001East Hampton School Board we are live and oh phone lines are up too thank you Jason appreciate it good morning I us saying good evening but good morning um have a mo to call the meeting to order make a motion second all in favor please rise for the FL Allegiance thank you very much and over to you Adam yes uh the board had requested an update on our prek program so uh Karen cith principal is going to give us a brief overview on the current freek day thank you I'm G to skip over and maybe at the end we can look at some some photos but I have a little photo slides show a prek so good morning everyone um you all should have a a copy of our uh presentation so that you can
002read along um I thought I would begin with an overview of our enrollment history in prek um starting in the 1819 school year as you can see on the chart our enrollment has gone down over the past five years uh what I will show you later in the presentation however is that while enrollment has gone down student need has gone up um so it's an interesting um uh Dynamic that we have going on in prek you may be aware that the state mandates that classes of 18 and under in prek are staffed by two adults one teacher and one Aid if the class is 19 or 20 students the state requires three adults one teacher and two AIDS so if we look at the 2223 school year where we projected that enrollment was going to
003be on the lower side one I'll show you later how many students were receiving special ed out of that group but also um once you hit that 19 or 20 mark it would be hiring another staff member to make three adults in that classroom so it's always that balance of um running the four sections or running those three sections and I've been you know pleased with having the four sections um the maximum group size because we are upk is 20 so you cannot go over 20 students it's not an option if you also see under um Staffing for classroom you can see that we have lessened the number of adults in the room so when the program started the first three years there were three full-time adults assigned to the room even though the numbers
004mandated uh to adults and as time has gone on we've gotten conscious of that and have you know used the minimum two um adults with a shared parah So currently there's one teacher one ta and a shared parah in pread any questions on the enrollment special ed if we the special ed students have their own classroom or these are special ed students that either could be in a contained classroom or they're in and out it's or both probably both so mostly it's students who are there the students in the classroom and we look at our my last slide it's our students who are being serviced in our building students who qualify for a special bed prek are attending an out of school placement so if you're qualifying for more than speech and maybe an occasional
005OT um again that's a a decision for the committee for special education but uh typically those placements are outside of our building in a in a special setting right so we have a lot of uh students that need a one-on-one Aid not in not in prek not prek so prek Services um are really limited again to speech and OT students have a csse meeting between prek and kindergarten to determine if they have a full IEP so services in prek are not provided by the district they're provided by the county okay so and we run a prek for only a four year yes and our sending districts of all our sending does every other of our sending districts run a pre you know spring does now spring they do run a prek but I don't think
006they run a three I think no they run a four all of our suay districts run a four yes and we we I'll ask this question we don't have the space to run a three or we currently we don't have the space to run a three but if when we get further into the presentation the data you know our students are are coming in higher and higher need as fouryear olds I was going to say because from what I understand the kids that the kids that need services that are not in our school are going to a special school that special school has a waiting list so those kids could very well be sitting home is that the school in Southampton s that is that that could happen Sandy because if our program end getting
007students that have had no okay so if our program is not appropriate then um the CSC can um you know work on getting them in an alternate placement but our local alternate placements have very long waiting lists and recently and again really Cindy should be speaking to this recently we have been able to take some of those students off the waiting list and they're currently attending full-time programs um but locally there are only so many um specialed settings yeah for our three and foury old they used to go to boses years ago many years ago now it's really alternative go I jumped ahead if we want to look at that last slide just to to get a sense um you know that mentioned that we've seen an increase in number of students receiving services in
008prek and again most often at speech at this age students um may or may not qualify for a full IEP in kindergarten so some students have speech and it's articulation and they get the services they need and they don't need a full IEP but um evidenced by our two in inclusion settings this year in kindergarten we had enough students to run so we have two inclusion and two duel in kindergarten because of the number of students so back in 1819 seven students received speech and remember that was a larger group uh in 1925 students 2021 the data is really skewed we had half day prek 20216 last year 15 and this year 14 and two are being evaluated right now so potentially you know 16 students receiving special services for your so so just quickly
009looking right now we have 58 kids in our preap right correct and of those 58 kids we have 14 or 15 14 that need s yes and we have outside providers providing that speech service because again it's provided by the county we're very grateful since we started yes class size is smaller and needs are higher yes well said that's exactly that's exactly it so I I thought I'd just briefly cover academic curriculum in prek our prek team wrote Our prek curriculum it's thematic so some examples of those um uh themes are space the seasons um healthy foods and students have a very short hold lesson it depends on their attention span it can be 10 minutes it can be at Max 20 minutes and then they move to centers and they work in small groups
010where the teachers can really um modify the activity based on their skill level so if there are four activities happening they might all be doing measuring but they might all be doing it differently to meet their level of where they can um be successful at that skill of measuring um students have art uh one time a week they have Heritage which is FL so they get Spanish three times a week and they have PE daily in GK and uh the school day for them is the same as the other students it is not it's shorter by um 45 minutes in the morning and 45 minutes in the afternoon 850 to 250 we have buses that no our foury olds do not ride the bus drop off and parent pick up okay and uh would we
011get more students if we gave bus service and giving bus service that would be the expanded program you can't get bus service to the fouryear olds why can't we get bus service I don't believe upk are are um allowed allows for that oh okay do parents know that um well they certainly know that it's not an option when they register that transportation is not an option um project most does hold our pre students so if you're a preer and you register for project most because the day is a little shorter I know it can be difficult for Working Families students can stay it is a long day for a four-year-old but it is an option and then with respect to project most all the parents that want project most from John Marshall are getting it
012John I'd have to check in if there's currently a waiting list but I know it was very small this year when we had one at the beginning of the year a little bit we did we've added extra sections of both homework club and project most great um I'm going to share with you some anecdotals from the prek team recently the state has um asked us to look at the screening tool that we use for prek so I don't have um uh quantitative data but moving forward I'll be able to have more data to measure um different skills like expressive communication find and gross motor skills perception because we're going to put a new assessment in place it's a new screening tool that will happen three times a year so it'll happen prior to coming into
013prek so the teachers will know where those students are starting a midyear so a baseline a midye and then a final so we'll be able to see those skills when students come in and then see their growth um and that will start that assessment will start next year our teachers are being trained on it now but for the purposes of this presentation I asked the prek teachers to identify three or four skills that they felt students were less prepared in this year than they were five years ago when we started prek um and the response was uh listening and following directions um teachers were drawing parallels to the lack of expectations children have in the home to follow directions so therefore in school they're having a more difficult time but certainly are being taught and
014making progress but they're coming in with less ability to listen and follow um specific Direction self-help skills so the teachers reported that in the past students were able to put their jackets on independently and the teachers would have to help zip but this year they're finding that students need that support even putting the jacket on so some of those basic self self-help skills that students had five years ago they're seeing uh that diminished uh lack of background knowledge the teachers also reported that students are arriving in prek with less exposure and background knowledge that students this year have had greater difficulty identifying animals seasons and Foods than they did five years ago so there's just their feeling again this is all anecdotal is that there's less exposure to those things in the home um than
015there were five years ago and then lastly um selfregulation and coping and I know that this is a skill they work very hard on in prek and are students are already showing growth but just you know when they're told no or not getting what they're asking for or if they're loving an activity and they're being asked to transition um teachers have identified that that's more difficult for students now than it was just 5 years ago so again in the future I'll be able to really provide more detailed data about those skills but I wanted you to just have an idea of you know what the prek team um you know saying about their preparedness for school K yes the free kids is there a do they cook for breakfast we are offering free breakfast every
016year offering free breakfast our pre- students come in and they don't formally have the free breakfast it's available to them they have snack usually through the classroom teacher or what's packed at home right away um and then they have lunch so uh and then snack sometimes again in the afternoon for their rest time so and the reason or you know just so somebody's listening the reason we have free lunch for our students is because our school qualifies for that program paid for by the State yes State mandates and reimburses us right yes and last time I checked it's probably been two weeks we were serving about 260 breakfasts and that's including Breakfast Club in the morning so you know 260 at least are eating breakfast in the morning and that's throughout all our schools right
017yes anyone have any questions I'm happy to answer questions all the program is an extreme success I know parents are so pleased but you know having their children at John Marshall our team is amazing um they continue to want to grow and learn they're learning this new assessment um do you um and I know this is not for 2425 so I don't want to mislead the public if we were to pursue the prek grant for three-year olds what what do you envision the length of a three-year-old day like space requirement would be half would we be running half day we do like four sections in two rooms yes two sections in one room yes okay two sections in one we could even start two sections one room and see what the community buying is for
018that right and then expand to four sections two rooms if there's you know Community interest I definely think we need to think about it because I think that's that's isues our kids aren't getting an experience they're they the four year olds are coming in with absolutely no experience whereas years ago we had the session house we had that start we had Neighborhood House we had at prek orientation kids went there at prek orientation this year I for them was their this was their child's first school setting and so that's a huge for both the child and for the prek team a long day um it's a long day to start yeah to just start because we have so many work parents a lot of parents put their kids in I mean uh I we talk
019about a lot of children are home or they sending them to school at four for for a full day and they haven't had any experience in that I think that we have we're going to have to think about contributing well and you would years old get them started earlier and maybe you know headed off at the pass a little bit Yeah the process the approval process for the pre for Grant has got much more complicated I think that speaks to this this message that they too as state are looking at this and just got a piggy back that I mean the the teachers that we have were were complemented um in the approval process because the curriculum we had to submit um Karen spoke of a scening tool that you know something the state is
020leaning towards they leaning towards more standardized curriculum but our staff cre you know a series of curriculum uh units you know a few years ago and they like you know knocked me down to rewrite some of them and they were really complimented and it's due to their their dedication by the state and um though I had to you know send every unit to the state and I was you know grinding a letter and off my teach they were the stage is very complimentary to the lessons that they were doing and how it really balanced that so I think that's persective we would have to re you would have to look into I mean I think two steps if Karen can kind of survey some of other principles and other districts that are running you know
021uh Universal 3 U and maybe Tim could look into because I know this is this is a bear this is a bear I know the three I know the four was orig we agre that it's certainly way I mean like even you know with my own children having access to the neighborhood house and others that you know I know had access to the session house I think that this is all speaking to consistent kind of availability as you know against and bridg Hampton do three any other of our sing districts do that not that I can speak of articulately John I'd have to do I'd have to do my homework on that doesn't matter I we don't we don't have the space right now but I think it you know I think because we have
022so many working parents that I think that it's wrong for these kids to be isolated uh if we can get them into a school and uh I think we should do it so I'll pull some districts in Sea County and get that information back toen our four-year-old program is a huge excess I mean look how well look look at where we were and where we are today and it's it's great so I mean let's maybe if we can add to that we we that's what we're here for listen exactly if you can't do that then what's the point I honestly I think it's great love to see you yes thank you sure thank you as I was driving to school today I thought with that freezing can you imagine uh if we didn't have a
023school imagine what these kids would I mean of course you know public education public education but God bless usave be cold be C but you would be used to what a wonderful opportunity to come to form building and meet your friends and and Learn and Grow it's God Bless America excent thanks again I'm gonna go a little bit out of order because um Britney's here so I want to do her her tenure now so she can go back about her day um so it's going to be uh for anybody following 7.03 it's under the superintendent's report and recommendations and and I'm going to read the section so recommended the for Grant Britney Thomson tenure in the tenure area of mathematics certified grades 7 through2 effective January 25th 2024 can I have a motion I make
024a motion second all in favor congratulations thanks for coming yeah stay we very lucky to have her I'm sure you all know that she's fit in East Hampton like she always been here thank you thank you congrat congrat definitely congratulations thank you I think she has a speech a different setting last night she went can I ask my math question no when is a rhombus a rectangle when is a rhus rectangle yeah 0 angle come on when is a robus a rectangle who knows the answer what's a rhombus four equal sides what's a rectangle four equal angles right what foursided figure has four equal sides and four equal angles a square she wins s wait I said that I heard I said all right all right okay thank you very much congratulations move news schools
025yeah so I have a few uh cppy up at section 11 and Charlie's running and programing his building today uh Athletics uh we're halfway through the winter season our teams are all still in the fight middle school late winter uh start yesterday 42 boys trying off of volleyball 21 boys for wrestling 33 girls for basketball um Molina sarlo and Nico heran Puglia are this year's suffix Zone Award winners and will be honored um Wednesday February 28th at Villa lombardis at 6:30 pm Charlie course has a lot of words in it uh for Mar Luther King day um all social studies teachers took a half day took a half day or full day last week to put Martin Luther King and a public holiday in context this year in grade six our students listened to and
026talked about the entire I Have a Dream speech ra and rather than just excerpts something we knew we tried this year in grade eight students uh will have a full twoe unit on civil rights segregation and the 1960s later in the year but all grades discussed Martin Luther King now uh to help students understand why we observe this holiday project hero started yesterday with teaching artists and actors and runs for three days three half day three half days mornings uh today and Thursday it's very popular anti-bulling respect kindness program uh Charlie spoke to the foundation about the program earlier this year um because they funded it at the entire $99,500 thank you very much uh we are preparing the building for computer-based testing yay uh for all grade on Friday the 26th of January the
027Middle School run Chromebook stimulations for all students and staff to help everyone become familiar and comfortable with the secure site for the New York State Testing uh Chuck westergard and our whole tech department has been working with the uh with the Middle School to make sure they are ready all middle schools will begin their dance and movement unit in physical education early at the end of the month as the building starts to gear up for the madart group dance off and pizza night in February it's one of our signature programs uh more to come finally we have some significant uh professional uh professional development coming for the Middle School staff two days on reading and writing and critical thinking with Victor Jack Nino which I discussed with the curriculum committee on the 2012 and 25th
028thank you Sarah okay good morning um and just anecdotally as you know Ken's the expert but as a parent who recently had um a child in the prek program thank you it was outstanding um and I think she's part of that data that has trouble zipping her coat but let alone getting out of the house but that's neither here nor there but um uh I wanted to show you our um mural for the Martin Luther King East End um competition this year uh I did not think I could be more proud of our students after their rosea Parks mural last year um but as you know uh the Mosaic symbolize I izes the power of the individual they have when working with the community um and so each panel is done by a different student
029and this year they chose to do Ali forny who I was not familiar with um but uh that is a homeless uh gender non-conforming youth from New York City uh forny was a peer counselor and an advocate for homeless lesbian gay bisexual and transgender youth uh who was tragically murdered in Harlem on the heels of that the Ali forny Center was opened in 2002 in their memory and they are committed to advocating for lgbtq plus youth um um and have so many services there for uh that population to support them and I was just so proud of our students for uh choosing such an inclusive figure and um they chose the quote um there wasn't that much out there in terms of quotes from Ali for but they chose a EE Cummings quote it takes
030courage to grow up to become who you really are so uh we are very proud of uh our uh Mrs zarian and our art Club students for creating such a moving meaningful piece so uh they just keep getting better every year and I will say when I go on the East end and I see you know all of the pieces from the other schools I am biased but we are always the best and most outstanding so uh uh so I wanted to show you that um speaking of our artwork there is a Guild Hall opening um of our student work and it's actually uh the uh Elementary School I believe the middle school and also sending districts and our high school students have an opening at uh Guild Hall this Saturday of their Eco versus
031ego work that they have done over the past past couple of years and that exhibit will be up through February um and uh great news on the little food pantry we're going to file this one under good things come to those who wait um so it did take a while because uh Mr Rigby's second period class uh was working on it uh they are up they are built we put ours um in the corner out here um and we are going to be rotating stocking those through our clubs um and our individual students um for community service hours our goal is really to have the students take ownership of it um and stock it so um thank you for that idea um and we uh are getting it up and running um importantly our students
032are in the process of course selection students and families so we're beginning the process of meeting with their guidance counselors to choose their classes for next year just so uh all parents and students are aware of program of studies our course offerings for next year are available on the website we also have hard copies available in guidance um and again you should parents should be receiving uh the notification of when that meeting is I encourage all parents to attend as it's you know if possible um because it's really important in terms of their child's schedule next year um and uh we have regent exams next week and we have our incoming ninth grade night for all the eth graders um their first introduction and parents first introduction to the building that's this Thursday night um
033and I do have uh for you a copy thank you to miss batist um for making copies of the yeah so just keep one and pass it down and maybe for folks who are not here we can uh great thanks so much yep Ken tell me about flees program so we had a group of second graders who were prepared to come last evening to talk about Spanish class um but since we canceled the meeting senorita taras is going to video them today because they were all very prepared um to talk about their favorite things about learning Spanish so I will share that video with you all once it's um put together you'll put it in February you want to put it uh the video will show it at the board meeting February yeah perfect know
034for um for the little ones it to to delay the presentation after they've worked hard on memorizing their sentence or two is is difficult so we figured we'd record them today and then pass that good idea thank you yes thank you very much all right um public comment um Jason do you have anybody on the line for a public comment give me one moment uh we have no one on the line for public comment terrific does anybody uh for public comment in the audience I don't think we have anybody to make a comment uh right so move on to the consent agenda I have a motion to accept the consent agenda I make a motion second all in favor any opposed all right uh superintendent reports and recommendations item number one recommend the for accept
035a letter of resignation from Julissa Flo for the position of Elementary education uh teacher leave replacement and that the board approve the instructional appointment uh to the position of enl teacher I have a motion make a motion second second second uh moving up uh opening came filling a leave moving into a permanent POS prob position great all in favor any opposed congratulations number two recommend the board approve the instructional appointment of Anthony mcor to the position of driver educ ation teacher I have a motion make a motion second second discussion that's we talked about the additional enrollment in Drive want to make sure all of our kids can get it terrific all in favor okay I got a question I can't abstain you can vote you're allowed to vote you can vote we have a
036you can vote you can vote you can vote I Can Vote Yes but if I obain we don't have a that's correct so I can vote you can vote the other way it's my my grandson okay okay he's a gift to the school and the school is a gift to him all in favor I any opposed uh number three recommend the board Grant Britney Thompson already did that do we do it can we do it again or no we don't need to do no we don't need to do it again all time sake all right so number four recommend the board approve the memorandum of agreement between the East Hampton un free school district and the East Hampton un Free School District uh School related professionals Association regarding a one-time retirement incentive for the 2023
03724 school year can I have a motion make a motion second second any discussion just simple uh working with our units uh toh create an incentive and you'll see in the next um item that some people did take it good all in favor any opposed number five letters of retirement I recommend the board accept the letters of retirement the letters of resignation for the purposes of retirement and we start with bin Hayes L dgo James Howard Wood Bonnie Hayes Joyce Daniels and Rafael dadoo I have a motion make motion second second discussion congratulations yep a lot of people with a lot of years and they' given their District yep congratulations to them you know uh and thank you for this yeah thank you absolutely all in favor any opposed number six recommend the board approve
038the contract agreements for the 2023 24 school year I have a motion make a motion second any discussion just just an evacuation agreement with the clubhouse thank you very much and uh we've already been working with the retreat so this is just a formalized update of uh their agreement and working with our kids our high school is there any course associated with doing that the retreat no actually it's through a grant right Sarah The Retreat yeah they they applied for a grant we were part of their Grant so it's I see no cost they're great to us great all in favor I any opposed number seven recommend that the uh board accept the annual external audit corrective action plan ending June 30th 2023 have a motion need a motion second second discussion s just standard
039stuff the the uh auditor made a comment that there are a couple of clubs that didn't have any activities during the year the extra classroom audited and they wanted those issues resolved so we resolve good all in favor any opposed number eight uh recommend the board the awarded bids for the 2023 24 school year um and this is for our uh projects that we've got going on the Lai patio um going out on the side can I have a motion take a motion second this is all the bch we were grateful they came we came in right about right where we need to be for this the lenai patio for the high school uh construction I anticipate starting and we talked about facilities uh this summer it should happen shouldn't interfere with anything here it'll
040be outside and uh we're very happy going to be really nice and we had to accept the lowest responsible bidder but the good thing is that look like good contractors and our architect does his due diligence with those companies and is confident um that they can handle the job okay all in favor any oppos and let's see number nine recommend the board approve the proposal from Island pump and tank LLC um have a motion make a motion second second discussion this is the uh the 2,000 gallon tank for the transportation center finally um so what do you think three months before they got to get as soon as it's approved three months the shop drawings they have to obtain the tank so maybe three to four months but again this is under budget right this
041is paid for out of funds that were left over the building of the transportation center so we're well within budget and well within me oh yeah this allow us to fuel our own buses and not have to use the to for so correct all in favor I any opposed uh number 10 uh recommend the board approve the budget transfers for the 2023 24 school year can I have a motion I make it second second any details you want to provide Sam or we standard stuffff standard stuff to balance out pap horrific anybody board to have a comment all in favor any opposed and then we're on to new business uh so uh facility so I wanted to inform the board uh we um we had contracted with soundsense to take a look at the uh
042the noise and the um coming off our football fields uh really on two levels uh one from our own um our own facilities our own equipment meaning the the PA speakers and then for people who kind of disregard what we say about going on there and playing music so basically this has started in the summer with meetings with soundsense which is obviously a local company in Wayne Scott uh with real sound engineers and then um basically they met with us they met with our our our neighbors and and whatnot they made some recommendations for the new sound system when we put it in um Luke was present uh some engineering we have to do and build around the uh our speakers and how sound gets to the other side of the field and whatnot we're
043pretty confident in that when we put our own stuff in it'll be much better much uh cleaner and actually what I learned is it'll be played at a lower level because the sound will actually be coming in different places I I forgot specifics um but one of the other things and again our neighbors are very pleased with the way we have and Kathy masteron regulates our athletic use of the speaker and our PA system there have been no uh athletic related incidents over the last year or so uh what continues to happen though is still people disregard the messages um that say no music playing on the the turf uh people bring their own portable things and this is again we're not talking about 3 in the afternoon we're talking about 8: am 9:00 am
044in the morning on a Saturday or Sunday um so some of the recommendations one of their specific recommendations was sound proofing putting up a soundproof barrier on existing fence expanding fence and then putting sound proofing material on that that cost is going to be well into the six figures and result into maybe a 10 a 10 decimal decrease in sound really not your bang for your buck and I've already spoke to our neighbors about I let Kate know what was going on there with that the better thing to do is kind of us rotating our own field security which we already have just rotate our security so so Sam is working on that with Pon View and Jay diamond and again building something is you know it's going to obstru truck views on both ends
045it it just yeah would decrease it 10 decimals it's not for for $250,000 it's it's just a waste of money so rather us we have security we rotate them through or we have to do is change certain rotations and and timings of stuff so Adam we have just recently brought on Pond View the local security system and they're much better than we had it's not even much better it's a different level of service nday there it's it's a local company knows understands our local school related needs incredibly responsive um you know to everybody I mean I think the principles are happy with with them I would think I know Sam is so uh you know you know and and I think if you take it from just the noise in the field when when Security's
046here I don't know if people you know we have go-karts racing in the in the uh on Sundays in the parking lot we got people flying drones airplanes um you know group events that are happening here organized group events that are not supposed to be here they can take care of all those things and it's it's you know it's great to be kind to our neighbors which I think we you know we're due we we need to do that but it's also the liability that the district takes with somebody getting hurt out here um you know we've got pro tennis players giving lessons on our tennis courts charging people to use our our facilities so this sort of covers the whole gam we got lot talking about Bank your buck a lot more Bank You
047Buck because someone's here to actually look pay attention and talk to these people and tell them that's very nice but you you know go do it at home and you know our facilities are for our students correct and and when a student group come there's a permit process and and we welcome that and our individual taxpayers are free to also use our facilities to be but there can be groups that that take advantage of that of that policy and Pond View helps stop that right correct yeah yeah yep yep y good um anything else under a public comment anybody Jason do you have anybody for public comment still okay I would like to just say that um I wanted to thank Sarah and the high school students that came to the Martin Luther King program
048and thank St Luke's and Calvary Baptist Church they started this year having the Interfaith um Martin Luther King program that includes everybody in our community it was a huge success I hope it's the beginning of a new way for us to uh celebrate Martin Luther King stad but we had two high school students speak they were awesome and they were awesome and they also B their artwork some of the artwork and it was great and I just wanted to thank everybody publicly and thank you to miss Dunn for working with those students to get them ready yes awesome anybody else have a comment we're good have motion to adjourn make a motion second second all in favor