001motion on the floor to enter into executive session to discuss the employment history of a particular person. Invited in is Mr. Stiles. Mr. Hotaling, Mr. Abbasi and Mr. Fasano. Second. All those in favor. Good evening everyone. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. At this time it is our public input on agenda and non-agenda items. I welcome any members of the audience to speak at this time. All right, Mr. Carmello. Thank you. Just give a quick update on our, Wynantskill reorganization process. So, I said last time, we're moving along, the petition process is over. Both boards have approved those petitions. The report
002from the consultants, 150 plus pages, was submitted last Wednesday. A week ago, we actually had our regular update with the state and the consultants, the state representatives and, our bosses this morning. They've started reading it. They said that, they're committed to the timeline that we talked about, which is, the first feedback will be the end of this week, actually, where if they ask for a little bit of changes, but we still anticipating that final report back by the end of January, which puts us right on target for the February 10th joint meeting, which we've already talked about. I think it's on the agenda later today. And at that joint meeting, we are hoping to, put the date on for the vote that will happen in the Wynantskill community, which right now we think is going
003to be, the end of March. So, moving along, but I'll certainly keep, keeping you posted. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. All right. We have Ms. Dinardo to come up and present to us on Carroll Hill. Welcome. Thank you. I think it's the first time ever that we get a pre presentation. Applause. Thanks. They are. First of all, thank you to my faculty and staff for being here. The reason why I'm up here is because of the work that all of you do. And it's my honor to be able to present that work to the board of education, and district administration. Thank you to the Board of Education for your ongoing support. District administration, Mr. Carmello, Mr. Abbasi, Mr. Stiles, and Mr. Hotaling for your ongoing support. And to my colleagues, I appreciate all of you.
004I haven't gotten blocked yet from all the phone calls that I'm pretty sure I'm close to the being black list. Thank you. A big shout out to Beth Dowd and Jason Laz, who both helped me with my presentation. Beth Dowd spent a lot of time thinking through with me. We wanted something a little bit different than what I did the past couple of years, and she said, what about a vision board? So we went with a different kind of background and kind of a I thought through how to scale some things down. This, first slide is very important. Not only is it a vision board, but our school means everything to us in our school community. And this picture represents our future. The three young ladies in this are, part of our future teacher club.
005Supported through the work of NYSUT. Tenika Wilcox oversees it, and, they just recently joined. They were in a lot of your classrooms, presenting, sharing and teaching other students. So we're really trying to think outside the box, think about students, their futures and where they want to go and how we can support that. So that's just an amazing new club that we're we've implemented this year. We're going to skip over that because we did it. As always, we start with, the Troy City School District mission and our Carroll Hill mission. The Troy City School District will provide a strong educational and social foundation to graduate all students, college and career ready. We take that very seriously, and we are constantly looking at that mission and how it aligns to our school mission, which is, the mission
006of Carol Hill is to foster partnerships between school, families, and the community to provide a variety of student centered learning experiences that empower all students to be independent learners while working to develop their academic and social emotional growth. And you'll see through this presentation, all the things that we continue to work on to grow Carol Hill and its students every day. We really listened to Mister Carmello's opening day. That was Beth Dowd’s animation, not mine. I have to give her credit for that. That's awesome. Okay, I'm going to start out with our data. So our chronic absenteeism rate has gone down over the years. Obviously that's the trend that we wanted to go in. And really this work started my first year when we were able to employ an attendance committee. And through that work
007we looked at processes and procedures collectively and how we could start thinking about student attendance. And it's okay, I'll wait a second. No, it's all right. How we can put things in place to really support, working on chronic absenteeism and, put a heavy focus on that. And then as, the following year, we were able to actually a couple of years into it, we were able to hire the attendance liaison who was critical working with our student support team, who are also grade level liaisons in support attendance and really continue to work on what's working for our building, what's not. Why aren't students coming to school? What can we do differently, to try to make sure that that's happening. Communicating regularly. Our teachers call our. So our student support team calls and our attendance liaison and
008not just call but like reaches out in a manner where it's not threatening. It's really like, what can we do to support you and what can we do to help your student or your child get to school regularly? And from there, we put different practices in place that meet the family's needs as well. Our discipline suspension rate data has consistently gone down. A lot of this is through the efforts of our restorative committee and the work of the teachers being willing to really take time to foster strong relationships with students, take time to do hallway chats, really work to figure out what the root of the issue is and why the behavior is there, and presenting in the manner that it is and how we can collectively, find solutions and work together. We also have,
009Miss Mia Rockwell, who does a lot of our restorative work in our refocus room and takes time to find out from the student, and then kind of bridges that time where students can work with their teachers and reenter the classroom to continue throughout their day in a more positive and productive way. Mr. Foglia has been a huge support to this work as well, and constantly working with students and families. In fact, I should have also, thank Mr. Foglia for everything that he does for our school community. I'm trying to get tenure, remember, I'm his intern. Oh. Oh. That transitioned quicker than I anticipated. Okay, so this, we did this in a different manner this year when we were going over our data with our faculty and staff, we wanted to kind of make it a
010little inspiring. Jason Laz has helped me cut it down for the board presentation. But the point was, everybody really is all in at Carroll Hill and you see, and you're going to see in a second. Our data continues to trend in the right direction, and it's through all the efforts of the faculty and staff, their belief in one another and implementing consistent practices across the building that warrants the results we're trying to achieve. We know we have work to do, but we're very proud of the work that we have done. I put, you know, when I came in in 21, 22, that was my first year. Well, the first year that I entered, we were at 16% proficiency. And we continued each year to go up and Ela. Most importantly to me is the next
011slide. And you'll see a little bit differently here. This shows and I show this from 2223 up until just last year because this is really where we started trending more in the right direction, where our ones were moving to twos 2 to 3 and three to fours, which is exactly what you want to do. And the same holds true for math. We started at 18% last school year. We were up at 41%, and our data consistently showed our students from 22 to 23 school year up until last year, moving out of that level one, I mean, 50%. We're at level 1 in 22, 23, and we were down to 26% last school year. So again, we do have work to do, but we're very proud of the work that is happening. Another Mr. Carmello opening
012day. But we are all in at Carroll Hill. I do believe in a lot of the messages because it totally relates to the work that we're doing and to the faculty and staff that we have there. You cannot do this work alone. And if it wasn't for them believing in the work, we wouldn't get where we're going. District support. I have never felt more supported from, district administration, the board of education, my colleagues, I often am calling, Ms. Logrippo and I have daily conversations about instruction, just to bounce ideas off of. And, it's really means the world to have people. I called Mr. Monk today before the presentation because I was worried about something with math. So it's nice to know that I have a support system in place that answers the phone. One and
013two, you can have professional conversations with when needed. As far as district support to the Board of Education, the work that we do over the summer that you approve is invaluable. And you're going to see some of that work that we did and how that's helped us get to where we are. Our committees, we have over 40 members of our faculty and staff on committees, regularly staying after school, volunteering to do the work. And those that can't be on committees are always asking how they can help or what they can do. And, you know, it really is just an amazing atmosphere to work in our faculty and staff. That picture was, from one of our holiday events. I accidentally cut Mr. Foglia out, and I got him back in there, though. He's there, I promise.
014Hopefully there on that one. I'm not sure if I printed it first or not, but, my. I know I'm trying. I have a few more months. Our faculty and staff, I really I know I've said it. I've been saying it, but if it wasn't for them, I couldn't be standing here doing the work that I'm doing. They believe in the work that we do together. They're not afraid to have open and honest dialog, to give me feedback, to give each other feedback, and to put in place, the things that we're doing to see if it works or not and how we can change that. Our students and families are amazing. They're very supportive. You know, we have families that come to a lot of events. We have families that reach out for things they're comfortable
015in doing so. I am going to give a big shout out right now to Mr. Foglia for the amount of families that he contacts regularly and supports in different ways, whether they need food or a ride. He's always willing to go above and beyond, meet some down at, you know, Cumby’s he knows them all in the neighborhood. He's always having conversations. So it also is just amazing. And it helps our community really be what it is. Over, last school year, we started looking at our data throughout the year, and then we looked at key strategies. So we had to create a SCEP plan. And in that SCEP plan, they changed some of the verbiage. And they talked about key strategies and now differentiated instruction. It's thrown around a lot sometimes in education we really looked
016at that differently. We used the work, of Anita Archer and some other people that you'll see here. We purchased books, to really look at research and what that means and how, we could add explicit, differentiated instruction as a strategy when needed though, because when you differentiate instruction, you are changing the content, the product process and the product. So it's very intentional versus scaffolding. And then targeted instructional feedback is huge. If students don't have good feedback or aren't able to give one another feedback, and teachers aren't able to give good feedback, then it's hard to know where you're going. So we spent a lot of time, my BLT over the summer, really dove into research books, articles, and they presented unbelievable professional development to their colleagues to really take these, three strategies and be able to
017implement them and support them ongoing. And it's a continuous process. We're really working hard at being the best we can at these things. Responsive alignment of our SEL practices. Big shout out to our student support team. They work really hard to think about our zones of regulation, our Zen zones, how we're working with students, what we can do to be responsive and make sure that the practices are aligned throughout the building, and how we can better support teachers in supporting student needs. Expectations. These are some of the expectations we have throughout the building, in addition of the things that we're constantly working on. These are things that you'll see every morning. We have community block. I know I talked a lot about that last year. We built that into our schedule. We prioritize that every
018day. It gives the opportunity for all faculty and staff members to be in classrooms, special area teachers, service providers, support staff so that we're building a strong community within. And students don't just see people for, you know, counseling or whatnot, but in their classrooms, working together with their teachers to hear from them, to see how their day is, to check in, to really prioritize and start the day on the right foot. Targeted feedback I just spoke about and why that's so critical. This started that was our summer. Professional development implemented by Jess Cartwright and Taylor Flowers again. After that research, we taught the teachers what we meant by targeted feedback and how we can implement that. Every day at Carroll Hill. And then this picture up here is representing lifting the level of writing we
019put up here. And you'll see these little post-it notes, our feedback that students gave to one another as well as teachers. And so. All right. Technology difficulty. How do we, create student ownership and learning? Starting back with lifting the level of student writing in the goals that you just saw in the feedback. We also have curriculum celebrations. So each trimester we invite families in for different purposes to really highlight student work, but most importantly, to have students be able to speak to their work, their goals, where they're going next, how they're going to get there. And it's really is very effective. Families love it, and it leads to, the use of student data binders where students, it's their student facing. So it's not, you know, teacher putting all this data. And it's really strategic. What's
020in there making sure that students know what they're speaking to, what they're learning and how they're getting to that next step, which leads into the student led conferences, which we've implemented over the last few years. So students use all that information to then sit with parents. They lead the discussion. So instead of parent teacher conferences, it's student led conferences. And then teachers are there to support those conversations. I couldn't do all this without a good mindset, right? Mindsets everything. And it really does matter in this work and in what we do every day. So again, we do have all in attitude. That picture up on the left is a kindergarten classroom. They were doing a UFLI lesson and they were so proud of their phonics work. Well, the teacher caught them like they were holding
021it up and cheering each other on, so it was really engaging for them. This picture is Ms DiScanio, Miss Wilcox class. Laugh and have fun. They received, a classroom award from one of the companies. I'm so sorry. I can't think of a name right now. J.B. hunt, for, you know, giving back to their classroom community. And they came and they gave them hats and t shirts, and they let them take pictures. And it was a really neat experience. Support one another. That's a team of our teachers who took time over the summer because they believed in the work. I think we had over 60 people that were able to attend our summer professional development to prepare, for the upcoming school year. On the different commitments and strategies we had in place to learn from each
022other through professional development, and then to have a little fun and strategize together, build things, and really brainstorm and become solution oriented, which in turn was meant to then be able to think about how we can support students in the classroom when things are challenging and tough, and then build confidence. That last picture, is Miss Himes has her art class go down and work with the younger students and they've created different artworks together and supported one another, like buddy classrooms. And we're really just trying to build students off, not only teachers, building them up, but students building each other up. And that's it. We can, we will, we are, end of story. Questions I mean, it's been is there anything else you need that we can make sure John gives you? I give my budget.
023Yeah. So we're going to table that. You can ask the other principals that you can I gave you my budget presentation yesterday Miss Pompey. If you'd like to see what I'm requesting That's all. Okay. Thank you. Awesome. Great job. thank you. Sabina never, forgets to ask for stuff. Well, she's a great, great advocate for her school. Great job on those scores. Your school, the the line graph in the bar graph there. Say it all. So great job, all of you. Thank you. Any other questions? That's good. All right. Motion on the floor for approval of minutes from January 7th, 2026. Second. discussion. All those in favor, opposed under superintendent recommendation. Human resources. Staff matters unclassified and classified under unclassified motion on the floor for consent agenda items one through ten. Discussion. All those in favor,
024opposed under classified motion on the floor for consent agenda items one through four. Discussion. All those in favor nine opposed under superintendent recommendations. Programs. Motion on the floor for consent agenda items one through three. Discussion. All those in favor, opposed under superintendent recommendations. Business finance motion on the floor for consent agenda items one and two. Discussion. All those in favor? Opposed under board resolution. Motion on the floor for approval of item one as listed. Discussion. All those in favor? Opposed? For discussion it’ll be great to have Ann and Anne back for part of it. Yes. Under discussion. Please take note. You have both Ann’s back at the table very soon for us on this and the district announcements. Our future Board of Ed meetings will all take place here at 6 p.m. the next one
025will be February 4th, but we will have our budget discussions and our assembly member McDonald state budget. Assembly member. He'll be here as well for your discussion. And February 10th, we will have our joint meeting with the Wynantskill School Board. That actually will be at the Gardner Dickinson School at 6 p.m. and then on February 25th will be our normal meeting, with the principal presentation, for from Troy Middle School. And we'll also have our budget discussion. Draft one under Troy Triumphs, School 14 kicked off spelling bee season yesterday morning, and after 31 rounds, fourth graders Sestina Davit was named the winner, and fifth grader Jalisa Williams was named runner up. The competition went on so long, both Sistina and Jalisa were spelling seventh grade words for the win. So we now have our first student
026contestants and for the District Spelling Bee on March 3rd. Congratulations to all the participants who stepped up to the microphone to put their hard work and dedication on display. Our Troy Middle School students are competing to level up as we move into the second half of the school year. The level up challenge encourages students to make positive choices to set themselves up for success. Students earn raffle tickets when they are caught displaying positive behavior or good habits for a chance to win. Awesome prizes, including pizza, lunch, or one on one basketball game with Mr. McShane, our elementary students have the chance to make their voice heard in the library this month with a mock Caldecott Award contest. The contest mirrors the real Caldecott medal, which is awarded each year at the end of January to
027the most distinguished American picture book for children. As part of the project, students will learn how illustrations help tell a story, discuss artistic techniques and visual storytelling, and practice respectful discussion and voting. Nice job, everyone. For Troy High News?. Last week, on Friday the 16th, our counselors Miss Witt and Miss Phillips took students to the annual STOP- students together opposing prejudice Conference, at Siena University. This year's theme was The Legacy of Voting Rights. In honor of the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, students learned about Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders that brought national attention to voting rights through their brave activism and protest in the years leading up to the passing of the act. Students collaborated with other schools to explore how history impacts today and how they can
028best become civically engaged. Young people. All right. Thank you. All right. And that is all we have for you guys tonight. Motion on the floor to adjourn the meeting. All those in favor. All right. Thank you, thank you.