BOE Meeting 9/27/2023

001e good evening everybody Welcome to our September 27th 2023 meeting thanks for your patience and waiting for us uh at this time we would like to have Nicole scall our student representative lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance please rise thank you changes in the meeting agenda are there any there are no changes to the meeting agenda thank you so that brings us to 5A a very favorite part and uh to present on the PTA reflection a word we have Heather forner from the PTA hello The Ward Melville PTSA would like to congratulate Serena poly Castro on being one of the 300,000 students across the country who submitted an original piece of art to complete to compete in the National ptsa's Art and Reflections program she won at every level making it to the most

002coveted spot the national winner in her category Film Production the animation that she created would bring tears to your eyes amir's letters truly fit the theme show your voice we are so proud of Serena and cannot wait to see what she creates this year congratulations Serena [Applause] pict [Applause] all right well congratulations again Serena that is fantastic we're really proud of you now we're going to go from one great student to another our student representative report from Nicole hi everyone I'm super happy to be back for my second report of the school year since my last report Lots has been happening at w mobile this time of year is busy time for seniors including myself with college applications in progress and deadlines quickly approaching believe me they're coming really fast seniors are finalizing their lists

003and preparing college essays I look forward to seeing what colleges we all commit to and all the opportunities this school year has to bring last week staff and students at Ward Melville participated in Spirit Week leading up to homecoming walking through the halls I saw lots of pink and blue for Barbie Ken comfy clothes for PJ day flannels flannels for autumn colors day and various sports jerseys for Jersey day on Friday everyone wore a patriot Pride gear and Senior girls wore their jerseys students got out of class early to enjoy pep rally and cheer on the varsity athletes on all the fall sports teams as they ran out from the blowup tunnel Mr Patriot even made an appearance to get students excited for the big game this past Saturday the wmobile varsity football team played

004their homecoming game due to the weather the homecoming Carnival was canceled however the football team still pulled out a big win against Central icelet considering the circumstances there was still a substantial amount of supporters at the game cheering on the football team in the wet conditions as many of you may already be aware of a new initiative has been in action for students to wear their ID cards although it has been a bit of a struggle to get students to wear them throughout the school day there's been major improvements as more and more students wear it regularly personally I don't think it's that big of a deal to wear your ID I wear mine every day especially because of its purpose to keep students safe I encourage all students to wear their student ID badges

005if they haven't been already in regards to both the ID cards and school events Mr burnhard and I meet frequently to keep each other up up to date he's been a great Outlet to bounce ideas off of and help my efforts come to fruition as a school year progresses Mr burnhard and I will diligently work together to make to make plans become a reality thank you so much and keep us posted on your college applications okay we want to know who's in the running God bless you okay we're moving on to 7A uh Karen ruffley is going to talk about the nisba proposed resolutions I'm so sorry I skipped totally ignore that you're like wait I've been here for hours come on I am so sorry Dr biscari is going to introduce our next wonderful

006president presentation my apologies uh we are pleased this evening to uh highlight our science department especially in the secondary areas we have uh Mr shukman who's the chairperson over at jenus Mr fiti who's over at Murphy and Dr koua Who is our science chairperson at Ward Melville I'm G to ask Dr B to protect my cough drops actually and my ID whenever I come up to the podium all the hardware starts banging up against the microphone they didn't give me the my goodness so just so you all know I am coid negative um but the kids gave me a whammy of a bug so I'm wearing a mask to protect you and we know science shows that masks work so I don't want you to get what I've got they also okay all right oh

007should this have up for us thanks I on twice now and I don't have my readers oh you want mine mine no not yours sorry Mar yeah and the fact I don't get great service in this this room here give one I have a joke no okay actually I did a little experiment less talking equals less coughing so I will be brief hold your applause no no okay Dr B liked it try another that no worries all right all right here we are ah I don't even know what I was going to say now forgot everything no um good evening thanks for having us I will do my best to at cuz I am wearing a mask but um I promise that I will I will do my best to make sure that you can

008hear what we're saying uh first and foremost I'd like to introduce my colleagues um Miss Chris Christine deatti and Mr Peter shookman the chair people at uh Murphy Junior High School and jelus Junior High School um respectively so when Christine and Pete and I got together to work on this presentation we realized that science hadn't presented to the board since 2016 and you might think oh my goodness Where Have You Been for seven years well we had that little blip in the middle called the pandemic and so our attentions were diverted but back in 2016 I stood here with um their predecessors and we told the board all about the new things that were coming down the pike and even though we did have a pandemic and the deadline I'm sorry the timelines were revised

009slightly to uh help us modify what we need to do for New York State because of the pandemic New York kept pushing through in 2016 we told you about the future New York State science learning standards and now I'm here to tell you that the future is now uh our elementary school Co colleagues have already been teaching the um students in science aligned to the new standards and I guess I have to do this too so there they are they look pretty daunting and um scary and they are big but luckily uh Pete is an expert in this and so he's going to be taking you through some of the finer points of these things that we may need to consider as a district as we move forward in the new standards just as a

010quick aside the new standards really don't change science all that much my brother's a tech teacher and he always laughs when new initiatives come down steam stem you know all these things he says Tech and science teachers have been doing this all along we hook kids we get them engaged we get them ask questions about the world around them New York State just had the uh foresight I guess to codify all of this they decided that there was so much data that students had access to that they figured it would be better to teach students to be thinkers rather than memorizers and regurgitators of that information that they could easily look up and to make them more life ready and first college ready they decided to adopt the Next Generation science standards but make them

011unique to New York which Pete is going to tell you a little bit more about they all start with anchoring phenomenon though and so as a model of this you might show a student something like this this might be an anchoring phenomenon that you started discussion with in an Earth and space Sciences class and so you may recognize recognize this as a picture of the Aurora Borealis but young students may have never seen this before and they may ask like whoa Is that real how does that even happen and from there you start jumping off of the question questions that the kids ask to start your lesson here's a picture of a wasp on water this is an opener That Could That Could suit biology chemistry even physics so I will tell you a few

012things that are happening here in this picture this wasp is landed on water and its shadow is projected on the container that is holding the water so you might notice something unique about the Shadow and you might know a little bit about how Shadows change and position to where the sun sun is and all that fun stuff but if you look at the wasp's body and you look at the body in the shadow you see that they're kind of one to one they they seem to be similar in size but man oh man look at those feet how'd that happen that wasp isn't wearing anything on its feet is it this one's awesome whoa I think it goes again so this is the dropping Slinky this one's awesome look at it look at it look

013at it look at it oh how does it do that how does it do that the great thing about this one awesome for physics the kids can do it themselves so they can be convinced doing this holding a slinky filming themselves that this is in indeed a real reality that we haven't doctored the video somehow amazing how that Slinky defies gravity I now turn it over to Pete so he can take you through the nuts and bolts of the Nissa standard and we're very lucky to have Pete on staff because he really does have his finger on the pulse of what's Happening up in Albany and he's been very helpful in instructing the rest of us in how we have to change our teaching and learning Pete um thank you Bor for uh having us

014in tonight Mar for the introduction um in many ways our presentation tonight it's a Testament of the teamwork we have as science chairpersons in the three secondary schools we meet regularly we discuss The Good the Bad and sometimes even worse um but we meet together and we always discuss and try to keep our instruction on the right track offering qual quality science instruction to our students um that picture is up I took it up in Albany uh probably the nicest building in Albany one of the nicest building Downtown Albany which isn't saying too much um if you've been there recently um and the nicest building I have had the pleasure to work in and I work in three village with some lovely buildings um for the past 15 years I've been employed by state Ed

015um as a educational consultant which will bring me up to Albany during summer months for about a week at a time and an occasional weekend during the school year my wife likes that I'm away for a week of the summer usually when it's Midway through the year it's maybe helped our marriage a little bit too as well as my knowledge of instruction and content um thanks so I I work with the office of assessment heavily based on developing regions examinations which is a three-year process I think I've been involved in every Committee in the generation of a Regions exam from writing the exam to the final edit before the state prints publishes them and distributes them through all the districts um so always an interesting Journey when I come back and my students say so

016so mrman what's on my test I say I can't tell you and thankfully enough I don't remember at this point of the game either um it also has brought me together with some other colleagues throughout the state many times we think in in our own District in our own discipline area but it's really powerful to meet with Educators throughout the state and hear some of the struggles in different different regions of the state and really every time I do I'm thankful that I work here at Three Village okay so Dr Co thank you Marney for introducing the standards a bit um so the new standards are something I wanted to make a we wanted to make a major focus of this presentation since the time I started teaching earth science in 2001 I've been instructing

017the same content the curriculum in science really in the regions courses has not changed since 1999 now early in the 2000s um Educators at the University level academics were looking at science standards and thinking how can we engage students how can we keep them interested how can we use like that Slinky demonstration as a hook and tie it in more effectively with instructure now we've done that for some time we we do hooks in our lessons and they they develop what was known as the framework um the um framework for K12 Science Education which evolved into the Next Generation science standards upon publication some states around the nation adopted those standards immediately New York state which has a very robust science curriculum and History of Science Education took a little pause in that step reached

018out to Educators asked them for feedback on the standards and rather than adopting ngss adapted it with our current core and developed what's known as nissis the New York State science learning standards neither acronym rolls off the tongue and I apologize for that one so tonight I want to give you a little bit of an explanation of those standards and I'll start here with the timeline so the adoption of nisis was 2016 by New York State um and the timeline itself was adjusted we know with coid there's been some push backs with certain dates um and I'm going to come back to some of the dates on this on this timeline in a moment or two um so in 2016 when the state adopted nist um the district took some proactive steps I want to

019thank Dr scanland Who was serving as assistant superintendent for instruction at the time met with the chairperson for Science and really looked at the elementary program knowing that we start there in 2017 we'll have it shot when the kids a better shot when the kids are up with us at the secondary level they developed uh revamped the elementary schools developed science labs at the early and intermediate level at the elementary buildings um hired uh lab Tas to help teachers in the Fulfillment and creation of laboratory activities for their students really turned the science program um at the elementary level lined it to the standards so thank you for your vision in that and thank you board for following along with that step um in 2019 we started to instruct the stand at the secondary level

020science 7 2020 we started science 8 I know both of those years we had the interruption with coid uh 2022 was probably the first year we had full instruction of the new standards with confidence of teachers being able to reflect and now talking about some changes they may want to make in time so the standards of it the standards are written as performance expectations that's what students will achieve but it's a multi-dimensional learning standard there's three main components of these performance expectation the one we're probably most familiar with is the discipline core idea abbreviated as DCI now that's going to be the facts the content the nitty-gritty of science course what students would often memorize regurgitate and we ask them to regurgitate excuse me on an exam um this ties in also with the science

021and engineering practices the academics realize that at the instructional point we also want students to engage in activities just like scientists and Engineers do when they investigate and solve problems examples of Science and Engineering practice are simply asking questions defining problems planning and carrying out investigations obtaining evaluating communicating information something honestly students we we ask them to naturally do during a lot of laboratory time um the three dimensions the third of the of the dimensions is crosscutting Concepts these are Big Ideas or themes that have applications across multiple disciplines in science and Engineering cross cutting uh Concepts include patterns cause and effects scale proportion and quantity a great analogy I heard for these three dimensions ties in with a microscope an instrument we're probably somewhat familiar with the performance expectation might be seen as a

022microscope all right the DCI the content might be the information on the slide of that microscope the science and engineering practices is the students ability to learn to manipulate that instrument to to focus it in a certain point to get the content and then the cross cutting relationship cross cutting concept excuse me is the scaler quantity as they adjust the lens they can see different information from that same slide I thought that analogy worked well and again I'm not going through a full uh professional development session on these standards by any means um touch back to that timeline again so I have the timeline back up and I'm zooming in on the dates where we're currently at we're at stage three which is the implementation plan of nissus and in Spring of this school year

023students in s in in science 8 in 8th grade science 8 and students in grade five will take the new science learning assessment the New York State assessment um it'll be the first administration of the science 5 and science 8 assessment following year June 2025 will be the first administration of the Earth and space sciences and biology region exam so the regions exams are being revamped and in Spring 2026 there'll be the first administration of the new regen is in chemistry and physics now New York state had some foresight with this they knew that the science learning standards were different in some ways than the change from the current to the new standards different than the change we're seeing in mathematics Ela um Etc um so they give a little bit of a grace period

024in implementing the new examinations so I said earlier and this chart here is for Regions examinations the new new Regions exam will be offered June 2025 at the same same time the current core regions will also be offered and that will be offered through June 2026 that's for Earth and space and biology as you can see chemistry and physics they they're a year past us with their adaptations so I want to review the timeline how how we've looked through this timeline and how we're approaching the assessment pieces for the science courses I've explained a little bit about the intermediate level Science assessment um that exam uh will be given May 1st 2024 at the uh at the Junior high schools it's a computer-based exam this year so it's CBT thankfully we have our Chromebooks and

025we have a resource and experience using those devices our science Aid teachers are assessing this year off the Chromebooks we we discussed this early at our our initial meetings of the year and thought it would be beneficial for students to to practice as much as they can with that same skill prior to taking that assessment um they students also have to complete some investigations these are State driven Labs um that students must complete prior to these assessment now for Regions as I told you earlier the state offered a little bit of some flexibility I should say with when we can begin to um assess in these new standards our plan is to continue with the current core through the 2425 school year not be the first out of the gate for our students to take

026the exam we will formally instruct nist the following year June um 25 to 26 and they will take the region exams June 2026 it gives more time for exams to be published more time for Publishers to catch up and more experience for all of us and I think it will benefit our students greatly uh for chemistry and physics we're taking a similar approach where we're going to continue the current core through 2026 um which is when that first exam would would come up um formly instruct nist in 2627 and then in June 2027 they will take the first region exam in chemistry and physics on these new standards again for the same reasons I described earlier for Earth in space and uh biology so I know at this point you might feel a little like

027a child under underwater here a little bit so let's now pause from the standards and talk a little bit about our performance I'm gonna invite Christine here to highlight some of the Excellence in our departments hello um so that was a lot um and as a science teacher administrator parent um you kind of feel like that you know maybe we're underwater we're drowning but we can tell you we are so not drowning we have been preparing we I would say we're more prepared than our neighboring districts um we are going into this basically fighting and our kids are going to be phenomenal so um before I tell you a little bit about our results I just want to thank Pete uh Pete goes up to Albany AR summer and Marne and I cannot be more

028grateful and he's so knowledgeable and he is a great teacher and he just teaches us everything he learns so all of our secondary schools really benefit from Pete's work so thank you all right so um as you can see here this is our 2022 region scores um in earth science living environment chemistry and physics we do not have the 2023 regions yet um as embargoed by the state but it will come out soon This Is Us compared to suff County and through just our own results from 2023 and that's all speaking together we we top this so we did we did amazing this year so we're very proud of our staff our teachers and and especially our students because they are the ones taking the test um why are we successful we are successful for

029many reasons we listed a few here but if you look at all of these open communication professional learning communities extra during Lun after school we really do build meaningful relationships with our teachers our students um our faculty we're we're really like a family and we work together and we really do believe that is definitely our strength and it allows us to provide just excellent instruction and it motivates our students and they want to do well for themselves and also for us I think um you know they they're really into just learning and just proving how smart they really are which is great I would like to point out our academic intervention services known as AIS so last year um and every year we identify struggling students in the district um who perhaps might not pass

030the region and we provide the science teachers provide extra help for them before school after school during lunch and it goes on for about three months before they sit for the regions and um thanks to the board they allow us to pay these teachers um and for their extra service to the students and it definitely works um and one more thing I want to just add here is just collaboration um between the secondary schools all the Departments um specialed we like I said we're a family we're a big team and the students do come out on top so just real quick Junior High School science our current court sequence um we have called The Three Village ILS spiral um that was put back into play a couple of years ago and basically what that means

031is that in sixth grade seventh grade and eighth grade the students in science are exposed to the four disciplines so earth science biology chemistry and physics but in sixth grade it's introductory and in seventh grade it's intermediate level and then in eth grade it would be advanced level and um it to be working uh you can notice we have different Pathways so you could be an eighth grade in science 8 or eth grade in art science a honors and from there you would move into different um classes in ninth grade and then on to 10th grade the beautiful thing about three village is that when you get to the high school and I've seen this with my own children and families I know in the district you can go from someone who was taking a

032regent level class in junior high school and by 11th grade they're taking all APS so it really is up to the student so it is definitely a possibility so I think that's wonderful and we have elective course offerings so we have science research one and two in the junior high schools which can lead to inar um with Dr cooler in the Kola in the high school to school Murphy just posted all over Instagram we planted kale and spinach and lettuce and that's been wonderful for to school and I was at galenus my students my kids went to galenus and they have gorgeous Gardens because um you know your your team's great over there and we also have natural disasters which is a course that a lot of the students really enjoy you know they talk

033about hurricanes and tornadoes and it's exciting and then our last um probably one of our most proud for Three Village is our Science Olympia teams so jenus and Murphy and the high school um compete on National levels or Regional levels um at the top there that's the julen team and Below them is the Murphy team this year um I believe that from that is nationals right so that was Nationals and for Murphy that was States and it was just a great time for all our science Bowl came in second they were in news day um they're doing great and then we have non-competitive clubs such as the ecology and Greenhouse Club so we feel that we really do offer um a lot for the community and um we're just proud of our teachers and our

034students and now I will hand it over to Dr Kola thank you so as Christine alluded to the sophomores typically come up to the high school and they follow either for the next couple of years the living environment or chemistry uh track I just say that quickly not track but course uh we offer a bunch of electives that are open to sophomores and plenty of enrichment programs and our entire course of study is quite extensive in fact one thing that's not noted on this year we are off offering for the first time a living environment course specifically for our English language Learners so we have a section of enl living environment that is running one of the things that you'll notice here under the New York state core courses is that we pride ourselves on

035the fact that nearly 60% of every graduating class for as long as I've been here at Three Village has taken physics before graduating so this means that the kids have completed the cycle they've had exposure to all four major disciplines the Earth the bio the H in the physics before graduating and that blows away New York State and the rest of the country so it's something that we're very proud of and you know about this um so instar is our uh independent science technology and research program that was codified by George Baldo back in 1998 um shortly before I came and absorbed George he's in here someplace I'm keeping him warm uh I have that little two and a half versus four at the bottom of this slide to remind me when I start to

036feel blue when my competitors have many more students doing many other things that few of our students are able to do that we do in two and a half years what other schools do in four because of the structure of the instar program and so that's something that um I definitely want to uh work on in terms of opportunities for our students the instar program is very successful and we have a lot of great things to celebrate the kids um um in sophomore year are now going on to competitions and we have some pictures here from the Long Island science Congress students in the sophomore year are doing in-house re research projects with their sophomore instructors and me in the second semester and then we take the show on the road and the kids go

037and compete in person they build their posters and they Stand and Deliver and take questions from judges in the junior year uh we bump up the the competition level a little bit and here are pictures of our 2018 National winners for the National Science teachers Association Toshiba Explorer Vision project that's also a group project where the students have to actually come up with a product that will solve a problem and the kids won that year the entire shebang they had an all events um all um all events paid uh week in Washington DC and then of course senior year brings on regeneron uh people still call it Intel but it's not Intel anymore regeneron is now the corporate sponsor of the science Talent search and this is what the senior look forward to in our

038district and you remember Amber Lao our um Three Village unicorn she was the third place winner for regeneron which was a national competition and then we went to ISF together and she placed third internationally in her category which is fun uh students also compete at the Long Island science and engineering Fair the New York state level the junior science and Humanity Symposium some pictures of last year's seniors uh the middle pictures of Joe Shoto who was here last year in June feels like we were just here celebrating the fact that he also qualified for ISF and we spent a week in three extra days in Dallas uh Texas ISF is really the show it is really the Olympics um the the Super Bowl the world series of of Science and it they regeneron does an

039amazing job for the kids our science clubs are knocking the ball out of the park another baseball reference uh our academic challenges team which um has been taken over by Mr Medina which I um lovingly call the bowlers I get to go on these uh chap as a chaperon um to the competitions with the kids because there are a couple girls on the team so I keep wanting more young women to join these teams we qualified for National quiz Bowl in Atlanta we've qualified for National Science Bowl in Washington DC and of course on the right our Science Olympiad team States and Nationals in Kansas so our science goals why don't we all come up so essentially they are as you can see here um the light keeps going off they keep waiting the lights

040on see I take it away here sure um so our our main goal and big part of the presentation tonight was to discuss the new standards um adoption of those in our regions or High School level courses um adjust the intermediate level science curriculums based on the new assessments as well as the the investigations that are being Incorporated in the classes um yeah reinstate the robustness of the instar program uh create science centers at the secondary building level um those science centers could serve as support for our students who are in need and perhaps even some of the clubs to give them extra time to meet during their lunch periods increase of academic intervention service services and examine secondary science courses with the strategic planning goal um if there's any type of District reconfiguration it

041greatly impacts The Sciences with standards that span six through eight Middle School standards so it's something we'd like to heavily be involved in if the if the board decides to move in that direction in a Time thank you all right here's the quiz check it out doesn't that just freak you out it's not it's not at all doctored how is the slinky not falling what questions would you like to ask if you were in our science classes right now how does that Slinky defy gravity all right I think our time's up [Applause] Escape thank you so much that was really wonderful and I have a feeling I'm going to dream about wasps and slinkies tonight thank you all very much any questions or thoughts from anybody yeah I have a few sorry um can I

042uh address the first one to Mr Schuman um so I I think one thing that parents don't understand and I put myself in that category is is why the there's always new things happening what at the state level like why there's this new set of Standards this new regions coming through you seem ideally positioned to answer that given that you actually work in I think um it's an interesting question thank you very much for asking it I think in some ways if your if your child's in that course and they're the one with the new standard it it's new but as you remember from my talk and when I started the content I've been teaching um that curriculum has not changed since 2019 um a lot has changed with our understanding of of the world

043as well as our understanding how people develop knowledge and make connections to Scientific disciplines part of the new standards and with the phenomena I hope we understood this is to draw those engineering practices and hooks to make it more a real world not to have the test push the Wonder of science out um so I don't think it's something we revamp heavily in science sorry for my colleagues who teach math I think they go through a lot more revisions than we do in science we're about 20 years of a 30-year career it's not a bad transition in science some of my some of the other departments I know have changes more frequently I don't know if I've answered your question so you're saying the underlying science hasn't changed much and the basic teaching of it

044is not changing very much so so what's changing with the assessment there is it anything or is that also not changing much now the the assessment piece um and that's one of the things I've been involved with it's the new assessments are going to be less geared on regurgitation of data and memorization of facts more of an explanation of the concept of a phenomena or the um or the standard that that the um that the question is written about um it will require more of an again an explanation more detailed response from the students perhaps sometimes they're designing an experiment or looking at flaws of data rather than just I'm a neuroscience guy regurgitating information about rock crystal size let's say which is a memorization point but not as beneficial in the real world in

045Practical knowledge that that's part of the goal of the state and the reason why these standards have been changed okay so another question that just is am I alled to ask More's in charge you I've always feel anxious here um as statistics become a bigger part of this are people bringing in more is statistics you know B like basic statistics what experimental error explaining that sort of stuff is that coming more into it or is that the standards that we're adapting from the ngss have a really I I don't have all the data behind it but I know there's a lot of academic research behind learning practices in the movement to these new standards Dr K okay and then I have one on oh I'm sure there statistic Bas that's not an area of my

046expertise of examining statistics and then rewriting State curriculum in that way um I I just me statistics in terms of analyzing the results the kids get and that sort of thing like so they they understand that that that you do the experiment on day a and you get result a and then on day B you get a slightly different result and understanding how that or how there's a certain amount of variability the I guess statistics become much big part of life these days everybody seems to know statistics except me what's interesting actually is in the labs the state has developed in the investigation pieces they're really modeling how these standards should be instructed and it takes more time it takes more time perhaps to get through a standard them when in the traditional way of

047here's the content memorize I'm testing you tomorrow because and the kids study because I have to test tomorrow it really asks them to define the problem here's a scenario here's a phenomena Define the problem what do you see what details do you have and it might be a day longer than we're used to instructing where it's left to the child really left to the student to develop those ideas and thoughts and that's the idea behind keeping that Wonder keeping that Natural Curiosity because that's what drives us that's what drives scientists that's what drives Engineers to solve these problems those critical thinking skills rather than just memorization Dr goad go I had one more question what did you mean by reinstate robustness in the insta program what did what were you referring to I didn't understand

048that so one of the things that we've talked about doing because our high school is a 10 through 12 building the students enter into the program in 10th Grade we've talked amongst ourselves about maybe having our science research 2 Programs feed directly into the instar program and have ninth graders uh doing some of the things that the 10th graders are doing so that when they come up into 10th grade we can be doing different things so starting them off in a uh research like program a little bit earlier okay so it's a question of trying to recruit more people into the program is it is that pre prefering them and trying to recruit them is that um well it's not for everyone and so we we would like to expose as many students as possible

049to the idea of independent thinking and I think that our science research one classes at the junior high do a good job of that for the students who end up taking those as electives they they might be interested and so they might sign up for science research one and then if they are interested and they want to continue in science research too that's where I think that maybe we could devise something um just a set of activities that are done at both of the junior highs that would feed into the 10th grade program so that students who applied to the 10th grade grade program when they entered the high school would already have some skills under their belts that we could jump off of and you know hit the ground running with some more Hands-On

050activities and more research um um experiences sooner so when you say it's not for everyone I agree with you it's a very difficult thing that is being asked of some of these students the ones that go into this uh regeneron contest we have one currently we have one of the students your students in our lab and they're asked to perform at a level well beyond what you would typically expect of a kid in high school I it's a very impressive thing I I knew George Boulder he was actually in our department on our floor and it's a very impressive thing what you're doing here it's I it's a very hard thing for you I'm sure to prep the students and it's a very hard thing for the students to actually get this done uh it

051is since George uh was with us every school on Long Island worth its name in salt has a program just like George's and they copied it and the competition for student students to even find mentors because back when George started you didn't necessarily need to have a university level Mentor I've done mentorships with students in high school and those projects unfortunately they're fine projects they're they're awesome projects and I remind the students that unfortunately the the journey is as important as the destination in this type of program it doesn't really mean much when you're 17 and you've put in three years of work but but it's become so competitive that the students now need to have a university mentor to even to even go further than just applying I remind them that completing the application

052is a feat unto itself putting that on your resume when you apply to college is an amazing thing that many students in the United States do not have because they do not have the personal medal to persevere and do it and that is that shows character Beyond winning prizes so we we we you know we LW our kids who win prizes but I I I never forget the kids that don't win the prizes because they were there as well and you know as a scientist that every year the Hot Topic is something different and we don't know who the judges are we don't know what topics they're looking for we we don't know what which other students are applying in what caliber um labs they come from so we control what we can control and

053the kids do they if I tell them if you leave it on the field and you've done everything that you can for this for your experience in this program and we write a great research paper that tells a story about how you spent your high school years and your extra time and what you're really into and what what excites you and you put an application together that that is fantastic that is the payoff um it you know it's it's often difficult to have these sorts of academic Feats uh be coupled with prizes because it's you know it's kind of a double-edged sword but but you are correct it's very difficult and I appreciate you hosting I thank you so much well thank you for running it again you guys are doing a fabulous job it's

054it's from both your your you and the students doing fa I I mean I tell them all the time you know the Jericho the soset the other schools who who place many more students than we do even though their programs are often smaller than ours they they have a four-year program they have a different structure they they are different things going on in those high schools that don't go on here and I'm not even sure I would want them going on here I think that what we offer the kids is is well-rounded and I think that it helps them develop as people as well as competing scientists and I think that that's as as important so I want to thank the three of you because uh there's an expression I often use with people and

055it's an attitude reflects leadership the your leadership in this department has been outstanding all of the teachers that you supervise are incredible with the work that they do the the lessons that you just pointed out here in your presentation are just one example of the awe you instill in every child that comes through our secondary system and even the elementary system that you've been working with for the past few years we probably wouldn't be successful wasn't for your hard work so you have our respect and admiration for a job well done thank you very much if I if I could just add uh my appreciation for you guys I I think it's in particular for science that um I'll continue to love Fest here for a second um that there you all all three of

056you work in different buildings but you're one science department and I think that that helps the program tremendously um is that you all looking at the bigger picture and focusing on your contributions but seeing seeing it from um a broader perspective as well so that that's what I think makes the science department so successful so thank you for your leadership can I ask one final quick question how about computer science as if this is not a board of Bo enough I can speak I can speak to computer science yes so um computer science um is falls under the math department we are working on this year as one of our initiatives um is to Define what that looks like there is a k through 12 computer science standards that are to be implemented next year

057we found places for a lot of the standards in uh the K to6 realm uh we are looking for how we can Implement that because every student has to have access to th to that so the 9th through 12th gets a little um difficult and we're going to be talking about this in our program review because we're trying to either figure out a pathway where we can introduce Those computer science standards or a standalone course and if it's a standalone course then obviously that's going to take place of something else in somebody's schedule but uh these are mandatory standards that we do have to implement and uh we're going to be working on that this year because the implementation begins next year thank you so there was a computer science program at uh course in

058julas was very popular and I hope that can be resumed at some point well these standards will do that and then I know that there are many clubs up at the high school as well that that focus on computer science um so I'm sure that that's going to be a trend moving forward especially if they have exposure to this standards thank you okay just following up the course that Sher is referring to did that disappear at some point is that um it was I don't know was it a club at that time computer science it was a course it's a course taught by taught by the math teacher Mr Hanscom I believe at the time it was a course and due to budgetary and enrollment they had to uh you know Had It Go but

059that's not to say it can't come back no which would have been a math elective at the time then correct yes okay well thank you again one more time we really appreciate it it was a wonderful presentation Dr clol you are to stay home tomorrow that's the one good thing I get to tell you as superintendent so too bad stay home tomorrow too maybe the whole week until that cough goes away okay thank you good night and um Serena don't feel compelled I know we're fascinating but if you have homework you're not going to hurtt our feelings if you sneak out and go home all right moving on to items for board discussion uh Karen ruffley is going to talk to us about the nisba proposals great it will not be as interesting as the

060science department um but last meeting we handed out the proposed resolutions for the New York State School Board Association um on October 16th all the school boards come together and we vote on these um resolutions so we gave these out to the board for um you guys to review and this week we wanted to discuss um if we agreed with their recommendations to um vote Yes or vote no um and really I'm just throwing it out there to see if anybody wants to discuss any of the resolutions and then next meeting we will be voting on each of the resolutions so when I go to the meeting on the 16th we'll be able to um represent the district so does anybody have anything I have two so I guess I can start you start go

061um there were two that jumped out me that uh nisba was not recommending um the first one was position 39 and that was about ongoing training for the board they did not support that um training should continue yearly for the board I'm kind of in disagreement with that I think just like our teachers do to uh professional development the board should also be doing that there's new policies that come out new laws things change um so personally I would be in favor of that it's h for six hours a year so it's not really that much of a Time constraint um and then also position 55 which to some of our guests here is start time um the board the nispa is not supporting a resolution to ask the state to um look at doing

062start times across the board for every school starting at 8 AM um and I think as a lot of the conversations that happened last year and this year our board should be putting um our decision that that we would be approving that uh sticking with the nose um I agree with you I think six hours a professional development is not at all unreasonable um and uh you know with the cross the board 8 AM of course philosophically I completely support that but it always comes back to you know do we really want to encourage the state to keep giving us unfunded mandates it's very problematic um so I do understand perhaps it's something we can afford to do God willing but there's going to be much smaller smaller much less well-funded districts up state that

063this could propose a tremendous hardship to so I I kind of understand where they were coming from on that one I agree with you on that and but there's also proposals in here that they voting yes on for the state not to give un um mandates without financial support right so hopefully those would go together because I agree with you they need to support the districts if they want to mandate something correct and that that is sort of perennial for them they always ask for that of course it doesn't happen but they can keep asking so that is that is awesome so I agree with you on all of those although I did also one other know that they had set aside that I kind of um didn't really understand the logic behind was the

064requirement for school security guards to receive and be required to obtain the specialized school specific security training well why not and I know again it's it's a hiring issue right I'm sure Jeff can speak to that I know it's hard to find security guards and you don't want to make it harder but it is a school so I feel like they probably should be trained to work in a school setting it's not the same as other setting so that was my only other no did anyone else have NOS do you know what sorry proposition was 54 any other NOS okay so should we move to the yeses if anyone wanted to converse on the yeses the recommendations Karen you good with that so yeah I was fine with all the yeses yeah anyone have anything

065on the yeses you want to discuss so there's one about electronic bus I think this force in the um in the Mandate without funding issue so if there's no funding for electronic bus I don't think we should support at all and that's what they were suggesting as well right yeah um I wanted to to ask uh Dr scanland and Mr Carlson about a proposed resolution 10 um that would substantially increase the earning limitations for retired police and other law enforcement officers who are serving as school resourcer safe safety officers what is the impact of that if those hours increase uh we would be all for that uh right now there is a well the there is an earnings cap um on retired anybody not just police but anyone that is collecting a New York State

066uh any one of the New York State Employee Retirement System pensions if they are not 65 years old yet there is an earnings cap it's $35,000 a year uh that applies to anybody teacher administrator police officer if they're working for another agency that participates in a uh one of the State Retirement Systems so for instance a retired police officer right who's collecting a New York state sponsored pension including New York city has an earnings cap of $355,000 if they work for a school district not if they work for a private security company not if they work for a department store not if they work for a private school right now at this moment in time that cap has been waved since coid right and it's uh still being waved through June of 2024 whether it's

067been extended each year whether that gets extended or not uh again we don't know we won't know that till that will be part of the state budget process um but as far as it doesn't wouldn't cost us anything it wouldn't cost the state anything it's the single most impactful thing the state could do to improve school security and it wouldn't cost anybody a penny and we've brought this up to our uh Representatives uh at the State Assembly and the state senate year after year after year after year and they simply don't care we tell them that it won't cost anyone a penny because we're paying somebody to do the security we want to hire law enforcement experienced people not somebody who took an eight hour security guard training class uh those same security guards they

068can only work for us so many hours in a year because of the cap again right now it's not this this school year in the last couple of years haven't been a problem because the cap has been waved due to co however when that cap comes back it's a problem uh those same security guards they can go work for whether it's St Anthony's the mall the whoever doing private security and there is no earnings earnings limit to them so that's that's a problem for us and it it doesn't seem to make any sense that very a limited thing just retired law enforcement who's doing school security not get rid of the cap entirely we're not to nobody's talking about them being a able to start earning a second pension that's not the that's not even

069in the in the conversation but there's no reason for them to have that cap and when the New York State uh Department of Justice when they're doing an investigation who does the investigative work detectives retired detectives and guess what they give themselves waivers the the state grants waivers to them we can't get waivers for security guards it makes no sense in the world so we'd be all in pay all four at least an increase in the amount if not uh do away with it it's 35 as I said it's 35,000 again it's waved right now because of Co but the dollar amount is $35,000 it was raised from 30,000 and I think it was 2019 and before that the last time it was increased was 2007 that's per year correct per year school year that's

070per year per calendar year calendar year for them part of that part of this as well is that we spend a lot of time and energy and money training the people that we get on our teams here uh we have an incredible program here in fact so much so that the county has recognized our efforts of the procedures we've put into place um to the point where this Sunday there will be a training exercise at Ward noville High School on safety it will be doing a a a drill this Sunday from 7: a.m. to 1: p.m. um so that goes to show how well it is our system works here but we be prior to coid when the cap was in place we would go probably maybe halfway through the year or three quarters of

071the year and we would lose some of those people that we had trained to bring on new people because they already hit the cap and that that's unfortunate because those folks that are we have on staff are familiar with our students and our procedures and now we have to bring a whole new team in to do that again and it's it's it's doesn't make any sense whatsoever it's one thing that the state is uh is is is myopic about is that they're not looking at this from the idea that the safety of the students is Paramount and the safety of our staff our Administration and the parents and our community is Paramount this is compromising our ability to do that effectively by by having this in place all right so Karen you got to really

072Hammer home on 10 okay and by the way uh as a little aside on that so uh one of my uh one of my daughters went on an ambulance call at another school district I won't even say where it was uh was an ambulance call at a middle school because there was a fight and injuri is in a fight so she gets there well it wasn't students fighting it was two Stu staff members two female staff members one of which was a security guard we don't want security guards like that so uh so we want to hire we want our law enforcement security guards excellent thank you that's a that's a great answer thank you so are there any other yeses oh sorry go ahead so the nisba resolutions and there's 56 of them in

073this document there as Jeff just pointed out that none of them are binding they're all non-binding is there any other way to influence that the schools as collectively have to influence or to influence uh legislation I think part of it is there are multiple um advocacy groups lobbying groups in different organizations you have the New York State Council School superintendents you have uh secondary principles Association you have Cass as administrat you have SES you have n those organizations out there and thisis we it has to be across the board these same issues that are being presented here I can tell you are in documentation from all those other organizations trying to address some of those concerns so from the field this is probably one of the most unified areas where you're seeing same similar arguments

074being made across every single one of those African City groups about the importance of particularly Security in these other areas so it's a matter of the state legislature listening to some of those things and and effectively doing something about them quickly what about start times is that do all those advocacy groups are they all on board on St times no it's they're all over the place on that one and again I think what what was mentioned by Sue is that you have remember you have 770 school districts in the state of New York from rural areas you know you have some school districts that are Elementary districts like Fire Island with 30 some students in it um to large districts like New York City or brettwood with 19,000 students in it so having one start

075time across the state and and many of those group's eyes may be difficult uh and and as pointed out may present some cost issues now if the issue of the tax cap comes into effect about putting this outside the cap for us um that may change people's perceptions of those costs because it wouldn't be directly linked to the cap um but right now security and the buses the electric buses against the buses yes are you know and look I'm all for a Greener Earth you know and you know anything that way would be wonderful but I don't think the technology is caught up to the the goal that's been set right now in the state's eyes about some of these initiatives in many ways but Security in of itself I can't see how we can

076compromise that for our children and and our staff so are there any other that NIS is recommending that anyone takes issue with or are we all comfortable with the Slate that they're putting forth yeah and there's nothing else from the nose that we want to pull out to consider pulling out not voting tonight but just to discuss tonight we'll vote next time okay all right thanks Karen okay uh so Dr scandin let us talk about the budget advisory committee process so as was suggested last year with the uh the the uh committee that was formed about starting earlier uh we starting earlier so uh there was speaking tonight about the uh with the board about what the next steps should be so if our process would be mirroring what we did last year um we

077began that really in Janu December January we want to look at that possibly again and wanted to take recommendations from the board this is a board committee about whether you want to maintain the structure and the process uh whether you want to change the structure or or the process I think the structure from my opinion was truly representative of a cross-section of the community and every every aspect of that includes of students staff faculty Administration um community members parents um so we really did well that way um we could look to continue the numbers I know we increased one of the groups by four more members uh the parent group by four more members have more representation um but what uh one of the things was that last year we did a lot of the

078presentations um which some folks felt uh took away a lot of the time to ask questions so if we begin earlier perhaps by uh a Time frame would be uh if we look to do this now we start to get the uh preparation for the application process so by the next board meeting the board can look at that application determine if you want to make any changes we put that out to the public the November meeting we get those applications back make the selections and then begin sometime in either early uh late November early December with the first meeting and again we could if we have any new members on that committee we should probably have a a a Revival of those presentations so that they are aware of some of the things going on

079in the district um things have changed in some of those areas and some things need to be updated um and let them know and that way when the budgetary process does begin towards January and February and we start to get more numbers in from the state on different areas and from insurance and things like that the the BAC can start delving further into the questions having that knowledge already in place from the uh presentations that were done anybody thoughts yes um I I think we need need to discuss how we're choosing who is sitting on the BAC um I'm in agreement if we think the uh staff portion was correct I'm fine with that um how many parent and community members did we have last year we had four community members and eight parents okay

080so 12 12 matth presentation's coming up next I need that um so we 12 I mean maybe we should look at um when we get the applications in weeding out the applications to think see who's there and then doing it as a lottery or um maybe splitting it and having the board pick half and then doing the other half as a lottery um I just think there was a lot of talk about um people that were picked and who weren't picked and why were they picked and why weren't they picked did the board have favorites did they not have favorites I I think we just should should get away from that um because maybe who I want on there isn't the pretty same person Vinnie would want on there or David would want on there

081um and I think the board should just be fair overall um so I would do some sort of Lottery even if if it's not all at least half um and I think we really need to have a charge for this committee like have a written out list of what we are expecting this committee to do um who's in charge who's the committee chairperson maybe we should have a you know a co-chair that is a parent or Community member along with a board member or an Administration um just because they the ones doing the report and how often are they giving a report to the board they're reporting to us I would like to hear from them more than one time before we're supposed to vote on a budget um because because now that we're giving

082them the numbers or the capability of looking at the numbers earlier hopefully they'll have a lot of information to bring back to us that we could talk about as a board um so I just think there needs to be some sort of um outline or agenda or charge to this committee so they know specifically what we as a board are looking at I think that's very important um and the presentations I thought they were fantastic but maybe we could update them put them on uh put them on the website and instruct our members that are on the BAC to look at that before the first meeting and then if they come back with any questions then we can ask the questions I think that took up a lot of time and a lot of the

083members weren't able to delve as deep into the numbers as they wanted to so so um just to give you the board committees cannot be chaired by a member of the active Comm they have to be chaired by yeah they need to yeah they need to be chaired by a member a board a board member if they're a board committee so that's just if that's that's what you're doing the presentations while I agree with you you we certainly can update and put them on the website my experience with doing that though is people don't look at them so you know we we track the number of hits we get on the site on different areas um even when I went around to all the schools and did all the presentations after the Strategic plan was

084done I still had people telling me you never said we could just move the sixth grade like that was your choice number three that was C on the list like oh and that was in June when some of those were still being said so I I do agree we can update them if the committee um if the committee feels they were too long we could shorten the presentations you know certain certain presentations were very long uh but it was our first time really doing them and I think um everyone that presented did a wonderful job giving that information if we do them earlier it gives the time we do them earlier in this process hence why we're beginning this time of year um because two things with this we don't have any of the numbers

085yet except for one from ERS so if the BAC is going to convene to start looking at budget they're really just going to be looking at this year's budget because we don't have the numbers yet for next year um those things haven't been set by the state uh in many categories so and those start don't start to really roll in until really the end of January beginning of February so um and we don't want to have them sitting around you know twiddling their thumbs waiting for the numbers and speculating because a lot of that a lot of what we can do is going to be dependent upon what the tax cap is going to actually be and what some of those numbers in those areas might be so I just follow up a little bit

086about the charge so I just spent six hours uh being trained by nisbar I'm not really voting for the extra six no 12 hours I should say not six six of those hours was spent explaining to me how I'm responsible for anything that goes wrong with the finances of my school District I I think it's important that we have a 5-year plan I most districts seem to have a five-year plan I think the charge of the back should be to develop some realistic 5-year plan that both the community and the school district can buy into I I agree with you with the fiveyear plan the only issue is those numbers that we're referring to like the tax cap and the insurance rate increases in those areas are yearly they're not done over a fiveyear period

087look the F the fiveyear plan is a combination of hopes and guesses right I mean I nobody's going to be being held to a to the 5e plan but just things like planning how much can we afford in the future what things really are out of our reach those things financial planning is a good thing agree I think is I think that's the message here that Financial Planning and developing a a sustained plan and some goals how do we afford things that we want to do there's several things as I may have mentioned that I would like to do and I'm sure that's true for other members of the board how do we get to that point where we can actually afford that that again requires financial planning scking money away so forth the reserves

088the reserves will come up again how do we get the reserves up to the maximum that we can sustain those things agreed and within that too is something that we'll probably be discussing at the facilities meeting next month is um it's we're getting close to the decision about another Bond because of the condition of some of our facilities that we're looking at as we move forward so it's been about 10 years since the last one and that maybe you know we're talking about long-term planning that's a long-term plan as well we uh we're the present condition of satul Auditorium U ceiling is a perfect example of what we're contending with um but if on the board tour that a few of you went to and saw some of the things um we have some cosmetic

089things on the outside of buildings and some things that we would love to have because we have you know we see the benefits of that um such as fields and things of that nature but there's when you get into the boiler rooms and see rusted valves uh that if they break and we don't have heat in the building we cannot open during winter if were a certain temperature so it's it's a combination of all those things together our newest building in this District district is the high school from 1972 so we we need to be careful I'm about the same age so as things are breaking on me things are breaking there all the time so we need to start to plan for a future 10 years from now that this these things are going

090to come up repeatedly so I do agree with you with the idea especially since we took a hit when the budget went down and our capital budget here went down significantly uh a district that we're offering compared to in the county has a capital budget of 4 $ million our capital budget this year was one and a half 1.4 million right Jeff um it was up to what 6 million at one 6.6 million at one point in time prior to the budget going down um so with long-term planning that as well as the reserves to build back that credibility with with our own uh finances for the future uh we definitely need to take a look at it so I this probably for a later discussion but but it seemed to be the strategy a

091lot of places were use using was getting their operating budget down to say 96% of their total tax income and then there was 4% or so that was being used for Capital and that seems to be a a good it gives you a buffer if the state does something stupid the next year basically which we could count which we I wasn't going to say that I'm glad it was you that said that so in case the state does something stupid by having an operating budget of around 96 % or so and You' got 4% on Capital and what I did not know and this was from the nisb training we still attract State support for any Capital not just from bonds but also from and that's an important thing I mean it's important to get

092that money from the state we don't want to leave any money on the table I fully understand that but what what we need is some buffers against the state one is the reserves but one is not spending all our money to the maximum each year and and you basically just set the charge for the BAC so we're done with that part of the committee right at this point uh and by the way part of part of that too is to uh not go below the tax cap either uh we did that a couple of years ago um you know and that's just you know we we have to we for long-term planning we need to go out at the cap each year not well let's go below some uh that that that does not work

093well for for long term and we can certainly do a long-term plan it's not a problem to do it as long as everyone knows it's literally all madeup numbers I mean I'm we we're and it doesn't M I don't care what district it is it's made up numbers we have no as Kevin said we don't we have no idea what the tax cap would be each year we have no idea what state aid would be each year we're guessing as to enrollment we're guessing as to Staffing so it's okay okay to put together as long as everyone knows it's kind of a a madeup thing and the numbers will probably vary drastically from that and and what what sometimes districts fall into a problem with that is it looks like well why were you so

094far off well they were made up numbers so it's not that there was mistakes made or it's well we thought the tax cap was going to be 2% every year well then a couple of years of very low II meant the cap was only 1% those years so just so everyone knows that yeah my view on The Five-Year Plan which I totally agree that we need it was more geared toward uh the Strategic plan so if we're doing the Strategic plan we need a fiveyear plan for what this district is going to be going forward and part of that plan is financial planning and right and that's you know the idea is that I'm just throwing this out there that we need I guess the science department said that they need science sence buildings in

095each of the um secondary schools that could be part of your fiveyear plan and then what happens when we continue the BAC going forward that is their charge that we wanted to do this on year two can we do this in the budget so The Five-Year Plan is actually uh a working document from our strategic planning on how the district is going forward rather than just a financial plan that we need to save this this this and this that should just all be combined because there's going to be so much that we need to do over the upcoming years um all over the district so that's just how I foresee a plan and hopefully when we do this we know that we're not going to be guesstimating on a five-year plan if we're dealing with

096strategic planning we need to know exactly how much is this going to cost what is this going to cost do we have to go to you to the public in order to get Bond money in order to build again areas in the high school I don't know but these are things that we have to look at not just guesstimating so that piece is going to be decided within the next two weeks about what what the next what if the nth grade were to move to the high school next week uh a group of Administrators are getting together to look at what the needs will be for the high school if the nth grade would moved up in 25 26 um the following week the internal Review Committee will review those determinations um and they will

097not the uh internal U review will'll be looking at what potential spaces if needed may need to be done um some of those areas may not need to be done through a bond it it could be done through the capital budget if we do it appropriately um and I can tell you right now some of those spaces right now a science lab an art space and and A Music Space would be priorities right now just because of the entire grade level going up there the two junior high schools aren't going to need much at all because it's just moving one grade level out and another grade level coming in um but if we looked at the actual enrollment as of today again today not any increases or decreases the high school would be in 25

09826 1,776 students so which is still smaller much smaller than it was uh even 8 n years ago here so but it's an entire grade level with different needs um that are in there so uh we'll have some of that information right now so we don't have to wait too long for the future and actually will be included in our next year's budget proposals in those Capital uh the capital Improvement areas so we can take a look at that so for the BAC my opinion is the function of the BAC is to provide a recommendation to our budget so that we the board can pass a budget including these recommendations so I hope we can make this as a goal so we have guidelines for the BAC that they gave us recommendation and we implement

099this recommendation that's all instead of just educating them what the budget is about and uh regarding the numbers Year from year our budget numbers doesn't change too much we can use the current year budget as just as example for educational uh purpose so that they they understand from year to year something can change as as you can see from that right the again the caution that Mr Carlson's just saying that there as much as we say that that they should be able to use that we inevitably get criticized in some capacity that you're you're off why are you off this is budget so not real again if if we were a business and we were able to project out what sales would be 5 years from now and you try use that plan um but

100you know if you depending on the industry you have a lot of varying factors you could have wars in areas of the world you could have weather number of things like that same is true for us we had $1.4 million put into the capital budget this year and then so talk it's roof literally started caving in so there went the $1.3 million for the bathrooms we were planning and and the ceiling tiles and the all out the window or in this we can use this use this real examples to educate our board members about this right it's not just even the board members it's also the community the community yes exactly okay thank you I uh concur I think the timeline that you proposed is is very good I think getting an earlier start will

101be great and I think the overarching feeling that I got from people last year is it was great the presentations were wonderful they just felt like they were in the gate a little bit too long and they wanted to run so they just want you know more work to do more to chew on and I think setting those goals and deadlines would be really really helpful okay okay so on the topic of conversation we thought um there was an appetite in the community to have some less structured conversation um than we're able to do in these meetings so somebody had an idea that we could do coffee with Kevin where Kevin makes himself available wherever you are I want to talk to you tomorrow morning to have just um nonbinding conversations um in a much

102less formal way so that people in the community feel like they have this resource they know that these coffee with Kevin will come up periodically that he's available to have a very human conversation and followup will be done afterwards so the first coffee with Kevin is October 16th at 4:30 at the Briant Library um so Ms Clark sorry Ms clar Library um the uh it's an open Forum so I will be bringing the coffee although I don't drink it at night because I will be up the whole night um we cannot plan out any further dates from there because the library doesn't have its calendar yet for the second half of the year so that won't come out until probably November December once we get it we can flat out the rest of the dates

103so we'll be doing about uh four of these a year um these are in addition to the meetings that we've had with the Civics Association and a number of the organizations in the community as well as unions um Three Village dads have come in we've had a lot of nice conversations with different groups and also some of the um uh meetings we've had with the ptas over the course course of the years we've been doing meetings at each one of the buildings I'm actually in the process they started uh yesterday uh with meetings at each of the uh schools in the district which I did last year just meeting with staff and administrations I was at our head yesterday I'm at to talker tomorrow um so a calendar for the next month going out to

104each of the schools to let the faculty staff Administration uh have a chance to have the conversations as well so thank you very much for your willingness to do this now prove me right that the appetite exists for these conversations and come have coffee with Kevin all right we're going to move on to our good news section not going to have everybody because uh not all the buildings have had their PTA meetings but we'll go through and share with you what we have so Arrowhead hello um Arrowhead posted uh the PTA hosted a back to school breakfast for a staff um they had an open house on September 12th it was very well attended um they had their school pictures on September 14th their character trait for September is kindness they already started their bus

105Awards um they do family connect nights the first one is going to be tomorrow night um the first PTA meeting was last week it was very well attended um they do dot day and art class not sure exactly what that is um Dr Salin visited arrowead on Tuesday so they were very happy about that um they started a birthday board for the uh PBIS committees and uh their clubs have just started thank you and Dr Kerman had to be away for some professional development so I have his minaki report minaki students won this year's Emma cup minaki had the highest number of students sign up for and complete the summer reading challenge at the MS Clark Memorial Library on September 11th every student and staff member was given an American flag to place in front

106of the building in honor of 9911 many thanks to the PTA for donating the flags students in grades K to2 celebrated dot day in honor of the 20th anniversary of the book The Dot by Peter Reynolds this book inspires children to be creative by Having the courage to try new things Minnie had some winners in the hexagon project with this year focused on environmental justice congratulations to antoinet Apria Megan Bell Emily Casey Charlie gallb ya haer and Olivia Mata and lastly mesaki Elementary School raised more than $20,000 in last year's kids heart challenge through the American Heart Association one of the top four fundraising schools in suffk and a leader in New York state as such the school has been awarded a heart of gold certificate so congratulations on that okay now me NASA cake

107uh NASA cake also marked September 11th with their annual flag planting in the bus Circle they also participated in the 20th anniversary celebration of the dot on 9:15 Ms LaVine and Miss castellan read the book to the classes in the school students and staff dressed in Dot clothing and the classes competed different activities to celebrate the Day in addition some of the classes participated in a flipped classroom where they live streamed a live reading of the book by The Author Peter Reynolds himself classes from all over the world participated in the flipped classroom they are now preparing at Nasa cake for their annual pep rally on September 28th that kicks off their bus cares initiative and reinforces the PBIS motto of cares bus drivers will be handing out car's coupons to students who exemplify any

108of the car's qualities which are caring accepting respectful embracing successful while they're riding the bus students will have the opportunity to earn prizes for collecting the coupons and they are also planning for suff transportation to visit in October and the bus drivers will come to each classroom to teach students about the importance of bus safety and allow the students to visit a bus for Interactive Learning opportunities and talk it hi um the PTA provided a back to school breakfast for Staff last Friday their first PTA meeting was September 14th it was very well attended um they had a movie night to start off the year that they said was fantastic anded of their best um they had successful school pictures their Color Run is coming up this weekend um they had an open house on

109the 21st where they um also had a mini book fair um the fifth graders had a walking trip to mil Pond and soet is beginning to train their staff using peaceful Pathways which give students a chance to resolve conflicts peacefully using a step-by-step directions it allows adults to lessen their involvement or be involved in a more meaningful way while empowering students to settle their own disagreements fairly while both parties are being heard students learn to walk and talk out their issues respectively thank you thank you uh jenus okay so now we're going to get a demonstration why I failed show and six years in a row which Karen apparently killed um I did actually go to the PTA meeting at jelas but I forgot to ask about their achievements we had a very pleasant conversation

110that's the only thing I can truly Rec next time next time you'll get him all right Murphy that's great Dave uh Murphy they they have not had their um first PTA meeting yet it's going to be on October 4th but I did speak to Vince and he said they had a great opening they had a nice breakfast by their PTA um they have open house tomorrow night and the seventh grade wreck night is going to be on Friday so the kids will get together and bond and enjoy themselves in the the um the gym I also attended Mount I have Mount this year also and they started their day um with their Mount ma uh their mouny mascot uh greeting the students as they got off the bus the first day the kids were all

111excited to be there and see their their mascot and they had a start celebration week with hello week and it was a dedicated to kindness inclusion and making connections and each day of the week students were encouraged to participate in daily activities having lunch with someone new um going up to someone learning a fact about the classmate Etc the wear spirit wear uh by the end of the week and all of the children had a great time on September 27th the BMX anti-bullying bike show will be visiting Mount I'm going to go see that and their PBIS initiative continues with students earning scores slips for positive behavior their book fair is on October 4th and 10:25 is going to be Islander day so they're doing a lot of stuff over there excellent thank you and

112last the academy inward Melville uh I didn't attend Academy so that's no yeah it's okay just one so M PTSA had their meeting last Wednesday it was more like a forum style so Mr burnhard was there and answering questions from the parents about 20 parents attended um so Mr burnhard resorted inputs from them about the rain date uh for the graduation ceremony so most likely will be on Monday 6:30 uh this is based on input from the parents attending uh the pdsa and then lot of parents uh asking about the uh college application process so uh last year the guidance Department gave a very extensive uh Zoom meeting explaining the process and they have a a slides this the video and the slides still on the guidance Department website so any parents interesting can attend

113can uh uh check that website um also the PTA and pdsa and one my guidance department plan to host an inperson session just in case parents have more questions uh and want to have P inperson discussion with the process uh lastly schooling has a lot of information um like actually parents wants to have inperson uh meeting with College admission officers so now the guidance department is also hosting inperson meetings with the College admission officers and the all this information are in school Lings I also learned that schooling is also uh available for junior high students it's quite some information H to dig with I know it's too much information maybe for first viewers anyway uh other than that the last thing is um the pdsa is also hosting the uh presidential volunteer award this year

114again it will be paper based because it would be easy for uh the PTSA to keep record of everyone's award hours and that's it thank you so much and Dr scandan you have the academy for us yes so the academy enrollment is up to 40 students 10 of which are from out of district U the out of District students are on Cross contracts um th the rate this year is $93,000 for each of those cross contracts coming to us um The Academy did a fishing trip last week um their first one first Excursion for the year to bring out the entire school together together um they're planning uh a wonderful uh opportunity for all the secondary students uh which is a trade schools Fair which we're hoping to get off the ground soon and we're

115working with uh suff Community College on that uh to help uh promote that as well excellent all right thank you all move on to our consent agenda item eight may I have a motion some second okay so we'll go through these bit by bit uh m mono begins with b and c uh B is the minutes from September 13 2023 uh C is the certification of the 203 uh 2023 budget vote for the MS clar library for the sole purpose of the 2024 operating budget the uh the budget passed with a yes vote of 447 and no of 74 okay any questions about either of those okay thank you all right uh Mr Carlson you've got the next uh the uh uh item uh D is the establishment of the 2023 24 tax levy and

116the recommendation is to uh set the levy at the same amount that was projected at budget time which is a 2.65% increase over last year and is compliant with the tax cap um tax rate projections cannot be done yet uh because we don't have the assessed values from uh the Smithtown uh side of the district yet and the um rate for school apportionment sometimes known as Equalization rate um is not available for the town of Brook Haven yet either that's said by the office New York State Office of Real Property Services but either way the levy uh itself is what the board sets and the recommendation is uh this dollar amount which is what we projected at budget time 2.65% uh increase and uh by the way as an aside um the um item that

117one of our residents uh spoke about at several meetings the uh senior citizen uh income based exemption um I'll have that on for first discussion at the October um audit committee meeting um that's the first discussion the board has until uh February to decide if any changes are recommend uh recommended and that would be for the 20 20242 tax year uh if any changes are made thank you for doing that uh certainly uh the next item is U designation of uh School purchasing agent um this is due to the retirement of our previous uh purchasing agent uh the next item is donations we have two one is uh donation of $3,000 in Amazon cards and Target gift cards uh raised during the uh uh back to school supply Drive hosted by uh Mrs Jennifer wosi

118uh in honor of Alysa derazi bu chichia I hope I pronounced that correctly and the other donation is $1,000 from the satet PTA for recess supplies uh the item after that is Surplus equipment we have some uh various equipment from around the district including a bunch a bunch of overhead projectors from the Ward meville High School social studies Department probably uh Dr scandin used some of those to talk talk about the current status of the Soviet Union at one time uh and then we have a declaration of surplus textbooks from the SAT Elementary School looks like they were cleaning house there uh the next item after that is an addendum to a uh contract for special education services that's it for me okay any questions or discussion on any of those items okay moving on

119to Jay recommendations of the committee on special education subcommittee and 504 accommodation plan meetings as dat ated and recommendation of committee on preschool special education meetings as dated and as I Look to Ln m is there a motion on the floor to table these yes okay second okay all in favor of tbling l and m thank you who is first I'm sorry uh Miss ruley was first Mr McKinnon was second uh that takes us to uh n which is Dr deeski yes Personnel matters instructional um on the agenda tonight t for your consideration there are six instructional uh resignations one teaching assistant leave of absence uh three appointments to a variety of instructional positions we have the appointments of multiple sub teers subt coaches athletic supervision as well as the appointment of over 50 co-curricular

120uh sponsors appointment of a variety of extra hourly assignments including enl screening translating and music chaperons um oh Personnel items non-instructional uh we have a few sea resignations appointment of several non-instructional Personnel including security special ed special ed AIDS sac and non-instructional Subs lifeguards uh in addition we have change of status of uh a custodial and an sea and an appointment of a custodial night lead thank you any questions about any of those okay all in favor of everything in the consent agenda with the exception of L and n thank you that brings us to our public comments and I believe we have two when I call your name if you would joined us at the microphone and restate your name please uh first we have Ian Farber good evening Ian Farber a parent and

121a resident of the district uh so good evening and thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight I recently read a book about a board boy in high school he had a supportive basketball coach who passed along quotes like the quality of a man's life is in direct proportion to his commitment to Excellence regardless of his chosen field or Endeavor over time the boy finds a new level of confidence that enables him to soar through the air over other players on the court he had a teacher that inspired him to do more with his life than previous generations we should all want our children to achieve more than we have this is a key part of the American dream and as such this book is patriotic in the best sense of the word the boy

122had a grandmother who approach who approached meeting every new person with an open heart a father who may not have loved him perfectly but loved him as well as he could and a mother who would be so proud of her son she would pass out when he would score a three-pointer on the basketball court this book provides a valuable perspective of a Native American who grew up on a reservation a perspective that would be foreign to many of us if not for books like this one some passages in the book are uncomfortable to read like a teacher admitting at one point the goal was to kill Native Americans not literally but instead killing their culture it's uncomfortable but unfortunately that's part of our history those that don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it

123and those that prevent history from being taught fully intend to repeat it the title of this book is the absolute true Diary of a Part-Time Indian and I was proud to learn that it's part of the 11th grade curriculum at Ward Melville High School I want to thank the board for consistently supporting a robust and diverse curriculum it would seem that some people it may be uncomfortable about a few sentences in the book talking about self-pleasure something not unique to this book and something most students are aware of by the time of high school if not sooner a famous ship captain once said no one is so important that they can assert the rights of another on that note no one should ever infringe on a student's Liberty to read a great and patriotic work

124of literature as part of their curriculum thank you thank you very much and I'm gonna screw up your name an chimis tell me how to do it right chis okay thank you okay I won't be quite as eloquent eloquent as Ian I came here tonight to talk about a novel that's causing outrage in the local moms for Liberty Community I doubt many of them have actually read this novel novel to determine its appropriateness for our children this book the same one that Ian mentioned um has been creating quite the star because of a short passage early on in A Memoir of a 14-year-old boy that speaks about masturbation that same 14-year-old boy also has the audacity to thank God for thumbs which in some way seems to indicate that God is approving of masturbation I

125say this word not once but twice to demystify it it is not a dirty word it is not something that any of our high school students haven't heard before especially our high school juniors it is certainly not a significant part of this exceptional novel which has been around for almost two decades it is heartwarming funny devastatingly sad and very much relatable to our shared life experiences the novel is about finding your identity as a teen it's about recognizing that our identity is made up of many different aspects of Our Lives it's about racism both current and implicit in the history of our country's treatment of Native Americans it's a story about family and perseverance when faced with difficult situations it's about resilience of a young person who faces bullying and serious health concerns and wants

126to make a better life for himself none of these topics are that any parent that are are that sorry none of these are topics that any parent or adult would be opposed to teaching and discussing in our schools particularly with high schoolers who are preparing to live as adults in our community I'll close with another quote towards the the end of this novel it is far better representation of the themes discussed within the story I realized that sure I was a Spokan Indian I belong to that tribe but I also belong to the tribe of American immigrants and to the tribe of basketball players and to the tribe of bookworms and cartoonists and chronic and the tribe of teenage boys and smalltown kids and Pacific northwesterners tortilla tortilla chips and salsa lovers and the tribe

127of poverty and the tribe of funeral goers and the tribe of beloved sons in the tribe of boys who really missed their best friends it was a huge realization and that's when I knew that I was going to be okay in closing I'm confident this board does not need to be encouraged to leave this novel as part of our curriculum because if we start Banning books due to a single word that makes some people uncomfortable we're going down a very slippery slope thank you thank you very much appreciate it all right if there is no further discussion for the board may I have a motion for adjournment second all in favor thank you all very much have a good night