001All right. >> Thank you. >> The regular meeting of the South County Board of Education is now called to order. Roll call. Thomas Blakeley >> here. >> Brian >> here. >> Stephanie Kogan here. Vincent Fenzo >> here. >> Rose Giggleello >> here. >> Jennifer Hulahan >> here. >> Mike Keane >> here. >> David Keel >> here. >> Christopher Laravey >> here. >> And Robert Mek >> here. May we all stand for the pledge to the flag. 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. >> Thank you all for attending tonight. >> Agenda item number three, approval of the minutes. hyperl is the regular meeting of the October 7th, 2025 minute meetings meeting
002minutes, sorry. Any questions, comments, edits? Hearing none, I'll take a motion to approve Mr. Blakeley. Second, Mr. Mis on the motion made by Mr. Blakeley, seconded by Mr. music that the minutes of the regular meeting of October 7th, 2025 be approved. All in favor? >> Any opposed? Motion carries 9 to zero. Agenda item number four, superintendent update, Dr. Perry. >> Thank you, M. Uh good evening everyone. Thank you for joining us tonight. Um earlier tonight, uh we had uh in our board office meeting, I talked a little bit about the district operational plan. It's a plan that uh encompasses our mission and vision for the district as well as some of our strategic planning and our management plans which gives an outline of what each of our administrative departments uh does as an overview. Um
003that plan will be available on our website by the end of this week. So I just want to make people aware of that if you're looking for some deep reading about the district. It is available. Um we'll be checking for uh anybody that reads it. Um the bus rodeo Saturday we had a a great event. I want to thank uh Brian Sim and our transportation department for putting on a bus rodeo. Um it was a uh recruitment fair as well as a highlight of what our transportation department does each and every day. So, thank you to uh all of our board members and community members who came out to uh to test drive the buses and uh just goes to show what wonderful professionals we have in our transportation department both as our um school
004bus drivers, our school monitors, our mechanics who were driving regularly, and our our assistant and transportation directors. So, really top-notch. Uh they made it uh as easy as possible to learn to drive a bus in five minutes. So, kudos to them. And I encourage anybody that is interested to please contact our transportation department or human resources if you are interested in driving a bus and learning to become a bus driver in our district. It's truly a great occupation but also something we we desperately need. So we appreciate that. Um open house on Saturday. Uh we had a community open house to highlight some of the construction uh completion we've done at the high school. Uh so I want to thank uh Miss McCarthy and the high school staff as well as our students who came
005out on Saturday to uh help uh bring some of our community members around to the various locations. So uh we had about a dozen or or more students from IARE and a couple other uh clubs who came out to support us uh given up their Saturday morning. So I really appreciate those students and and thank them for volunteering. Um two uh things to be aware of. Uh I don't want to steal everybody's thunder, but November 3rd, Monday, 7 o'clock, is our annual faculty recital. It helps to support music scholarships in the district. So please come out, listen to our talented music faculty and and uh students who will also participate with that. And then Thursday the 6th is our academic hall of fame and national honor society, Dr. Green. That is at 6:30 also at
006the high school. So two good nights. Um, and I know there's some other things going on, concerts and stuff, so I'll leave that up to others talk ethics. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you very much. Agenda item number five, new business. >> Any board members would like to speak, >> Mr. Casey. >> I have some old business if that would fit in. I don't see an item here. >> Go right ahead. >> A number of weeks ago, um, Mr. Barup was in talking about some literacy and math scores and things. Where are we with that, Mr. catch. Dorian, >> glad you asked. Um, so math scores were up based on on that data and that feedback and we're continuing to try and push forward and make sure that we're making positive gains for our
007student experiences when it comes to math and that goes K through 12. Um, more specifically talking about literacy and what Mrs. Judge has been doing in her new role. Um, she worked with myself, um, Mr. Bakus and a select group of others are putting together a a literacy survey to try and see where we are across the board with K6 literacy instruction, our overall ELA instruction and just look at what we have in scope and sequence of what we're offering and what it is that we're going to be doing moving forward to try and have more continuity. So, the scope and sequence itself needs to be ironed out. She's working on that. Um, in addition to that, we're looking at new programming that we're introducing, but we want to make sure that we do the
008roll out properly. So, Mrs. judge had a meeting with myself, Mr. McAllister, Dr. Perry, and we looked at, you know, the best way of introducing some concepts and rolling it out so that it' be well received. And we also have some longitudinal kind of growth for it. And in addition, that literacy survey that we had worked on, she then introduced it yesterday to uh a group of people during our PD day, for superintendent conference day. And on the whole, um, some of the feedback that we got is going to help kind of shape where we go, what our next superintendence conference day is going to reveal for PD. And I think we're looking at some positive gains. But the biggest emphasis, if we're looking at that, is how can we improve our writing instruction in
009conjunction with our overall literacy results because that seems to be an area of concern, an area of inconsistency across. >> Is there a target group that like third grade, second grade, where where are you with that? Yeah, I mean we want to really build uh toward our three four five reading program, but the the writing across the board, I mean, when we're talking K all the way through 8, that needs a lot of attention and we have to look honestly at how we kind of scale back from what the region's experience is in 11th grade and then work backward and incrementally uh and be intelligent about how we structure that. You know, we also have our state exams that work from eth grade on backward from there, too. But it's about incrementally how do we
010know just like with a portrait of a graduate when a student is leaving third grade what are the attributes they should be able to have from a literacy standpoint from a math literacy standpoint and what should be expect when they enter into fourth grade and so on from the end fourth grade and to the beginning of fifth grade. So, those are the types of things that we're working out just to make sure that there's a clarity across the district and having that consistency and then being able to have some kind of uh consistent currency of how we are uh looking at data and then we can start to hold one another accountable for where we want to go in the future of our student scores. >> Very good. Thank you, >> Mr. Keane. >> Um
011I also got to attend the bus rodeo. I got to drive. Um >> Oh, I know. I was a passenger. >> You were. Listen, no hit cones. I made it in time. Got the kids where they needed to be. Um >> can we see the cameras? >> Oh, probably. >> There was a GoPro in there. I think communications department will >> I don't know how many have had that chance to actually sit in that seat and you know, um but that's a big vehicle. you've got all those buttons and then I'm picturing 40 angelic kids sitting behind me. Um, so kudos to our drivers that navigate that day in and day out. Um, I'm going to stick to HR. Um, I don't even think that's my retirement gig. So, um, but it was definitely it
012was um, you know, nice to have that opportunity to it's a realistic job preview. It's, you know, that opportunity to sit in someone else's shoes. >> Um, and then on Friday, I got to attend the, um, boys volleyball game. Um, it was an opportunity for the team to honor their fallen teammate. Uh, John Verbbo passed in in February. Um, and they had a ceremony between games. But I think the point that nearly brought me to to a tear was um both teams agreeing to set the score to 1, which was John's number for his school team and his travel team. And the first point they gathered, they sat for 30, you know, they had a timeout for the 30 seconds and they were with the team. But then the second point, it was both teams
013together showing their respect and love for for John and his family. Um, you know, definitely um, tugs on tugs on the heart. You hate to see any family have to to go through that. Um, so I appreciate that they put that out there for the community come out. Student section was fantastic. most well behaved I've seen and you know maybe it's a volleyball thing. So >> very good. Yes. Thank you very much Mr. Larby. >> Uh yeah so uh Dr. Perry speaking on the open house I was uh able to attend uh something I feel as a parent in the district uh that every parent should attend uh the the school uh their open house the parent open house for for the kids. Um very nice event. nice to be able to put um some
014of the new hires that we approve in here face to the names. Um and uh it was nice to see um a former uh teacher that that I had uh amazingly a couple years ago. Um but it was nice to see her again. Um and um so that was a really nice event by all the teachers. I know it's a long day and they really uh do a good job with that. Also, I see Mr. Duffy in attendance. Congratulations to the soccer team. Had a big win last week against a state ranked uh Bethlehem team. Keep it going, boys. So that's it. >> Very good. Thank you very much. Anyone else? >> Visit a few things. Going to be all right. >> Going to be a while. Um our the first youth advisory board meeting
015was on October 9th and that's where Colony CPA North County all meet at the public library and we discuss some community events and volunteering opportunities and our next meeting will be on November 6th and Colony will be chairing the event and then I care has two most recent events are going to be Halloween high on October 29th from 5:00 to 7:30 and then after that we have holiday lights which will be on December 6 from 5:00 to 8 and that'll be encompassing the entire Colony um campus. And then on Monday um on professional development day, myself and a few other students and Mrs. Misc the career planning center um guidance counselor went to the New York State Bar Association to watch their media literacy education safeguarding democracy in a digital world conference and we talked
016about u media literacy and that led into civics no child left behind and Porsche the graduate and we got to listen to um Melinda Pson the teacher teachers union president commissioner Rosa for the education department and Senator Shelley Meyer who championed the student board rep um legis legislation and a bunch of other education um pieces and there are several different professional development opportunities for teachers in the future which I can talk to anybody interested about and I'll get I have the agenda here if anyone would like to look at it and then after that today me and Mr. We'll discuss different ways for myself to reach out to students and get engage information for them so I can bring it to the board. And we're going to we're going to talk about different ideas, a
017mailbox, a Google form, something that we can do in the future. And lastly, on a very happy note, CCHS has um the drama club line and Q has decided that Mamma Mia will be their musical this year. And that's all I have. >> Fabulous. Thank you very much. How are they going to get anybody flying on Mamma Mia? They'll find a way. >> Yeah, no doubt. Thank you very much. It's great. Miss Julian, >> I don't have any new business per se. I'm wondering though how the bus rodeo went like from a recruitment perspective. I'm just curious. I thought it was such a creative idea that >> um probably underwhelming. Um it's always good to get that out there from >> first time >> perspective. We've had other uh learn to drive events and we've
018usually gotten two or three I think u maybe in that same ballpark. What we did get was good exposure and hopefully that will outlast. I got a call from East Greenbush that they want to do something similar >> and want to know what we did. So hopefully that helps to get the word out and brings people in after that Saturday. >> I did make a note here. Channel 10 had a great story. >> Uh she herself drove and um >> interviewed Dr. Perry and and Mr. Sim. So >> hopefully that exposure is is beneficial. >> Yeah. 10 13 even if somebody wasn't there or get there, they saw it on rerun and uh Yeah, it was nice. That's >> Anyone else? >> All right, I'll just finish up too again with the bus rodeo. Yeah,
019I was asked to drive and I was very nervous about it, I got to tell you. Um it was really cool. Uh, I was up very high. You have the windows all around you. You have a million mirrors. It was probably the easiest vehicle I've ever driven because because of all of that. Um, I can drive a bus now. >> I will not drive it with any children on it, but if I if a bus needs to get from point A to point B >> and there's no turns or anything and I don't need to back up or anything else, >> crossing, >> railroad crossings, anything like that, >> certified for those? I did not know we were timed, so I took my sweet time because I am, you know, methodical and careful and everything.
020Speeding me greedy over here, though. I don't know. You might some people whiplash. >> I I want a rerun because I think I cut my time in half. I'm afraid, >> but it was it was really great. So, you know, anybody listening, it is it is something that don't be afraid of it. It was really cool to try. You could you can do it. You can do it. And even the instruction he was >> he was terrific >> because not just steer this way, pull the bottom right of the wheel >> to, you know, so that you knew where where you're going. It was just >> I don't, you know, I taught my kids to drive, but that wasn't anything that I talked about. It was steer that way, steer that way, >> right? It
021was very specific. It was really cool. >> So after that, we went over to the open house at the high school. It was really neat. I did hear that Mrs. Ambrosio came over and stopped by and she was very touched by everything that was uh there to uh to honor her husband. So, that was really neat. And last night, South Colony PTA district council invited me to attend the Northeast Region PTA office officer and administrators dinner at um Franklin >> Plaza. Plaza Terrace Ballroom. Yes, Terrace last night in Troy. It was just terrific. Thank you very much. Always a meaningful evening even though I didn't win uh one single basket raff. Our South County people really did clean up last night with the basket. Always >> always always. Um and that is that. Thank you
022very much. A lot of good things coming up. Please make sure to go out and attend all these terrific things. All right. Agenda item number six, communications board meeting public comments. Miss Lenny, >> nothing. >> All right. Nothing online. Thank you very much. Agenda item number seven, board committee reports. 7A is audit finance. Mr. Blakeley, if I recall, you were not here for that. So, let's turn that over to Dr. Perry. >> Yes, this was our uh external audit report. John Cuz John Chris from CUZAC and Company came in and gave us a clean audit. Uh kudos to our business office uh Miss Martinez and her staff and Miss Mallister um doing an outstanding job and continuing to uh keep our processes in place on a consistent basis. No findings of significant weakness were found.
023Uh so we appreciate that report. Um also uh the internal auditor update was there. U again uh clean reports uh from those areas. We are making a shift in the internal auditor to MMB for this year. But uh overall as good as news as you can have. >> All right. >> I just want to compliment again. I I know I do this every time we have this meeting about Jaclyn and her staff and how good of a job they do. Um I don't know if people saw in the news recently, but there was a district that had like a huge cyber security thing with their funding and their capital project money. and uh you know I feel confident in our systems and our checks and balances in place because you have a really good team
024who's overseeing finances. So kudos to those guys and all the hard work they put in because they do a lot. >> Yes. Thank you very much. Any questions on audit finance? All right. Hearing none. Uh 7B policy. Uh Mr. Larby, were you were you absent on this one or? >> No, I wasn't. But I I was we're not uh actually um I did look over the policies. >> Okay, so you're ready to roll. >> Yeah. Yeah, go right ahead. This is uh the point where the participation in government students really want to pay attention. Um got a final reading and approval for four policies. Um does anybody have any questions on them? uh 9020.1 9101 9141 and 9140.1-R with having that. >> Okay. On behalf of the policy committee, upon the motion made by committee
025chair member Christopher Larby, recommendations 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, Mr. Larabe. Agenda item number eight, reports for information. This goes from A to Oh, just just a excuse me. Oh, this is this is Mr. Boardman's. We're not going to rush this one. Sorry about that, Mr. Boardman. I'm on to the next one. K through 12 ENL universal pre pre kindergarten update. Mr. Borman, the supervisor of special programs, will provide an update on the ENLUPK programs. Mr. Boardman, take it away. >> Thank you and thank you uh for having me back. Uh I brought some friends, but obviously not good enough friends. They didn't want to sit here. Um but I I thought it
026was important you guys hear from me every year. So, I thought it was important to bring some uh friends and more importantly, you know, some professionals that are on the front line with us at the UPK program. So, Aaron Goble, of course, is one of our veteran UPK teachers. Um, and this year, Aaron is serving in a capacity that's very exciting that you guys were uh grateful uh gracious to help us out with. and that was she's acting as, if you will, kind of a strategist for some of our different programs to help out with some of the gaps that we have, help the teachers, uh, you know, some of the the areas that we can't quite always get to. U, we also have Stacy Gverki who is our CPSE chair. Stacy by trade is
027a speech pathologist, so she brings that lens to the program as well. Uh, and Stacy also works uh with our our middle school uh cse as well. So, one person that I could not attend was Brianna Guari. She's one of our ENL teachers that is going between all of our programs last year. Great success with that. So, uh very exciting. Saw a lot of uh growth in our multilang uh lingual learners. That's what they are at that point. >> Um but a lot of growth. Some of them did not even have to go through and uh take the nice tells. That's how successful she was with her interventions. So, they're here. Uh I figured, you know, you guys may want to ask some questions to some of them or, you know, they can jump in
028as they see fit. So, hopefully everybody got a copy of the >> other way. Other way, >> this we go. All right. So, hopefully everybody got a copy of the update last week. These are our numbers as they speak. Um, again, we added a a fivehour program at Saddola this year. So, all five buildings have a five-hour program. Uh, we also embarked on the collaboration classroom with child that came in late if you remember because uh that came after the lottery. There was some things that we needed to work through to make sure that we were okay uh having this collaboration. So far so good. Uh Dr. Perry and I were there about two weeks ago. Great classroom. They have a certified teacher uh in the program which is part of uh the collaboration and
029right now we're about 13 out of 16 students there. Okay. So we're we're about three shy there and we're about uh 10 right now shy in our two and a half hour programs. I'm working with Carara and Dana to get some information out there. Excuse me. I've been in in a hospital for the past week with my mom. So, the voice is not all there. Uh working with communications to get that out. Let folks know that we do have openings. >> Okay. Um some uh if you will the highlights from there, uh prek on my way is we're we're kind of fully ingrained in that. Last year was kind of our our first adaptation of it. Uh the teachers are using it. Many of them love it. There's a lot of great resources uh in
030in the curriculum itself to to plug and play. Remember again, it wasn't to discard everything that they worked on previously to that point. That was very important to all of us. It was something to uh accompany what they've done, meet the standards, move forward. We added the uh early intervention support with with Aaron who uh right now is a couple weeks into it. So far so good. >> So far so good. So great. if you want to touch base on any of that area at all. >> Yeah, it's been great. It's an an evolving role and as we see the different kids in different needs and different classes, it's kind of like so there's nine as Bill said, there's nine different sections. So, I'm kind of spread between all of them. Um some kids at
031this point starting the year I'm helping with the social emotional learning to do school and getting working through those things. And um in my experience in prek, the kids do seem to eventually settle in. A lot of those kids settle in. So hopefully we'll be able to do some more targeted skills in the academic area too. Um so every class is different and so my days are different. Um and just working with the teachers to um meet the needs of the different kids in the classes. Another great part has been the parent piece. I'm able to really because I'm there every day. I can pop out. Hi Global. Nice to meet you. I've been I've met a lot of them and have quick conversations about what we're seeing and trying to work with the families
032that way too. Um, so that's been a great piece and working with Stacy to help move along. Um, you probably know the county process is very tedious to get um, services in place for kids who may or may not need them. Um, so working together with Stacy to try to get that ball rolling quicker and try to just cut some move it move it along a little bit quicker. Um, I think that's the highlight. It's really been it's been going really well. Um, just figuring out each teacher what how I can support them best. That's what I've from my years in prek. Like you could always use that extra set of hands and there's always those things you want to get to that are on the back burner, but you have to prioritize what you're
033doing. So, it's nice for me to have the time even to sit and work with a small group of kids where I'm not worrying about what's happening everywhere else in the room. I can actually really really dedicate my time and focus to you and not be like, "Hey, you sit down over here and what are you doing and what's happening in the bathroom and all those little fires that you put out every day in prek." that I found has been so beneficial to like the social piece right now role playing if they're playing and you want all the pieces well let's talk about that what can we do whereas in the past you're kind of like you're doing it but you have eyes in the back of your head trying to figure out what everybody
034else is doing so it's been nice to really feel a focus on that so I think that's the gist of it >> and I would add just collecting data points you know for information for Stacy to be able to use if if kiddos need to look to be evaluated and things of that nature so um you know so far so good and and again grateful for your support in regards to that. Um touch base just briefly we had an in enhanced screening in June that was fantastic. Uh we had whole gamut there. So as parents came in with their kiddos we were able to uh screen them for obviously uh health health situations with our nurses. Uh we had uh Stacy there for speech and also kind of that CPSE lens. Um, we had teachers
035obviously there to to get the information that they needed. We had Brianna Gu W Guari there for our ENL uh piece of that to screen some of those kiddos. Um, it was fantastic. Again, even through all of that, it's only a small snippet. So, some of those kids will come through, they they look they look like rock stars. They get in after a couple weeks and and they kind of settle and things start to kind of appear. And that's that's where we're trying to make some changes and get them the support that they need. I think questions on UPK >> at all. >> Are any of the sections integrated? >> We wish. >> Not yet. >> Yeah, >> I can speak a little bit. >> Yeah, go ahead. >> So, um, just to kind of
036piggyback off of our screening, that was really beneficial this year because what we were able to do is see our students who are coming into us and we were all able to lay eyes on them. Our new instrument called the Brigance looks at all areas of development, not just academic um not just academic skills. So, it's really nice to see where students are, behavioral, um fine motor skills, speech and language. So, we're really kind of able to see where they are and if any of the students need any um extra assessments, then we can begin that process then. So my role as CPSSE is to um talk to parents when they have concerns about their children and get the referral process started and we have timelines and regulations that we have to follow. So just
037um I'm sure it's this really isn't public knowledge, but the unfortunate part at the CPSC level is that we have to share all of the evaluating agencies with the capital district. So all of the school districts in or all of the schools in Auburn County are using the same evaluating agencies. So even though it's early in the school year, it's only October, our evaluating agencies are booking out until December and January. So if we have students who we don't identify very early on, which was a really positive piece of of doing our screening in June, then we're really lagging with getting them the services that they need when they need them. So, I think that's something that we should, you know, just continue to move forward with and still better our practice with our early
038screenings and see how we can, you know, help that process along as well. Um, currently we have 12 students, 12 South Colony students who are four years old in an integrated program classroom, a special class integrated setting. So um the ratio there would be six students, one teacher, two teacher assistants to um general students or typical students. So we really could have two integrated classrooms at the preschool level just with the students we have for the 25 26 school year. So the need is there and as our students come in we are seeing a lot more of social emotional deficits that are really challenging to um support if we don't have enough staff. So that's why we were so fortunate that you were able to approve Aaron in this role because it really will be
039beneficial to all of our students. >> So what you would need to have the integrated setting is just increase FTE. Is that correct? and and staffing to go with it as you can imagine. Yeah. Yeah. Very s I know you asked a similar question last year um and even you know seeing what you see your lens in a professional manner. I attended the UPK day at state ed last year and it was interesting to kind of hear how they're forecasting and what what districts what's coming down the pike for uh school districts. And when you're hearing three-year-olds by a certain date, too, it's So anyways, yeah, and and again, this was a piece that by adding this position with Aaron to be able to try to at least kind of put out some of the
040fires while we can and and give those teachers that extra support. It's been huge. >> My last question is around the lottery and if we wait the lottery for any particular characteristics. >> We have not. Yeah, we have not. And and just on that note too, like I shared with you about the collaboration >> for economically disadvantaged >> not according to >> is it different than K12? >> Yeah. Yeah. >> UPK is >> yeah it's universal. So there's not supposed to be any wing to the system. It's one of the things that they've um proposed the legislature to change. I know Gildan was uh recommending that and there was some legislation proposed but currently the lottery does not allow for waiting system for >> right >> correct yeah it's pretty >> targeted and and just
041on a like I said the collaboration classroom that we started that was late so for this year and again I think right now if to predict we'd probably still maintain that collaboration as all goes well we would have that in the lottery so people would know that would an option whereas last year's lottery it wasn't quite an option. We went back to the we went back to the folks that >> and that's where I went. So the 13 heads at child time. Yeah. >> Did they feed from those two and a half hour slots? >> So what we had to do uh because it was so late we went through we had uh let's see we had 20 close to 30 applicants. So we had placement for 162 but then we're adding uh 16 students
042onto We had to go back through everybody that declined. That's right. >> Um we had to um ask, you know, multiple times and then allow them, you know, 48 hours to kind of respond. So that'll be a little bit fine-tuned this year. And also potentially having another collaboration classroom. We're going to take a look at that as well. >> That was ideally one on this side of the district, one on that end of the district. Got some ideas, but we'll see how it goes. Yeah, we we still have some room within the grant. UBK is not fully funded like kindergarten through 12th grade is. So the district right now pays about $650,000 out of general fund in addition to about $650,000 of the state grant that we have for universal prek. So we do have
043about 950 or $70,000 available, but uh that essentially $5,400 per child. So when you have the collaborative efforts like child time that pays for a portion of the day before and after school care that they're offering as a private pay type situation. And so we look at expanding our two and a half hour days to five hours which we've done. Some of the space concerns which we've gotten to a point where we've maximized classroom space in our buildings until Veer comes back on board with a little bit more space and is rebuilt. We're going to struggle to have empty classrooms available for expansion. But that's been really a real benefit to go to that $5 program and um something that we know there's demand for obviously they fill up first. >> Did we see anything
044from the state? I know this was a talking point with the settlement stack and Senator Ashby the last two years >> and I remember one of them saying, "Oh, we should address it." >> Yeah. Unfortunately, the the reimbursement rate of $5,400 is the same since the big 90s when we first started the program. So that's one of the challenges with the collaborative partnerships because in order for child time or anybody else to offer that they have to make it, you know, affordable to hire their staff and meet our requirements and we're able to do it with our South County teachers here. So it's it's definitely been a blessing to continue to expand that program, but there's there's room. I know what Stacy talks about, what Bill talks about that early intervention, three and four year
045olds are handled through the county. Yeah, >> more and more of that is being asked upon by the school district, but that's an economic shift. The county would love us to hire the staff to do that, but we would be paying for an item of of our um you know, budget here, which has a rebound effect for the rest of the program's K12. So, it's it's always an economic decision, but we've been able to expand through that partnership with state grant. And uh obviously >> and Mike there was this u there was another grant that we actually put all our we applied for it but we were we were denied so which would have given us more money for >> be able to do >> that financial piece is just you know and it's going
046to be a bigger struggle as we move forward. >> Yeah. >> Other questions on UPK? >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Um, just jumping to ENL. Uh, that actually that picture was uh part of a real pretty cool event we did. Uh, we did a collaboration with athletics and the and the soccer uh team. Uh, so Vanessa Morello and her cousin Tony Green, who's the soccer coach, Vanessa's one of our teachers over at Beater. We were able to kind of do a World Cup night at one of the soccer uh games. It was it was fantastic. Um, you know, we started small. We got a good number of families out and they were very appreciative. Again, it's the world sport. We got a pretty good stadium there that we want to expose kids to earlier the
047better and uh it was fantastic. So, um just jumping ahead in regards to just updates. So, we literally just did trainings yesterday at the K8 level for Lexi English. Lexi English is going to be a hopefully kind of a game changer for our students to be able to literally practice their language proficiency. Um, it's a computer-based program, but not only is it geared towards uh their language acquisition, there's a lot of academic language uh for some of the core subjects that they'll be able to also hone in on. Uh, we're starting small. We're using it really just for that language acquisition with the idea that we'll eventually turn key that into using it with all of the the classroom teachers as well. Um, to be able to practice that academic language, too. Ed Menum you've
048heard of. Uh it's a long-standing um program here at the high school. So this was what we looked at for our high school students. Edenum is now again Ed Mmentum is a credit recovery uh program that the district's been using for quite some time. through a lot of conversation um you know at the high school level uh especially with our ELA teachers and and our co-e co-e we're trying to come up with ways of what can we do to kind of help boost some of that um that progress that that that students should be making so what we're looking to do with uh the edmentum at the high school for right now is just use it as a support so it's I think it's going to be a huge asset for our ELA teachers to
049be able to kind of help fine-tune some things that that's really what those entering and emerging kiddos should probably focus on. Um eventually it certainly can go into the other core area subjects, but we're going to focus on BLA for right now just to kind of kickstart it. It could potentially be that credit recovery in the summertime for any of our ENL students that aren't successful uh come through the course of the year and then we would look to to fine-tune it moving moving that forward. So very exciting. It just went to a translatable version this summer. Uh, and again, it's it's a known product that the district's been using. So, that's the reason why we we we are adopting it. I've talked previously about the language proficiency team. Language proficiency team uh districtwide is
050really just if you think of it, it's a consulting group of many stakeholders trying to help uh the buildings at the MTSS model, RTI plans, whatever the case may be. We try to help those buildings and those teachers out. We try to kind of work through some of the nuances because again the language def uh deficiency certainly can kind of hinder any progress. So we got to be very cautious in in trying to you know label and and give kids IEPs if if it's really not that. So it's it's kind of a fine-tuned type of a of a process. So uh what else? Um, Cece Chung, Cece Chung, if you have not met Cece, she's wonderful. She is one of our uh, psychologists. She is over at Lysa Kill. She is also part-time with us
051with ENL. Um, of oftentimes it's not enough time for us with ENL. This year we're trying to get her into as many buildings as possible. The goal basically to work with our building psychologists, work with our teachers, and more importantly, work with our students and families. Uh there's a lot of needs that that that population has and Cece herself, a former um English language learner, uh has a passion behind it and I think we're going to be in good shape having Cece on our team. She was instrumental uh with our language proficiency team as well. Touch base, just a couple again opportunities that we do throughout the course of the year. Um I actually just attended last week with our uh Stacy Swanson, our ENL teacher at the high school. uh Kristen Misk at the
052career planning center. They took a tour of Hudson Valley. I was able to kind of piggyback jump over there. Great turnout. Uh we had probably had a good 25 30 students. A lot of great questions that they were asking, you know, the the counselors and and the support at Hudson Valley. Um so that was wonderful to be part of. Um, of course we know our multi-anual uh multicultural festival that will occur next year. Um, this Friday there's going to be um Hispanic night at uh San Creek. Really kind of all of our middle schools combined. So that's a first. Uh should be fun. A lot of good music and a lot of good food there. Touched on that. This is just a snapshot of what our top five home languages are. Um, again, Spanish, Pashtu,
053Chinese, Arabic, uru, >> and then these were our nicest lab results. They were awesome. Um, we had a lot of folks command out. We probably had uh almost I think we had 18% of our students command out, which is a level five. Um, that means that, you know, if you will, they are they're comfortable enough and and they've passed everything that says that they should be good to go uh and be able to kind of fly on their own. We monitor them. We still continue to offer them uh any kind of um accommodations that they may need. But by that point, we've had great success that once they command out, they've done a great job as as kind of just uh you know, emerging into all the classes, your level four and your level three.
054I I always say you're you want to look at like a Pac-Man. So the smaller the mouth, which is level one and level two, um the better. Uh so we're doing a pretty good job and you can see what those what those percentages are across the board. And again, just a reminder, that is that end of the year state assessment that determines their language proficiency. And I'm I'm going to say I think all but one student um made a jump of at least one language proficiency level if not multiple. So um our teachers are doing a phenomenal job. I also have to say so are our classroom teachers. So is the district as a whole because of what we've done over the course of the years of just welcoming them. They're providing a welcoming environment.
055So, >> hey Bill, is there a specific age that >> it might be the quickest to >> the earlier? Yeah. So, that's that whole early intervention, Mr. Larby. So, >> uh that's the reason why we were able to plug in granari at UPK. We saw kids we we kind of took a a gauge of of where they were the ear and that's only one day a week she was jumping in with them uh to work with them. So, the earlier the better. And if you think of the models that other parts of the world use when they teach students language, it's earlier not later. So our high school students as they're entering into our country for the first time, you know, they're they're moving towards that. That's a harder way to kind of uh adopt
056the language takes a little bit longer. >> Any other questions? >> Two questions. first your your first slide talked about or showed uh the uh the students that are in ENL. >> Yeah. >> Um how many new people? >> Oh, good question. So, I'm going to back up. Last year, we finished I think it was we had 360 take the nicest lats. So, to start the year as we were kicking off in September, I think we were about two we were around two high 280s. Uh and then through, you know, we call it the summer rush, uh which is that registration of of ENL students coming in. And so right now we're up to 332 and that that's probably changed since, you know, two days ago when I put that together. That just kind of
057gives you a gauge of of the um of the numbers and what we're grows every year. >> Yeah. So to answer your question, my anticipation is I would say by the time we get to the nicest last, which is in the spring, we'll probably be up to that 360 number, if not further. That has been our trend over the past years that I've been part of the program. >> Okay. My my second question is about the uh UPK multi-ingual learners. >> Do the teachers have uh ENL support? So, this was our first year that you guys granted us the opportunity to have an ENL teacher who rotated through all of the buildings and I Aaron was in the classroom and I I I don't want to speak for her, but I think it was an
058asset. >> Oh, having last year. Yes. It's always very good to have extra hands and I think the kids pre-K is such a great level, too, because the kids are the immersion is there and they're talking about all these things. So, the natural way for them to learn. But Brianna was a great addition to the program. Yeah. >> So probably of those 44, how many are non-English speakers at all. >> Um well to be fair, of the 44, I I would probably guess venture about a quarter of them. Got to the point where we knew we didn't have to provide them with a nice, which is an official, you know, you go through a screening. So the teachers will go through and they'll screen and they'll ask a lot of questions, not only with them,
059but also with their their parents as well. And just through that determination, working with the UPK teachers on feedback of how they were doing the classroom, we were able to kind of determine that they didn't even need to to make the nicer. She had kind of, if you will, an approximate level of where they were. There's not an official test at the UPK level because they're not officially ENL until kindergarten. Um, but she was able to kind of gauge an approximate level. And again that level I'm going to say threearters of them probably jump to I'm going to say two um language levels. >> Very good. Thank you. >> One of the challenges that Bill's continued to advocate for is that we get those UPK students they're you know in the county services for three
060and four year olds but they still come with additional support. Sometimes you call them twice exceptional with students who may have IEP needs and also have the language needs. Um, you know, the funding source doesn't equate to that. That dollar amount that I mentioned per child doesn't equate to these extra services, but it pays off in the long run. So, the community and and the board has been instrumental in putting those resources in play. And I got to give Bill credit. He's constantly, you know, banging the drum to say, "We need this. We need this." because he's he's seen good results as a result. So I know when he asks for things budget budget time, it's not because it's an extra it's a need. >> Thank you. >> How many of the students are or
061what percentage are long-term like past the threshold of how we would expect them to naturally progress through the next or next slot levels? >> You're going ENL. >> Sorry. Uh, how many would be >> like long-term else that have, you know, just not tested out of nice slot. >> I I would say probably ballpark a quarter. I think that's a fair number to kind of to say, you know, the test is isn't, you know, test takers in general and you get to things of that nature and how difficult it is. Um, that's probably a fair number. >> What kind of different interventions do those students get who are Like I'm thinking specifically about students who because it cognitize their schedule in such a manner that then they can't access you know our upper level you
062know our electives and the things that are going to give them career pathways as much if they have to take you know all of their 154 minutes. >> So those you you're tinkering with that kind of twice exceptional kiddo right like that's that's kind of what you're talking about there. I'm talking about students who are, you know, past the sort of, you know, two to three year threshold of, you know, they're they they're stuck at transitioning. They're stuck at expanding and therefore we still have to give them their minutes, which means they're not able to access elective coursework and other coursework of interest that, you know, helps them sort of steer into their postsecary. actually CC this year we just adopted a new tool like the it's an evaluation tool a little bit more fine-tuned
063to the ENL student um that we're kind of excited about and see how that works um for us I you know I think in general teachers you know they are always going above and beyond in regards to what they can and provide them and different opportunities you know we have afterchool programs and a lot of times we look at those kiddos and and try to make sure that they're in our enl clubs. We're trying to make sure that they're coming during their summer time. >> Um, you know, I it's frustrating. You know, I think anybody that is in the field knows that. You see it yourself in your district, too. >> Yeah. But, >> um, at the high school level, on that note, too, I think that's something that we're looking at. you know, we're
064getting a 16, 17, 18 year old entering student and to be able to try to get them across the finish line with all of the requirements from New York State is not the easiest. >> And so that's thus the reason why we're looking at at Menum as well to kind of bring that in. They can now kind of use that at home >> uh to try to help kind of at a self-pace uh at with their their home language. And then the other piece of that too is we're looking at is there something that we could do with them on a work-based learning opportunity to try to get them ready for their careers as well. In fact, um >> I've I've been in contact with somebody from Albany and they were interested in what we
065were doing at the the Colony Community Connection program. So we've been kind of creating some different ideas back and forth. >> I don't see Edenum as like because that you know from an output standpoint, right? Like speaking writing Edenum doesn't like support, right? like it's it's the inputs. >> It is. >> Um and so I don't see that as >> something that would be accelerating, but like the >> workbased learning stuff like that's the output, right? Like that's the speaking and the >> that I think that's definitely something that I have been interested in and you know just the experience of the triple C program like I kind of have an idea of how that works but I I think it's you know more investigation and more time. So >> thank you so much. Go
066up. >> Thank you, Bill. >> Very good. Thank you very much. Thank you. >> Thanks, Stacey. Aaron, thank you. >> You have a long beach. You want to get >> All right. Agenda item number nine, reports and recommendations for action. This goes from letter A to letter G. Any comments, questions, particular note, the donations, $2,100 from the football booster club, the donation of school supplies from VFW post869, 92 colony and the donation of backpacks and lunch bags from Susan or Brian. Thank you very much. Anything else? Hearing none. I will take a motion. Miss Giggleello second. Mr. Larabe. On the motion made by Miss Giggleello, seconded by Mr. Larby, that the above stated reports and recommendations be approved. All in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries 9 to zero. Agenda item number 10 10 personnel instructions.
067Mr. Rabalotti, ages 8 through 10. >> Yeah, nothing crazy that jumps out. I think when we get back on the two week cycle, things start to settle a little bit. There's a lot of extracurricular things that we start to see some coaching things out here too. So, we're just um moving things forward. Any questions on number 10? Hearing? None. I will take a motion. Mr. Casey second. Mr. Blakeley. On the motion made by Mr. Casey, seconded by Mr. Blakeley, that the instruction personnel changes listed on the attached sheets dated October 21st, 2025 be approved. All in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries. 9 to zero. Agenda item number 11, personnel support pages 12 through 13. Again, Mr. Raalani. >> Yeah, I'm looking at mine is just one page. I wanted to check on here and see
068if we added anything, but I don't know if you'll ever see support. No values on there, so that's a a positive. Just some appointments and obviously appreciate a substitute nurse be fantastic. Thank you. Michelle Pollson also um who is entering retirement at the end of December looking to continue to help us. Appreciate both of those. But sure. Thank you. May I have a motion please? Mr. Keane second. Miss Giggley. On the motion made by Mr. Kee, seconded by Miss Giggleello that the support personnel changes listed on the attached sheets dated October 21st, 2025 be approved. All in favor? >> Any opposed? Motion carries, nine to zero. Agenda item number 12, resolution, Capital Area Health Insurance Consortium Trust Agreements. >> That's a mouthful. >> It is cash. Then then you look at all the schools involved
069and that's like seven >> renews our five years >> the So I'm curious as far as does what does CASC do for strategy at this point with health care costs >> skyrocketing evolving? Um we we meet almost monthly, maybe it's bimonly um to review trends. We meet with um both insurance carriers very like we meet with the vice president, meet with the president. We are one of their both of their larger largest customers um in New York State. So um the school cash is one of the largest districts or largest customer bases for uh both CDPHB and high mark. So we are working with both companies actively continually to work on cost mitigation strategies or cost avoidance strategies. So, um, as premiums increase, we're working with them to figure out how we can, um, go
070through like, um, Primark is implementing some things that'll give us some cost avoiding strategies will reduce the increase of premiums. So, it's not really a savings, but it's a savings, cost avoid. And so, we just got a list, long list from the summer. Um, there's a retreat where we invited Hark came and attended. I'm on the executive committee, so I'm at more meetings than the average school district member. So, um I'm heavily into this and it's my most depressing meeting every month. So, >> we we can commiserate. >> I'm going through it now. >> I think it's a >> it's a broken system. So, we're trying to work within a system that's of healthcare and >> PO. >> We have um PO. Yes. Uh for both CDP and HighArk um we are on CashX model
071plans. So it gives us the the buying power within CPHB and Highark and that also gives the option between you know going between the two companies. So um we we work with we have the with the buying power that we have we have the ability to negotiate rates. Um high mark we have a retrospective plan. So if our premiums are higher or we the buyout is or the payout is higher we would have a call. If we're lower we would get a refund. Um, our CDPHP plans are prospective, so they're not retrospective. So, um, they accept the rates and if they lose, then they lose, but they will increase the rates higher, which is why CDBHP has been at higher rates over time. I could go on and on about this. We don't want to.
072Um, we are doing as much as we can and we meet with regularly. >> You know, and I just look at it from the strategy standpoint knowing, you know, each year, you know, it's hard to sustain. we already pour so much into salary and benefits that you know that's going to become a burden. It's one of the um highest thing we all as as we meet as school districts together um we all talk about you know um what are strategies within our own bargaining groups that >> one of the things was the GLP1 strategy so they still offer those drugs but you have to go through a tiered approach try other things with your medical providers before going on to >> bio similars um we're we've gone through all of these things >> CDBHP is
073pulling that as of Jan one I I don't know if it's I think just plan >> coorbidities being the focus >> rather than doing the same. So >> yes um we put a lot of restrictions in place with keeping within our um contractual obligations. So we we look heavily at um what we can do within our collective bargaining agreements and making sure that we're providing a good product to our members because that that's really the we we offer really good health insurance and that's a great >> recruiting tool. So um being able to offer >> is is great. So I think that it's balancing those things and the premiums and the percent that we um have in place pay is important too. Does the consortium try to recruit other districts? >> Uh yes, we so
074we actually people come to us and >> I would think that anybody would >> why not? >> Most of the districts in the area are part of um actually most of the capital region is part of um cash. >> Okay. >> Um we al also are getting people that are outside of our region looking to join and this agreement allows us to add small districts. So there's a there's in districts under 100 say mans um co was was grand green island was grandfathered in. So they're a member but mans if they wanted to join they couldn't join based on um our our old our old um agreement. So this agreement allows us to allow small districts in if they would like to a small group of players and part of our consortium were able to
075do that because we had another district in already. um it limits their voting power to one for five districts to have um voting power in the in the consortium to keep the the balance of the needs of larger districts versus smaller districts. So that's the one change on this agreement, but we just have to renew it every year, make sure that I can still go and make our make our case and push push forward on the health insurance. We're doing our I we do have a lot to report on. we can do a a report based on um cash after cash next meeting on what um strategies high mark is looking to implement and then looking to CDPHP to do those as well. And Mark is our prescription drug plan um provider. So that's one
076of our largest cost drivers of the increases that we're seeing. So we are self-insured on that aspect. So we want to make sure that we're um cost mitigating that as much as possible. So the high mark high mark's doing a lot for us. Um, and they're pushing a lot out to to help them. >> Excellent. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Very good. Anyone else? Thank you very much. May I ever hear a motion, please? Miss Hulahan. Second, Mr. Keane. On the motion made by Miss Hulahan, seconded by Mr. Keane, that the above stated resolution be approved. All in favor? >> Any opposed? Motion carries. 9 to zero. Agenda item number 13, future meetings. Any questions? Miss Julian, >> I just want to let you know I'm not going to be able to attend November
07712th. >> November 12th. So noted. >> I will actually be out of town on the 12th, but I will be returning for the 24th policy committee. >> Thank you very much, Mr. Larave. Are there any items for executive session? >> Hearing none, I will take a motion to adjourn the regular meeting. Mr. Keane, seconded, Mr. Casey. On the motion made by Mr. Keane, seconded by Mr. Casey, that the regular meeting be adjourned. All in favor? >> Any opposed? Motion carries 9 to zero. Time 7:32. Thank you all so very much. Have a good rest of your evening. >> Come on down. >> Which one? from Bel.