04/28/2026 BOE Regular Meeting 1

001Motion to come out of executive session All in favor Need a motion to adjourn the special meeting Second all in favor The special meeting is adjourned. We have some seats up in the front if you're in the back like to call the regular meeting of the Utica City Board of Education to order can we please stand and wait for the color here Okay, be seated. Can the clerk call the roll, please? mr jason cooper here mr donald here mr joseph here mrs tamil newt here mr braden manning here mrs danielle padula here mr james paul here okay so we have a quorum okay we're going to do our memoriam section of our meeting so Authorizations requested of the Board of Education to approve the following resolution. For Barbara Ann Kennedy-Klein, former Board of Education President

002and employee of the Utica City School District. The Board of Education of the Utica City School District records with sorrow the passing of former Board of Education President and employee Barbara Ann Kennedy-Klein. Ms. Klein began her career as an elementary teacher and went on to devote most of her life to education. After approximately 27 years in the classroom, she served on the Board of Education. Most notably, Ms. Klein was president of the Board of Education for six years. Dedicated to serving the community, Ms. Klein spent the last few years of her career as a substitute teacher, expresses its sincere sympathy to the family of Ms. Klein and that this resolution be saved upon the records of the district. Authorization is requested of the Board of Education to approve the following resolution. For Joan Noel Salerno,

003former employee of the Utica City School District, the Board of Education of the Utica City School District reports with sorrow the passing of former employee Joan Noel Salerno. Mrs. Salerno dedicated her life to education, inspiring generations of students with her knowledge, kindness, and unwavering commitment. Her competitive spirit, warmth, and enthusiasm for life was evident in everything she did. Resolved that the Board of Education expresses its sincere sympathy to the family of Mrs. Salerno and that this resolution be saved upon the records of the district. So I need a motion to adopt those resolutions. All in favor? Aye. Motion carries. This is a resolution for Adrian Xavier Howard. The Board of Education of Utica City School District records with deep sorrow the passing of Adrian Xavier Howard. Adrian was a senior at Proctor High School, and

004his passing has deeply impacted the school community. He'll be remembered and honored by those who knew him and his losses felt throughout Proctor High School Resolved that the Board of Education extends its sincere sympathy to Adrian's family friends classmates in the Proctor High School community During this time of morning and that this resolution be entered into the official records of the district Just take a brief moment of silence for those that have passed so I need that motion for second all in favor motion passes okay up next is our student representative Heather Concepcion thank you Proctor events The Student Council is organizing a spring pep rally scheduled for May 21st. Spring athletes will be announced along with some special activities. A movie night will be hosted by the Student Council at 4 p.m. on May

00528th. In collaboration with Principal Palladino and various clubs, a school and community cleanup event is planned. This initiative aims to foster a sense of civic responsibility and support for local neighbors. Cleanups will occur weekly throughout the spring with additional trash receptacles to be placed across from Two Brothers area to combat littering. A conference is being organized to prepare middle school students for next year's high school student council and to assist their future planning. Raider Awards. Recognition ceremonies will be held for Proctor. for marking period three, including the principal's list, perfect attendance, Proctor Pride, and scholar athletes. The top 10 students will be announced on May 1st. Ms. Palladino will call students to her office one by one and call their families right then and there. The top 10 will also be announced over the PA

006system. May 1st will also be recognized as Decision Day, celebrating students' post-grad plans, including college acceptances, armed forces enlistment, and work commitments. Junior prom is scheduled for May 1st from 6.30 to 10.30 p.m. at the Delta Hotel. Senior prom will be held on June 5th from 6.30 to 10.30 p.m. at Twin Ponds Golf and Country Club. A fashion show is planned for June 6th at 6 p.m. in the Proctor Auditorium to help the softball team raise funds. UPD vs. Seniors Game. The recent UPD vs. Seniors Game was a success, with UPD emerging as the victors. The incoming senior class are ready to challenge the reigning champions, UPD. Thank you. Thank you, Heather. Anyone have any questions for Heather? Heather as always you're welcome to stay or go home and do your homework You're gonna stay

007tonight great okay up next is Presentations and discussions we're gonna have our presentations by our systems of care introduced by Rachel Daughtry Before yes Hi, Principal Palladino from Proctor. I know the student council president just got done speaking, but this is hot off the presses, and I couldn't let it go by the wayside. Because she's done a great job. So, very briefly, Heather will be attending Georgetown University in the fall. She's one, this is the catcher, one out of 750 students received a Gates Scholarship Award. Full ride to Georgetown out of 61,000. Amazing job. Congratulations, congratulations. Thank you everyone. Wow, that's great. That really is great. I know before I just wanted to, I'm doing this, I'm going to do this multiple times just to make sure that. We know that it's being publicized So

008five o'clock on May 5 We will be having our school board budget hearing that will be informational and We will be able to respond to questions so I'm just letting everyone know from now that that will be happening so having said that once I will say it again later but in the meantime Rachel take it away Hello, my name is Rachel Daughtry, and I have the honor and privilege to work alongside our system of care partners. And tonight, you are in for a treat. All seven of our partners are here to talk about the impact and the incredible services that they are providing to all of our 13 buildings, nearly 10,000 students, and we are rounding out our third year of this initiative. So without further ado, I'm going to hand it over to Jeremy

009and Yesenia from ICANN. So good evening, everybody. My name is Yesenia Wright. I am the director of school-based mental health, and I am joined today by Jeremy Butler, chief innovation officer. And first and foremost, I would like to say thank you to everyone for coming today and for giving us the opportunity to talk about our program and the impact that we have had over the past three years. So our program is founded on five pillars. Tier two supports. With tier two supports, we have 14 student engagement specialists throughout the district providing support to at-risk or high-risk youth. Our second pillar, behavioral and clinical supports, we have behavioral support specialists embedded across special education classrooms. Throughout eight schools within the district, we also have clinical care coordinators providing support to those classrooms as well. Our third

010pillar, training and education, we have trainers providing training to students, staff, and families across the district with the emphasis and focus on restorative practices. Our fourth pillar, student and family engagement events. We provide community engagement events for students and families to foster a sense of belonging, community, and connection. And our fifth pillar is called our newest initiative, the REDD program, where we provide academic support, emotional... I'm sorry, academic support, social-emotional learning, and enrichment opportunities to students across the district as an extension of their school day. And I'm going to pass it to Jeremy Butler, who is going to go into detail about the impact we've had with each of these pillars in the district. Thank you, Yesenia. Can you guys hear me okay? That's good. I don't have to get too close to the mic.

011Now, to be totally upfront, I could take an hour for each one of these bullet points. I was told to try to keep it between five and ten minutes if I can. So I'll be brief. I will leave time at the end for questions if anybody has any. Let's see if we can get this clicker to work here. We're going the wrong way. There we go. So just any had mentioned tier two support. So when ICANN was invited in to be part of Utica City School District System of Care, one of the areas that the district identified needing additional support was with tier two students. And these are your kids that need some additional support beyond what we offer universally to all students across the district. And how we go about doing that is by

012providing student engagement specialists in each one of the buildings across the district. So we actually have. 14 student engagement specialists. I don't know if this clicker works at all. There we go. And we have two of them at Proctor High School. So what the student engagement specialists are responsible for accepting referrals from the school social workers or counselors in the school for students that are identified as needing some additional support in the mental health or behavioral health space. So currently we have about 600. I love this clicker. Do we have a keyboard? We can click. There we go. 615 students that have been referred year to date. Just to give a little context around that number, this is our third year in the system of care. That's 21% increase in referrals this year to our

013student engagement specialists. You see that we have about 450 plus active students. So some of those students that get referred to us, the families don't want to accept services. So we're not able to work with them because everything we do is voluntary. Some of them are successful after the interventions are put in place. They no longer need. or need support and so they transition out of the program. And what our staff do during that time is they provide targeted supports to those students. So when it comes up here in a second, this is actually going to take a whole hour I think, right now we're servicing that number of students but we're providing over 10,000 supports year to date. And when we talk about the supports that we're providing to students across the district, but

014we're talking about our social emotional supports, group work. We're talking about de-escalation, crisis intervention. We're talking about some additional supports because we want our folks to be able to support the school in whatever the school may need. So one of the prompts we were given as we were asked to put this presentation together was to talk a little bit about what the day-to-day looks like for a student engagement specialist or for our staff in the school. And I think you're probably going to hear it from a number of the system of care partners. There is no such thing. as a typical day. Our staff come into the school day ready to support and help wherever they can. They have their list of clients that they're servicing and supporting, but every single day is uniquely different.

015And whatever the needs or challenges of that day are, our staff are there to help rise to meet that occasion and meet that need in the district. So over 10,000 supports. Again, the list doesn't want to populate up. best of luck to the rest of the people that get to go after me. So that just kind of gives you a broad strokes overview of what it is that they're doing. So again, if you think about de-escalation or crisis intervention, every single one of those interactions is most probably avoiding an office discipline referral at the least and possibly averting crisis at the most. As we talk about the second tier, the second support that we're offering or pillar that Yesenia had mentioned, and it'll come up here in a moment, is our behavioral and clinical support.

016So ICANN has demonstrated history over the last 10 years of providing high-level special education supports to schools across the region, more specifically in Madison or Nidabose's and in Herkimer-Bose's with our Stars and Arches program. The programs that we offer are the most intensive public education programs that exist in New York State. What Utica did, and I would say smartly so, is you've chosen to replicate that model in your schools without having to send your students out of district. So for those two programs, on average, the cost per student can rise up to $100,000 per student to send them out of district to that program. Perfect. This is going to work a little bit better, hopefully. There we go. So you kind of get a sense when you look at the wheel of how this model

017is constructed. And when you look at the model, you see some familiar things, the teachers, the teacher's assistants, right, the building administration. But what ICANN is able to offer to your 17 special education classrooms across the eight buildings that you have them in in the district is a number of different supports. So we have... 12 behavior support specialists that are right there in the classroom with those students that need additional behavioral support on a daily basis. And in some of the schools, so you see we have 12 behavioral support specialists, there's 17 classrooms. There's certain schools where right now our behavior specialist has to float between multiple classrooms to provide that support. And I'll talk briefly about Raiders Academy of Learning here in a moment. We also have two clinical care coordinators, and a clinical

018care coordinator is a master's level social worker and or someone with a licensed mental health. health counseling degree. Their job is to coordinate care, provide group work, provide support to the students that are enrolled in those programs. We have one in our Raiders Academy of Learning and then we have one at Proctor High School. They also assist in coordinating services outside of the school district. What's also really unique and what's really unique for Utica is we have psychiatric supports that are built into the model that are there four full days per week. So we have a psych provider on site that provides medication management to identified students that are enrolled in that service in the program. But our psych support specialist, she can do more than just prescribe medication. She can provide psych assessments for

019students. She can observe in real time what behaviors look like in the classroom, which allows her to make better assessments of what the diagnosis is. is or what the child might be struggling with. Now you think about that, having someone that can provide med management, you might assume that that's going to lead to higher rates of prescription writing. We've actually seen a reduction because we do everything first, taking a true holistic approach. So she's focused on gut health. She's focused on sleep habits. She's focused on nutrition. And she's working with our team and with the families to make sure we're addressing all of those things first before we look at medication. And you'll see at the top of the circle, home and community-based supports because we know that for so many of these students that

020are in these programs, their help doesn't stop just at the six hours of the school day. We know that when they go back to their homes, when they go into the communities, those needs are still pervasive and they need support. being able to wrap around supports to these students, whether it be a mentoring support, whether it be behavior management outside of the school. We also have a supportive work program that we've integrated for these special education students and for the students in the Raiders Academy of Learning. Now, I've mentioned that several times now. The Raiders Academy of Learning is really unique in that the district has chosen... to kind of create an alternative to suspension model right here in the district. And what that allows the district to do, rather than suspending a kid and

021sending them on homebound instruction for any length of time, which can be really costly. Difficult to find tutors to go out there and provide three hours of instruction, right? We're bringing the students into the district. We're back at JFK. We offer a three-hour session in the morning, a three-hour session in the evening for up to 15 students per class cycle. We currently have 23 students enrolled. Now, the reason we have 23 is we've been successful at transitioning some of those students back into their general education setting. And I can almost promise you that that is happening at a higher rate than it would if we were pushing them out of district and leaving. them in their homes with whatever supports may or may not be available to them. Third third tier or third pillar of

022this is our training and education support. So you see that already year to date and we're working off old numbers we updated the deck today we're over 260 trainings that we provided to the district so far this year for almost 8,000 participants and when you break that down that's about 64 trainings for staff in the district for almost a thousand Utica City School District staff. and about 165 trainings for students reaching over 7,000 students in the district. And when we talk about training and education, one of the big focuses when Utica approached us about what this piece could look like was Utica had stepped out wanting to do restorative practice integration across the entire district. So to date, we've got about 96% of all of the Utica staff trained in restorative practices first tier. We

023have, the number is actually wrong, it's 61% are now trained in RP2 and we anticipate by the end of the year that number is going to be 98% in RP1 and 81% in RP2 with a goal of getting everybody in the district trained up to and through restorative practices three, the third tier, which is the most intensive and comprehensive of the models. Jacinia also mentioned our student engagement and family engagement events. This is something that's really unique and a little bit different. Over the course of the last three years, we've been blessed to be able to host over 50 different events in the community for kids and families. And everything that we offer through this model is available to every student in the district. So there are no parameters or exclusionary things that are in

024place that prohibit any student from participating. But part of our intention behind creating these events was to create equal access and opportunity for students that often don't have that opportunity to participate. You see something up there in the middle of the screen called the Winter Break Skate. We take students and their families to the Nexus Center and we rent that space and allow them to figure skate and ice skate for the period of a day. And you'd be amazed how many students step inside that building, step inside the auditorium and say, I've lived here my whole life and I've always wondered what happens inside there. Now they get to go and they experience it. You see some of our empowerment seminars. We have the Rise Up series that we've created for young men in the

025community where we bring them together. And we provide positive role models in their community that graduated from Utica City School District that are doing positive things and building careers and businesses so that they have models to aspire to. For our young women, we have the Girls to Greatness series, very much in the same way, empowering young women, helping them find their confidence in their voice. two other things that you see and i won't belabor everything on that screen but you see elevate cny and you see the utica children's museum so on thursday we'll actually be celebrating our one year birthday anniversary of opening the new utica children's museum but prior to that we have a mobile museum that we've been able to bring into the school so just last year alone we had over 64

026visits to elevate and the museum with the mobile museum reaching over 3 000 kids in the district so pretty pretty powerful stuff there Now, Jacinni had mentioned the Raiders Extended Day Program. So this is a Utica City School District program, and that's really important for everybody to understand. We were invited to the table at the beginning of last year in January to start a pilot project for the district. What it could look like if we provided three hours of extra programming for youth across the district, across the town and elementary schools. When we piloted it in January, we started with just 13 ICANN staff. We partnered with Safe Schools Mohawk Valley and Utica City Schools. district to be able to provide services for up to 30 kids across each of the 10 building reaching 300

027kids from january till june in the fall the district approached us and had an idea of what it would look like to scale that program up across 10 elementary schools for 100 youth per school we started the program on november 10th we had that conversation on october 10 or So in 30 calendar days, ICANN was able to hire 187 staff to work in that program. To date, we've hired over 248 staff. Most of those staff are Utica City School District employees that serve as teachers. TAs, secretaries, they know the students. There's a high degree of continuity of care. They know the buildings. We're working closely with building administration to bring their vision within each one of those schools to life. And currently we have about 946 students that are currently active in the program. Now,

028I'm not a big believer in silver bullets, but I am a big believer in silver buckshot. And I think this is one program that reaches across so many domains and areas of need for kids in our community. the first and the easiest we keep kids safe every single day. for three hours a day, four days a week for the entire school year. And we're keeping them safe in the time where they're the least safe in the community, that three to six block, right? We're feeding kids. For so many of our kids, that lunch that they would have in school, that would be the last meal many of them would have. They get supper and a snack at the REDD program every single day. We're providing one hour of quality, high quality academic instruction from certified

029teachers that work in the district every single day. And already, we only have quarter one and quarter two data available to us. but we're already seeing benefits on i-ready scores i think something like 74 percent of students have improved their i-ready score across all 10 elementary schools both in ela and math we're seeing the same trend in terms of what's happening with gpa students are improving that we're seeing improvements in behavior we're seeing improvements in in attendance if you're at the red program and 946 kids across the district are each day that means you came to school that day right? And if you have something positive to look forward to at the end of the day, you're more inclined to get up and show up to school. So in addition to the academic supports, we're

030also providing social emotional learning. So for so many of our kids, they didn't grow up the way that many of the folks in this room did with a play-based childhood. They're growing up in a phone-based digital world where they're not learning key social emotional skills. to be able to self-regulate, right? So we have extra time every single day to teach those skills to the students. And then beyond that, it dives into the events that we're doing. We're providing enrichment opportunities for kids that might not otherwise have that. So occupying them, bringing in Hamilton College to provide programming, bringing SUNY Poly in to do STEM programming for the students. working with fiscal partners in the community to do financial literacy workshops for the students. It creates this vehicle to reach kids in a much different way.

031And I think it also helps on the teacher retention front, right? And we know that teachers burn out at a higher clip than any other profession in society right now, something like 48%. New teachers are leaving the field, half of them within the first five years of joining. This creates an opportunity for them to... be able to work with students and get them back on track academically so that it takes some of the pressure off in the daytime during the classroom. Just along those same lines, the thinking behind the rate is extended. Pardon me. Forgive me. The award-winning Raiders extended day programming. We got to say that. The thinking behind that was that if we took a cohort of students and we provided them with ancillary supports at the end of the day, that that

032cohort would be better prepared than the cohorts that preceded them because they've had schooling for a longer period of time. And I think ICANN, you've been great partners in building that support as well as using existing staff. I've heard things like... Thank you for helping us use our staff and build those things there. So I just want to talk about that. The gains that we're seeing from the RED program are not only immediate in regards to the things that you were able to identify, but we're looking to track this longitudinally to see over the course of time, how does this cohort that has received this treatment different than others perform in later years? So it's an investment. And I'm happy that you've conceptualized that appropriately. So thank you. No, thank you. And the last thing,

033the last thing I'm going to leave you with, it's not one of the five pillars, but this is everything else that I can is able to bring to the table for the district that isn't necessarily a purchase service. And so in a moment, I'm just going to kick it over to our snug team to let you all know kind of what snug is, what snug is doing. You see gear up there. I know Todd Kubica from MVCC is here. He's going to talk a little bit about that later, but I can is partnering with MVCC to provide supports and a leadership academy for your seventh grade cohort. We're going to follow those students all the way. way through over the next seven years through graduation. You see some of our mental health services, our children's

034crisis residents. We do summer program last year. We ran an eight-week summer program for students. We offer homelessness supports. And this summer, we're going to be taking Utica City School District students along with other Oneida County youth down to Glimmerglass to get a behind-the-scenes look at what that festival and that music venue is all about. So with that, I'm going to kick it to Lisa Reginelli and Angel Martinez. Lisa is our Director of Transitional Services. and angel is our program manager for our snug program um i'm actually gonna have angel talk a little bit about the program um and then we'll do just a brief overview i promise to keep it brief about how we've been partnering with the district good evening everybody my voice is not as deep as jeremy so i'm gonna use

035the mic For SNUG, many already know what we do. For those that don't, SNUG is a gun initiative program under ICANN. We work to reduce gun violence. We do it by mediating conflicts, working with the highest risk individuals who are shooting or being shot. A lot of people call them trouble youths. To me, these kids are just under construction, right? Because when they become in our program, we realize that these kids got so much potential. We try to prioritize those that are already in the field, carrying guns, potentially hurting somebody or hurting themselves. So our goal is to try to help change these kids' norms, expose them to new things, let them know that there's more to life than just being in the streets. Some of the things we do, we keep it brief. We

036prepare them socially. A lot of these kids... probably got 13 words in their vocabulary. So we try to expose them to different wordings, prep them for jobs, do mock interviews with the youth. You know, help them with their IDs, permits, whatever they're passionate about, we try to implement that in our program. A lot of these kids are interested in basketball, so we started a basketball team last year just so they could participate in it, keep them active out the streets. You know we take them on outings things they never got the experience recently we took about seven kids to go see the New York Knicks Play at the garden that was the first time and seeing these kids what people label as trouble, just seeing them and allowing them to just be kids, seeing their

037faces and smiling and dancing makes me realize that the work we're doing is very effective. But, you know, just a little bit, other things we do, excuse me, it's hot as hell in here. So once a month we do a community event. We reach out to the community to see what some of the things they would like us to do or what they would like to see in the community. We do a lot of pop-up cookouts. We go to different areas, set up a grill, engage with the people in the community, just build a relationship with those in the area. We have participant events, which I just explained. We tend to do at least two to three a month with our participants. And it could be whatever they're interested in. You know, we give them

038the options. But sometimes these kids just want to go eat chicken tenders and fries. So we got to, you know, sharpen it up and do different things, expose them to different things. We canvass our community. We got to canvass at least 25 hours a month. So you will see us in different sides of the town, walking through the hood, walking through the west side, east side, just building relationships with people in the community. Let them know that we're here for you. We're here to support you. A lot of the parents that are struggling with the kids see us, and they're confident in the work we do, and they trust us. So sometimes they just express that they're struggling with their kids. Hey, my kid, I fear for my kid's life. I would love them to

039be in a SNUG program. Again, we know that there's other programs for behavioral things. We really try to prioritize those that are at risk of, you know, going to prison or dying. So, yeah, I'm going to pass it off to Lisa, and she's going to explain a little bit more. So just to echo what Jeremy mentioned earlier, we are not currently part of the system of care, but we're under the ICANN umbrella. And because of that, this year especially, we've had, I would say, a lot of success partnering with the district, really collaborating, especially in the last several weeks with some of the incidents that have occurred at schools. Angel and the team are working closely with Mr. Jelanek and able to real-time react or be proactive to incidents that occur. SNUG has a very

040unique, I will say, communication style, so we really can't share who our participants are, what's happening, but we... can receive information and react responsibly with that and so i can't thank the district enough for the collaboration that we've had especially mrs palladino we've the guys are canvassing every single Wednesday at Proctor, but then any other day that we're available. So it's only a team of five, but we're doing the best we can. And that same thing is happening at Donovan and JFK. And then again, that real-time collaboration and opportunity to expand that as we can grow the team. So I think, anybody have questions about Snug or any? Yeah, sure. Oh, there we go. just want to reiterate too so you're thanking us from the districts and i just i think i'm speaking all of

041us when i want to say that we want to thank you guys because this was something that we've dreamed of for a long time was to open up the doors and to bring community we know that we couldn't do it on our own and we needed help and the support from everyone so i just want to thank you guys so much for being the the you know part of those organizations that came in that helped and it's really worked we've seen such a difference and we've seen all of the programs that are happening we see all of the work that you're doing snugg you've been incredible and we love that you're there for every time that we need help and that students are in need you guys are there with boots on the ground and

042that's what we need and it's just been I don't even know the right words just to express how grateful we've been and to see the change that's happened. I just want to highlight a conversation I had with Dr. Spence last week about the city in general, right? We all have this idea that violence is at an all-time high, and actually the collaboration between the district... the city of Utica Police Department, probation, the court system, all of our partners. We're actually at just over a 50% reduction in the last three years in gun violence in the city of Utica, and we should all celebrate that. There's also an important distinction that I want to highlight. One of the things that we've done to transition our moniker from being Utica United is Utica United Every Student Every

043Day. And that means that we take the kids in the ways in which they show up to us and we work with the students. And so this is really the theme here is that we're taking our most disadvantaged students, our neediest students, and wrapping our arms around them. I said this in 2024, you can't suspend your way to a high successful graduation rate. You cannot suspend your way to transformation. So we have to be proactive, we have to be innovative with how we think about student discipline, how we think about restorative practices across the district by utilizing the levers within the system of care as well as our staff which accounts for the training and restorative justice training that we've implemented to really highlight how we can be impactful as a district and coordinate resources

044in a way that's going to impact student lives. So again, the overarching theme is every student, every day. irrespective of how they come to us and how do we work to support those students under the conditions from which they emanate from thank you thank you any other questions from the board regarding anything i can i know i took way more time than i was supposed to so my apologies to the system of care partners we're good well thank you all thank you for the information i'm sure once we kind of read through it but it looks awesome thank you thank you thank you i don't know who's next hillside rachel did you want to hillside or Rachel. Good evening. My name is Jim Franco and I'm the CEO of Safe Schools Mohawk Valley. With me

045tonight are our CEO, Ann Lansing, and our Deputy Chief Program Officer, Melanie Adams. We're pleased and honored to be able to speak to you tonight about the system of care in our partnership with Utica City School District. Our model is focused on school engagement, recognizing that students may disengage from school for a variety of reasons, whether related to attendance, behavior, or other underlying factors. We take a personalized approach to reestablishing connection and a commitment to learning. Our programs are grounded in research and evidence-based models, and the programs have demonstrated measurable success in helping students reconnect and recommit to their education. In Neidicke City School District System of Care, we have 18 youth case managers, one per elementary school, two per middle school, and four at the high school. We also engage in professional development and

046in the McKinney-Vento program, which deals with students living in transitional and temporary housing. The student referral process works as follows. Referrals are received directly from the school district, typically through a social worker or guidance counselor, providing us with the essential information needed and a clear understanding of each student's needs. Our youth case manager reviews the referral with their supervisor and the intake process begins. You may say Jimmy Franco is having issues with the tenants, but why? What does that mean? We use an intake process to try and discover what is underlying that. We talk with school staff involved, including teachers, principals, and social workers, for information about the student and what you hope we can achieve with that student. We ask the parents to complete a parent survey so we can know what's going on

047at the home and any goals the parent may have for that child. We meet with the student also to discuss why they were referred and what goals they might have for themselves. After all that, our youth case manager reviews the information with their supervisor to determine which service level and which program is most appropriate with the student, and we finalize program goals and objectives for each student. The Safe Schools Mohawk Valley tiers of service work as follows. Our universal tier, as Jeremy mentioned, is open to everybody. There are no restrictions or qualifying markers. Our services are one-time and have no end or start date. This addresses immediate needs such as crisis intervention, de-escalation, and redirection, often using the elements of emotional first aid. Our Tier 2 is targeted. These are students needing extra support, which

048redirects them in mind to succeed in school. Our typical length of time with this is 60 to 120 days. The prevention programs are for students who, although not likely at risk of placement right now, have shown early warning signs. warning closer attention. These may include shifts in classroom behavior, declining attendance, or decreased participation in school activities. Indicators that signal a need for proactive support and monitoring in partnership with the school district. In our intensive level tier three, our students that are displayed behavior that is impacting their success in school. Our program usually lasts 120 to 180 days on this level. These students are exhibiting behaviors that without intervention at this level could lead to an out-of-school placement. Our intensive program addresses disengagement, including tardiness, skipping, truancy, alongside behavioral concerns with family involvement whenever possible. Jimmy,

049I'm sorry to interrupt you, but you know you're talking about one of my favorite subjects, which is attendance. So exactly what role do you guys play in terms of trying to improve attendance throughout the district and at what level grade levels are you you know focusing on well there's a variety of ways and we're across the entire district with that i'll go to our 2024 2025 data which shows out of the 959 students referred 308 for behavior, 303 for disengagement, 62 were for attendance. So we're usually at the prevention level. For the kids that are referred to us for attendance, we'll work with them. Once we do that in-depth intake service, what's causing that? Sometimes it could be as simple as someone waking them up, a Rise and Shine initiative with our staff to be

050able to get them out of the home. So you have a Rise and Shine program? We have worked it. We will do home visits. We will get them out of there if we need to. Again, at this particular point, the attendance portion of it is like one of our lowest that we're getting referred for because I think the schools are utilizing a lot of your attendance monitors. But we do support that. And that's one of the things we do. We also support getting them alarms through flip phones if we need it for them. How do they get waking up? When is mom or dad coming home for their zap preventing it? Do they need a special bus? Is there a hardship that needs that the district provides? We can help identify those issues too and

051help connect them with that. Thank you. You're welcome. Our Tier 3 intensive services includes our initial response team, family group conferencing, and student intervention plans. Truancy intervention, behavior management, and school disengagement are addressed. We focus on behavior, attendance, and disengagement. We're student-centered to create goals and objectives so they can improve their behavior and attendance, and it's individualized to get the best results. We collaborate with school staff and families to create the goals, monitor the progress, and adjust as needed. Our Tier 2 services include check-in, check-out, grief and loss, mediation, mentoring, resiliency, and aggression reduction using the RESET model. Our service description, the skills that are taught and reinforced based on the student assessment include conflict resolution, resiliency, coping strategies, which is a lot of help for these students, learning them to cope with the situations

052in the schools, self-regulation, and self-esteem. Tier one are universal services, crisis intervention, de-escalation. We also engage with community service activities with them and reinforce school-wide SEL teams. The students are usually referred as the result of an immediate crisis or conflict, something's happening. They'll come to us to ask to de-escalate the crisis and use the elements of emotional first aid to get them calmed back down and keep them in the classroom and in school. Our service objectives, each of our services have specific objectives. We determine the best approach for service delivery, including meeting frequency, weekly focus areas, and monthly objective reviews that connect to the established goals with the students. Again, it's been asked often, so when you get the students, what do you do for them? It's a very involved intake process where we have

053the goals based on our meetings with the school, the student, and their parents. And then when we meet with them on a weekly basis, it's how are we doing? Are we getting better? Are we reaching those goals? Is there progress? We may not go from zero to 60. quickly, but are we seeing progress towards the goal that we're trying to get? We use goal trackers to establish clear objectives and monitor progress with regular review by supervisors. Skills and objectives are assessed individually for each student to guide targeted support. And our youth case managers meet with school staff, including attendance staff, parent liaisons, social workers, and teachers, at least biweekly to discuss each student's progress. In our service outcomes, we aim to build resiliency and mitigate risky behavior. We target improved behavior and attendance. We start

054with building social-emotional strength. We use a wraparound approach and incorporate person-centered, trauma-informed restorative practices and strength-based coordination into all our programs. We are trying to reduce the negative behaviors that got them referred to us in the first place. We are committed to helping students thrive academically, behaviorally, and as active, engaged members of the school community. I have to say, 20 years ago, 25 years ago, a quarter of a century, Safe Schools was born with Utica City School District. So we've had a relationship of working in the schools for over a quarter of a century. Our goal achievement, goal monitoring is a team effort. Again, our youth case managers maintain detailed notes, those accountability logs for each student, documenting their goals and their completed activities to track progress and support their student success. Goal progress is

055reviewed weekly with supervisors and at least biweekly with the appropriate school staff so we can see and ensure consistent communication and accountability. Student progress is monitored through a combination of behavioral indicators, including classroom conduct and suspension history, as well as attendance patterns such as tardiness and skipping, alongside SSMV's broader program roles that we have with them. Again, jumping back to our 2024-2025 data, we had 959 students referred to us from the Utica City School District that we worked with during that year. 673 of them were referred to a youth case manager working with them consistently in school. Of those referrals, 308 were for behavior, 303 were for disengagement, and 62 were for attendance. Of the students that we worked with, with our use case managers, 87% of the students that we worked with improved their

056behavior, as measured by classroom activity, ODRs, out-of-school suspensions, and in-school suspensions. 68% improved academically based on grades and teacher input. And to be honest with you, the secret sauce is this, is if we can get them to come to school and we can get their behavior and their coping skills to sit in the classroom, your teachers do a fantastic job of teaching them. That's kind of like an ancillary benefit for it. It's not us doing the teaching, but if we can do those things, they do much better with their academics. Jimmy, what's disengagement versus people not attending school? What's the difference? So again, if you've got, if we start to see that chronic absenteeism, the earliest we can catch it, if they're starting to see Jim comes to school, but Jim's starting not to come

057to school. We can catch him with it two or three times he missed this month. If we could see he's not listening in the classroom, he's not as engaged as he was. That's that early warning signs that either the teachers, the counselors, or the school principals are coming to us and saying there's something happening with him or her. We want to catch this quickly. Our tier three levels are those intensive services. tier two and disengagement we've called that prevention they've identified something and they want us to work with them before it gets to that tier three intervention i hope that answers the question can i follow up on that for one second please so does that disengagement also Does that disengagement also encompass students who are attending but not substantively doing the work or participating

058in the school day? Absolutely. That's especially what that is. And again, it's that early warning system. That's why with that one, we're looking again for anecdotal evidence, but we're getting it right from the school. In other words, when your teachers are making that referral to us or this counselor, we're going back saying, how are we doing? How is he or she doing? So again, when we get this from the report cards, that one is more, are we making a difference? And finally, 56% of the students that we worked with improved their attendance. Again, as measured by daily attendance, tardies, and skipping classes. Our feedback from the people who work in the schools was phenomenal. They told us we had a 180-degree change with the students since the beginning of the year. Safe Schools Mohawk Valley

059has done a great job at our school in achieving higher grades with students. SSMB makes a difference in our school. And three weeks ago, I was in a school where the principal looked at us and said, without the principal, the system of care, without Safe Schools, I couldn't run the building. There's just so much need throughout the day. For not only the kids that we're working with, with the youth case managers, but for all that universal stuff. Here's the fight. Can you mediate it? Can you work with this kid? Can you calm them down? All of that stuff that just helps make the building run also. Again, in our 2024-2025 year, our Tier 1 universal services, we had 1,065 of those, too. In the bottom, we talk about our McKinney-Vento services. And again, that's us

060working with the district's identified children with transitional or difficulty with housing. 176 received supplies that included school items, clothing, snacks, hygiene items, and cleaning products. 42 families received $100 grocery gift store cards. 261 were mentored in our tier two services. And 62 kindergarten through sixth graders participated in an eight-week book club discussing topics such as resiliency, coping with change, and compassion. For this current school year, even though we're not done with the year yet, we can tell you that to date we've had 1,676 students referred. We have 575 out of the 1676 in our current youth caseload at some point during the year here. 826 students received universal support and 275 received McKinney-Vento services for themselves and their families. Of the referrals that we've had so far, 47% were for behavior, 44% were for disengagement,

061and 9% were for attendance. Our service types, 236 students with intensive needs were supported by Tier 3 intervention services. 339 students were provided with Tier 2 prevention services. and 117 of the students in Tier 2 are identified as McKinney-Vento. And we had an additional 984 students that reached the Tier 1 Universal Services level. We utilize many of our staff who are credible messengers. Credible messenger is a concept used nationally in New York State as part of a research and evidence-based program. It's highly effective in transforming youth experience, behavior, and positive program outcomes. Our staff are credible messengers because we're intentional about hiring staff with lived experience. believing that an authentic connection with students and their families begins with a shared understanding. Our team brings a rich blend of professional expertise and specialized knowledge and personal

062lived experience. The way we do this is some of our staff speak more than one language. They or their families are immigrants or refugees themselves. They may be former delinquent or troubled youth who struggled in school themselves. They or their family member may have been involved in the justice system. They or their family member may have struggled with drug or alcohol abuse themselves. They may live in the neighborhoods of our students with their families and or have a disability or raise the child with a disability, either physical, mental, or learning. And they relate to youth and or a family to build a significant relationship using age, culture, beliefs, traditions, experiences. And to wind up, our professional development with Utica City School District includes the elements of therapeutic crisis intervention. de-escalation strategies, conflict resolution techniques, crisis

063communication, Incident Command 100 and Incident Command 200. At our McKinney-Vento services, we accept referrals as identified by the Utica City School District. We connect families to discuss their needs and make community referrals as needed. Up to 100 referred students will participate in an eight-week mentoring program to discuss resiliency skills and coping strategies. 40 of 100 kindergartens and sixth graders will participate in a book club to support their needs from being in transitional housing. We want to thank you very much for the opportunity to participate with you. Again, we've been with the district for 25 years. When it opened up to the other elements coming in for the system of care, it's just broadened the scope and enabled to make a great difference in us working very closely to them. We're excited to be a part

064of this, and thank you very much for that opportunity. Thank you. Any questions? Thanks, Jim. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you. Good evening. Thank you. My name is Rod Green. I'm the executive director for Hillside Works Scholarship Connection, and I have my colleague, Samil Hamilton, here, the manager of operations for our Utica program, along with Denise Stokes, who is our regional director, Naomi Brodess, who is our youth advocate. Curtis Lee, another youth advocate, and Paul Stern, who is our coordinator of college and career. So first and foremost, we just want to thank Dr. Spence and his senior cabinet for their support, the system of care leadership, Rachel and Rex, obviously the Utica Board of Education for your support in extending this courtesy for us to talk tonight, our other fellow system of care partners.

065we're going to just give a very brief overview of Hillside Work Scholarship Connection and we'll be tag-teaming. Okay, so our mission is pretty simple. Helping our young people graduate on time. be prepared for a variety of pathways post high school, be that four-year college, two-year college, trade school, full-time employment, military, and just making sure that they can become self-sufficient and fully launch into that pathway post high school. We do it through advocacy and mentoring, academic intervention and support, life and social skills development, job readiness training and certification, and then helping place our young people in paid part-time year-round employment experience with our partners, and also post-secondary preparation and planning. Just a little bit about our model, and the model is pretty simple. The focal point of our model is our youth advocate. And that youth

066advocate helps that student navigate through any challenges they might have at coming to school, engaging in the appropriate behaviors that are going to make them successful, and keep them on that trajectory to finish high school and again transition into those pathways. And they're working in all areas of the student's life. At school, integrated right in and providing that support, working with our parents and guardians and engaging them. and then also the connection into the world of work. We do have our eligibility, which is criterion-based. Industry term, not our term, but we are working with a population of at-risk students. We have recoined that phrase to say that we are working with at-promise students. So all of our students are at-promise for success there. And those are some of the risk indicators there. After young people

067graduate, we provide some support through tracking and other services two years post-high school. to help that transition. And so I'm going to turn it over right now to Samil. Hi, good afternoon. Currently, we are serving in three of your schools, which is JFK, we have one youth advocate. Donovan, we have one youth advocate. And we currently have four youth advocates at Brockner High School, serving a population of 270 students. No day is one in the same as previously shared. We could be connecting with students in regards to providing transportation to schools should they have missed the bus or they are late and we have noticed that there's a significant decline in attendance. We're not only connecting with the youth, we're also actually reaching out to the families, the counselors, the parents, any other services or

068resources and other programs that we may connect with and reference to see how the students are doing both academically and we will try to align our services to match. As we said before, we do service for college, graduation, and career. That is our acronym. We are focused on how the students are doing. So typically, we try to go off report cards or any type of assessment information that we receive to see how the students are doing academically in those classes and following up with the student to see if they need any academic support. So typically, most of our students at the proctor level, they may have a... study hall which is in our classroom. We can ask them to come in and pull out their homework. We can support them with those efforts and making

069sure that they are successful in those classes. We also work with building better assets. It's a book that we have connecting on life skills and how we connect with the students. So should the students come in and maybe not necessarily have any academic work at that time, we're still doing activities and different enrichments with the students while we have the students present within the classroom. Students also have the autonomy to connect with us after school with different enrichment as well as. On Wednesdays we do partner with the youth borough. We do programming at the youth borough. Hamilton College is also there so we also have the autonomy to utilize their tutoring services while we're present on Wednesdays and any other days if we kind of connect and schedule that. So I'm really excited to have

070two of our youth advocates, Naomi and Curtis, come up and just really give you a glimpse into what an atypical day is, because there's no typical day. And I tell people I'm a talking head, right? I get paid to do this. But where the real work is, it's through the power of our youth advocates, their community connections, and really helping our young people. get set up for enduring change. So I'd just like to turn it over to them briefly to share a little bit. Greetings. The day in the life of a youth advocate in the schools, we oversee about 35 students and then some. A lot of what we do, we know that our students come not in one shoe size fits all. So the glass is half empty and full at the same time.

071Teaching them opportunities on how to fill the glass rather than looking at it half empty. And those things look like supporting them when they're having a crisis, providing TCI support, which is therapeutic crisis intervention. Also teaching them how to self-regulate and get back on track. Trying not to stay into what's happening. too long but supporting them and teaching them discipline and life skills on how to move past what has happened helping them navigate through the moment if it's traumatic not disregarding it but helping them get through it also being intentional with sitting down one-on-ones having an academic approach using a smart goal chart utilizing their opportunity because all students don't learn the same so creating an opportunity for students to create how they can obtain the information that's being created by the teachers and asking

072them to utilize the resources that they have available to them with their Chromebooks, utilizing the internet to research the information that's being provided if they feel like they need a little bit extra help. doing their research to find the information that they need to be successful. More importantly, empowering them that the education is given to them. It's up to them to utilize it within themselves, to attack it, address it in such a healthy way that they can be successful in meeting all their academic goals. And so that tends to not always be a day-to-day as smooth as I gave it. Some days are more intense than others. But the main thing is just making sure that we are present and showing up for them and that they know that we're listening to them and providing

073them the support that they need to be successful. Another unique approach to our program is we work during the break. So we connect with students over the breaks. So we also are tapping into students to see how they're doing when school is not in session. That is a very key part. connecting with students even in the off time. We also do Saturday in Richmond. We just partnered recently with SUNY Poly on a few initiatives that took place on a Sunday. So we're kind of 24-7 in this job. We have our phones. We keep them. Parents and students have the autonomy to connect with us so we can support them as best as possible. We'll go through this. This is just a little bit on our org chart, and we talked about it. So myself, Denise,

074who you've met, Samil, who is our local leader here, Paul, as we talked about, and then our youth advocates at the schools, and Sateri Hang, who is new, is our college and career specialist that's, again, working with our kids to help them identify more of those plans post-high school, no matter what that is. Okay, so a little bit of an overview on the student enrollment process. So we have an interest form that we connect with students. Once we receive that information, we align with the school district team to secure authorization to disclose educational information. This just assures that we have the two components that are required in order for the students to be present within the program. And then once we have that information, we do what students and to be students can be referred

075by teachers, school administration, parents themselves, peers. We also do a lot of community engagement events where we're out in the community providing information on what we do and the services that we offer. So students can very much or parents can see us within the community and they can get that interest form from us and also have the opportunity to connect with us and ask us questions about the program. Once we have that information, we again focus on what two pillars do they are lacking or are struggling in so that we can assist them and then we kind of go through the application process. we do even during the application process we do connect with parents we do have a student and parent contract because we want to support the parents as much as we support

076the students or the guardians and just to let them know that we will be in contact so we do have mentoring contacts so on a monthly basis but it's been occurring weekly we're connecting with parents within the home just so that we can have that communication on what is academically going on or if it's for some mental health crisis we are kind of communicating so we do connect with students and parents pretty much on a weekly basis. And then we're just wrapping up here. So how we monitor our service delivery is we have a database called ETO, Efforts Toward Outcomes. And so any activity that we have with our young people, that goes into our database. We use that to monitor our staff goals and metrics against contacts and student participation. And then we supervise

077and monitor that progress through ETO custom reports. In terms of student outcomes, we utilize district data. So we're partnered very closely with the Accountability Office to monitor school and class attendance, suspensions, and academic progress. And that's used to help us inform our support services. So just in closing, we just again want to thank you for three years of support. I did include an appendix, so we had an opportunity at the request of Dr. Spence in September to present at the Breakfast of Champions, and we really were able to align the work that we're doing to the tenants of the district's district plan there. And so we just always want to make sure that we're in alignment with what's happening district-wide and a lot of the activities, as you've seen in the appendix up. do kind

078of a dovetail with that and we want to just continue to be intentional about that work so thank you ron i just want to say um We were doing a lot of this work in Rochester, so it seems like as we evolve, we just learn more, apply new strategies, and continue to keep the ball moving. So I just want to thank you for that, having done this work in other places and spaces. And then in our next meeting, we'll just talk about some of our general themes. I know we're also in Buffalo, Rochester. So being able to take those things from the field that we've done in other places and put it in this center here I think also helps inform our practice. So shout out to you, and thank you very much. OK. Thank

079you, Ken. Hold on one second, one second. I'm sorry. Rod, I've known you a very long time, 20 plus years. I just want to say that I wouldn't be sitting here today if it weren't for my work that I did with you with a Hillside Work Scholarship connection. I was a youth advocate in the Syracuse City School District. I was the first manager that Hillside Work Scholarship had in the Syracuse City School District. I understand the connection that Hillside has. with the students, the families, and the schools. There are so many times that there's something going on with a student and the youth advocate is that bridge that they didn't know they needed, that they didn't know that they had, and that the touch is from school to home and that student realizes that they've

080got a network of support that will really help them be successful. So I want to say thank you. I wanted them here when I was there so I didn't have to commute to Syracuse 20 something years ago. But they're here and I'm glad that they're here and they're doing the work that really changes the trajectory of our kids in this district. So thank you. Thank you, James. Distinguished Board Members, Superintendent Spence, and the other wonderful Utica District leaders, I'm Kev Markin, Utica Director for On Point for College. First, I want to thank you all for the fabulous partnership, the wonderful work you do, the students' lives that you change. It's just amazing to watch all this go on, and I know everyone here, the partners, the organization, so many people in the community really appreciate

081all that you do. to make the students' lives so much better. OnPoint provides very, very comprehensive college access, success, and career services, forwarding the Proctor students' educational and career dreams. And one important step before I turn over everything, as we do a brief introduction, from September 1st of this last year, 2025, through March 31st, OnPoint has already enrolled 231 new students. Proctor students in On Point compared to 134 for the same seven months the year before that's a 72.4 percent increase. The need is there, the need is growing. We're thrilled to be able to partner, provide those services and are working hard to provide sufficient support not only for those additional students but also to all those students go on to college getting certificates, getting degrees whether it's a one-year, two-year, four-year. The students need

082support and other things from OnPoint throughout that whole process that is even far bigger. than that initial access and success, which is important, all the work. And we provide very, very comprehensive services, as mentioned, with tutoring, mentoring, all kinds of help and advisement. One good example to show how comprehensive it is, we even have dentists that provide pro bono dental services if they don't have dental insurance. So whatever it is, we find wonderful partners and others to work with, the colleges and others, the school district and others, to work with our fellow partner organizations. The other thing that's important about On Point is that it's 12 months. It's year-round. So the summer melt that keeps, on average, of lower-income, first-generation students, 40% of those who the last day of school said, I want to go

083to college, I want to get a degree, I want to get a certificate, 40% of them never crossed the threshold to going to school in the fall. With OnPoint, we keep that almost to zero. We have numerous things to make sure they do things. They get a computer, be able to go off to college, which is a wonderful incentive to make it work. We stand with them. Any obstacle that comes along, we work with them so that we try to keep that as close to zero as possible. And those are lives that are changed forever. 95% of students in poverty who, 95% of the students in poverty, I move my hands a lot, so I hit the... I apologize, 90% of, 5% of the students who come from poverty, once they get a four-year degree,

084they're lifted out of poverty forever. And so that's life-changing for them, their family, and the entire community. And again, the key part of that is the great work done at the Proctor, at Proctor High School and in the entire Utica School District, partnership with the other wonderful organizations that get them to that point. And one last thing before introducing Annie is the November of 2024, after we started working with the Utica School District for a year at the On Point College celebration, we honored Superintendent Spence and the entire Utica School District for the tremendous partnership with our highest award, the Dream Maker Award. That's how much we appreciate being able to be in the schools. being able to help these students, be able to reach them more, for them to be able to stop by

085every day if they want to for whatever kind of help that they need. It's so important and I really appreciate it. And I want to, from the depths of my heart, thank you for this wonderful opportunity, for the great work that you do. And now I want to introduce the assistant director for On Point for College Utica. He's been with On Point eight years, numerous awards, MBA from Utica University, resident of Utica. and most important of all, a very proud Proctor High School graduate, Annie Guerrero. ANNIE GUERRERO Thank you, Kevin, for that wonderful introduction. And hello, everyone. So On Point for College State students takes students all the way from application in their senior year through graduation and beyond. We continuously support the students in their journey. So we have three different areas where we

086support students that college access. And we don't do just college programs, but certificate programs, trade schools, anything that they want to do. post-graduation of high school. And while they're in high school, they're considered our access students, so higher education access. And then once they start their programs, they're considered our success students. We monitor them, reach out to them throughout the semester, visit them on their college campus. And whatever obstacles they face throughout their college careers, we can assist them. And then we also have career services that we can provide. So for on-point eligibility, majority of our students are the high school juniors and seniors. But this is our general eligibility for our programs at Proctor. We start off with the college access with the juniors and the seniors. And for our STEM Pathways programs through

087our career services, they can enroll in ninth and 10th grade as well. As long as they're planning to attend college certificate programs, anything that they want to do past high school, there is no strict financial limitation as to who can join and reside in the county that we serve. College Access at Proctor, our students are very happy to come to our office and fill out paperwork, things that they need. We provide them with a checklist for their senior year and complete that checklist together with them so that they know what part of the process they... and what still needs to be completed before their graduation from high school. We do pre-college tours. A lot of our students, the first time that they go on a college tour is with us. And we go all throughout

088New York State. We also host a pre-college orientation. So once we know that we've finished that checklist, we know that they have their schedules, we know that their financial aid is all set, there's no gaps into their aid and how much the cost of attendance is, we know that they have completed every task. Then they are invited to our college orientation over the summer. provide them with basic college supplies after that orientation. We go over do's and don'ts, what to expect in college, and kind of ease that transition. We are at Proctor Monday through Thursday, 9 to 2 p.m., and this is basically the, as we've seen, the first two years where the students came in, the large time that they came in and interacted with us. And then, as well, we have a Utica

089office down on Genesee Street that they can come after school, or they can meet with us virtually as well, whatever works for them. We also help them to enroll in those special programs at the school because we know that students who have a great support system as they transition and then at the colleges do very well. So for students to get referred to Proctor, they can do a self-referral. So they can walk down to our office and fill out an application with us. A lot of the teachers, counselors let us know about the students and guide them to our office. They can do an interest form right from our website. And an advisor will reach out to them and start that process of one-on-one advising. There's no typical day, so at any point in time,

090students are in different progress of their checklist and getting to finalizing all their paperwork for school. So between September to April, we start the application process, making sure that if they're applying to those special programs that they submit all their paperwork, making sure that they fill out their scholarships and special especially like Dollars for Scholars, we let them know that, they come to our office, they get a Chromebook, fill those out right then, ask questions, and attending those college tours in the fall, and as well as the spring semester. And then we do have our career advisor who comes to the office every week, once a week, to talk to the students and see what their career plans are and build career action plans. From May to August, that's decision-making time and securing enough financial

091aid. So in the fall, we start that October 1st opening up at the FAFSA. We make sure that they start that process so that they can have their award letters from the schools by the time that they have to make their decision. And again, submitting the needed documentation to the colleges. Some of the challenges that the students face is that they are receiving emails from the school or letters home and they're not sure what to do next. We need this to prove that for your aid. And they come to us, they ask us, like, this is what you need to do in order to get your full aid package. And we talk to the colleges as well and advocate on their behalf. And then again, we do have the on-point orientations over the summer and

092we continue career services throughout. So students signed up from year one. The data from year one and year two are all the way to June and for year three all the way to March. So we have a significant increase in our students. And with year three, we decided to enroll the students in career services as early as ninth grade. That's why you see a few of them sophomores and juniors and freshmen. Well, we had a good enrollment rate. They're very happy to come in and do their paperwork and talk to the advisors on a daily basis. And we know that it's a step-by-step process. They're not going to get everything done in one appointment. They'll come back, finish the rest. And it's very accessible for them at our office because they can come in during

093their scheduled breaks, time off, to complete those paperwork. College tours, they are enjoying the college tours every year. We're still finishing up this Thursday our last tour for the semester. We do them in the fall and in the spring. And students are getting experience with the different colleges throughout New York State and what they have to offer, asking those questions to the admissions. And we help them. We give them a list of questions. when we're prepping them for the tour, like this is some things that you might be interested in. And when they get there, they're prepared to ask those questions that are important and get an experience of what every different campus looks like throughout the state. Financial aid assistance. So we've been helping students with the FAFSA as soon as it opens up.

094This year we've been recording how many students we've been assisting with the FSA ID creation, which is, Sometimes they're figuring out how to do that. They're very nervous about going into the federal and state websites and not making mistakes. So we make sure that we get trained on every semester before the financial aid starts with any changes that come along with the FAFSA or New York State applications so that we... are prepared to tell our students how to fill it out if they need assistance with it. We host different workshops at the Proctor High School cafeteria in the fall and the spring. And then in the summer, we do a summer Fafsa Fiesta event in the summer to make sure that all those students that decided to apply senior year, last minute, oh, I decide

095I want to go to college in June. And we can capture them, make sure that it's completed. And not only that it's completed, but if there's any errors, any mistakes, any emails coming back from the colleges, that we can guide them through that process. We are 12 months, so throughout the summer, that is a very, very busy season for us as we get the students started and ready. A big piece of our work is that high school to college transition. And we usually get a lot of students that first generation college student don't have the support and have no idea what to do next. So we do an interest profiler. If they're not sure, we let them know. I'm sorry, I just had a question for you. How do the kids find out about you?

096What puts you on their radar? So we do a lot of outreach. So throughout the events in the city, we go to the different that they're hosting. We also talk to the counselors in the beginning of the school year when they meet and let them know about the program. We do, like I said, a lot of outreach. We are a lot of word of mouth for our outreach, but we go to the different programs as well, the partner programs, and talk to their students as well so that they know because they can be enrolled in other programs as well as OnPoint. So we'll go and do a presentation and let them know. I think that's one of the complaints we get as parents. It's like, oh my God, how many kids are in the center?

097because they've done so many workshops and they are fantastic. Our counselors are great, Parent Square is great about literally letting everybody know because by the time they start to get to that junior year, right, this becomes super. And for anybody that has not done the college application or hasn't done it since you went, oh boy, is that difficult. And like there's so many different forms and it's constantly changing. It is not easy. So you guys have been wonderful. And their outreach is fantastic. It's a school. They get a large number of students. Thank you. Sorry to interrupt. No, thank you so much. Yeah, the process for the application. So depending on what our one-on-one meeting with the student and what their plans are, whether they're going to do the application through the SUNY or the

098Common App, we break down those things. So we make it as easy as possible for them. As well as breaking down the application for financial aid because we know it can be intimidating for some families. You know, do I have to put this information out there? How is it going to affect me if it's going to affect me? So those are questions we try to answer. How is that communicated? Like are you communicating with the kids you communicating with the families are you communicating with both? You know, I mean I just some kids like you got kids that are procrastinating They wait to the last minute and then all of a sudden everybody's hairs on fire. How do you deal with that? You know, I mean that that be curious So the students usually come

099to us and then we discuss their plans, what they want to do, and if they're like, I don't know how to explain this to my parent, then we call the parents as well with their permission. Sometimes it's helpful if the student really wants to go, but culturally the parents don't always understand. the system, especially some of the female students. And so we have a very diverse staff and bring people in to have those communications to make sure that if the student has an education on career green, to bring the parents actually appropriately into understanding that and probably to get a good decision so that the student's goals can be met and afforded. And we go wherever we need to reach out to everybody involved and team up. with the counselors and people and others as

100well as family members, whatever we need to do to try to reach those students, help those students, and make sure that we kind of do as many as possible. I have an open door so that anybody that wants to sign up, including sometimes two parents, which can be transformative for the children, that they see they sign up, and then they're like, hey, can you help me too? And then they see their mother, and they're studying together. We had one where the two practice students and their mother. We're all going to school at the same time, and all will graduate with super high honors eventually. But that's oftentimes too, that we're not restricted to that. We can get the parents themselves even going to school, or older brothers or sisters or mothers. That's very inspirational to

101the students that are currently. in school. And a lot of our students as well, their siblings have gone through the program so they let them know about it and their friends too. Between our four advisors in Utica, we are skilled in different languages, Spanish, Bosnian, Karen, Croatian, and Arabic, so we can connect with the families as well and guide them because they're also nervous about the process and sending their students away for the first time far away from home. So, let's see. So our college attendance for the class of 24, 25, and 26, right now we don't have the 26 because they're two days from the decision-making deadline of May 1st. But these are some of the acceptances that we've received from the students have received this year. And they are branching out. They are,

102with our assistance, they are being bold about the applications that they want to fill out to the schools that they want to go to because we ease. those questions that they have and let them know, like, if you apply for a private school, you might get in this, you know, these private schools, there's need-based aid. So you might not have to worry about financial aid if you go there and you apply. Just shoot it out there, see what the response is, and let's work with that. The majority of our students do stay within the area, MVCC being one of our biggest attendants for our students. And even if the ones that decide not to enroll, this is for fall enrollment of those years, but even if they do not decide to enroll, that could be

103for various different reasons, such as they want to take a semester break, defer their admissions to spring, or they want to take a year break, or they decide to go into the workforce. But we tell them once an on-point student always and on-point students, so they continue to be part of our program, and we outreach periodically to see where they're at, pick up where they left off, and a lot of them do end up going for their programs at the different colleges. Do you keep track of, for the two-year community colleges, how many of those students finish their associate's degree and then enter the workforce immediately, versus how many then go on to a bachelor's degree and where? Yes, so in our database system, we add the colleges that they're in, make notes, and then

104when they transfer, we put the transfer school there so we can track where they're going after they're finished for their two-year. And a lot of our students that do start locally at a two-year school, they go on to do stackable credentials, bachelor's, master's, Ph.D. programs. Some highlights of Career Services. So this is Jen over here at Career Services. So far this year, we had 10 students secure jobs, 21 students in our STEM Pathways program, which provides students with opportunities such as workshops, connections to the... The conferences and STEM workshops in the area such as the Project Fibonacci we had several students attend last year which is a great STEM conference. STEM opportunities, we have a scholarship database that we share with our students so they know what scholarships are out there and in which areas

105and they have that ability to apply and we help them with that application process. At 8 Proctor students attend, participate in a tour for Intervara Advancement Center. So we do also employer tours and take them to the different STEM or different companies in the area that they could potentially go to for their careers. And also the Career Services Department does a lot of professional developments. workshops throughout the year. We invite different professionals to come and talk to the students and let them know like this is my trajectory to be in this career as well as we call them career slams but career fairs. So we're working with them building their resume cover letters to submit them to the employees in person and have that connection and discuss with them potential job opportunities. Well, that is

106my presentation. Thank you. Any questions? While the next presenters are coming up, can we turn down the temperature? I'm not going to, I can't paraphrase exactly, but it's way too hot. Let us show you the cooperative program between the University and the University of the City School District and with the support of the New York State's Liberty Partnerships Program. Since 1993, Young Scholars has impacted the lives of thousands of local students. Students enter the program in seventh grade, and this starts a six-year journey towards high school graduation, and Young Scholars is there with them every step of the way. Our foundation is direct, intensive academic support. Our students have year-round access to learning resources and robust summer programming at Utica University that enriches their education while preparing them for the challenges ahead through college preparation

107and career exploration. The academics are just one piece of the puzzle. We know that young people develop through deliberate, structured activity outside of the classroom. Young scholars join a supportive community that empowers them to grow, pursue their passions, and have fun. They grow as leaders through service to their neighbors while exploring the world around them through cultural and social enrichment activities. All of this with two end goals in mind. to graduate students with advanced Regents' diplomas, but more importantly, to prepare students for life beyond high school, whether it be college, trade school, or career. With a 94% graduation rate, touching the lives of countless students and families, Young Scholars will continue growing this legacy for decades to come. Learn more about the Young Scholars program by visiting our website today. All right, Jordan Peters, Executive

108Director of Young Scholars. I'll just reiterate, and I'll promise to keep this very brief, but I'll reiterate that this partnership between the district and the university has been in existence since 1993. So over 30 years ago, a group of educators within the district and Utica College... saw a need and a novel way to address it and what resulted was a blueprint for a comprehensive year-round program that delivers academic support along with social cultural civic engagement college prep and professional development opportunities that's a blueprint that we still follow today in short young scholars is a constant positive president presence in the lives of our students and their families from the time they join us as seventh graders until they graduate high school and well beyond for many students The underlying goal, again, is to graduate students

109college and career ready. So Young Scholars is a lot of things to our students and families, but the basis on which we were founded is an academic support organization. We improve lives through education, and we do this through two primary touch points. Designated classrooms in the two middle schools and Proctor, where our full-time site staff are assisted by undergraduate tutors. from Utica University. The second is our required summer program at Utica University. For three weeks in July, around 180 young scholars in grades seven through nine join us on campus to receive instruction in English, science, math, and social studies from UCSD teachers. No grades or testing, just fun and preparation for the coming school year. Concurrently, approximately 60 older younger scholars are participating in other summer programming on campus or in the community in paid

110internships. Our most important hands-on work is done by our site staff who work in Donovan, JFK, and Proctor. By design, these site staff, with few exceptions for mental health professionals or specialists, are graduate students at Utica University. Typically, they're earning their master's degree in education. These professionals work a normal school day that mirrors the teachers with whom they share the school, and they are trained to build collegial relationships with those subject area teachers to supplement and support their classroom work. As a secondary outcome of the program, young scholar site staff very often transition to becoming teachers within the Utica City School District once their graduate degrees are complete, providing a pipeline of classroom-ready teachers for employment within the district. Young scholars are nominated for participation in the selection process by their sixth grade teachers who

111are instructed to identify students who demonstrate academic potential but have concurrent risk factors proven to impede progress towards graduation and post-secondary enrollment. During selection, not only are students required to play an active role, but so are their parents. And that is where we begin laying the groundwork for at least a six-year relationship with students and parents and guardians by emphasizing that they are a key part of their students' success. And to quickly address a common misconception, Young Scholars is not seeking to enroll the district's top performing students. This nomination and selection process exists to identify students who need supplemental support and are likely to derive maximum benefit from the program's resources. Each year, at the conclusion of the selection process, we bring in a new student cohort of rising 7th graders, totaling 60 to 70

112students. During the 25-26 academic year, we've been serving 61 students at Donovan, 58 at JFK, and 206 at Proctor. In total, within a calendar year, once summer programming is taken into consideration, where we are working with both graduating seniors and incoming 7th graders, we touch the lives of over 400 students each year. Outside the classroom, our students receive access to a breadth of opportunities that enhance their connection to the program, each other, and their community. Students in good standing are afforded opportunities such as a three-day trip to Washington, D.C., a camping trip, the Youth Climate Summit in Tupper Lake, shows at the Stanley Theater, group dinners, speaking engagements, and much, much more. Lastly, we know that the program works because the data tells us so. The number we are perhaps most proud of, in addition

113to what you see on the fact sheet in front of you all, is our 94% graduation rate, which far exceeds the national average. Jordan, how are you, first of all? How's the baby? Good, thanks. Good. I just want to ask, what is the selection process for you guys? How does that work? Yep, so it starts in the fall. It's a long, lengthy process. We work with sixth grade teachers, explain the program to them. It's old hat for them because they hear the same spiel from us every year. But we want them to nominate as many students as they possibly can imagine could fit the criteria that we're looking for, which again is students with academic potential but concurrent risk factors that we know could impede progress towards graduation or secondary enrollment. So with that in

114mind, they nominate as many students as they would like from the classroom. We then vet those files and ultimately around springtime they go to an independent panel of community members who go through those files under our direction and they make the decisions to remove young scholars, staff from the process and any potential bias since we actually play an active role in the process including interviewing the students. So we know the students so you know that's just a part of maintaining integrity and fairness in the process. So the teachers basically nominate. Correct. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Todd Kubica. I'm director of college pipeline programs at MVCC. I don't have a PowerPoint tonight, but I thought maybe I'd be more attractive if you just looked at me while I was talking. But

115I've got good news. I've got good news. So I have three programs that I'm going to report on. It's upper bound, step. in gear up. The Upward Bound program provides opportunities and fundamental support to its participants to succeed in pre-college academics and preparation for college entrance. Upward Bound serves high school students grades 9 through 12 at Proctor from low-income families and or students from families in which neither parent holds a bachelor's degree. It is funded through the United States Department of Education and we are under attack. of not being funded. So if you can... If anybody can write letters for us, we'd greatly appreciate it. If the school district can do something on our behalf, I'd be thankful. The goal of Upward Bound is to increase the rate at which participants compete, secondary education, enroll,

116and graduate from institutions of post-secondary education. Upward Bound offers extensive tutoring, mentoring, participates in various local community service events, the college campus visits also. Tutoring at Proctor occurs Monday through Thursday, all nine periods, by our program specialist. Upward Bound staff facilitates after-school tutoring and workshop schedules are Monday through Thursday at MVCC. Bi-weekly Saturday colleges occur at MV between 9 and 12. And Upward Bound students also participate in a six-week summer college with a curriculum consisting of main course subjects. language and an opportunity for group projects. So one thing that's important for me as being the budget guy and to keep the money coming in is our goals and intended outcomes. So there's five performance criteria that I have to report on every year. It's academic GPA, The approved rate is higher than 75%, and at

117least 65% of those students. have to achieve that in the program. Secondary school and retention and graduation, the approved rate is 80%. And then secondary school graduation with rigorous curriculum, I use the regents advanced designation, okay, 23%. And post-secondary enrollment, 65% immediately after graduation. The one that I'm really proud of with this particular program, and somebody was mentioning it with another program, is I have to follow these students for six years through their post-secondary journey and to see how successful they are. And the approved rate is 55%. And, you know, you would think this is something I don't have a lot of control over, you know, because I'm not with them. However... I was looking at the 2014 cohort of Proctor students that graduated from high school. It was 100%. In six years, 100% of

118those students either received a two-year degree or a four-year degree. In 2015, we had 23 graduates. That was an exceptional class. 100% of those students either received a two-year degree or a four-year degree. And in 23-24, 83% of those students either received a two-year degree or a four-year degree. And in 2020, 23-24 it was 82 percent so this program is really operating on a high level it's it's if you were to look at the budget and the amount of students there's 67 students in the program it's about four thousand seven hundred dollars per student and we do a lot of tutoring it's really heavily based towards the academics probably more so than the other programs So anyways, that's upward bound. Okay, science and technology. Oh, by the way, we've had this program since 2007. The

119STEP program is the New York State Department of Education grant-funded enrichment initiative designed to foster academic excellence, to nurture students' preparation for college, to cultivate student independence, to enhance students' college experience, and to increase awareness and opportunities for economically disadvantaged youth in math, science, technology, and health-related fields. So there's a number of students being served in all of your buildings. Well, the middle school is in the high school. Proctor, there's 88 students. JFK, there's five students. Donovan, there's seven students. We're supposed to have 161 students. I think we're at about 65% of where we're supposed to be right now, but this is the beginning of a new grant cycle, and I'd like to thank Samil because she helped write that grant for five years. So thanks to you. You bet. Applications can be picked up

120at the STEP Lab. They're available during school visitations. One thing I'd like to say, our after-school programming has seen a tremendous increase of participation. We're seeing probably on the average of 37 students a night coming up. from from Proctor to participate in after-school activities and those activities are the same as is upward bound but it's pretty much all stem focused and It also over the last couple of years the New York State Included any profession that's requires a state license. Okay, so some good news from some good data from step in 2324 100% of the six there were 16 great there were 16 students that were seniors 100% graduated 87.5 percent went straight to college and 25 percent went into stem fields and you know that's particularly important now because with micron coming into the

121picture wolf speed and all those ancillary businesses that are going to be required that are going to require to have people have stem education this is going to be even more important and in 24 and 25 We had 26 students that were seniors, 100% graduated, 84% went straight to college, and 50% went into STEM fields. So the program is working. It's doing what it's supposed to do. I also had a site visit two and a half weeks ago from New York State, and all the performance metrics that we were supposed to meet. the eight of them, we pass with flying colors. So it's a good thing. Gear up. Okay. Hey, new grant. Okay. We're just starting to come into the schools. This program is vastly different than all the others. It's based on the cohort

122model. We're starting to serve this year seventh grade students. When they graduate to eighth grade, we follow them to eighth grade. We don't backfill to the seventh grade. We follow them all the way through graduation and first year of college. And a lot of those services, some of the services that we'll be doing with them, and this is from my annual performance report, so I'm going to have to do that, job site visits, job shadowing, activities focused on career, technical education, and apprenticeships, FAFSA completion, tutoring and homework assistance, summer programs, educational field trips. workshops, financial aid workshops, financial literacy workshops, and support the development and implementation of rigorous academic curricula. Special programs for tutoring in science, technology, engineering, and math. Assistance with post-secondary education course selection. Assistance with choosing and declaring an academic major. Assistance

123with academic, social, and personal areas of need. Referrals to providers of appropriate services. Tutoring, mentoring, and supplemental academic support. This is a federally funded program. It also includes the Rome City School District, a bold move, a bold grant to write, which myself and a colleague, Steve, might remember, Linda Tedemont, she helped me in writing that grant, and we're really excited to be back into the Utica City School District with GEAR UP. Can't wait. Any questions? It's three different programs, and I'm sorry I can't spend enough time on each one. Thank you. Hi, everyone. My name is Nicholas Thomas, and I'm a Proctor High School student. I attend Hope Chapel Church, and I want to say that I am very thankful to have a superintendent such as Dr. Spence, who cares and actually listens to us.

124The resources and after-school programs save me, so I would like to say thank you. Hello, my name is Zyker. I am a student at Proctor High School. Without all the programs and after-school programs, I don't know where I would be. I want to say thank you to Dr. Spence, because without you and all you did, I don't know where I would be at right now. Thanks for not throwing me away because I'm worth it. Hi, my name is Hanijah. I am a practice student and I attend OHM Boasties full time. I'm a member of Hope Chapel Church and I want to say thank you to Superintendent Dr. Spence. for all the positive change that you have made in such a little amount of time. Although I was not one of the troubled students, I have

125a lot of friends and families that are struggling. And thanks to Dr. Spence, I am a witness of positive changes in those my family and my friends. giving us a better opportunity for education, bringing all of the resources to all of the schools, especially after school programs. Dr. Spence, we, the students, thank you. Well, first I just got to say, as the late Tupac said, Dr. Spence cares if don't nobody else care. So I just want to say thank you for coming tonight. Thank you so much. Good evening, everyone. My name is James Earl Scutchins Sr., and I own a mansion and a yacht. I was told I had five minutes, so I'm going to stick to that. I'm here to talk about anger management. We heard a lot about kids going to college, but

126I'm dealing with kids that have slipped through the cracks, ended up on probation, have electronic monitors on their ankle, they got one foot in the solution. and the other foot in a banana peel. When they slip, they're going into the system. I just retired from the penile system for over 30 years. So I try to explain to them what's gonna happen. But I'm just gonna talk about my program right now. The program is called Scutchins Family Youth Services. We provide 10 sessions of a 1.5-hour psychoeducational group called the Aggression Reduction Program. The program runs from 2.30 p.m. to 4 o'clock p.m. twice a week at Thomas R. Proctor High School. We also have a class in the Utica Library. They allow me to bring the kids from probation there in the room to teach them.

127The thing about them, they are Proctor High School students as well, even though they're not in the schools. So we have to give an account for them. Scotch and Family Youth Services focuses on building social and emotional assets by promoting skills such as self-awareness, self-management, and responsible decision-making. These programs equip candidates with the tools to navigate challenges, develop healthy relationships, and regulate their emotions effectively. We serve them lunch, breakfast, or whatever it is the time they come to us because it's an incentive to keep them in their seats. The goals intended outcome are to increase use of coping skills among participants. reductions in reported stress anxieties and emotional outbursts, improved classroom behavior and emotional self-regulation, increased student self-awareness and ability to express emotions appropriately, outcome measurements process to determine success slash goals attainment, ongoing observation

128of participation within classes, attendance of class. Students must demonstrate mastery of course material, achieving 100 on the final test to graduate from the class. They can reach up to 150 on the test, but all they need is 100 to graduate. Skill acquisition. Demonstrate ability to self-regulate, feedback from school staff, probation, and families. applications and referral process. Scutchins Family Youth Service currently receives referrals through probation, the school district, associating agencies, the courts and parents in general. That's how we get out our referrals and most of them if not all are proctor school kids. So we're tracking that right now. Future ideas, thoughts to strengthen students participation, field trips. I was the first person to bring the Scared Straight program to this area years ago. They won't allow me to do it now due to COVID. So

129I told Lieutenant Campbell at the time I was dealing with Officer Laughing House. I don't know if you all know them, but. They said, we can't allow you in here with the kids no more. I said, well, let's change the name and call it jail awareness. We need to bring them in there so they can be aware of what they can expect when they pass through them bars, sit in themselves, smell the atmosphere, get a taste of what it is that they're heading for in terms of education or going to one of these good colleges that we heard. Community speakers. I bring people into the class that... Some who have graduated, some who are in the community, people who they can identify with, like the judge. I just had Judge Fuseli come and speak to

130a class of girls and some other individuals that we've graduated and that she put in the program. So they was kind of like, wow, you know the judge? Yeah, that's where your referral came from. Documentary related to aggression reduction. I showed a scared straight program and I'm looking to collaborate and communicate with some of these system of care people that you've heard today. Continue encouragement. to the parents to increase their participation. The parents are necessary to be a part of what's going on because they're learning stuff like different bailout options that they're going to use in the class and the most common bailout option is to walk away. I had a young man go home and he walked away from his mother and she snatched him up and said, don't you walk away from me

131when I'm talking to you. That made me realize I got to involve these parents in this language so they won't take it as an offense when this child is implementing a bailout option. However, we have a 10-week course of sessions that we go over, starting with motivation. What is your motivation for taking this course? There's several types of aggression, physical, property, verbal, and starting conflicts between others that these kids fall in the category. Self-power. There's two types, positive and negative. Triggers. Triggers are what set you off. A button that's pushed. Bailout options. When I lose control, building self-esteem, supports we can use from others, feelings and communication, stopping people from becoming victims. That's what we do in our class and we're honored to work with the Utica School District I want to thank the board

132for taking time out to hear our presentations. I also want to thank Dr. Spencer especially when he came I met with him and he was doing a bunch of town hall meetings And I was able to sit around the table and get some information. But we serve a diverse community. We got the Burmese, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Africans, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Bosnians, the Ukrainians is here. We got the Italians. We got the French and whatever nationality you are sitting around this table. But we got one high school. That's all we got. So in closing. I'd like to give honor to God, who is the head of my life. This is my wife, Gloria Scutchins. We both are in ministry. We have our own ministry, and we was just awarded this proclamation from the town of Rome Sunday.

133We work in Rome as well, and I thought this was a pretty good gesture to let us know that we're on the right track. Anybody got any questions? Listen, I just got to say this. Can you keep talking for another 30 minutes because I'm learning something. Are you going on tour anytime soon? I have a question. You haven't mentioned perseverance, manhood, scholarship, or uplift. Those are called the principles I live by, manhood, scholarship, perseverance, and uplift. It's important that they see that in me. We got to have you come back. I also want to know, while I got you here, I'm waiting for the... gentlemen of omega sci-fi to incorporate the omega gens program at some point in our lineage of mr good bruh himself so if you can't reach out to the bros for

134that one we appreciate that program very much i appreciate it so much yes indeed give your hands a hand have a nice day before we move i just want to ask a question um sure thing there's a lot of information given out this evening from a lot of different organizations And what I found, I'm not from here, but what I found in this city is that we can become tribal when we deal with one another and we don't want to reach across the aisle to help one another, kind of help our kids. Is there a way that there's some cross-pollination here where a lot of these systems of care organizations can work together, collaborate, to put more arms and more eyes on the kids that are in need? Because I see that a lot, that

135one kid is in one program and another program, or they're told that they can't be a part of that other program because they're here. But unfortunately, those kids are still part of the community. And the more services that they can get, the better off they are and the better this community becomes. So I hope we can kind of talk through that at some point to get us to play together in the sandbox and help our kids. Yes, Samil. Yes, many of the system of care are in the park. How about all? I want all. We may reach out to the customers and family and say we have an adverse use that is experiencing difficulties within the home setting. We'll reach out and we'll collaborate. ICANN has been extremely helpful with our youth who may need

136items such as getting a graduation from soup, housing, helping with hygiene products. I know we're trying to reach out to Danielle's Corporation as well to receive those hygiene products. We also recently did for Women's Month, Hillside collaborated with ICANN to also do a women's empowerment. I do know in the past... I can instead at Milwaukee Valley Community College have done a lot of work together in reference to that as well. And then if students are struggling within the building and we know that another system of care offers that service, we reach out. So Hillswide also collaborates with OnPoint. So if you have a student that's interested in a college tour, we'll reach out and connect with OnPoint and say, hey, we have a college tour. You have a college tour that's coming up. We have

137a student that's interested. Is there any way that we can collaborate? usually says yes. So in some way, shape or form, these system of care partners are already partnered together. Maybe not everyone. every single time but there are a lot of hands that we tap in and we collect and we connect with one another if we see a student struggling academically we also support does someone have a tutoring a program that they're offering so many of the system of care partners are already connecting and working together so that's hillside reaching out is it reciprocated so that's all reciprocated across the board so i'm just speaking of hillside because i can tell you what our collaborations look like and how we partner example rise up i can't reach out we'll send out emails to each other

138expressing we have different events that we can collaborate and connect on if we see each other within those within the meetings we connect we kind of share ideas we do sit around the table um for instance young scholars they have been able to say hey we want to connect with you so the sixth graders that we don't have because we serve as students seventh through 12th grade so the sixth graders if they have a cohort and after that number of four her goals if they have remaining students they'll reach out to us and say hey we have remaining students do they fit into your criteria for your program so a lot of the system of curators in some way shape or form are already touching points with each other to connect Can I get an

139answer to your question? We have Udica Collegiate Access Network since 1970 where we've knit together different organizations all collaborating to help the students, not only the ones with the system of care, but even beyond that to the corporate foundation, other educational ones, and appreciate all the involvement of the Udica school system over that over the years. And that's one way that we do a lot of extra collaboration also as well. OnPoint is open to anyone to sign up, so everyone that we actively go out to the system of care partners and others to try to encourage them to send over ones to OnPoint so that we can partner up. And just as you were stupidly pointing out, the ideal situation would be to have multiple layers because only one challenge can stop a student now

140from graduating high school, from succeeding, or from going on to college, or succeeding in college. But if we all work together to try to cover each and every challenge. That's what seems to be done. So a very astute point, James, to bring up. But I think we're doing more and more every year, and that's in part because of the encouragement that Rachel Daughtry and the rest of the wonderful team, led by the superintendent, provide this great encouragement in that to achieve the great goal that James was alluding to, that we have that full collaboration with lots of partnering and every student and everyone has all their needs met. And that's key to really... getting the students being able to keep their educational and career goals thanks okay any other questions you were rex were you

141about to say something because i saw you at the podium I was, but I think they really addressed the fact that we are bringing them together at the table and having these conversations and really creating that conversation piece. And now some of our partners are actually doing meetings outside of the district, meeting with each other, and creating their own opportunities as well. So it's really growing itself and creating quite a network within our partners, and to the point that we have other partners who are now contacting us. wanting to also become part of what we're doing here because we're seeing the success that we are all right thank you i'm gonna i'm gonna just take a five minute recess i need to i apologize to those who are here for the uh public comment but

142we need a five minute recess it's been a while agenda is public comment be asked to state your name and address you have a three minute limit Public comment portion of the Board of Education meeting is designed to give members of the public the opportunity to address the board related to school district operations. Each speaker shall be allotted three minutes to speak with the total time of public comment not to exceed 30 minutes per board meeting. it's three minutes per person the board will not permit in public session discussion involving individual district personnel or students persons wishing to discuss matters involving individual district personnel or students should present their comments and or concerns to the superintendent of schools during regular business hours all speakers are to conduct themselves in a civil manner public outburst criticisms

143and other distractions from the speakers presentation will also not be tolerated individuals who cause a disruption to the board meeting will be asked to leave it's not the practice of the board to respond during the meeting to questions posed or comments made by speakers therefore while the board will certainly take any questions or comments you might have under advisement we will not be responding tonight to any questions you may have having stated that up first is dr minor cheryl b minor she just signed in okay up next Howard Potter Howard Potter 1138 Hilton Ave I think we learned a lot tonight by all these different organizations that came out the amount of positive reinforcement they're doing after school and some yes I didn't mean to interrupt you I thought dr. oh we thought dr. minor

144wasn't okay start yeah start start him start him over yeah she must be going to committee so start is clicker over would you please there you go again apologize oh no that's fine so basically you know what i was hearing i was going to talk about a bunch of different stuff but i think what's been said is there's a lot of support in and around our school district there's a lot for us to be thankful for And that's why I push and I advocate for us to talk about safety and security within and around our school buildings, right? If they're doing all this after-school care and all this rehabilitation, now I've done independent living. I've done anger management skill sessions in the House of Good Shepherd. I've lived it for seven, eight years of my

145life. That's why I'm up here speaking on these things. But what they're doing is very critical. And, you know, when I hear that they can hire 184... or 187 staff within a short time period, you know, it makes me wonder what can we learn from their organizations. I mean, we're not talking about just general positions. We're talking about therapists, you know, people dealing with anger management, teaching. They're hiring our own staff in these programs. And prior to this, we were having a hard time getting our staff to work in some of these programs for whatever the reason was. So I think we can learn a lot from everything that they're doing. And I think we should get them more involved. inside the school as far as we can because they seem to be doing it

146but again i wonder if we do improve safety and security how can we improve the dropout rate because they're doing all this after school care and we're still at 121 kids at a dropout at a 17 rate that increased you know we only had 477 kids out of 713 graduate right there's there's more progress that has to be made and I just don't understand and no one can seem to give the data or the answer to how we're going from 70% graduation rate to 67%. With all this after-school care, with the REDD program doing all these amazing things, right? The board approving going from 20 to 30 kids to the Bridge program, which helps lower classroom sizes for senior class, right? Which then gets them graduating and into the workforce and a lower cost of

147education after, you know. graduating high school. These are all important things that I think if we sit down at the table and we gather with these people that are doing this extra work outside of the school system, I think we can learn a lot from them. So thank you. Thank you, Howard. Up next, Matthew Kilborn. Good evening. By the way, Matt, happy birthday. Thank you very much. Not the time, not the way I exactly wanted to be spending my birthday tonight, but thank you for making me and everybody else wait an extended amount of time and not sticking to your time constraints. I'll try to stick to my three minutes the best I can, though. Good evening, President Habayka, board members, and district administration. My name is Matthew Kilbourne, 150, as you can see. I

148don't even want to be here. My name... Matthew Kilbourn. I'm a taxpayer resident and father of whose family has suffered repeated intentional civil rights violations at the hands of Superintendent Spence for daring to exercise our constitutional rights. Public comment is a core First Amendment right. Residents must be free to criticize district leadership and operations without retaliation or censorship. Yet this board has repeatedly terminated my lawful comments, directly violating my First Amendment rights simply because I spoke the truth. Superintendent Spence has orchestrated a clear and escalating pattern of unconstitutional retaliation against me and my family. Superintendent Spence filed multiple false reports with the Utica Police Department. Those false reports led to an unlawful raid on my house, a blatant Fourth Amendment violation of my right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. And then after

149that, after I won my ERPO case based on the evidence used against me, After that, my daughter endured an excessive and unnecessary suspension that denied her 14th Amendment due process and her fundamental right to an education. When responding... superintendent Spence I sent him a formal civil rights demand letter under state second state statute 1983 he retaliated by further having me investigated for extortion that investigation is now closed you've done pissed off the Utica Police Department you've done pissed off the district attorney's office and you've done pissed off a lot of parents in this district Could you at least stick to educational issues, man? I apologize. These actions, the due process denial to my daughter of 14th and the 4th Amendment right on my home, the retaliatory extortion probe, and the repeated silencing of my public

150comments as you're attempting to do right now, form an intentional campaign of civil rights violation that chills the right of every resident who seeks accountability from you motherfuckers. I demand that you- Point the board. First Amendment rights are not to be violated. Violation of my first amendment. I demand that this board immediately launch a full investigation in superintendent's first. That's his pattern of first. Policy we don't respond to comments whether they're not true, misleading, just fallacies. It's our policy, the board's policy that we don't respond to those comments for the record. We'll just take a minute while they deal with Mr. Pilburn. I'd like to make a motion for a brief recess while it's being dealt with. Mr. President, I move for a brief recess while the situation is being dealt with. We are going

151to go into recess until the disruption has been taken care of. All right, now we can get back to- announcements and reports PTO PTA shared decision-making committees student councils CSE chairs title one UTA hello board members and administrators and public I'm Connie Hosler I'm the UTA VP at large I'm an occupational therapist in the district I currently work at Columbus School but I have worked in every elementary school never worked at JFK that's the only school I haven't set my feet in for for work purposes I'd like to acknowledge this past Wednesday was Administrative Assistance Day, and we could not survive without them in our schools and our admin office. We really appreciate all of you, and I'm sure we all appreciate them. They do a lot of work behind the scenes that we don't

152see. As a union, we were challenged by administration that other teachers would not want to come to Utica to work if the Utica teachers didn't portray a positive outlook. So we created a public Facebook page to promote our involvement in the community. We've tried to post our community involvement, such as the fixed tier six rally. There was multiple Utica people that went. Sleep in Heavenly Peace, where the beds we made went to our students. handing out books from NYSET in the St. Patrick's Day Parade. Our teachers in the community with our UTA banner, upcoming events. We have a golf tournament coming up, countywide job postings, special days like Earth Day and what different schools did. And we're planning an autism walk. I have a slide. At SUNY Poly, if anyone would like to join us,

153we have a UTA team. Speaking of our golf tournament, we also have a slide for our golf tournament if anyone would like to join us. The funds that we raise go to a scholar, a senior scholar at Proctor that's going to school to be a teacher. And they keep the funds for four years until they graduate as an undergrad for teaching. So it's very important to us that we raise money. It's in the name of Larry Custodero and Norm Stamboli this year. They are being honored at the golf tournament. This year the school district is working on instructional priorities and smart goals We have posters in every school and we are all working towards these goals Tenant to goal for is reduced teacher turnover for teachers that are that have fewer than five years However,

154we know recruitment is difficult and the changes to the classification of professional jobs is going to cause future teachers to struggle to get loans. They're going to take out more high interest loans. It's going to really affect who goes into teaching. We also have a high rate of teachers eligible for retirement coming up. Anyone hired in 1998 will have 30 years in 2028 and they will be able to retire. I was hired in 1998. Yes, 1998. And it was the first year Utica had an orientation. It was three days. It was at JFK, and they hired over 70 people because the Tier 1s were phasing out. And they hadn't had an orientation in, they said, probably five, ten years. So it's a big group of people that came in. Oh, I have a little. So

155this is just UTA members that are going to retire or have 30 years in over the next five years. So in coordination with trying to get teachers to come to Utica, maybe we can do something to get our teachers to stay instead of retire. I don't know what that is, but maybe we can all work together to create a better environment for them to stay and not think about retirement. I'm one of those. Okay, my next slide is about the teaching day. The teaching day, we all know teachers and staff have been tasked over the last six years since COVID with more responsibility, more data collection. We have asked teachers to add restorative practices to their daily schedule. We've social-emotional learning, Tenet 5, Goal 10, to implement a district-wide social-emotional framework. That also fits in

156there through our positivity project. School counselors come in monthly into every classroom and do interventions. System of care referrals, we have ICANN workers and Safe Schools workers that help take care of our kids that can't maybe experience lunch in a big group, so they take small groups. Teachers refer them. It's a process. RTI data collection for students at risk. Our copiers are often broken, taking more time out of our day, and there's much more differentiation going on in our classrooms than there ever was because of the different levels of students. Students are in school six hours or approximately 360 minutes. So let's look at a typical school day. I used a K-4 schedule because five and six change classes, and it's a much more complex schedule for them. So ELA is about 90 minutes. We

157use a super kids curriculum. The curriculum map is very fast-paced, and it takes the full time for teaching, reteaching, everything that they have to do. Math is 60 minutes. I-Ready is 30 minutes. Their special is 30 minutes. Lunch is 40 minutes. Social studies and science is 30 minutes. They go to the bathroom as a group, three bathroom breaks a day. That's 30 minutes. The positivity project is 10 minutes a day, and they have sometimes flex time, 30 minutes a day, and that's when RTI, AIS-related service pulls students out of the class. And that's a lot of interruption. We try to do it all at the same time in my school so that everybody leaves together. That leaves zero extra minutes in the day. Teachers are working on Tenant 1, Goal 1, Goal 1 and 2,

158improving attendance. Parents square to the parents. They're always communicating. They're checking with the attendance teacher. They're making sure the letters are processed and sent out. And we are piloting UFLY and the DIBELS program, which is going to be added to this schedule, and we're already packed. where is it going to fit? What are we going to take out of this schedule for that to fit into this day? And I'm not dissing the program. The program could be wonderful. I don't know the program. But we just need to know how we're going to adjust our day to fit it in. We're supposed to, according to Tenet 3, Goal 7, teach the curriculum with fidelity. And I see teachers doing that all day long. We just don't know where are we going to put more into this

159schedule. The school-wide motto is be responsible, be respectful, be safe. As you will see, we're going to release this survey on Thursday to the board and everybody. Staff does not feel that the district is responsive to their needs. The district is not respectful of staff in many instances, and we do not feel the district takes our safety as a priority. I was in the hallway and a very reputable teacher walked out of the office. She had something that she was told she had to do immediately. And this was her comment. If they would only let me teach, that's what teachers want to do. They just want to teach our kids. They don't want to have more and more responsibility put on them. And then to have someone turn around and say, well, you're not teaching.

160That's what we want to do. That's what we're here for. And that's what we all need to work together for. Thank you. Thank you. UAA board members and all who are present this evening and on behalf of UAA thanks for the opportunity to speak on the budgetary items included in the budget as a result of Dr. Spence's direction and vision for what is already working. I'm Cheryl Miner, principal of Watson Williams Elementary, school leader in the Utica City School District for 32 years and I'm grateful to be here to explain some of the things that the UAA are grateful for. I thank Dr. Spence and the Board of Education for prioritizing key areas that directly impact student success, including strengthening school leadership by including additional support for assistant principals in the largest elementary schools, which

161will help ensure more effective instructional oversight. allow for more individualized support for students, and enable teachers and staff to receive timely guidance and assistance. This investment will enable school leaders to be more present and responsive to students and staff, ultimately fostering a stronger, more supportive learning environment. capitalizing on what has already been said by the Utica Teachers Association, proposing district-wide research-based professional development to enhance instructional quality, leadership capacity, and student support systems that will lead to a higher student achievement and measurable growth in outcomes across our schools. Being a champion of change and continuing our Raiders extended day red after-school program which greatly supports families by providing academic enrichment and social emotional support after school. Focusing on the continuation of summer school enrichment programming and STEM and in the arts, which increases access to learning

162opportunities for all students. And last but not least, investing in ongoing technology upgrades. to ensure we have the most modern tools in our daily learning environments. Dr. Spence, I commend you and the Board of Education for sustaining your mission and extending your vision to provide a high quality, safe, and supportive learning environment that reaches all learners, enhance students' graduation rates, and help students become lifelong learners and productive members of society. Again, thanks for all that you do, your investment in the students and staff of our district, and for collaborating to ensure these initiatives succeed. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Dr. Meyer. Okay. UTC, Teamsters Local 182. Local 200 United, SEIU. Hi, everyone. Hello. My name is Christina Sutter, SEIU TA Chair for all the TAs in the Utica District. And this is going

163to be short and sweet. I am happy to report that we've had a few positives since the last board meeting. We've had a temporary fix to some of our staffing shortages. And we are looking forward to creating more permanent solutions for that staffing, so thank you. We had a productive labor management meeting with admin and talked through solutions to some long-term issues. We also had some meetings scheduled in the next couple of weeks that I'm sure will be productive as well. We feel that we have established a good communicative work atmosphere where we can collaboratively work out our solutions to the problems that we bring to the table. because that's our goal. Let's work on our problems. Again, as a member of the new SEIU leadership, I need to applaud all of my fellow co-workers,

164from security to building admin and everyone in between, for their never-ending dedication to the education of our students. I work with some incredible people. We need to remember that we need each other, we need to support each other, and we... are a great incredible team i also want to thank you utica city school district admin dr spence and the board of education for continually offering us a seat at the table thank you good night maug valley buildings and trades okay um are we doing a treasurer's report today okay heather now listen before you are you also doing a budget status report I believe so, yes. Okay, well, the reason I'm asking is because, you know, we are going to be having a budget hearing on May 5th. So this is just the regular report that

165our treasurer would provide? Yes, I just wanted to mention that we are having a budget hearing. On May 5th at 5 o'clock at Proctor High School in the auditorium. What time? 5 o'clock. On what day? May 5th. What's that? It's here. It's going to be at Proctor. We're expecting a lot of people. Yeah, we need space. Okay. I'm here on behalf of our treasurer tonight. He wanted to share with me. He and his wife have just become first-time parents. It's very exciting. Bless new life. He's very, very excited. Been very, very dedicated and responsible the past couple of weeks, even though he's so excited. But he did finish his December, January, and February reports. Very excited that we're up to date on schedule. We've been through an internal audit lately, and so they were very

166happy to see that we've been meeting all the internal controls. Now, one thing I want to share that he and I spoke about today is one thing you don't see in these reports. is that he does prepare them, but I do go over them and review them with him, and we look for efficiencies and different things that we could do to be better. So there is a review of these reports before you receive them. And the last thing he wanted me to mention to you, he's been investing. We've received two rather large checks for state aid, one in January and one in March. He also wanted me to mention, and I think this might have been discussed previously, the ESSA ARP. funding that we had expected the 3.2 million came in in early march as

167we had expected that too has also been invested so we didn't lose that money no no oh well there were reports to the contrary yes it was always expected we kept constant communication with with the state and they had assured us and reassured us that it was on its way and it did indeed come in early march so i don't know if you have any questions for me okay thank you thank you heather Ann Marie, is she here? We're talking Plato recovery right now. All right. So we're going to talk about Plato recovery. So again, Plato recovery is one of the levers that we have within the organization and make sure that our students are graduating in a timely manner. We're looking to expand that. And so for the board's view, because we're actually asking

168the board to take action, we want to just give you an overview of what that work looks like. Again, we have a variety of students with complex needs and our job is to expand the opportunity structure by giving students every means to be successful and to stay traversed through the system. So Anne Marie will talk about that, particularly at the high school. And it's one of the things, again, that we're looking to expand an existing structure. All right, turn over here. Sorry, Principal Paladino. Good evening again. all right so i'm not going to review our mission and vision i think we've all heard it and we know it same with our instructional strategies and our goals we've talked about those over and over i'm here to educate you on the plato recovery program we've had

169some questions about that um pursuant of the commissioner's regulations um students can earn a credit for an incomplete or failed course and i'm not going to read it i'm just going to talk i don't like just reading from a site if they So you can read it and then I'll check it out. So basically if they take a class and they fail it, they have to, they can sit on Plato Recovery. They have to sit for the class though. So say it's a living environment class. You have to sit for it. And then if you fail the class and say maybe pass the Regents but you still need the credit for the class, you could take Plato Recovery. And we currently use, it's called PLATO, Credit Recovery. Edmentum is the company, and the program allows

170students to take a course they did not pass. Before they take the class, though, online, they have to take a test. So if they learned and mastered some of the standards, they don't have to go back and redo those. So they can take their test, and it pushes them right up to where they need to learn. They get the rest of the standards, they take the test, they pass, and then they get their credit for their class. And I know Mr. Fauci can speak to this because I know he was there when they did it in 2009. It was the first high school to start the Play-Doh recovery, and it was a great model that the Boces actually adopted it, and they use it also. It's offered during the school year just for seniors right

171now in danger of not meeting the requirements. All right, qualifying students are enrolled in Play-Doh, and they have a lab in their schedule. They have one full-time PLATO specialist right at the building, so kids can go in. We can keep them after school. We just do everything we can to get the kids on. We're constantly calling them. We track them with data. And we have a school counselor assigned to PLATO. Again, tracking the data, calling home, sending the attendance officers home, using the parent liaisons, because you want to get those kids their credits, obviously, so they can graduate on time. So analyzing our current cohort, our 2022 cohort, we want to expand the credit recovery to offer Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2.30 to 4.30 to give kids extra time because we don't want them to wait

172until June. We don't want to say, oh, we're going to wait right until the last minute. Hopefully they get this cradle recovery done. We want to get those kids in. keep calling get the parents go to their houses do whatever we needed to do because last summer you know we had some students that needed to get it done and like we were going to the houses we were doing everything we could to get the kids in over communicating getting tons of people involved in it and it's a lot because we have one plato recovery teacher so i said we got to get her help she can't do this by herself so i had a lot of frequent meetings with her and then we also had saturdays because there's a lot of kids maybe they have

173to work so we want to provide busing for them to come we have about a hundred students are participating in the sessions and we're going to fund it through title monies so we're able to do that through extended learning time so the money's built in for that anyway so here's our components for the program again it's title funding The teacher allotment, counselors, security, administrators, parent liaison, transportation. About 10 teachers over the course of those three days. Two counselors, obviously security on the Saturdays. Administration to oversee the program. Parent liaisons, the kids, they don't show up and call home. We don't get a hold of anybody. They're going to go right to the house. They're going to find out what's going on. And the transportation for the Saturday. So that's our total for the budget. But

174again, it's title funding, so what are your specific questions on the data? I just have a question. Are we doing a Regents review at the same time? Yeah, there's Regents review going on right now. At the same time on Saturdays? Not with this. No? The school's going to be open, right? Well, we have some Saturday. Some teachers do have Saturday, but not from every single Regents that we're offering, no. like certain teachers do it on their own and they offer it to the students but it's not like a there's more to come I have a lot of ideas but you know okay you got to give it a little bit of time I have two questions attendance of criteria to be enrolled in this program like what is the criteria to Well, if you fail

175a class and you sit for a play-doh, like you're in school, it's on your schedule, and you can work on it online too at home. Some students work on it like at midnight. They just want, they have to get it done. I think, sorry, maybe just to wrap that up. Do you have, do you have to, the class that you fail, does the student have to meet certain attendance? oh i see what you're saying that class in order to be eligible to take plato in the first place is that the question that you're trying to ask yeah like i just didn't know like what makes you if there was a well i mean when you fail a class we just look at the final average you know so we're not looking at the discipline record

176we're not looking at their attendance you're just looking at their academic final average technically would be anybody who does fail the class is eligible for this program right now currently seniors okay i just want to ask this kind of clarify for me because initially you were saying you have to sit for the class so i don't know if that's the attendance portion what now i think she means well no like you you physically have the class in your schedule and you go to class whether you go or you don't go okay right that's right right right because i know it doesn't summer school attendance play the factor right no right okay that's When they are on Plato, they obviously have to attend to do it. They have to get on the program and it tracks

177them where they are, and you can monitor it throughout. So obviously we're gonna work in the summer there's certain kids too like they have a five-year track or six-year track We you know way before I started some of these kids are still trying to get their credits So it's not just kids graduating this year you still have kids trying to finish up in the five years or the six years because you know you still want them to finish And we're put in a request for the budget to expand the credit recovery next year for juniors because what I found out Being a proctor for the short time. I was there there are students that by the time they get to a senior they might need like eight classes like that's a lot so we don't

178we want to catch them up quicker so going into the next year they'll be more successful they won't have as many classes and hopefully the graduation rate will go up oh i had a question about transportation is that still able like because it's almost an optional Will the busing be the $21,000? Is that eight of them? It depends on the funding source. It's title funding. Title funding. If it's federal dollars and it doesn't... No. Okay, that's what I thought. Yeah, that's what I think. Okay. So then I think this is a follow-up to the budgetary matters. $41,186 for this year, this expansion. Have we identified the source of the where, where, it's just all, is it new title money or is it being used from somewhere else? We have extended learning time and we're extending

179learning time. So it's the ELT grants. Yeah, the title four, title one. Yes. Okay. All right. Any other questions on this? More to come. I'm in favor of expanding it. Not this late. Thank you. Good night. Do we want to, up next is the superintendent's report. Someone wants to make a motion, that's fine. I'll move to go into executive session to discuss legal matters and personnel. I'll second it. Any other, all in favor? Aye. Opposed?