001it's 7 55 we have completed executive session calling the business meeting back into order all trustees are present we have six uh trustees physically in the boardroom uh and our board president continues to be with us remotely from Syracuse where she's attending the New York State School boards Association Convention so we will start with our Pledge of Allegiance and alas Mr Barry to lead us I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty all right emergency procedures please make note of the exit signs and in case of an emergency leave quickly and safely through the exit doors this is also a smoke-free School District No Smoking anywhere on District property similarly it's a bully free and hate-free School
002District um we next go into communication and announcements and I believe our superintendent will take the lead on this absolutely so but the board's permission I am going to go out of order so I go items two three and then one which is uh the board recognition it's almost a at the end of my presentation um but welcome um let's get right to it so one of the things I want to start talking about I entitled this words of caution uh this is red whip uh Ribbon Week for people who are not familiar with it or board members it's basically a week that sort of focuses on um awareness in terms of the use of tobacco alcohol illicit drugs and violence prevention high school students and middle school students were um were able to engage
003in assembly program hosted by the Suffolk County Police and there's been various uh events throughout our schools I think it's just incredible incredibly important that we all have these conversations in our homes and with our children because obviously substance abuse and violence can become very prevalent in communities especially the the use of drugs and not just drugs I think that's a sort of a broad statement to make but certainly the use of cannabis the use of tobacco by virtual jewels and these new devices is becoming more and more of an issue for young people so again I think it's great that we host Red Ribbon Week and credit to the school buildings who have participated Compass Unity as well participate in creating these programs so another word of caution I wanted to mention is social
004media and cell phones um I know this goes without saying but I really want to emphasize to parents and families to please and the high school students may not like want to hear this but we really need to be vigilant and monitor activity and cell phone use because we're seeing a rise and not just here in South Country but nationally on we talk about social media challenges we've all heard of the one chip challenge we send the communication out to the community about that I need the tissue challenge where kids are ripping shirts off other kids so all these challenges basically create unsafe situations and a lot of them are silly um or I should say they're silly until someone's get hurt or somebody who's really compromised by these challenges another tic-tac-toe there's a school
005threat challenge that happened a few months ago so I just want to create an awareness that um you know parents should really be vigilant in terms of social media use and cell phone use because what's happening now are people and students and adolescents and young people are just misusing cell phones cell phones could be an incredible device they can cause a lot of harm when pictures are shared or derogatory information is shared so I just want to create kind of an awareness and just emphasize that you know it's something that we should be mindful of and certainly if you see something say something students do cry out for help on social media they've been in my career several students who we provide intervention for who had suicidal ideations because they posted something and out of
006the good nature of their friends and peers it was reported to this rule so again if you see something don't make any judgments report it to a school official mental health professional someone you have a connection with so that we can kind of mitigate the issue and move forward and help protect our students lots of more positive things our capital reserve vote passed so I just wanted to thank the South Country community and of course the board of trophies for their support in this endeavor um we're quick to um we already started the process of getting these projects initiated and just as a reminder these projects include replacing the turf field at the high school which is used for a variety of reasons for writing a variety of purposes I'm sorry the addition Replacements of
007handrails at the high school interior Wars camera systems and security door access as with any technology they have you know technology doesn't have a really long lifespan it's important that we upgrade our equipment so that we're sort of contemporary in our technology especially when it comes to student and staff safety but I just wanted to thank the board and our community for supporting the capital reserve at home uh more fun truck trade these are pictures from Vern W crits I just want to give a big shout out to everybody involved in making these fun activities possible that includes community members staff staff the ambulance company the fire department and anyone else who contributed to just create a fun time for kids I obviously had fun these are photos from uh Vern kritz and I also
008attended the trunk or treat at Frank P long which was another great time uh although some of the kids were very spooky so um but it was great to see kids out and seeing community members interacting with staff when we talk about a culture of care and creating a atmosphere belonging you know certainly events like this certainly feel like you belong and everybody's invited um subscriber and Brookhaven will have their Trunk or Treats on Thursday the high school is doing their trick-or-treat Street on Friday so if you have the opportunity to come out come out and support and have a good time and I was really impressed by some of the uh the decorations and the trumps as well Bellport High School also hosted his pep rally which is fantastic this is a shot of
009me taking a selfie with every team from cross country to to uh volleyball to soccer to football to tennis and cheer of course it was just great to celebrate all of our sports like music programs I think Sports and Athletics create a nice niche for a lot of students and really create lifelong memories and kids really can connect when they participate in teams so it's just great being there high school students were fantastic it was just a great afternoon so I had a lot of fun so I just wanted to give a shout out to the high school and of course our pep rally led to homecoming which was another fantastic event I had the honor and privilege of speaking at the football breakfast a couple of the trustees were there with me Mr Puccini
010trustee Trent and trustee Feliz were there it really was a nice uh um great family event that's the best way I could characterize it it's a beautiful tradition that was started by code sip years ago that I'm happy that we still carry out um so it's great to be able to talk to our football players and also see all the moms and dads that participate in making this happen they cook the food they arrive early it really was a fantastic event and some of our directors were there as well as well as the high school staff that led on to our homecoming parade which was also a lot of fun I want to thank Mr Briggs for constructing a wonderful float the Clipper Pride little boat I don't know what we can call it but
011I sure had fun riding on it and starting to seeing the community out there and throwing some candies out homecoming of course is not limited to sports or a football team I have to give a big shout out to our pet band in the music department pep bands are a huge part of homecoming when you think about football games you think about the sounds you hear so I do want to give a shout out to our music compartment in the pep band Our Youth Sports in our community and again our Board of Trustees who were all very spiraling and I did highlight the scoreboard it says 35 to nine not that I wanted both about that but I will Clipper prize great victory for our football team um and it's School Board recognition week last
012week so I'm a little late um but I did want to give an opportunity to really um show my appreciation for the Board of Trustees as a first year superintendent obviously I had a lot of anxiety tied to me assuming this position and nerves and I really feel fortunate to work with um such a great team you know I really appreciate different perspectives we have I do think that we have a diverse team and what I mean by diverse is that we all come from different experiences different perspectives and I really enjoy the conversations and discussions we have and there's a lot that goes into being a trustee that's not seen by the public sure all of our meetings open meetings law over business is conducted in public but that doesn't mean that we're responding
013to concerns or thinking about things and really doing our best to support and advocate for our community here are some shots of just different events that we attended some school visitations presentations and even vice president and hey Stephanie outside of our comfort zone Macarena on stage so it's been an exciting year I mean we're only up through like pretty much one quarter but it's been fun and um you know I know we do we have a lot of challenges ahead and I like to frame it as a challenge because challenges are fun especially when you meet them there's no greater feeling of eating a child so I just wanted to show my appreciation and the Board of Trustees can look in their bags we got you a little special little gift they've been waiting for
014a long time so you can take a look I hope you appreciate it foreign [Applause] so since we're doing Spirit Fridays and a lot of spirit wear here in the district I thought it would be nice for us to have Spirits with all right thank you thank you very good so uh but thank you so much Duke it's not easy being interested because um you know it's volunteer work it commands a lot and I really appreciate all you have them yeah each of you has a little note so um very nice thank you thank you very much and Cheryl I'm sorry you're not here but I do have yours we'll be waiting for you all right so that concludes my portion of the agenda okay so we now have trustee and advisory committee reports Mr
015Berry um now ultimately uh you know I think right now I don't have much to report but I just wanted to say you know certainly appreciate your appreciation of us as well as for the fellow trustees I think we're moving in a great Direction so I'm excited for it thank you pleasure Mr kitchen thank you well thank you for the shirt very much and I agree a lot of what you said at least in homecoming I got to be a part of the breakfast in the game it really was a nice day and it really was a really nice weather day kind of kind of makes it a little exclamation point on it when you have that that beautiful day and everybody's out and about it's always nice really nice day all around um I
016did have a NASA Suffolk School Board executive committee meeting last week and there were a couple of things that did come out of that that I did want to share one I shared an email with the board today and uh Miss Felice Mrs Santana I left a couple of hard copy books there is a report in here from the Long Island education Coalition that was sponsored by the Long Island Association uh the cost and outcomes booklet there's a lot of really good information in there for trustees about demographics and funding and schools and taxes Etc so that is the digital version is in that email I know there's a couple like I said a couple of hard copies floating around um if anybody wants to look at the hard copy of it but I didn't
017have a chance to really go through it yet we thumbed through a couple of it at the meeting and there were just a couple of pages that had some really eye-opening um uh stats in there that I think it's important for us to know as we get into advocacy season um the other part was uh and I think the flyer was in there for it NASA Suffolk School Board is putting together a um a a workshop and I don't remember the name of trying to play Let's see what it is but it is with assemblyman feel from out east who's a really a really great legislator he's the only independent in New York and he caucuses with both parties so um he's always my years of lobbying in Albany he was always the the favorite
018stop because he really is just a good guy and he he doesn't lie to you he tells you where it's at and he's putting all the workshop about how to effectively Advocate with state federal representatives and you know basically he'll always tell you what to do and not to do right don't send letters they go in the garbage right that's the first thing he always says when you go up there nobody reads them come here and do this um so that's uh that's coming up in December so uh that that should be a good Workshop the other one that um and then there's the wind one which I believe I'm going to and I think you would that's the same night as the honest Society we have anybody else in the district that's going did
019any of the business teachers or stem anybody I have to follow up just let me know if they're going just so I know if they're there I can meet up with them because it is like a um it's not really a formal dinner it's really like more like a cocktail hour and there's going to be stations and um apparently there's a lot of interest from the business community on Long Island about this so there might be a lot of opportunities to have some meaningful conversations in addition there is uh this was confirmed the other night um Mr Vecchio the the executive director of NASA Suffolk school boards has confirmed a uh an event that nizable will hold in the spring and um Betty Rose is going to be there so she confirmed that that she's
020that she's going to come down and it'll be a nice opportunity to um hear directly you know the Long Island districts the air directly from uh Miss Rosa so that will be it Rose as a commissioner I'm sorry Commissioner of Education yes thank you I always get I'm always very missious at Chancellor Regents like seems to me so um and that was it the only other thing oh that um assemblyman Thiel again this is important as we do talk about um pilot payments there is legislation that he is sponsoring to make Lipa a fully public uh Power entity again I think Long Island is the only area in the country that has really private and partially Public Utilities in the in the the way PSEG and I don't know if it's Library however it works
021I'm I'm not very well versed in it but he is sponsoring a legislation to make life a fully public the issue with that is some of the other power companies there are some significant pilot payments being paid to school districts throughout Long Island and those are in Jeopardy if that happens so that's that's something that uh Bears uh and I don't know if the cape this pilot or anything comes in there has anything to do with with any of this but somebody to pay attention to um and then the other thing we talked about which is really not until next year but there is a scheduling issue next year on the calendar with the way Eastern Passover fall so when we get into the calendar we just we had a lot of his own talk
022with that the superintendents that were there and mentioned it it being an issue that they're they're like a month apart now hello so um that creates some issues um and that is uh that's really it thank you thank you okay Mr Trent yeah Mr Flippin I have it all uh just one thing um last week perhaps the week before I had the opportunity to attend the um teaching and learning committees meeting uh chaired by the doyle thank you very much and uh covered a lot of ground discussed a lot of things expanding some of our AP opportunities in mathematics and also had a a long and um very informative discussion about the equity and inclusion subcommittee and some of the great work that the Administration has done with their surveys and their their really admirable
023efforts to move South Country towards being more on the inclusive District so that's all I have trustee Felice thank you I'm vice president as as noted I am up in Syracuse New York attending the New York school board association's annual conference first time we're together in three years and I'm looking forward to tomorrow so I'm going to attend the pre-conference of the law conference tomorrow and then the opening keynote speaker is going to be it's going to be Marley maplin the Academy Award winner who is going to be speaking about you know diversity equity and inclusion and the mentors that she had during school to overcome some of her challenges throughout life and then in the session is going to close out on Saturday uh late morning with the commissioner of Education New York State
024Commissioner of Education as spoken before so happy to be here thankful to the board for um for approving my attendance and was also happy to attend uh many of the items that the superintendent already spoke about it was a wonderful weekend uh hats off to the Brookhaven fire department who attended the Fire Safety Week at Brookhaven Elementary School enjoyed that performance and actually met up with an old colleague of mine from the sheriff civilian unit that we used to work together and then uh finally attended a very moving Ceremonies for rededicating the sports complex or the middle school after John conquest and just want to just want to thank everyone involved for making that such a memorable ceremony thank you okay and finally um I'm not going to repeat what was said about the teaching
025and learning committee but I was there too and for the first meeting of the year I thought it went off very well and there was a lot of excitement and um a desire to keep things moving um in the direction that we've seen we've seen children feel like they belong in the school and it's it's working so I'm glad to see that keeping up um also the um Hispanic heritage evening at the middle school was a complete success from anything that I saw there and the children and their families all seem to enjoy it as well as the administration that was there and um it was it was uh a particularly good evening so thanks to everybody for organizing that um and I think that is it we if we have public commentary available but
026no cards so next I think is the um Mr Santana I think you have the data presentation yeah so at this time I would like to introduce Miss Beth Doyle our assistant superintendent for curriculum instruction and accountability uh she'll be she will be providing a summary of our assessment data from a prior school year um I also want to commend Miss Doyle for all the work that goes into facilitating an instructional program especially given the difficult times that we've all experienced during the last three years I also want to commend all of our directors who are here today and I'm going to call you out because um there's a lot of behind the scenes work that happens instructionally in school districts that people aren't that aware of so I want to thank Jack Burke for
027his work in math and science and stem initiatives thank both Jessica prosh and Carrie Carlson for their work with our special education department which is a very intense sort of position to have and their work is done to support all Learners and really to try to provide that equity and success for our students it was Jackie o'hagen who was our um or uh sorry director almost like coordinator for humanities who led to charge we're a Civic seal of Civic Readiness and did a lot of great work in that regard fantastic stuff and of course Miss generacivo I think you're there behind Mr Briggs he's our director of guidance and of course we all know the important role guidance plays in schools and not just from college applications but just in terms of being you know
028uh just at the Forefront of so many things that happened that have to do with social and emotional or social emotional well-being versus so I want to thank you all for your hard work and diligence I just felt I would be remiss if I didn't give you a shout out um so again in many respects what you're about to see may seem dismal and I like being transparent I think if you've been looking at um national news reports there's been an instructional Gap that's been created on a national level I read one report that said that students have progressed from 1990 levels of achievement I don't know what that means as an educator I don't know what types of Assessments were around back then or how we instructed kids so I don't know if it's
029an apples to oranges comparison but I will say this that there is a lot of work that needs to be done and in reality I think the board to really look at this data as a new Baseline because even to compare it to Prior years is erroneous because the last three years have not been typical so from the way I'm sort of interpreting it and appreciating the data is this is our Baseline this is our starting point and the idea is how do we grow from here so I was going to talk a little bit about the data and how we plan on mitigating some of the instructional and emotional gaps have been created by the pandemic this door of course thank you Mr Santana appreciate the introduction good evening members of the Board of
030Education South Country Community I was Mr Santana said I am a Beth Doyle the director of curriculum instruction and accountability so thank you for that introduction um it really does provide a nice summary of what I'll be discussing tonight um and absolutely I was going to record recognize our directors and thank you for being here tonight and for all of your support um in putting together tonight's presentation and for all the work that you all do every day in our district to support our our teachers and our students so tonight uh we'll be talking about our assessment data we will be showing how we analyze that or how highlighting how we reflect on these data and then sharing our plans to address gaps and I will be using data and data interchangeably I don't know
031why I just do that so I apologize in advance um oh and I do want to note that I won the trunk or treat at my home district for funnest trunk so oh really yeah I do well so how are we looking at this so when you look at data there's many ways to disaggregate it um and it tells our story so that's what I will endeavor to do tonight our story has been impacted by the pandemic just like schools Across the Nation and across the world really and Mr Santana alluded to that but these data give us good information about where we are now it really is our Baseline as you'll see in a few minutes and we look at where we need to grow we make plans to address that growth and we
032of course celebrate our successes and to ensure that we build momentum and continuously improve foreign so you saw this graphic last year this was really how I conceive of this work the goal is the same so I like to call our student outcomes our North Star when we had our Admin Professional learning when we unpacked our mission and vision Amy ilucci came up with something that I thought was genius she said the North Stars how we steer the Clipper ship which I thought was a really great analogy Krusty Hayes write that one down so we look at our board priorities and plan as you see everything overlaps here we look at our data so qualitative data which is our state assessment excuse me our survey data observational data and our quantitative data it was like
033our test scores and our internal assessment data and then we develop our action plan in our case it's the district comprehensive Improvement plan because we are considered a Target District by a New York State education department for not meeting certain benchmarks so we create an action plan called the dsip and that is really how we move forward that's where our goals are we regularly check in on our progress um we're honest about how we're doing and we adjust and change course if necessary and we feel that this is a sustainable approach because it's measured and we're really building Brick by Brick so Mr Santana just talked a little bit about this report so the national assessment of educational progress um also known as the nation's report card and so congressionally mandated program um it's considered
034it really is considered the gold standard in testing because unlike estate tests it's standardized across the country and it's remained consistent over time it also doesn't hold schools accountable for results which experts believe make it more reliable um in the spring of 2022 they sampled over 450 000 students nationally in grades four and eight um between January and March so these results are alarming as see what's on the slide uh students who tested and this is the first time they've done the test since the pandemic began showed the biggest drop in math performance in fourth and eighth grade since the testing began in 1990. um it does create a sense of urgency for our students performance I don't know what else would but we collectively across the state have work to do and experts know
035that this is a direct result of the pandemic the remote learning and Hybrid models that we had in place so I believe our approach is deliberate but we must understand our data at the student level to be able to support their growth so I thought it was important to point that out because we were not immune to this and our data is very much aligned with what's happening nationally foreign assessment data our participation was low across all three tests so three through eight take mathematics English language arts and number fourth and eighth grade science um mathematically we know that a smaller sample there's greater variation in the data that means A small collection of data will more likely have an extreme average either higher or lower but we can still glean information from the status
036so I thought it was important to share we thought it was important to share so this is English language arts across sixth grade three through eight I know it's small but I'll just give you the head the headlines here um so the ELA average across the sixth grades is 26 that means 26 of our kids are proficient in Reading which as Mr Santana said and it's scary um third grade is faring the best which is interesting and they had the largest participation rate so that box shows our participation rates uh so 79 of our third graders took the test as you go up in grades you can see the numbers decrease um I think they're my hypothesis is that people kind of forgot about the opt-out movement because of the pandemic um especially in the
037lower grades we did have more students opt out on day two when they were like oh yeah we were not supposed to take this test but unfortunately their test is still counts and that's still factored into our data so it's basically like averaging in a zero um so it's not accurate um and it begs the question if more of our students participated would we have seen better scores um the way to answer that is to look at our formative assessment data which is the nwea it's the uh the nationally Norm test that we use and grades k through eight which our students are participating in right now the window closes October 28th um so we more students take that test than they take the state tests so that's really a better piece of data to
038look at when we're looking at a support our students the state always looks at our subgroup data it's part of the reason that we are a Target District because we're not making progress for certain subgroups um and as you can see here our Spanish students are lows performing if you're talking about race and ethnicity other server groups are language English proficient or lab students or also lowest performing so this is absolutely useful information that we consider and how to move forward and support our students in mathematics we are performing somewhere to make we're doing worse in math than we are in English language arts and this is because math Builds on foundational skills year to year and at the secondary level course to course so for example if a student is missing foundational skills and
039algebra and geometry they're going to struggle more in high school and in college because they don't have those foundational skills and that's again what we're seeing Across the Nation and we saw that last year with our NWA results as well participation was around 53 for all the grades so again it's difficult to really use this data but it still is a point that we consider when we're making plans please don't have a question uh what level starts uh proficient is it three or or even fours are considered proficient thank you so that the average there is the combined level three level four you know that's a quick clarification just I want to emphasize a point so like for a great eight example we're saying it reaches her proficiency but we're basing that at only 20
040of the kids correct but at the moment until you get the results from the nwea this is what we have to work with correct and judging thanks I mean we do have many more internal assessments that we use at the elementary level we use the font as a panel reading assessment we have chapter tests and math so this is not the only piece of data that we have but this is a state assessment that we can we can have these reports available to us the priority is this is the data that gets like reported and yet it's the most inaccurate data and I'm not excusing it there's a lot of work to be done and we're going to be transparent about that but again when you're basing that uh that's more percent of the children
041and even when you look at the participation rates in the lower grade that are higher a lot of those students opted out on the second day and you still have to count their test so in my experience and correct me or let me know if you agree families that opted their kids out tended to be families at a high level of Education typically higher performing kids joined the opt-out movement so even those numbers are kind of skewed but you're not including those students in the data yeah that tends to be the trend um so with those points in mind from my knowledge what in your opinion is the best assessment to judge where our students are and how they're performing I think you have to use multiple measures and what would you say they are
042depending on the grade level so I think if you're talking Elementary we use our reading Assessments in kindergarten we now have a kindergarten screener for reading for math we have chapter tests for Math and focus we have benchmark assessments at the secondary level so there's a lot of internal formative assessments that we use ongoing it's not just this one snapshot of one point in time where maybe the child didn't have a good day and they didn't test well so it's ongoing formative assessment that really gives us the best information on how to support kids so do you ever like compile those assessments and then present that to the board or would it just become that would be a lot of data I mean we absolutely have those reports you know there's spreadsheets um but yeah
043I mean it's it's something that every school has well I just the point of those questions are I just want to get the most accurate information I think NWA for K-8 would be the most accurate it's nationally normed assessment you're not relying on you know a staff member creating the assessment I'm not saying that they don't make good assessments but it is something that we can look at how our students are performing compared to students across the country gotcha thank you so this is a subgroup data for mathematics again some group analysis while it provides more Deep dive it does fall short of offering actionable analysis created to help individual students so what we believe is that differentiating instruction on based on students needs is an important way to go I'm going to talk more
044about this when we talk about how we're addressing gaps really to focus more on core instruction in the classroom as opposed to pull out model because now the majority of our students need support one of the things that always bothered me about this data is I feel like they're overly simplistic categorizations so if you look at the Hispanic population of What proportion is that population fits under economically disadvantaged or not how many of those students or students with disabilities that's the FWB so I think it's an overly simplified way of looking at it because people are complex and to make generalizations about groups and that's not to say we're not going to be responsive to the data and this is what we have to work with and we'll work with it but I just want
045the board to really consider that but people in groups are a lot more complex than just these broad sort of labels yeah putting people in boxes correct and then our four through eight science tests uh we had about also 50 percent participation rate across the two grades um the grade four science test that was the last year that the state was um administering it because we've transitioned to the new learning standards so in June of 2024 our fifth graders were now take a science test so it'll be no longer a fourth grade science test and then um this June is the last administration of the grade eight science tests and then in 2024 we'll have a new grade need science test so instead of four and eight it'll now be five and eight take a
046science test so it's really be frank pretty useless information because it's assessing based on the old standards it's an assessment that's not going to exist any so again that's why and I'll do a quick I don't take your thunder away a cautionary tale Common Core is rolled out um because around 2012 I was a middle school principal at the time the admission at the time basically said he expected a proficiency rate of about 26 for New York State kids right because those new Common Core tests never been administrated administered before so this is what he expected sure enough results come out and kids were in that mid-20 range in terms of proficiency and schools are chastised for it and you know to me sometimes I wonder and I'm not excusing data again to me I
047want our students to perform and I want our best to feel Pride when we look at results but what does it even mean to be proficient and that's a question it's like we a lot of us raise like what is what is the gauge what is a measuring stick to consider a kid proficient in third grade versus fourth grade first fifth grade and the assessments change anybody in education will tell you that you already hear the assessments change the way kids are tested change in math for example we've got to shift to more verb or I'm sorry or word heavy math problems so if you have challenges with language you don't even get to your path so and those are challenges that you know we have to face and meet and you know that we're
048excited about um but you know I'd like to sort of talk about those things because those are all things that to consider when you look at that so we'll take a look now at our secondary assessment data so that's the Regents and advanced placement exams the headline here is that we really can't compare it all year to year there were many students who didn't take the exams last year and I'll Point some of those out some were not offered there were no Regents in 2020 so again we're using this as a baseline to see where we are and how we can move forward so this is the English regents um so just to give you an example of what I was talking about in 2021 only 38 kids took the test in 2022 333 kids
049took the test so it's very difficult to make a comparison when you're talking about a disparity in those numbers um this is that Algebra 1 similar I was only 63 kids took the test in 2021 and last year 395. so I won't go into every test but I'll just give you some highlights I'm not the same question trustee proficiency or passing is level three and above for this test for the regions the regions uh yes and what you'll notice is that some regions have one to five and some have one to four and it's the older tests that are changing that have levels one through four um and you'll I'll show you when we get to the geometry is one to five living environment is one to four because that test is changing and it's
050now going to be called biology again yes I'm excited um so yes that's so levels if you're it depends on what test you're talking about okay so it's three and four or three four five so where am I uh living environment so in this test changes in 2025 that will be the first administration of the biology exam and again this is because we're trying we've been transitioning to the new learning standards that are aligned to the Next Generation learning standards and that goes also for earth science um which is now going to be called Earth and space science as well chemistry we had nobody take it last year it wasn't offered this year 184 kids took the test in 2026 is when we'll have the new administration of the chemistry and physics region so everything's
051in transition while we were in a pandemic the other piece the former High School person last year Juniors their first reasons exam was administered last year and in many cases those kids never set for a standardized test ever in their whole career because I bopped out no rages exams for two years and then all of a sudden you have a safer chemistry regions that really Builds on you know foundational skills that are you know living environment which will be known as biology so when you look at that two-year Gap you know this slide is very telling that it's two years without tests and then all of a sudden students have to sit and take you know a very high fixed test when they have no practice and really know sort of a perspective of it
052and doing Labs virtually is not the same as engaging in a lab with a lab partner in person um so now this was something to celebrate uh in 2022 we had 352 students take the global history exam 77 passing rate so that's something to celebrate the recent exam in U.S history and government was canceled last year if you remember that it was a new exam and there was um they decided not to give it last year because of or some material that they felt was insensitive and so they put them on hold so that's Regents advanced placement this is just an overview of the exams so we gave out 18 different exams last in 2022 100 and and that's on the next slide but a score of three or better is passing so most students
053that are scoring at a level three that are taking it not all of our students take AP exams even though they may be an AP class that is something that we're discussing internally about how we can increase but that was just an overview of all the exams again I'm not going to go through each one but I will give you some highlights so this is 80 data for humanities um English lit and composition so 100 equals passing so you'll see the scale is 100 so a score of three or better is passing we believe any dip in these exams is directly related to the pandemic but there are a few bright spots like English written composition we had 29 students and 25 past so there's three or better seminar research another bright spot as you
054may know about our AP Capstone programs the diploma program based on two year-long AP courses so if you summon our research our directors of stem and Humanities I've Been instrumental in making this happen um we have increased enrollment and seminar so our first year we had 70 students year two 2022 now we have 93 students enrolled so that's really a breaks for a testament to the teachers and to I'm Jackie o'hagen's work to the Department an AP seminar is not a traditional test so it's two performance tasks that the students have to do a team project a presentation which many of you saw at Civics day which great great day and then AP researched last year was the first year of this course there were 43 students enrolled and this is uh a bit more
055rigorous in that it's there's not teamwork there's also a performance task but it's very individual based where they're basically learning how to how to do research um and be prepared for college and preparing for research high level course so it's not the teamwork aspect like the seminar class has but we we had some a lot of great things to celebrate in that which we'll get into later I love this slide because 100 everyone about 100 and there were 700 kids in the class no really it was 10 kids um but it's it's nice to see um Art and Design as a digital portfolio online submission it's a panel of Judges that judge their work and they had some kids with see world history we remove barriers to entry in 2018 that's interesting when you look
056at the number of students in the classes um they've actually decreased from the various entries so that was something interesting to note but here we just feel that these are typical results again from the pandemic biology and chemistry um again impact pandemic labs done virtually not offering the same experiences Although our teachers work very hard to provide a great experience for our students there's there's just some gaps that you know could be filled virtually or remotely in math we're seeing something similar kind of you know Across the Nation with math um referring back to nape and how our students are struggling again we're not immune to that environmental science and physics and this is not a lot of kids so if you look at physics in 2022 there were four students and two past so
057that's what the fifty percent is so we're not talking about a lot of students here when you look at averages yeah because you really need to look at actual number of exams more language or break spot is Spanish which is nice to see but with World Language and and just like our students that are learning English speaking is very important and if our kids were not engaging and they haven't been engaging the discourse is something that that we've really been trying to work on because kids are used to being behind screens and texting and that's really inhibited their discussion which really helps with developing a second language they're interesting credit you know you know I do want to give a shout out to our teachers too who play obviously it was probably the most important
058role in all this in preparing kids and meeting challenges but even Spanish language and culture is akin to an English AP exam it's not you know we do have a large number of Latino students who speak Spanish natively but I just want to say it's not a proficiency test it's it's like the rigor is similar to that of the English Bible study so the big question how are we addressing this um so as I said at the beginning the DC the district Improvement plan is our roadmap and we had three goals these goals are pretty much the same ones that we had last year with a little variation in the language increasing student attendance creating a culture of care while our students feel a sense of belonging and ensuring access to learning for all students
059through instructional best practices and I'm just going to use a few examples of how we're doing each how we're working towards our goals so with attendance we know that in order for kids to fully engage in learning they need to be in school and the pandemic has taught us that so we have committees at each building level and a district-wide attendance committee or we're looking at this data regularly last year we updated our attendance policy to include consistent interventions and proactive strategies across the district so that our buildings are working altogether problem positive behavior intervention support for example the Clipper cache that's happening at Bellport high school and all the other incentive programs that going on in the other buildings contribute to a positive School culture which is directly related to attendance for creating culture
060of care we have our social emotional learning programs so Second Step mind up why try the restorative practices and I'm going to go into more detail later that are happening district-wide our empathy interviews our belonging surveys the student voice sessions that we had where kids told us how to create a sense of belonging by adding additional questions they're all things that we will continue to do and then for the academic piece it's about the creating a mtss plan which is a multi-tiered system support and what that means is you look at the whole picture so we look at academics we look at Behavior we look at school culture and we know for academics our Focus needs to be on all of our students and I mentioned this before that this pull out model it's not
061going to work we have too many kids that have large gaps so the focus needs to be on what's happening in the classroom kids that get pulled out will be the kids that are showing no progress but really are focus is on what we call tier one core instruction in the classroom and there are many initiatives that are going on in every Department that I'm not going to list here but I'm happy to discuss with anyone in you know working with Teachers College working with our math math Consultants our assessment plan changes providing access our new course proposals all of these things will help support moving our our district forward and supporting our students so what are we celebrating so there is a lot of growth that needs to be done and we've made progress
062those two things can exist simultaneously and we'd like to show some of the things that we're celebrating so I touched on this um and trustee Kavanaugh and Hayes mentions the equity and education committee this is where the work of building a culture of care the Genesis of it what came from was this committee so the great things that the committee is doing is we created a board policy in six months which we're very proud of restorative practices came out of the action plan that was created by that committee the addition of a restorative practices facilitator that's Kai Watkins and the 20 plus or restorative practices coaches that we now have in the district supporting Community circles and restorative conversations that's having those additional positions is really what's building the momentum with this program and having
063Point people in each building shows that this is a priority and this is what we believe in and I appreciate the board support with making that happen um the professional learning that we're doing around cultural responsive sustaining framework which is a document put out by the state that's woven into all the professional learning that we do then we have the spin-off group called Equity leaders where that's uh staff members here that are put out the belonging survey to our students in grades now 4 through 12 where the students take the survey and it it's a called the psychological sense of school belonging it's an 18 question survey we do it on Google you disaggregate that's out of see which group feels the most marginalized and then we conduct something called an empathy interview with those
064members to learn about their experiences in school and times when they felt like they did belong and then we work to replicate those experiences so they have more experiences but they feel like well they belong and then we do the cycle twice a year and we just keep doing it until all of our kids feel like I'm along and all of our staff will be like they belong so just some great great work from that committee and I'm glad that we're continuing here are some examples of restorative conversations so that's Kai Watkins and a student having a conversation that's a community circle from Franklin long we had a great event at Kramer Street where uh our second step our SEL program we had students of the athletes go to Kramer and push in and work
065with students on second step we called it restorative athletes and it's something that we're going to do in the other buildings as well it was a big hit lots of great feedback this is um really something that we're very excited about that 95 of our graduates are in the Seal of Civic Readiness the seal is a designation that students get on their diploma um it's a formal recognition that they attain to high level of proficiency in terms of Civic knowledge Civic skills Civic mindsets big experiences um and this was our first student who graduated with the seal his name is Jesus I'm going to tell a funny story I hope Andrew budget man but um when Jesus graduated he left because he went to the military and Andrew Rogers who's in the picture there was
066in the copy room at the high school and he found all these letters to Jesus was like what is going on why are these why are people writing letters to Jesus what's happening in the English Department but it was really letters to Jesus to say goodbye to him and congratulate him on his achievement so we thought that was very funny so Andrew Jackie o'hagen John or Stevo and myself presented at the Long Island ascd conference on the seal it was an honor to present there and we got some great feedback and the district has actually reached out to see if they can come visit check out what we're doing it's a big stay again was a great event that many of you were there these are some of the projects that the kids created and
067here's some pictures from Civics day it's just a great day for students to Showcase their talents their research their advocacy efforts and really how we're building showing how we're building civic-minded citizens this was from the Long Island Media Group line Bellport High School seniors earned the AP Capstone designation on their diplomas they participated in AT AP Capstone and earn the score of three or higher in seminar and research so we're very proud of that also we had 25 students earn the AP seminar research certificate they were required to earn scores of three or higher in both AP seminar this is a picture from the Frank P long Library um this Cliff the first picture has students from this already Dodge's class building Heba planks to race hex bugs I don't know what either one of
068those things were until she subscribed it to me um yeah there's a blue Lego tree so a student combined two task cards and created his own blue tree so this is makerspaces it basically encourages students creativity and provides an outlet for them to be imaginative creative Innovative so they basically just get tools and they use their imagination to create things so what and what setting does this happen Library what is it class is it yeah what class is it uh so it's Library so students like for example Vernon crits the last 10 minutes of Library class the kids will have time to use Makerspace materials and they'd love it a lot of fun this great energy a really great activity and they're the things that they come up with are pretty amazing yeah it's been
069amazing and I've trusty Trent is upside down inviting legal Challenge and I practicing it a lot um but yeah it's amazing they really get into it and it's uh it's fantastic another example also from printing people cool stuff the kids are making another highlight is our graduation rate I will caution you that there are many um students that graduated based on some special appeals that the state had in place so while we celebrate that this may not be the case because those special appeals are go away after August of 2023 so we may see a drop after that we're hoping that you know given this this nation at risk report there are some accommodations that are made based on this so I just have a quick question um so how do you calculate the graduation
070rate at the end of the year is it with the cohort or is it just with the total 12th grade body to pass that to Gemma it's just a cohort so those numbers are only those students that entered High School four years before that so if we have a student who might have stayed extra time they don't count everyone's graduation okay so what would you call those that number when you have just a whole body and talk with you so the state calculates graduation rates after year four five and six so there are graduation rates that you can that we can look at on this state report card but we're looking at these numbers it's just the warrior cohort one of the things because you know my former life as a high school principal obviously
071graduation rate was on you know by consciousness the issue with cohort is basically anybody who enrolls in your school even if they stay for a day are included in that cold war so when my first year working in my former District that will remain unnamed my starting graduation rate starting this is at the beginning of the year was because we had a big transient population of kids that would come for a little while and they'll leave and we'll move and if we could about uh verify that they enrolled in another school they're considered dropouts so a lot of these you know when 25 of our students in that District were undocumented students worked and they had finally obligations so you know I couldn't judge these kids or force them to stay in school when they
072had to take care of their families yet schools get hit with these numbers um which is unfortunate so it's um but the cohort number is as uh Mr stable said anyone who's registered that that year so for 2023 that would be 2019 would be the year they registered our counted in your graduation even if they just stopped in your school for one day and I use that example because I had that happen multiple times when you kids could register in our school and immediately decide School wasn't for them and never come back so so our graduation rate and Theory could be higher than this and dairy could be higher it's not going to be lower if you count like the current seniors typically my graduation rate was always higher if I discounted the kids were
073in the senior year at the start of the year how many of those get I was able to get out of high school the other shame of it and this Doyle alluded to it is reasons exemptions increased graduation rates across the board which begs the question do we really need recent exams to say a kid is you know eligible for graduation and I don't think Society is any worse off because for two years we waived that requirement but I think it hurts certain kids certain populations when you have a strict regions recording and that's not to say exams don't have their place in our society for you to be a physician or an attorney you're gonna have to take a lot of tests so as you get that you get that practice so I'm not
074trying to say that I'm against standardized tests I never liked taking them as a kid I never like administering them as an educator but certainly it begs the question which which we sort of proposed to commissioner Rosa we met with her at what point does the state say hurting your credits is enough to graduate when I was in high school the Regents diploma was the advanced diploma so if you had Regents yeah it was an Accolade who died for having a reason diploma but I'm hoping the state really starts considering whether or not Regents exams are going to be a graduation requirement and I believe that they will and oh they taught the sentiment was to not include the Region's exam in your final average and which we changed last year because we're penalizing kids
075for a test that was weighted heavily in many cases you know sometimes it could be 40 and the kids final average so we've I feel like that is the way that the state is moving another highlight is our four-year College rate um so in 2020 our four-year College rate was 30 on 2021 it was 41 and now we're 42.3 so more of our kids are attending four-year callings than two-year colleges and other post-secondary employment military another great highlight is Belfort High School's testing day this happened just on October 12th if what you're seeing there is a quick comparison from a number of students that participated from 2021 to 2022 so until October 2021 only 205 kids engaged and because we provided access for all students we had 754 kids participate and you can see the
076breakdown by grade so just a shout out to Jenna and her team April Ornstein was instrumental Erica Del Rosa and her team Amy Dan and Heather for making this happen and the directors for their support this idea came out of this work of mtss which is multi-tiered System of support and the the number one thing that you need is to have a universal screener for all of your students and we had that in k through eight and that's our NWA but we didn't have an academic screener at the 9 through 12 level so that's really where this idea started and Jenna and I were talking and we appreciate the word support because we paid for all of the kids to take the test so that was providing access for all and it also is giving
077us a universal screener we'll have this data in December to see how we can support our kids something we never talk about I look back at Old presentations and I think it's really important that we note that New York State English as a second language achievement is also known as the nicest lab and the work that goes on for our enl department so this measures English length English language Proficiency in four modalities speaking listening reading and writing and I show you is to just see the sheer number of tests that we administer for the number of students and this shows our data from last year and I want to point out that same doesn't mean no progress that they may have moved Within These levels because there's there's different levels entering emerging transition expanding commanding
078so you can move within levels but remain the same so I just thought that was important to note because we have so many kids that take that test this happened today and I I apologize if you see this in advance but Brookhaven Elementary was offered a grants because they are a comprehensive school and need of improvement last year it's called the coaching for excellence Grant and what it did is again us 100 to cover a staff member's salary so then that person can be repurposed as a full-time instructional coach so we had our visit from the state today at Brookhaven this is a picture from Miss uh Miss Weinberg who is the instructional coach at Miss Council who's co-teaching with her and some of our kindergarten friends at Brookhaven and there were about six adults
079watching them while they were teaching and the idea is to just improve instructional practices and they have reflection time and debriefing and it's just a really great way for us to improve what we do so just a shout out to them for their great work and those are our highlights so just to bring you back to our story so where do we need to grow obviously reading and math or instruction how are we addressing our growth through our commitments and our Improvement plan and what are we celebrating all the great work that we've done to date thank you and I will take any questions that you have thank you sir thank you any questions um when I I did go to the New York State School boards association meeting a couple months ago and there
080were speakers from New York State um commissioner head's office and there was some talk about how they're thinking about reevaluating what it means to be a high school graduate and what skills are needed um as our students go off into the adult world and they made comments about how our education model had been built around a factory-based economic environment right and that's no longer the case so do you know anything about how they're reimagining or or bringing us up into the 21st century so that this data that is so hard to digest partly because it's so minimal and doesn't account for all of our students yeah and it may not even be relevant to what they're going to need to be prepared for when they leave us um do you have any comments you could
081share with us about what we can expect in the future yeah so I know that they put out a request for anyone that would be interested in being part of this work you know across the state and they have a website they have a page on the State website so I've reviewed that it seems like they're moving to more of a portfolio based type of approach um more around like this project that he's learning which we're doing with the Capstone program moving more away from like the regions as the be-all end-all but it really requires a rethinking of of Education in a big way um because that that's really revamping like even how you schedule in schools right so a lot of this work takes more than 40 minutes and which is what our career
082kids are in the high school so I I feel like they're looking at this portfolio approach but then you know as the granular level but also looking at like the structure of schools and how that needs to change to be able to support that that's just my understanding I haven't been part of any of the meetings um that seems to be the conversation the one thing I can offer along those lines haven't been and I think it's called like the blue ribbon commission yeah I believe that's what they call it when they're working on to the reimagine education but again to your point yeah Public Schools were designed to create compliant workers and assembly line workers so a lot of the rules the way kids used to sit and grows and basically be told not
083to speak in class and just listen and it was all teachers driven was based on again a factory model and you know our economy was based on manufacturing so that's shifted and I read and don't quote me in a statistic but something around like 30 percent of jobs that are elementary school kids will have in the future don't exist so how do you prepare people for those jobs so that's where they're talking about skills the ability to collaborate the ability to think critically communicate that's why there's really a big push for diversity and inclusivity because you know when you look at the way the world looks we're going to have to learn how to work with each other and we're kind of creating a global economy so and it's tough work because how do you
084best prepare our kids for a world that does not exist and that's where they're going to like skills they used to call them soft skills but now they're shifting because those skills aren't soft you know it's skills you need to sort of uh to thrive and succeed so um yeah there's a lot of work to be done and and I will say this you know I feel like South country is ahead of the curve in so many respects and I can say that because I've been in multiple districts and um yeah even when I did my research in terms of some of the programs going on here I was very delighted to see them and and I want to continue that work um but yeah we're kind of preparing students for uh unknown future one
085comment if there's a member of the NASA Suffolk school but also east of Suffolk policies who's on that blue ribbon commission but there was some discussion at the last meeting too the concern was relate to her because she's on the commission about how the standards seemed to have so what I'm looking for diminished to some extent um for various reasons whether it's the pandemic yeah that's that seems to be a general consensus one of the one of the members of the of the the executive board is a uh professor at National Community College and and he talked a lot about it and especially in the last couple years about how kids are entering even his courses just ill-prepared whether it's a pandemic there were some comments or the or the efforts in equity and education
086bringing down standards I mean I don't know those answers but those are some of the conversations that are that are being had so and it was interesting that he talked about reimagining education like we just that and it looks like we're talking about doing it again so um and I know the reform agenda as much as it was very controversial was all about increased standards so I'm curious to know do we feel as Educators do you feel like standards are you know is rigor going away to some extent and you know I'm sorry but I'm going to say it's the opposite yeah the idea is to really have high standards and to like close those achievement gaps not to like lower standards um and that's what we teach too you know without standards and it's
087it's just a free-for-all effort and we're back to where we were where everybody's just kind of doing their own thing so I think it's it's important to have a benchmark and something to reach towards um I think what they're looking at is more about this performance-based learning and assessments being rebound less about the standards one of the comments that was made um the the director shares a lot of information on social media and one of the kind and I can't really quantify it exactly um but of all the and he takes a lot of his articles that he shares with us through the eclipse that we all get through nisbah and he had a comment is right because he listened out of the last eight articles you shared seven of them were about lowering standards
088so that that's why there seemed to be some concern that Albany is looking at lower standards I don't know what that exactly means lower standards I'm not sure either that's why I'm asking like it just it just that just seemed to be the sentiment that kids aren't being asked to do as much as maybe they were a couple of years ago pre-pandemic I mean I think that we're now because of these huge gaps like I think about math we have these transition guides where you have to look back if you have a third grade class you have to look at what they were supposed to learn in second grade and then teach that before you can get on to the new material so maybe that's what they're talking about lowering standards it's like looking at
089what skills were where they have those gaps so I guess and I guess to your point right if if you're if you have to look back to re-teach standards from a previous year the kids who aren't falling behind are gonna be uninspired right I think that's kind of where that that lower standards conversation is coming is probably coming from so that's where the differentiation piece comes in and it's not easy by any means I'm not saying that um and then when I talk about core instruction that's what I mean like we have to look at all of our kids and see where they are and then we have a big Focus this year on small group instruction so grouping kids based on where they are and then meeting them and supporting them that way but
090to that point you know one of the things that the pandemic really exasperated is the economic Gap so if you're a family and I've witnessed this and when I maneuver the pandemic some of my students literally created study areas where friends would come over there multiple computers they would log on to their classrooms together and had all these resources some of my other students lived in apartments with multiple families and were literally limited to an easy chair and that was their whole living space I'm not I've done home visits so imagine the Gap that creates when you're a teenage student living in an apartment with four other families and you're restricted to an easy chair and I'm not exaggerating or you have to sit with a Chromebook on your lap and that's how you're doing
091your work while you're taking care of siblings and stuff so those two years really started creating this Gap where to your point yeah some kids you know my kids I don't think were really hurt by the pandemic I think academically I didn't see any like loss but they were they had resources they had me and stuff at home computers Wi-Fi so um so yeah so I don't think it's about naturally about lowering standards and I think one of the things that the project-based learning is that when you have one standardized test you know you're measuring people by one measuring step a way to differentiate and I saw a great example when I did a program where uh in India this company decided to do a lesson on GPS and how GPS works but not technology
092wise like literally explaining the science behind GPS and coordinates and so they did an experiment they made the lesson open to everyone wanted to participate and this was a complex stuff so sure enough a lot of people came older people younger people kids people vary educational sort of backgrounds and the port of the story was everybody was able to walk away with an understanding of how DPS works from the youngest kid to the most brightest individual and obviously the brightest they're more as the most educated individual went a lot deeper into it and was able to appreciate some of the nuances perhaps the other but everybody learned GPS and that's kind of like a model when you look at differentiation and education because we're dealing with people who have different types of strengths and intelligences
093and so do we really measure uh somebody's proficiency on a topic with a standardized test or their ability to communicate their knowledge of that topic because you'll find that if you give your students a chance to use different modalities to express their knowledge they could do a great presentation an oral presentation about the American Revolution if you sit them down for a standardized test with multiple choice questions and they choke and so I think that's kind of the reimagining when you do project-based portfolio basis aspects it really it speaks to everyone and what are really the skills you need to graduate high school what makes you employable what makes you someone who's going to contribute to society and of course if you're going down the route where you want to be an attorney or a
094medical professional an engineer that's an entirely different conversation and those kids will be tested and those types of things but right now I think the mistake was with No Child Left Behind years ago was everybody in New York State's going to take a Regents because we're going to increase the standards and everything in New York State's going to be able to pass five regions exams which I think was artificial because there are some kids who are extremely intelligent maybe not a terrorized tests but can pursue a trade a creative you know how do we like sort of foster or support artists the musicians um we don't man we have great programs for them but I think that's kind of the reimagining and the way the state's looking at it how do we create a system
095that really educates kids and prepares them to just be you know College and Career ready so it's pontificating a little bit I have a I have a question um so back to the um so the presentation the slide the page where you show the graduation rate um it looks like the lowest percentage is the English language learners what what is your definition or what definition does the school use to identify a student that is an English language learner that nicest Latin exam that I talked about yeah so what exactly um one with the pie charts the nice is flat New York State English language arts wait it was this way so when you enter our district you have to take a test called nice hotel and please don't ask me what it stands for but
096it's still it's the English proficiency tests when you first enter our district so kindergartners first graders take it um then each year and you're identified based on the score in that test it's a state test so this is only given to students that come into the district um the nice hotel and then the nicest loud is given every year once you're identified as an L English language learner you're required to take this assessment so you come into the district you take the nice hotel and then that determines if you are or if you're a kindergartner if you've been in another District hopefully you've already been identified and you've taken the nicest lat and then we just continue with you taking that test and it measures English language proficiency okay give you a case of a
097point the typically kids who are identified as L's in secondary schools have a really difficult time graduating in four years yeah so New York state will tell you yeah it's not that unusual for a kid to take five maybe even six years to graduate if they're out but then again when you look at that up you get chastised for it and commissioner Rosa did say that the state's approach of changing schools because the data is the wrong approach because you have to look at your demographics the different variables and affect school districts because in my experience as a high school person I had kids registering for the first time ever in their life in school at 16 so imagine this you come in as a freshman at 16 years old and by the time you
098hit 21 you have to not only Master English but past and English reads exams it's not a proficiency test you know we all know the English Ela exam is not a proficiency test you have to have important reference you have to have like cultural knowledge with protects but these kids are expected to pass Five Regency jobs and get 22 credits my a lot of them I don't like to generalize but a good proportion of them had interrupted education or starting school for the very first time in their lives in their teens so at the state level I know the graduation rate hovers about 25 percent of that population sorry to answer your question about English language Learners so Trend um so after they take this test depending on their score that determines what their proficiency
099level is so I mentioned it before it's either entering emerging transition expanding commanding um and then they take this test each year and then the hope is that they exit out but depending on their proficiency level that dictates how much support you need from an enl teacher so if you often see that we're always hiring enl teachers it's because we have mandates from the state who provide a certain amount of hours depending on their proficiency level now from what I understand we don't mandate enl teachers to speak that language is that correct you don't have to speak the language to be an NL teacher now is that effective having an email teacher that doesn't speak the language teaching us because you're teaching them English right I mean of course it's helpful if you have some
100knowledge of their home language for example today in the class that I was in in Brookhaven Miss Council I don't know if she's fluent in Spanish but she used Spanish so it's definitely helpful to have I think they call it trans languaging um to be able to support students in their native language but it's not required because you really them to be English proficient it's a slippery slope because I used to fall into the Trap speaking Spanish to my enl kids in my high school losing side of the fact that I want them to be proficient in English because I had that Comfort level so in order for you to be like a l certified you do not have to speak two languages but and again it's like it's a lot easier if you can
101kind of translate things but sometimes teachers fall into that trap and all of a sudden the instructions all in Spanish and that's our predominant language here on Long Island because there are elves in my former school I had else who were Italian I had a kid from Africa and a kid the Ukrainian who didn't speak English all mixed in the class yeah so there's no way that you'd be able to find teachers on speaker and like in um I think it's a is it Minnesota they have a huge Somali population so they're ELO kids speak um I don't know what they're speaking tomorrow it's not ignorant but Somalia so according to the graduation rate there were 31 12th graders that were not proficient in the um n-y-s-e-s-l-a-t test practically nice and slow is that um
102I'm sorry can you answer your question um 31 31 students that were not proficient in that test that you are you looking at the pie chart or yeah no because you had a graduation the graduation right so I want to get an understanding of how many uh English language Learners we had in 12th grade and to be an English language learner you need to not be proficient on that test no use there's different levels of proficiency okay so there's those five levels of efficiency so the hope is that you're moving through those levels the longer that you're here okay so is there is there a situation where they they just perform like a five or that highest level and the are not in English language you can test out absolutely yeah young kids test out
103quickly yeah because you know you learn language you're required to learn language like and when you're like preschool it's much harder when you come here when you're 14. I just thought that I was under the impression that we have more students that were under that designation in 12th grade um so English language learner doesn't necessarily mean Hispanic so some people conflate that you can be Hispanic and not be an English language learner so maybe that's where the confusion if my senior year the hope is to test out exactly so if you've been here loves Kindergarten you're hoping by you know you should be signing into high school they're not an English language learner anymore but as it stands right now and again I may not be precise I think we're we're 16 of our population
104our English language Learners as a whole they speak Somali or Arabic in Somalian yeah oh thank you thank you Molly thank the Google box thank you thank you thank you so much we have only one so [Music] thank you the administration recommends approval of business items reflected schedules is there a motion to approve business item F1 Miss Kavanaugh Sperry questions discussion seeing none all in favor okay it's unanimously approved and now we have no public commentary still and any closing remarks seeing that I think we need a motion to adjourn mystery Trent second by Mr Flippin all in favor and that one's unanimous as well thank you so much all right thank you for the days thank you president Feliz for doing a due diligence import