver substitutes, which is good. Um the uh one termination was due to attendance issues. Um we had offered for the individual to stay on as a sub, but they chose not to. But otherwise, pretty standard. um course for support staff. We're we're glad to see a few uh additional uh driver substitutes coming on the the roles. Any questions? Hearing none, I'll accept a motion. Miss Gigleello second. Mr. Larabe. On the motion by Miss Giggleello, seconded by Mr. Larby that the support personnel changes listed on the attached sheets dated December 9th 2025 be approved. All in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries 9 to zero. Agenda item number 13 resolution human rights day. That's December 10th which is tomorrow. Mr. Katadurian rights
102day tomorrow. Um just shared with you a document that came out from Lanigan. Um, just wanted to highlight how all five buildings, our elementary buildings, really worked together in concert. There's a obviously something that they're going to share out as far as an announcement that gave you a briefing on what that is. Um, there's a readalong that they're doing together, which I think is great, and there's also a video that they're sharing. So, they did a nice job collectively of working toward how they wanted to message that, and I wanted you guys all to have eyes on that. If you're going to be in the buildings to hear it, certainly you can put your ears to it and hear Mr. Dollar saying those wonderful words. or any of our elementary schools. >> Very good. Look
103forward to that. Thank you very much. Any other questions? Hearing none, I'll take a motion. Mr. Blakeley, second, Miss Giggley. On the motion made by Mr. Blakeley, seconded by Miss Giggleello that the above stated resolution be approved. All in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries 9 to zero. Agenda item number 14 future meetings. Anything of note? >> Uh just the January 6th meeting, the accountability board operations. We're going to do a budget workshop. So if you're able to attend that, all are welcome. It's kind of a kickoff to our budget season for 267. [laughter] >> And Dave, the January 13th is an addition everybody. January 13th is an addition that was due to the uh snow day graduation hall of fame committee meeting on 13th. >> Yes. >> Right. And that precedes a regular regular meeting.
104The January 6 is executive session only and you'll be hearing from Miss Lan again soon enough. >> I already did. >> You already did. >> It came today. >> Oh man, she's good. All right. Very good. Um, we will be going into executive session for a personnel matter. Um, I will need a motion, Mr. Keane, seconded by Miss Gibliello. On the motion made by Mr. Keane, seconded by Miss Gibliello, to enter the executive session to discuss an employment matter. Um, all in favor? Any opposed? The motion carries 9 to zero. 7:59 is the time.