001Good. Hey, welcome everyone. We're going to resume the meeting. And this time we are at item number three is correspondence. I have one item tonight. This is to our board members. I received a an email from Kate Kelly and I'll read it to you. Good morning, Keith. We are looking for volunteers for the giant pumpkin party on October 4th. You please ask the board members if any of them can help. We are in desperate need of volunteers. Have them call Michelle at the Daniel Pierce Library at 9857233. Thank you very much. Have a great day. Hey, Kelly. Um, so anyone's interested, um, write that number down or see me later and I'll I'll repeat it. Okay, there. They need some help. The, uh, pumpkin party on Saturday. Okay, moving to item number four is public
002comments items um that are on tonight's agenda. Anyone here? Okay. And moving to item number five is presentations and guests. And tonight we have a ready I ready presentation by Miss Arin Long and Mr. Frank Snder. All right, good evening everyone. Um, I just wanted to start by just sort of sharing a little bit of our journey that we've been on in the last couple of years. Um, a couple years ago we decided to step away from using MAPS testing which was the NWEA and moved to I Ready. um maps was becoming a little more isolated in what we were testing our kids on and uh not really aligned to the standards as much as it used to be. And so we did a lot of research. We had spoken with a lot of colleagues
003around. We brought in the people from I Ready and we decided I Ready would be a great platform for us. So last year was a lot of transitioning. Our teachers needed to learn how to use the system. um our kids needed to learn how to use the system, but we knew from there that our kids were getting individualized instruction which was going to really pinpoint the areas that they needed to grow in. And so we adopted it and now we're here in year two and we're going to share uh last year's results with you here in a little bit. Um, what we can do with I Ready that we couldn't do with maps and we weren't using maps to its capacity honestly is we are now able to really track our cohorts from year to
004year and it helps us with patterns and then identifying where our strengths are and then where we need to work on things more focused. Um, but before I get into Frank gets into that with you, I just want to talk a little bit about data and the reason we're into the professional learning communities and and our purpose for all of that. You know, the one thing about data, it's got a little bit of a stigma to it. Um, teachers, we sometimes think it's a swear word because it really, it's tough because we have to look at how our kids are really doing. But data truly doesn't even have any emotion. It really is. Um, it's just kind of the way it is. It's not good news. It's not bad news. It's just a mirror of
005what we're doing and where we are. And so, that's really been the work we've been doing to get to where we are. um what's important is what we do with that mirror that we look into. And so that's been such a push of us this year. So tonight we're going to take a look at our assessments in grades three through eight as well as our regions exams as well as what we've done with I Ready. What you'll see this in this presentation is that it has been very intentional what our progress monitoring looks like. We can identify where our instructional practices have really grown. Our professional development has helped grow our teachers. And then you'll also be able to see where we need to keep working. You'll also see from some of the presentation tonight
006that this assignments that we gave teachers for this school year perfectly align with their skill set. And so we were um we were confident in some of the moves we made and the reasons behind that. So we'll be very anxious to see how the year goes. I have to give the administrative team and Frank all the credit for this. they've been really cranking and looking at the data and trying to figure out um you know like I said where we're weak, where we're strong, where it aligns to the standards, and where it fits in our curriculum. So, we're always rooted in our four questions that we're working on this year. What are our kids learning? How do we know they're learning it? What do they do if what if we do if they don't know
007it? And what are we going to do when they do know it? And so, that's been the focus of these professional learning um communities for us. And the PLC's are going to be great for our teachers. We are moving into them. We're doing a lot of learning about ourselves, where how we work as teammates, what our strengths are, and we're gradually going to start introducing the data that we've been digging apart for a few years. So, I'm going to turn it over to Frank, and I'm going to let him kind of talk through the I Ready, the regents, the growth, and some of the trend analysis that we've been looking at. Thank you, Miss Long. Good evening. So, if you are into looking at graphs, this is definitely the presentation for you because we'll be
008looking at lots of graphs. So, really, this is a story about where where we are now, but where we came from. So, we're going to be going through, as Miss Long said, I ready. Then, we're going to be looking at some trends in 3 through eight testing, current trends with the new standards, but also we're going to go back 12 years and kind of see where we started 12 years ago and where we have been now. And I think you're going to see some real good highlights of work our teachers have been doing. We'll get into regions growth and then we're going to get into kind of some of our initiatives and why we're doing certain things. at any point you can please stop and interrupt me if I'm talking about something you want more
009clarity on um just let me know. So we're going to start with growth happens when we view change not as an obstacle but as really the spark that drives us forward. So, we're going to look. So, as we go through these charts, I just want to remind everyone these are our students. Each one of them is a mark on how well are we reading, how well is a new child in kindergarten learning their phonetic awareness, how well are we learning our algebraic expression. So, each point of data does represent someone that is in our building or was in our building. So, when we reflect on it, how are we helping keep growing? How are we helping the kids we see every day take this information and move ourselves forward? So, here we go. So, I
010Ready, this is I Ready Diagnostic One, which was in the fall last year, September to some kids in seventh, and eighth grade took it in May. Our elementary school took it in the beginning of June. So, what you're re seeing here is proficiency. What is a tier one student? So that's that 50th percentile hit on their metrics. So what that means, no matter where they are, it's if you're in third grade and you are marked in one of the red here as a final diagnostic, you were on grade level when you walked out of our building. Could have been early grade level but still grade level where you didn't need that really intense intervention when we're progress monitoring. So if you can see kindergarten is did phenomenal. We had teachers coming after the last diagnostic
011saying the kids is not reading to them anymore cuz it usually reads to them. I'm like cuz your kids are doing so well it has now moved them up to that level of where in second grade it stops reading to them. We really had some kids truly grow um across the board our kids did well. you know, sixth grade, seventh grade, eighth grade, not as big of jumps, but also there's sometimes not as much growth that happens in those years because of certain skills are mastered or certain interventions that they just need some more time in. So, this was for ELA and this is for math. So, we'll talk about math in a couple of our initiatives and I I'll start now and I may come back to it a little while. Again, math, we
012had some that started off struggle, some that's learning the new program, but we did end very strong in a lot of areas. One of the things we are doing this year, our current math program, we're in our last year of our cycle with big ideas. So, I Ready had offered us a free pilot. So, our kindergarten, second grade, fourth grade, and sixth grade are piloting what's called Ready Math. It is different than I Ready. It is the aligned curriculum for the state of New York, but also aligned to the lessons in I Ready. So, it's more of a cohesive program for teachers to use both ready math and I Ready. So, our teachers are trying it out. They were very generous to give us a pilot for all those grade levels at no cost to
013the district. We have training that's already been brought in. And some of the immediate feedback, we've been in school for three weeks. Some second grade teacher said this program jumps right into it. The kids are in there. They are thinking about math in different ways than we had thought and they like it and our kids are starting to get it. It is a different way than what they may have been used to. But we're going to look at what I Ready does for state proficiency and projected proficiency on the next couple slides. Whatever we can do to better facilitate our kids to understand math, to apply math in different ways is is what we have to do. And we're at that point where we either are going to continue with big ideas or we're going
014to do ready math. So another feature that I has is what's called projected proficiency. That is different. So I ready measures students on a national base level for grade level preparedness. They also added in New York what is a student going to get on the state exam. So in blue is a projected proficiency and the red is what our kids scored. Now, we like looking at this because sometimes, especially with a new program, does that give us the information we need? Is it really accurate? Is what it's telling me going to get my kids there? So, to be in the projected proficiency, really, you had to be towards the end of your grade level. So though you may have been in a tier one, you're just in third grade. You just got in there when
015your last assessment was projected proficiency. You really had to be mid to end of the year scoring under different diagnostic. So we're pretty close. The ELA in most areas was almost on. Fifth grade was one of our ones that had a significant difference of 10 points. Sixth grade went in the right direction. Our kids were more proficient on the state exam. our teacher does use some of Iread's materials that are specifically there to review for the state. It's separate. So, I know she's been using that for quite a while. Um, even before we had I Ready. So, it's really good to see some of their materials really line up and give us an idea if we're working with the interventions I Ready says and our kids are moving, we can expect them to move on
016the state exam. So, that was projected proficiency for ELA. Math was not as strong of a correlation. We had higher projected proficiencies than the state assessment. Another reason why we're moving towards that ready math to see if we can get those to more even out. This way there's no surprises. Are we getting those priority standards done? Are we focusing our interventions on what our kids need and how do we know it? And the sooner we know it, the better off we're able to target our interventions. Any questions about I reading? >> Use your microphone. >> Thank you. >> Um when we were talking about the grade levels jumping on and using the I Ready for math, it was grades three and five didn't do it. Was that a choice of the grade level? Um was
017this strategically done where we were keeping some still with the other curriculum? How did they come? >> Mr. Carbon and I had lots of meetings towards the end of the year. We had a couple big meetings and we put it out there for grade levels that were comfortable wanting to try to pilot it. So, it just happened to be the even ones were all the ones that said yes, we wanted to do it. So, we really wanted champions who were going to dive in. We didn't want to force anyone's hand when we're really trying to get feedback. Is this program viable for our school and students? So the teachers were able to select as a grade level >> decision. >> Thank you. I have a question. In the past with the math assessment, the eighth
018grade math um children that were in the regions track, they were not included within the um assessment, the data that's presented. Are all of the eighth grade students included in this? >> So in this set of data, the eighth grade honors class is not in here. This year we had the eighth grade honors students take them. So >> this they are excluded in this graph. So any kids who took algebra one last year in eighth grade did not do this assessment. Okay. So now our current where did we fall on three through eight grade testing for this year. So we did a little trend analysis. We did the last three years here. This is when the new next generation standards have gone. You can see our third grade in ELA has risen significantly over the
019last two years, almost more than doubling their percentage points. In math, we had a kind of it's stagnant. We had one group who did really well. And those spikes, the valleys and the dips is really where curriculum comes in. We don't want all our scores to totally be student dependent. So if you have a group that somehow had a real exceptional teacher or teachers even in a math in say second grade but then it's not so much there in third and then it comes back. We want to get our curriculum where our kids are constantly moving and getting stairs up. Our fourth grade did the best by far in both ELA and math. That group is very collaborative. They're working really hard to partner with each other. Uh fifth grade ELA has been very stagnant
020the last three years. They're hovering around that 30th percentile proficient. Our math has taken a dip. So for math this year, last year we had Olster Boseis come in to work with our math teachers in the secondary school. We have now transitioned that assistance and help down to our fifth and sixth grade. Um as you can see both of our math and fifth and sixth have taken a dip. Uh last year our main math teacher in sixth grade was out on leave for a little while. So we did have a sub for a significant portion of time. again why having a curriculum that is very robust can help mitigate those things because life does happen. Um sixth grade ELA we had a strong group and then the last two years the red and the gray
021those are both state averages there. So though it's a dip they're still meeting the same thing as the state. Our ELA and seventh grade is a pretty stagnant. There's a slight increase. Uh, math is another one of those dips in the valleys and we have actually we'll talk about what we added into seventh grade math to support those students. ELA is is pretty high always at state average in eighth grade. One of our significant jumps is in our science things. So last year was the first year of the next generation um standards and then this year we had a significant jump. That teacher worked very hard to really prepare her students to make sure that they were ready to take and read those questions and have the rigor. And then our fifth grade teacher who
022I've had conversations with, they had a significant jump almost another 10 points, 11 points. But we really talked about seeing the test. There is a lot of reading in that fifth grade science test. So we've already seen and I was in his room the other day of him inserting readings into a lesson. So they're doing weather. Normally they look at weather patterns and they would do their design. They make a poster. He inserted reading because we've had explicit instruction about talking about how to do readings, how to come back to the reading. So they're making their poster, they're going back to the reading two days later, which is a good science of learning practice to give some space between the content and then do the comprehension just to bring those retrieval practices and really deepen
023their understanding of his current material. So, we're looking to see those continue and see how we work out for not only assistance in science, but that will help in our fifth grade. One of the things I already showed us was that our non-fiction text is a weakness across the board. So we have to really bolster and be intentional on reading those texts, doing good practices on teaching the content, doing some retrieval, doing some reading with pair partners, writing about it, and then being intentional about when we come back to revisit. So these are all things that are in the works currently that our data is telling us that we really need to do. Uh so this is current year versus state proficiency. Again, we are in the blue. The state is in the red. You
024could see our fourth grade again is above state proficiency. I can't compliment that team for how hard they have worked. Uh fifth grade is one of our areas we have to work the most in and including math and ELA. In sixth grade, really our math department, as I told said before, we're giving support just to get our kids where we need to go. We need to keep growing. And then in a couple years, we want to see those blue bars being way above those red bars because we have good kids and we have good staff that we just have to get the right materials and the right processes in place for our kids. So now we're going to look at historical trends. Does anyone have our current questions about our current snapshot about the state
025data? So historically um and I'm allowed to look at different level one and two at the Rick. So I can go back at least 12 years. So that's what we did. So 12 years ago I believe in 14 down there is a second year of the common core standards. 2223 is the first year of the nextG standards is what we had pulled apart before. So compared to 12 years ago we can see the light blue and light red are trend lines. Our kids are trending up in that grade level. So these are different cohorts of kids. But what this means is our teachers are becoming better at teaching that content at that level. Our kids are showing more proficiency as they go through. So we'll just kind of go through the grade levels. You could
026stop if you have any questions. Uh we could see where there's some trends down and recovery trends and we'll just make some discussion. So fourth grade, ELA and math again both trending up with our last ones in fourth grade being some of their highest that they've had in the last 12 years which again that group is doing phenomenal job. They are extremely collaborative. They stop by quite regularly in my office to discuss different ideas and we are here to really help support them do that. Uh fifth grade. So we have the light gray is the science. The trend line is up because there's only two years. So, it's a little more extreme than it really will be once we get enough data points. Um, we could see in fifth grade we had some higher levels
027and we valleyed down, we went up, stagnant, up, and then back down. So, we're really in that area where our curriculum just needs some support because the valley's down, we don't really want to work on anymore. We have to make sure our instruction, no matter who's in the room, is solid and our kids are really able to comprehend. uh sixth grade ELA and math. You can see both are trending up, which is fantastic. We did have the dip the last two years with our math curriculum with the new standards. So, that's why we're doing targeted support for that grade level. Seventh grade is on the rise, though their numbers are not anywhere near where we think our students are capable of. Uh we did start um pretty low just 12 years ago. So moving in
028the right direction, maybe not at the speed that we would like or what we think our kids are capable of doing. And same with our eighth grade. So again, science extremely proud of how hard our kids worked, how hard our teachers worked, really doubling their proficiency rate from last two years ago. And then we have some of our changes. And you could see co was at 21 2021 and then really our kids recovered back to where they were. CO did not have as large of a proficiency effect on our kids as we did, which is a credit to our teachers and how hard they work, but again, trending up from over the last 12 years. Any questions about grade level cohort trends? >> Question about testing. When my kids were younger, there was a debate
029opt out. That's still a thing. >> Um much lower opt out rates in the elementary school. I believe Mr. Carbon, you can correct me. If you had a total of 15, that would have been high. Wasn't even that high. A little more in the secondary. Um and then our eighth grade some math students do not take the test. So a smaller portion of kids. So then we looked at cohort trends. So we looked at grade level and yeartoear, but those are different kids every year. So that's more reflection on how our teaching practices doing. Cohort trends are are they learning it? Are they retaining it? And are we filling in any gaps that a cohort may have? So this is last year's graduate uh eighth graders. You can see there's nothing in third grade because
030that was the year of COVID. And then we have some of the dips and valleys. You can see in seventh grade we had a dip been back up. So where are we? We're kind of even with this grade level. So our high school is going to have some work to do to make sure we have really identified where those gaps are. We now have three-year trends on the state assessments where we can dig into saying what what did we miss and how can we help our current eighth grade as you can see and some of this data repeats just because it's now it's stretched out. We had in fourth grade you know a significant dip and then we went back up and we've had some slight dips since then. Our current seventh grade, as you
031could see, we had some really good proficiencies in that fourth grade class. That's a strong team, dipped back down in fifth. And depending um in ELA, we went back up in sixth grade, but math was that trend that we've kind of seen where it's gone down and why we have to give individualized support there. And now, as we get shorter, there's less and less exams. So, this is this year's sixth grade. Really, they haven't grown too much. So we really have to be intentional on when we do our MTSS periods, what are we giving our students? What does I already say? It really breaks the kids down into skill level, but are we executing? Are we collecting our progress monitoring data to make sure we are getting the kids back on track to that upward
032trend? This year's fifth grade, you know, they had a good fourth grade, a third grade year, and they had a great fourth grade year. So, we would like to see in fifth grade that they're all in the 70 percentile at least to really show some continued growth for them. And this is just our third grade. The first year they took it, we saw this data before. They're almost in the 50 percentile. We have to do a bar graph because otherwise there's just one little dot and it's very hard to read. Any questions about cohort trends? So, now we're going to move on to the region data. This is really the part that gets the kids over the hump. Are we able to get them through the key regions? And this is all changing, but right
033now it's relevant. They need their five regions or four in a cedos or or in that other piece that the state deems acceptable for graduation. So this is this current January and June regents. Now January we have a lot less kids taking the exams, but we can see kind of where we are. I am going to preface algebra 2 is down to 52% last year was at 100. We had almost 50% more kids take algebra 2 this year than the year before with the new teachers. So we have really asked guidance and really ask our teachers to stretch some of our kids because they can do it. We just have to get it. It's better to struggle now and relearn it in college or in your senior year than to go to college and pay
034a lot of money and have to retake the class there. So we are asking our kids to do more. We are trying to push them because with the right support our kids can get there really our trends and we'll look at the three-year trends next. You can kind of see year on year where where we stack up with ourselves. So here we go from 22 to 25. Just looking at June. We did not look at um January because we did not always take all the regions in January. But we can see that our algebra 1 is roughly the same part. It's up from where we started four years ago. But really 65 and 68 is essentially the same score. So we need to now really be proficient at what standards on this new algebra regions
035do we need to focus on? Which ones do we need to explicitly cover? How are we reviewing and going back? Something I learned in November. When am I getting a second dose to that? Am I getting it in December, January, February, or am I waiting till May to get a second dose? So, some of that is planning and being explicit at when are we retrieving it? When are we reviewing it again? Geometry, we gave a lot of support. Geometry was a struggle the last couple years. We saw a significant bump from 39 to 52. Nowhere near where we would like it to be. So, that we're going to continue our support and growth there. also doing the three-year trends to really see where in our program do we need to be targeted and then with
036the PLC's where do we go backwards where some of our geometry pieces which may not always be on the state assessment are being missed or not being as focused on so we have to also help those 10th graders nth and tth graders get some of that pre-work before and being very intentional on where we do that we talked about algebra 2 last year we were very proud that we had 100% but we had about 18 kids that took it this year we had over 30 just a different mindset and just a different learning of that program for our teachers. Um ELA is one of the dips and valleys again. So to me that is really where in our curriculum can we look for spots that we can fix. So we're not at the mercy of
037just that group with the ups and downs. We really need to be up. That's one of the lynch pin graduation requirements is that ELA one. Same with the algebra. We want kids to be successful the first time, maybe if they have to take it a second time, but we need to be targeted with our interventions. Global and US history are always strong for us in the 80s. US history has been in the '9s. So those teachers, we I met with them today. They are very collaborative. They ask for their data almost as soon as the state releases it so they can start planning before the school year even ends at where did we need to fix our curriculum? Where do we need to improve? what did we miss for our kids and those are conversations
038they're having at the very end of June when most teachers are burnt out so great department going on science is stagnant so there's a brand new regions that we are taking this year so with the science department we're going to be very intentional of working with them to look at their curriculum look at where are the new standards being done there's only really one regions for us to look at for what kind of questions but again that is one of those tests that is heavily involved with being able to read didn't comprehend. So there are strategies that we'll get to in seventh and eighth grade that can help our living environment um teachers and they can also do because if they can comprehend what's being asked, most of them are able to answer the question.
039We have chemistry. Not as many kids took it. So if you get one kid or two kids who do not do as well, you get a bigger swing. Uh earth science again is a brand new regent this year. So we have new labs to go through and really look at how are they going to help the kids learn how to answer the questions they're being asked to be proficient for graduation and physics though there is a new regions this year we're able to maintain with the old region so we can actually see one so we can start doing some of that targeted analysis the following year any questions about the June regent trends >> yes and no um because I know Um, in August there was a retake on regions, right? >> There were. >>
040So, how many how many students who failed this geometry test retook it in August? >> I can get that for you. I have January and Junes. >> Okay. >> Um, and Miss Everly is not here. >> And do we know when we'll get the results of >> We have them. You have them, right? Any >> any better? >> No. Okay. So, we talked about some of the initiatives that we're doing, but we'll kind of outline them a little more explicitly here. So, this year in scheduling, there's something different that Miss Everly and myself and some of the guidance counselors worked on. We need to maximize our time with our kids. So, we got a little creative with some of the scheduling and we were able to give them these extra sessions. So instead of sitting
041in a study hall, we're able to give them 90 more math periods. That's a whole another half a year of math instruction outside of their core instruction. We're able to give them 30 more sessions of science, ELA, and social studies. So we're able to almost give them a full year more with their teachers and instruction just by the way we formatted the schedule this year. Um was not easy. It is a change in some of those things, but it is a a necessary change. So I highlighted science and social studies because we are as I described before working on some of those reading and retrieval practices. We have two really main outline lessons that teachers can go through that are good practices of one they are aligned to their curriculum that they gave us. So
042they should already know about the topic now they can read about the topic. There's a whole retrieval practice which is a science of learning piece where it just helps restructure that um pathway. If you learn it right it's easy. If you learn it wrong, it means the same in your brain. So, we have to get them to learn it right the first time. So, that's paired with some reading and clearly some writing. So, there's different ways we're teaching our teachers how to pair their students based on their I Ready reading Lexile data. So, there's a median top with the top and the median they share. So, it's not as teacher directed. It's letting the kids have some interaction with each other. It's summarizing what each other reads and then it's connected to our writing revolution
043practices we talked about before in the elementary school that's coming up. If they can write about it, then they're able to remember it. So these are just some focuses and helping them read in those content areas. And then we're enhancing some of our literacy thing. So we are we talked about our pilot um notebook LM if you haven't used it is phenomenal for your personal life but it really gives our students an opportunity and our teachers to do practice. It not only makes a podcast it can make a video for kids to listen. Then they can read the article. Then they can answer the questions. Then you can have a study guide review allin-one tool that will do this all for our staff in a minute or so. Sometimes the videos are a little longer,
044but it's an extra tool in their toolbox to help some of their kids. If a kid is out because they're sick and they have a they can upload their entire PowerPoint, give them the information so they can hear it and then come to the teacher with questions. It's just well done. Uh the writing revolution is very structured writing approach. It is for every subject area. And then to help enhance some of the non-fiction reading, we have purchased New Zealand on how you pronounce it that is directly aligned with ARC, our core curriculum in the elementary school. So teachers that may be looking to supplement, say their unit in social studies that goes through ARC. They're able to find articles directly paired with them, but they can also search for other ones. So it does streamline
045some of the ability for teachers to do and it also aligns to Lexile measure which I ready does for our for our students and then professional development. We talked about Olster Boseies. They did two summers in the in the um two days in the summer just to help our teachers do that algebra for all initiative. Help change how our seventh grade math will look with those extra 90 periods. Uh we're continuing to work with our secondary staff and expanding to our fifth and sixth grade math teams. We have three I Ready training. So that's using the diagnostic the information in there and the toolbox which has activities for kids that are targeted to them. Uh with the new math pilot we have six trainings coming in for the second uh K2, four and six. And
046then really our professional development committees is where we're going to be able to leverage all of this information, really start looking at it to get us really where we we need to be. U we like to talk about kids that are having issues, but we need to start talking about our practices. What are we doing to not just facilitate teaching, but really look at learning. And there is a difference between learning and teaching. And learning is the hardest part. and teaching is the craft where you have to learn to change and move on. So PLC's are giving us that opportunity to take our data and turn it in into action. So this was a long presentation with graphs. Does um anyone have any other questions about our initiatives, what we're doing, what where we're going,
047where we came from. >> Question regarding the additional instruction, how does that how does that work? So it I could take you upstairs and we can look at the board. It's um it's structuring. So there fifth and sixth have three core periods. So three core teachers. So now we have three core classes in the seventh and eighth grade which gives us some flexibility in the schedule. Instead of being a study hall, we can pair it with gym and then some kids students do have a study hall. But it's just the way it worked out to balance who's teaching what, where they're teaching it, and then it it removed study halls essentially. I wish I could go through, but that was a couple months ago. The exact details and changing. >> So the math teacher is
048math. >> Yes. So they get their core with their teacher and then they get that supplemental with the same teacher. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay, moving to um item number six is the superintendence report by Mr. Ernong. >> Thank you. Um, a couple things I'm excited to spotlight. If you have not checked out our Facebook, I want to give a shout out to Melanie Mankey, our district public information officer. She has been doing a wonderful spotlight on our Tri Valley staff who are also proud alumni, kind of showing the long lasting impact of a Tri Valley education. In addition, she has launched this Timeless Tuesday, which is a really creative way to share some pictures of our former students. She's going through yearbooks and she's putting them up and the comments have been
049just adorable to watch. People are looking to see who's on there. They're reminiscing about some of their times together in school and so it's been a wonderful addition to our social media. I do want to note that there will be no board of education meeting on Thursday, October 23rd as it coincides with the opening day of the New York New York State School Board's conference. So, some of us will be at that conference. Um, but I would like to propose holding a board retreat on Thursday, November 6th from 6 to 8:00 p.m. So, I will put that in an email to everyone and if you can let me know if that date and time works for you. Uh, we'd like to get together and just do some some board work. Um, unfortunately, we are closely
050monitoring the potential shutdown of the federal government at the end of September and the impact it's going to have on New York State. Uh we are hearing from Abose's meeting last week that there's potentially a $ 39 billion deficit hitting New York next year. I will be at the House of Delegates meeting this Sunday in Albany. And we'll be learning more about what our our fiscal outlook is. And we've already had talks within our administrative team and our TVTA to um start to brace for and look at decisions that we might need to make that will not impact program and students. But we are we are going to work together on that through the year. We have received uh a foil on September 12th from Cindy Mickelson for the tax levy computation for the following
051years 2526 2425 23 24 and 2223 and the tax rate computation for the following years 2526 2425 23 24 and 2223. We received a foil appeal on September 12th from Janet Diamond for the collective bargaining contracts for all bargaining units and current employment contracts for all administrators and non-union employees. That's all I have. >> Thank you. Moving to item number seven is items the board wants pulled from tonight's agenda. Anybody? Okay. Moving to item number eight, the consent agenda. Can I have a motion to accept the consent agenda? The entire consent agenda. >> Motion by Jerry, second by Rose. Please proceed to vote. >> That is unanimous. is unanimous. Thank you. Be it resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board of education does hereby approve the entire consent agenda categories
0528 through 12. Moving to item number 13 is board committee reports. Anything anything on that? >> I can report on the R goose committee. Um, so we met on the 17th during the collaboration space. Um, in attendance was myself, uh, Pat, George, um, Aaron, and Keith. And we had a meeting to kind of brainstorm and go over some mitigating um, issues to try to control the geese right now. And then what we're going to do potentially, um, in the spring to control the population in a very humane manner. I want to make sure that's out there. Um, we investigated some things we can do right now. Um, some easy things simple as keeping the grass higher instead of mowing it um, as often as we do. Um, Aaron was going to go um, after the
053meeting to speak with Jesse about some um, potentially putting an air dancer um, to scare the geese away on that back field. um potentially some um spinning decoy dogs to keep some motion out there to potentially keep the geese away. And then we're also going to investigate some other um potential repellents that are all natural and um interviewing or meeting with um somebody from the um the uh New York City about um some water um collections around campus that possibly um we can look at to potentially also. So, we're going to meet again on Wednesday the 8th of October here in the collaboration space at 5:00 p.m. um to just regroup and go over um our findings. >> Great. Thank you. Moving to item number 14 is old business. I don't believe we have anything
054tonight. Uh moving to item 15 is public comment session for items that are not on tonight's agenda. Anybody? Okay, moving to item number 16, new business. I have eight items. First one is 16A. It is an action. Can I have a motion to for the 2025 to 2026 Tri Valley mentor program handbook? I have a motion to accept motion by Carrie. >> Second. >> Who is that? George. Second by George. Any discussion? Please proceed to vote. That is >> that is unanimous. Thank you. Be it resolved that upon this recommendation of the superintendent of schools board of education to hereby approve the 2025 to 2026 Tri Valley mentor program handbook as attached to the public portion of the agenda. Moving to item number 16B is the 2025 tax warrant correction for Svin County. It is
055an action. Can I have a motion to uh for the resolution of the 2025 tax warrant correction Svin County? >> Motion by Rose. >> Second by Nicole. Any discussion? Please proceed to vote. That is >> that is unanimous. Be it resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board of education does hereby accept and approve the correction of error application received from the Sullivan County Real Property Tax Services on September 11th, 2025 as attached to the public portion of the agenda. Be it further resolved that the board of education does hereby direct the district's tax collector to update the tax bill of the property addressed by the error found and corrected and thus issue a new bill for the owners of the concerned property. Moving to item number 16 C is the
0562025 tax warrant correction for Olter County is an action. And I have a motion for 16C 2025 tax warrant correction Olter County. Motion by Jerry, >> Second by Nicole. Any discussion? >> What caused that this year? We normally don't see that. >> So, sorry. So, what happened here is we got that from Olter County. So Olter Ster County sends us a tax role and on this particular one they had forest land that should be taxed differently and Olter County that so then they caught it after the fact when the homeowner got it they appealed to the county and the county that >> county was the same way. >> Yep. Um it was a different case. It was for that one the person qualified for enhanced star and Sullivan County credited them with basic star. We
057don't typically get them. When I met with the Sullivan County taxperson, he was like pulled me aside. He's like, I just got to apologize in advance. There's one coming. It >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Anybody else? Okay. Please proceed to vote. >> That is unanimous. As unanimous that upon be resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board of education does hereby accept and approve the application for corrected tax role received from the Olter County Department of Finance Real Property Tax Service Agency on September 12th, 2025 as attached to the public portion of the agenda. Be it further resolved that the board of education is hereby hereby direct the district's tax collector to update the tax bill of the property addressed by the error found and corrected and
058thus issue a new tax bill for the owners of the concerned property. Moving to item number 16D is the accept acceptance of donations. It is an action. Can I have a motion to accept 16D acceptance of donations? >> Motion by Tammy. >> Tammy. I'll second it. >> Second by Travis. >> Yes. >> Any discussion? >> Please proceed to vote. That is unanimous. >> That is unanimous. Be it resolved that upon the recommendation of the Superintendent of Schools, Board of Education does hereby accept the following donation. 30 boxes of cake mix, 30 containers of frosting, and 30 cans of soda in place of eggs, oil, and water from Mr. Andrew Baressic with an estimated value of $100 to Tri Valley Cares and other local food banks. $50 from Ms. Lori Oristano to the Tri Valley FFA.
059A cleaned and preserved wedding dress from Ms. Jennifer Thei and Ms. Caitlyn Thei to the Tri Valley Theater Program. Thank you. Moving to item number 16E is the emergency response plan. It is an action. Can I have a motion to accept the 16E the emergency response plan? Motion by Tammy. >> Second by Travis. Any discussion? >> I just had one question. Um, in reading this, it says as attached to the public portion of the agenda, but I only see it under executive content. Is this private? is that >> so I'm I know we were trying to get on the public portion. We had to redact some of it because within we when we went through it a little bit clearer. What we noticed was that um in the executive district safety plan, it will actually
060give the account number for our central Hudson account, our gas account, all of that. So if somebody saw that, they really could just try to use our account number. So, we redacted some of that information because if we were an emergency, we needed to call, you know, nice digger electric and gas, we would have to give our account number and it is in that plan. >> Anybody else? >> Okay, please proceed to vote. >> That is unanimous. Be it resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools board of education to hereby approve the Tri Valley Central School Districts 2025 to 2026 emergency response plans as attached to the public portion of the agenda. Moving to item number 16 F is finalized AS-7 is an action and I have a motion to accept item
06116F finalized AS-7. Motion by Jerry, second by Tammy. Any discussion? Please proceed to vote. That is unanimous. >> That is unanimous. Thank you. Be it resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, board of education does hereby accept and approve the finalized 2024 to 2025 AS-7 from Sullivan Boseies in the amount of 4,723,742.88. Moving to item 16G is the instructional service agreement. It is an action and I have a motion to accept the 16G instructional service agreement. Motion >> Motion by Rose. >> Second by Travis. Any discussion? Please proceed to vote. That is >> that is unanimous. Be it resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board of education to hereby improve the instructional service agreement between the Hawthorne Cedar Nulls Union Free School District and the Tri Valley
062Central School District as attached to the public portion of the agenda. And the last one is 16H is the memorandum of understanding for Kimberly Decker is an action. Can I have a motion to accept 16H the memorandum of understanding for Kimberly Deck? Motion >> chin. >> Motion by Jerry. Second. Second by Tammy. Any discussion? Please proceed to vote. That is that is unanimous. Be it resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board of education does hereby approve memorandum of agreement between the Tri Valley Central School District, Mrs. Kimberly Decker as attached to the public portion of the agenda. Moving to item number 17 is board comment session. Oh >> Pat, >> uh just a quick question for Erin about college. Uh, the letter that should have been sent home has um
063a whole paragraph in there that talks about a $25 reimbursement. So maybe that didn't go out yet. Okay. So the letters created it may not have gone out yet. So I know I've I've proof read it, but there is a section in there that talks about the $25 reimbursement um for I think you have to maintain a B in the class. Yep. I'll make sure that gets out soon. >> Rose George, >> maybe a letter to the donors thanking them. Also, I'd like to thank the administration for their monthly reports. I really enjoy it and I get a lot out of it. So, thank him. Also, I'd like to talk a little bit about which I've talked about before, is the yearbook. and going back and some of you have been through this type of
064yearbook Ursa Magna. Uh I don't think anybody aware of what that really means. It was put together by our founding fathers here for a reason. Ursa Magna means great bear. What better meaning for Tri Valley is great bear. So, we'd like maybe to look have the board look at how we put the yearbooks together because I know now we have a high school and then there's a separate one for the elementary, but it used to be in a total one book. Now, one reason is the parents would buy one and they could get everybody and that would be maybe they have kids in high school and elementary and be more reasonable in cost. But what better way to put it in one book for the entire school that says it all. And I believe I
065believe that everybody in this school should be recognized. I don't think it's done well enough in the books that is presented now. It could be done better. And no disrespect to any of them. I know there's a cost involved, but I don't know what the books years ago, which was done up until I don't know 2010. Uh maybe a little bit later. I don't know why it was changed, but take a look at it. I think you would enjoy it better. I think it's put together better. Uh, no disrespect to the ones are put together now, but it's more individualized. So, I think again putting it all in one book would be a better fit for Tri Valley. The cost I don't know about. So, look, the board has to put in a little cost
066to it. So be it. Let's try to get the whole community involved and the whole school district involved and every single person that's in this school including the ma the maintenance, the faculty, the administration and the board in one location. Take a look at it. Thank you, >> Gary. >> Barry, >> um I just have a question about open house. So, in the past, was it always at 5:00 p.m.? >> I'm not sure about the time. Do you think that was one of the barriers? >> I think I was one of 25 parents that attended in the secondary school, which is, >> you know, um I have a senior. I look forward to it every year. You meet your teach the teachers, you look curriculum, you get an idea of what's going on. Um, and
067when we originally met up in the theater, I looked around and I count I literally counted the people that were sitting there. Um, so I mean as parents we we should have the opportunity, but I think 5:00 was way too early. People were literally running in to make sure that they got there for opening remarks before they headed out to the classrooms. So it's it's a struggle, I think, for working parents today. >> Yeah, I know Mrs. Ely was brainstorming with me a little bit yesterday about um even attaching some type of showcase to open house. So we just naturally draw more people in. But if the time is a barrier, that's definitely something we should we should consider. >> And we have multiple study halls in the middle. So if there was a showcase
068or something going on, you don't have that lag time of waiting around to meet the next meet with the next teacher for the next um session that the bell rang for. um really disappointed that only like 25 25 parents showed up, but I think it was the time um and people are really limited in >> this was the first year I've ever missed of attending an open house. >> Yeah, this was the least attend I mean we've been doing this for a long time. I've never seen a sparse group of people attend class and it's a disservice to the teachers who are here staying late as well just you know see do we think though that we can put out a feeling survey because as a parent of the younger side of the district I
069respect that 5 to 6 o'lock time a lot more and I think tonight was very wellreceived better than last night um whereas if it was 7 to 8 o'clock or 6 to 7 that's harder for a parent with younger children that's bedtime So maybe a district right uh pulse check see be where everybody's feeling because it might not be same situation for high school as it is for >> sure. Yeah, great information. >> The only thing I would add to that is um sporting events to be also taken into consideration. I I know it's hard to, you know, know when everything is going, but >> yeah, that that's tough. This is a tough time of year. I can remember when my son was playing at a football game, I ran over and watched the first
070half, but I had to get back from my own open house, so that scheduling, but it is something we need to be mindful of. >> I do want to say that the calendar is phenomenal because it does outline everything like what's going on. I didn't know that open house was like five o' night but it's right on our count like it's right on our refrigerator so you actually see what's going on. So kudos to you guys in doing that because >> yeah it's beautiful calendar came out great. Thank you. >> Uh I just would like to um go back to a point that Miss Long said early on into the board meeting. She talked about the giant pumpkin party volunteering. So I am actively advertising that on my social media campaign and the new uh
071volunteer club which I would also like to quickly say we had our first meeting today. Uh I think event went very well. I have a lot of people that even though they couldn't make it to the first meeting, they're still going to be in the club. And I'd just like to take a second to appreciate um everyone on the board that was able to approve of the club, approve of the club advisor, and everyone who's helped me along the way to uh build the club to where it is now. >> Can I ask a question of Chris? So Chris, I sat through open house today for the fifth and sixth graders. Um my daughter's in fifth grade and one of their um the social studies teacher was talking about how they have a civic. They
072have opportunities to earn a point for their volunteer. Do we think at any time we can kind of have a collaboration including these younger children that eventually well currently they're looking up to you and hope to follow in your footsteps? I think that would be um a great idea. I'm really trying to get this volunteer club open to as many students as possible. I've only been able to get it to as low as seventh grade, but if I could inspire students in the elementary to even volunteer, I will do as much as I can. Uh advertising to them and really just uh making sure early on that we have people who are going to be leading and who will be able to join the club even after my graduation. If you can, Chris, pop into
073those American government classes because the students there need the hours. >> Thank you, Chris. >> Who is the Who's the point of contact uh for the pumpkin party from the phone number you gave before? >> It is Chris. >> It is Michelle from the Daniel Pierce Library and her phone number >> I have that the 7233. >> Yes. >> All right. 9857233. >> All right. Thank you. I just wanted to say thank you so much for presenting. I know it was a lot of information to throw in in a short amount of time. We do appreciate that. I only followed like half of it, but I tried my best, but it was a lot crammed in there. Thank you for that. >> No, it's great. And just uh just on the safety side of life,
074Erin, thank you for today for taking the uh tornado warning uh seriously for the kids and staff. We really do appreciate that. Locked their stay in place. I mean, thank God everybody's safe, but uh that was a great thing. Thank you. >> Okay, so um regarding the board retreat on November 6th, it's a Thursday, um I would appreciate it if any board members have a topic they're interested in talking about that, reach out to me and we can kind of create an agenda time. It is uh 6 6 o'clock 6 to 8 I >> thank you. >> Okay, moving to item number 18. Adjournment is an action. Can I have a motion to adjurnn? Motion >> by Jerry, second by Nicole, a second by Rose. Please proceed to vote. >> That is unanimous. The board
075of education is adjourned at 8:16. Good night everyone. Thank you.