001I'm going to call the February 2026 budget workshop to order. Can we all stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Can the clerk call the roll? Here. Mrs. Danielle Padula? Here. Mr. Donald Dawes? Here. Mrs. Tenille Newt? Here. Mr. James Paul is excused. Mr. Jason Cooper? Here. And Mr. Braden Anna? Here. Okay. Why don't we get started talking about the budget. So we'd like to, before we get into the details, just open up with a presentation and contextualize the materials that we have today, and then we want to get straight to it. Okay, so first, thank you for everyone coming in on a Saturday and
002it's a frigid morning. We appreciate you here. That we are, as we stated, early in this budget process. So this will give us an opportunity to present our spending plan today. That's what this is centered on. And we'll talk about what our proposed idea is to support student learning for the 26-27 school year. Again, as with everything we do, it is rooted in our mission. And the part that we are focusing on is continuous improvement, getting better in all areas of the organization year over year. Same is true of fulfilling our vision. These are guiding our guiding light, so to speak. And again, now with our mission and vision, we have district goals that are tangible aligned with that work in that framework. As we engaged in the budget process and we had discussion about
003what it is that we hope to do, a lot of words came up. And this was our thinking as we were putting this document together. We talked about opportunity structure, investments. We used words like data-driven, mission-driven, accessibility, student-centered. And so this budget, as all budgets are, a moral document. It speaks to what... our values are internally and we are just explicitly putting the things here that everyone at the team at one point or another had stated publicly and this is why we thought would be pertinent and and good of us to illustrate this to show our thinking now when we develop budgets the budget is developed based on an organizational framework and an organizational need When I entered the institution in 2024, we did a structural analysis. We looked at the gaps from an academic
004standpoint. We looked at our operational deficiencies, and we really used that to guide our practice. So this budget, one of our initiatives we're talking about is professional development and what's the need for that. So when you think about this concept of homophily, which is really a concept where you start to the organization inadvertently engineers groupthink because we're not really expanding our perspectives and ideas. We're recruiting from the same places, same region. So part of that creates alignment. but it also stifles and has the ability to stifle an organization, which is why we want to invest in professional development for the upcoming year to get our people out there with the best practices in the field, exchanging ideas so we can look at how educational transformation is being done more broadly in the field of education.
005So we are prioritizing that, and that's the theory of action that this is aligned to. Now the same thing when we think about going back to our mission and vision, we talk about the need to improve student outcomes. We are a highly diverse student population with students that have a variety of classifications, special education, economically disadvantaged, over 52 languages. And part of our work here is how do we not only expand the opportunity structure, but how do we make sure that our students are prepared post-secondarily once they leave the institution? So one of the theories of stratification, how is inequality maintained throughout systems over time, is this theory by Lucas gives us, which is effectively maintained inequality, which really posits that as opportunities expand, as we expand opportunities, like for what we're doing with the
006high school, for our AP courses, NBC Bridge program, CTE, that the inequality persists. because the most advantaged actors will be positioned to take advantage of those opportunities. So when we look at this budget and we look at our instructional framework, we are thinking, how do we close those gaps? Now, one of the things that we've done to be actionable about this was the award-winning RED program that we implemented last year, which was designed to support our neediest students and address... academic gaps early on. So as students move through the system, they would be better prepared to take advantage of said opportunities as they exit a proctor high school. and they'll have the opportunity to engage with the CT program, which is why we are working with our middle schools and we are doing work in
007the RED program to create awareness. So this theory of action is what guides the cultivation of the budget. It is why we ask for positions. It is why we ask for programs and initiatives all aligned to that. It's also very important because before we get to the numbers, because the numbers are not created part and parcel they're not separate from we need to have an understanding of our thinking about why we are doing what we do and this is the theory that that works to support that again when we uh last year When we did our opening day, we always talk about the opportunity structure. How do we expand opportunities for our students, both structurally and culturally? So I put this here, again, to frame our thinking around the budget as we get to the
008numbers. Now, we're going to talk about the budget process, and process is important. What did we do? How did we arrive here? Now, number one, I want to say, we're very early. very early in this process and I'm happy that the board donated their time to come work with us today because now we can have these discussions and we can kind of see, you know, where is this budget aligned to our priorities. I'm also happy to say, just like I said, coming on the heels of our budget testimony on Albany, that right now we are in a stable financial position and one of the few urban districts that does not have a structural deficit and we are not looking to build one, which is why one of our core words was sustainability. So as we
009talk about the process, I'll turn it over to Heather to come talk a little bit more about what are our process. And remember, we're still early in the process. The process is not done. This is a part of it. And Kev, you want to talk? Good morning. So Dr. Spence wanted me to share with you a little bit of how the budget process works. Some people think it begins at a particular time and ends at a particular time. But for the finance office, that's just really not accurate. It's a perpetual moving wheel that continues. We're constantly looking at how programs are working, how they're being expended, how the revenues are coming in. To actually get the numbers on the paper, we begin usually in September at the beginning of the school year. Everybody's back at
010work. We're taking a look at the year before. How did our programs work? Do we want new programs? And so that collaboration between all the departments begin. And it started with our weekly meetings on Wednesdays. The superintendent has something called the administrative cabinet. And every Wednesday, we meet to talk about initiatives that are working, initiatives that aren't. I think the best case example this past year was the cell phones, where we had to pivot very quickly, find funds, and then develop a process, which Mike Ferrara was. was key involved in and getting that off the ground and it was very successful and i think the commissioner of education came here and was very pleased to see that happen but that's all sort of the things that go into the budget so it starts in september
011october we start taking a look at where we are currently right because when you're building a budget you want to know where your fund balance is going to be at the end of the year And so you've only got a couple of months in, so you're constantly projecting. That's why you hear that term encumbrance quite often. An encumbrance is basically a bookmark. And what it does, especially for our salaries, it bookmarks it all for us so we can look at it every payroll period to see where we are. So as we're looking at our fund balance, we begin projecting out where we think our salaries are going to be. As you're well aware, we have some union contracts coming up. So, you know, we try to make some assumptions, but we don't know where those
012things are going to land. But it's very much a collaborative process. We are also taking a look at cash flow. Cash flow is very important to make sure that we can pay our bills timely and make sure that we have enough money in the bank to be there when we need it. As we go through November, we take a look at, we begin where we're going to be for the December presentation. Really key in that portion was transportation. Transportation is a significant portion of our budget. Mike Ferraro worked tirelessly with us. We go through ridership. We go through routes. How can we be more efficient? How can we provide a better service? So as we go through all these different programs, we're taking a look at those things. A lot of people do trending, and
013before you right now, you have sheets and reams of paper, ledger-sized paper, where I've gone through and I've given you a couple of years of trending material. So even though you might see a zero for this current year, there may have been activity in prior years. Sometimes it's one shot. Sometimes it's a program you've decided to get rid of. Sometimes it's a program you've decided to add. Looking at the trending is great, that's the beginning, but you have to dive down into each account line. There's been a lot of discussion over the past year and a half about coding. And what you're going to notice in the ledger paper and all our accounts, we've expanded on the names of the accounts. Some of them will just say salary and you'd see a location code. Now
014we actually have the school name. If it's a grade one through three, a kindergarten, high school, you'll see them all labeled out. We've been going through every line, making sure that everybody is placed where they're supposed to be placed so that we have a good tracking. And we think we've got that under control. And so it's been a group effort. And we're excited about that. And along with federal funds, they've taken a look at all their classifications, and we think we're in good shape there. As we go through December and January, we begin to get a little more information about numbers, beds data, our SPED enrollment, where our vacancies are. And that all kind of plays into it so that at the end of the day, it's a living, breathing. It's not going to stop
015today. It's not going to stop after the voters have a chance to look at it. It just continues on. Thank you very much. And it has been a very collaborative process. Heather in the business office has worked with the academic side of the house, and we're really looking at student data, but we're also looking at trends within the budget. And Heather looked at previous budgets, 25, 26. She's looked at 24, 25. And so we're really looking at that because in the overall grant scheme, I think, colleagues. We are not proposing a reduction in staff. We are not proposing a reduction in programming. We are actually at a point where we're looking to expand some of those things, but we want to make sure that we're doing it in a fiscally responsible way. What we are
016proposing today... will not be the final budget that you see. There will be tweaks and adjustments. We are talking more conceptually about these are the things that we're looking at and we're going to get a little bit tighter as we move on. So thank you very much and it has been very collaborative process and we're still ongoing process, right? Whether we still have more people to meet with and we'll talk and continue to refine this. So thank you. I just wanted to ask when you talk about people to talk to. Who would they be? So for example, it goes from the building level to the cabinet level. So when we meet in cabinet, we'll meet with our various departments to assess need, to assess, look at trends, and then we'll look at what the numbers
017are telling us and what is the organizational need. So for example, We'll talk about an initiative of expanding our literacy teachers that came from a collaboration between Mr. Fauci's office as well as Heather Mowat, the superintendent. And we all sit and talk about these things because they're all intimately interwoven. So the goal for us here is to really mirror the needs of the organization from a holistic perspective. When we talk about adding the induction of building principles, you would imagine that's system principles, you would imagine that's building driven. So we're really working to balance that across the organization and constant conversation. How much input do we get from our teachers and from the people that are actually doing the work? So if we're looking at reading services, for example, are we? speaking directly to those
018teachers, to the people in there doing the work. Well, I forgot. So the principals are constantly meeting with their staff. As late as yesterday, I know Ann Marie Palladino was meeting with her different chairs in her different departments trying to understand. I shouldn't say understand, but get a better clarification as to what their needs are going to be for next year. So they're the ones that are really on the ground. They're constantly working with Steve Felchie. As we talked about, it's not just this time of the year. It's all year long. So Mr. Pelchick, I guess that question is to you because you're reporting. So are these teachers in the discussion? So I just want to add to what Heather said. We also have district-wide AIS facilitator at central office who is a teacher, curriculum
019specialist, and they are on the ground working directly with teachers. So all of that information should be funneling up through the principals, and then it funnels up to our offices through the people that we have at central office that are on the ground working with the teachers. And did we get that input this year? So before we did all of this, was all of that input sent? Yes, and in fact, we're actually meeting with the principals again on Monday. They're scheduled from 8 a.m. until 4. so that we have an opportunity. They've already submitted their budget request based on their discussions with their staff. And then Heather has set up meetings so that we can actually sit and review all of that with them to make sure we have full knowledge of what their needs
020are. And to be clear, that's one of the why the principalship is such an important role. they're working with a variety of stakeholders on the building level but ultimately the principals have to really guide that decision making because they're looking at the overall needs of that building so we value the input but decisions have to be made and so i just so i just want to understand i think taniel's coming from the perspective that the rank and file teachers are and i'm not trying to but she wants them to have input into the final budget now my understanding of the way it works is they would have to make their request to the principles yes and the principles would evaluate whatever that request is correct and then pass that on up to the administration or
021steve um and and that's the process that's followed right correct okay Okay. And so right now you'll see where we are in the proposed budget right now. If we were to adopt this budget today, we're at $313 million. We're talking about an increase of about $22.85 million. So right now we're looking at big picture, but we are going to do a little tightening around this numbers. Right now, this is more conceptual where we are, and it's good because, again, we are early in the process. You know, I wanted to ask how... We it seems to me that we are early what's different this year Than in past years that were actually early from what I hear It's a bit more collaborative so what what is what's the difference this year in in that we're here
022at this point I think that our team has had, I think, you know, again, the organization has experienced a lot of transition, unfortunately, I guess, varying levels of the organization. And I think our team, our structured weekly meetings that we have in polls, it just lends itself to, I guess, greater collaboration. The thing about this is, and one of the things that I always promote in the cabinet meetings is that everything is interconnected. There's nothing that... that I do as a superintendent that is not connected to a larger theory. I'm a social scientist by training, so I bring a lot of that into the work and the organizational management. But it's also as a team, we're looking at how are we all connected to this overall framework? And they've been really good at working, you
023know, just working to gel these things out, gel kinks out. And it's a constant learning moment. Next year, we're going to learn things from this process and say, you know what? We didn't really do that well this year. This becomes a refined part of the process. So it's just continuous improvement, like our mission. How much of an adjustment did we make in the way this budget is being framed versus years past? How did we get to that particular? I'm, of course, assuming that we made adjustments. I don't know if anybody else wanted to speak to that. Steve, what are your thoughts on that question? So as Dr. Spencer has been a collaborative approach, but there's also milestone markers along the way. For example, budget testimony in Albany. So you have to ensure that you're ready
024for these things and you're prioritizing your needs ahead of time and looking at all of this information so that when you hit those milestone markers, you can make an intelligent argument as to what the district's needs are. Every step along the way so I can appreciate that in terms of Business days we might be early in the process, but we have two board meetings. We have one next Tuesday and One the 24th of March, which is the date that this has to be adopted So in terms of actual board meetings, it doesn't seem to me that we are that early in the process left So I'm assuming there for we're most likely gonna have to schedule special meeting or some workshops that continue talking about the changes that are going to be happening or tweaks
025to the budget When we say that we're early, when you look at the budget timeline, the portion that we're going to go over on Tuesday is already done. We're early in regards to the fact that we have a strong authoritarial hand over the budget and its key components. You know, the budget hasn't been adopted by the state yet. So a lot of the larger thinking, we're early in the process. I don't particularly foresee that. But Heather, if you have a different opinion, let me be free to dissent. I think in the past couple of years there were a lot more unknowns. I think that, you know, we keep using the word collaboration, but it's really a fact. Just the constant communication between all the departments. The framework is really set. And when we talk about
026tweaking, there are things that come up. I mean, I'll give you a great example. BOCES has not approved, I don't believe that BOCES has approved their rate increase yet. I think that's coming this week. It's very difficult to be 100% spot on on numbers when you don't know what an increase is going to be. We just found out what our state aid is estimated to be from the governor's runs. That may not be where it ends up. We're going to be talking a little bit next week about technology. Different things are aidable, and how are they aidable? So as you go throughout the year... When those things become more solid you actually can do things a little more efficiently, so I don't disagree with you Mr. Nana that you know it may not appear that
027it's early, but the strong framework that we have And transportation is a great point We feel really great about those numbers and put a lot of effort into it, and we did that in all these different areas and so that we can document. I think even on the last page of your sheet, I did a little analysis for you on the BOCES and the salaries, and those were things that perhaps we didn't have time to do in prior years. So we feel, I think, much more concrete about what our numbers are representing and how we can document them. I think it reflects the definition of what education is. And education is always learning and growing. So every year, it should never be the same. It should constantly be re-evaluating. That's the definition of what education
028is. And I love the idea of a collaboration approach because our teachers, our AIS facility workers, We're not getting collaboration from them and we're truly not going to make a budget that's going to impact them and impact ultimately our students because that's what's on the ground so they understand exactly what they need. So I really appreciate the collaboration approach. Okay, so the budget, I'm going to simplify the budget for everyone because it's really not that complicated when you talk about the actual spending. We're not making a reduction of people. We're not reducing program. You take last year's budget, the same people will be there the next year. There's a cost of living increase. Your margins are really in that slim foundation aid of anything and whether you're appropriating any fund balance and converting monies into
029expense-driven aid. So I want to be clear about that. After going to the testimony again, I'm happy to purport that we're one of the few districts that are able to continue expanding what a lot of my colleagues talked about on the floor, structural deficits. So what we're looking to prioritize based on those theories of action, based on a study of the data, what we're seeing is summer enrichment opportunities, because again, we know that students lose ground in the summer. We're talking about expansion of the rate of extension. Let's just talk about that for a second. So summer enrichment opportunities. there gonna be an adjustment for example in whether or not there can be credit recovery in the summer versus what's taking place in the past where you know somebody didn't maybe get the school enough
030I mean, is that part of what you're talking about? I'd like to know what that actually means. So if you give me, let me just list these, and then as we go through, can we ask the questions on a particular? Yeah, you can just answer it when the time comes. Okay, so I just want to go through, and then we'll talk about that. Very good. John, I just love the teacher in you, John. All right, so very good question. So summer enrichment opportunities, again, we know that kids lose ground in the summer. We want to make sure that we can continue to keep them engaged in learning opportunities. The expansion of the award-winning Raiders Extended Day Program, we started in November. We would like to start that as early as the third week in September.
031The expansion of career and technical education expansion, you know we're going to need more people to help supervise the students as they're working with that equipment. Our district-wide technology replacement, make sure our students have the most up-to-date tools. Professional development across the organization connected to the homophily framework. Strengthening, building support. We have a lot of, the organization did so well. the organization did so well last year the the in terms of our ability at that three through eight great bands to move the needles so we want to keep building on that momentum and it was one of the things just to say here for our viewing audience that i was proud to be able to say that on the uh at the budget testimony as a member of the big five one of the few
032organizations that can say that so we're doing really really well in that area um and i want to keep that momentum going uh straight uh recruitment and public relations so One of the things, again, we're talking about theories. This is what I was able to glean when I went to the budget testimony. Many of our colleagues across the state are... are addressing concerns with the proliferation of charter schools and the charter schools that are taking students from the organization and moving them. And if you know anything about charter schools, it's this neoliberalism, right? The privatization of the public sector and school choice and how do you compete. We're going to compete. We offer a lot in this district and I think we have to do a better job at rebranding those opportunities. So we want
033to increase the budget on our public relations line to be able to advertise more broadly to really ensure that all of our students and families understand the wide array of course offerings that we have. It is our way to compete in the marketplace. So that's the thinking behind increasing the line there. And then also Part of that is we live in a world of misinformation. We live in a world of, you know. all types of software and you can kind of build coalitions that don't also always lend itself to helping the organization and we need to be able to strengthen our recruitment. So we're looking to really strengthen that to make sure that we can adequately tell our story. And it's not something that's unique to Utica. It's one of the things that urban districts
034tend to struggle with. They're typically on the defense rather than being proactive. And we do so much here. So we're really looking to invest in that. And then again, academic achievement. We're looking to really get more literacy teachers there. We'll talk about that to continue to strengthen the pipeline. The reason why we are looking to really strengthen our core supports at the elementary level is because the gaps are exacerbate over time. So if the student does not receive quality instruction or those instructional gaps are not addressed, early on, the remediation is often more costly in the end when you're trying to remediate at the high school level. So our goal is to really address any of those learning gaps as soon as we possibly can so we can send the students up to the pipeline
035prepared to take advantage of those opportunities. Again, connecting that to the opportunity structure framework and really dismantling that effectively maintained inequality over time. Again, we've seen this slide again, so I'll move to the numbers. But again, we're talking about extending that RED program. And this is kind of a breakdown of a couple of different scenarios. If there's any questions here, or Heather, if there's anything you'd like to say. We just wanted to portray what the... Cost was for 24-25 and that was directly out of district funds. When the program moved in 25-26 to BOCES, it was 90% aidable other than the administrative costs, which was 64%. So you see that the cost dropped and we went from five months to seven and a half months. Dr. Spence's request is that within this budget that we
036move to 10 months, move it into September instead of starting in November, have a full year. And you can see that the cost is still, what we project, is still less than what the district would have paid in 24-25 for half the time. nominal cost of addition. Very good. If I could add, Dr. Spence, we're also looking to add the number of students that have access to that program from 675 when it was started last year to 1350 this upcoming school year. Sorry, 1350 still just for elementary? This is still elementary. And I also just want to, just for the community, this work came about from two things. One, I want to connect it to the board when we talked and interviewed and we talked about, you know, opportunities for students was something that the
037board had expressed. When we did our four town halls, when we went to community and we went to each sector of the city, this was a resounding thing that we needed some extended day learning opportunities. And I'm happy working with our team that we were able to not only design the program from scratch, we built it. Then we were able to leverage our funding, strategic resource of allocations, to turn it into an expense-driven aid which drives sustainability for future years to come. So it was a very good collaborative effort. This is why I'm so pleased that we were able to receive the New York State School Board Association's Champion of Change Award for a program we implemented last year. And we couldn't do it without your support. So thank you. And we've had a lot
038of... request from the community so we're looking to increase it because we're looking at the data and it's we believe it's also contributed to improving uh student outcomes i i'm sorry i have one more question is the demand there to increase the numbers like we're still wait listed at some schools yes yes the demand is there so when we um when we first started this the slow rollout i think we were early on maybe around um 50s or 70s and then we increased it to 100 and then you know from what i'm hearing there's a lot of demand there um and and people really uh and seem to enjoy it it's been from what we could see it's been a really good program some schools are participating in it more than others right not at
039this point at this point we have almost uh steve correct me if i'm wrong it's almost about 100 per that's each goal right yeah so the goal is to get the numbers by January up to a hundred and we're there but there are like MLK probably does have a higher student population in their program there's a significant demand for it there and she's able to staff it to meet the needs of those kids yeah that was one of my questions because getting the I think it was the last board meeting we provided the red numbers um in staffing and it looked pretty sound and i think i saw that icann was even hiring like for substitutes like when they weren't able to provide like the regular um teacher who was in the room but mlk
040last year had just about 100 participation from each student in the building so if the demand is there and they could staff it are they allowed to go over that 100 this school year or are they We have to say it for we budgeted for 100 if there's a demanding and staffing it would be it would be an internal conversation right now because there'll be a budgetary impact but the goal for for us is we want as many kids in there as possible I if I could keep the kids to 10 o'clock I keep on the 10 o'clock we want the kids in the building as long as possible because in the urban transformation that I did when I worked in Rochester when I worked in our Harlem Children's or I'm working in charter sector
041that was one of the models Even just growing up as a kid, just going to school, that was one of the models that helped keep us engaged in rigorous academic content. The beautiful thing just to say about this program is not only do they focus on an academic power hour, they focus on a social emotional learning aspect. So when we brought the representative from NISBA through Watson Williams, they were talking about how do we display empathy and talking about these concepts for the children, which was really good. So really good work there. We're really proud about this. I sincerely mean that. I'm sorry. I have one more question about this. Go ahead. Only because I see. still some differences building by building which is understandable but when buildings um bring in like different speakers or
042they host different like athletic camps after the power hour is that a cost to the district or does i can schedule that into their That would be ICANN's program. And to some extent, we designed it intentionally for the buildings to have customization because we wanted to make sure, again, as we had talked about before, I wanted to make sure that our stakeholders had buy-in and voice. So I didn't want it to be top-down. The only thing that was top-down was we have to have an academic power hour. We want you to emphasize social emotional learning. How you get there, you need to customize it based on the talent that's in the building and the culture of that community that's surrounding that school. I have one question. So third line from the bottom, 2026 Neal's Security
043Parent Liaisons. This year, that's 100,000. We're projecting the same for next year, but we're also looking to enroll more students. Right? Is there a reason that line doesn't change? Is that because we pay a certain amount and that's aidable? We're paying a certain amount. We're not looking to increase parent liaisons because it would be the other, we have a finite amount of them that work in the district. So it would be the other ancillary support staff. So we increase that. This is what that reflects. How many other teachers would you need? How many other X? Am I articulating? We understand that the same way? Okay. All right. Oh, the mills. You want to speak to that? Yeah. Okay. Well, for the mills. Yeah. So, so line 2026 will probably be adjusted at the next. So
044is the proposal for the expansion of the red program purely, I don't want to say purely, but is it, is it. more students longer time frame or are there expansions to sort of opportunity nutritional elements of students who otherwise don't have ability to have dinners or things like that or is it are is it less programmatic and more logistic right now or so the expansion is more students within the same framework so add more kids to the pool of kids that we have And in terms of the structure of programming, we're looking at those things. We'll monitor it. We'll have a conversation at the end of the year with the full team, and we'll talk about how can we enhance it in terms of different quality metrics. But right now, this just really reflects more
045staff and more students. I'm assuming, though, that programmatic sort of expansions of this would also cost more time, right? Yes. If that conversation happens and there's a desire to do that. that wouldn't be for next year. It would be for the following budget year. Well, right now, we're still, again, we've still got a little wiggle room ahead. If someone came to us and said, I'm just making this up, we want to bring LeBron James to Watson Williams, and they had a good reason for doing something, then we would say, okay, we're going to adjust this to make sure all kids have an opportunity. I think I'm less thinking about that, more thinking about the types of foods that we're providing during this sort of meal period. Mike. activities and things that would allow students to-
046Can you speak to the- To- Less about- So I think this is the question I was trying to ask. Well, that I did ask, but so does it fall on ICANN? Because I see some schools doing a cooking class. I see schools doing dance, a school doing lacrosse. Yes, it's being done during RED. Who's responsible for, like if you say that you want to work with ICANN and under their contract- they have to bring in a reader, they have to bring in a community member, they have to do a cooking class. Is that a budgetary item that falls on the district or would that reflect on ICANN? So I'm going to say two things. One, and Heather and Steve, you'll be prepared to jump in on this. In terms of the design of and what
047we're offering, we're still controlling that. But that's within the pre-existing call center, correct, Heather? Yeah, so that would be what I came within that existent which was existing budget So I think I think then probably from an equity standpoint and in a board standpoint just seeing each building differently And I understand that they should be ran different based on their clientele and the talent within the building and all that could we set some parameters or that like once a month they can bring a speaker in like or something so that each building knows because i think what we're hearing is that x building gets to do this and we didn't know we could and it may just come from communication through ican or budgeting through ican but it it's like we didn't know we could
048do this we saw it online kind of thing so in regards to the uh variety of experiences across buildings what we'll do is we'll meet internally we we haven't um had that market yet we'll meet internally with them and we'll do an assessment that's more of just progress monitoring and quality control checks for the overall program we haven't had that meeting but as we look at that if that's feedback that's out there we'll consider that in regards to its implementation yeah and then it's sort of a more hypothetical question because it's not a short term this budget cycle thing It's something that has been mentioned though previously from the board for side effects is opening up the schools as facilities for community agency usage other local governments to either do, we've mentioned like Oneida County
049health clinics or mental health clinics. food banks things like that are those things that because they sort of aligned with the goals of the red program we would look as an expansion of red or as a completely separate program if we were to move in that those those would be um so any other coordinating agencies those would be separate from the red program the red program has been designed but that's also one of the things that we're looking to do so again part of just coming into the organization my goal has been to shift the school as the hub and work with as many community partners across. So they fill out the facility usage form and there's some type of event or something they want to host. We're amenable to that because we're trying to
050coordinate services more broadly. Well, speaking of clinics. We still do them, right? You still what? You know, the health clinic, dental clinic, those types of things. Are we still delivering those services to our students? So we did have health clinics at three of our schools, but they are no longer in operation on that agency side that was running the clinics. However, we have run in dental clinics to all of the elementary schools. Because my thinking would be that since we have the RED program in all of our elementary schools, and many of those kids are at risk. Why wouldn't we schedule clinics and reconstitute or reinstitute our dental and health clinics that, and how long have they been gone? I want to say since last year. But didn't we, I don't want to say we,
051but wasn't there a district move to remove them in order for space in the building? No. Not the medical clinic. No. Well, that's what they. We get enough to beat that. The people that supported the program no longer supported the program. And it was really due to staffing. They couldn't get the staff to run the clinics. meet the needs of their organization as a whole so I do in previous discussions the board has expressed interest in expanding even those clinics I think those clinics should be I think those clinics should be rotated we should go back to them I think we should rotate them so that the kids that are in the red program any other child in the district that would need it would have access to it because you know frankly we're responsible
052for everything else we might as well discharge our obligation on that since sometimes people don't discharge that obligation for their kids and we need healthy kids and we need kids that aren't going to have You know major dental or health problems because they haven't been attended to and I'm just a payback over that I love the idea at red we have a nurse shortage within our own buildings and I believe if we had Stationary clinics and I know it'll take time to develop. I'm not saying we could put 13 in tomorrow It was my understanding that they helped even Like if they were open 9 to 12, then a nurse can be at another building. I'm saying use that opportunity where you have all the kids there to have the clinics and rotate them through
053because my idea is at this point I don't want to say I'm not looking to put ten clinics in our elementary schools I'm just saying you know we have kids they're captive and so they need to be attended to and if we have to rotate Then we rotate the kids through or we rotate different schools and everybody's got the red program so But if there's clinical hours it may be nice that your child could stay like we used to even do the flu clinic and we had flu shots available here or at Proctor and it was like open to anybody in the community. So we still do that. We had a flu clinic this year. Yeah. We still do that. So let me just speak to this. So that is our intent. That's something that
054we spoke about, community equity and outreach, right? We talked about how we can have a date. Like that's one of the things that we talk about in the committee. Anything, just for clear, anything above reading, writing, and arithmetic is extra. All of swimming, anything above that from the foundation of education is considered extra. Over time, the school has been asked to do more and more as the county and the other services sort of move it on to the school because it's the only compulsory institution in American society that everybody has to go through. We have to do it now, right? We have to. We wash clothes. We provide clothing. We give food. i mean we do a lot of different things my point is there's no sense in like like when it comes to health
055and it comes to you know it comes to dental and the fact that you know uh the people responsible for making sure that the children have those needs attended to aren't discharging those obligations not saying all of them but there's a wide variety And I see it when I'm in family court. So I see direct evidence of it. And my point is, it would help the kids, it would help our staff, and it would help the people that are responsible for it to make it easier for them to discharge an obligation. So I'm just saying if we can't, you know, somehow they're no longer in the schools, okay. But that's an effort that needs to be made even if it's on a rotational basis in conjunction with the RED program and you know you can
056also expand it on the other side so that you know people that are not taking advantage of the RED program can access those clinics and we can provide the opportunity in the window for the people to do it. Can I just piggyback off of that? You know I'm loving y'all right now. In building and grounds, Jason and I have walked through schools. It was Watson that had a dental clinic going on. The downfall to that is they also lose their gym and the audit like it's on the stage and just different things So I I think we this is a bigger picture. I love that Watson has them I didn't realize that they go to all the elementary schools. So that's awesome. But The logistics of it I think bigger picture if we can put
057a clinic back in even one building or two buildings that is available for parents to even make an appointment or have access to would be awesome. So when you say the rotation... Why don't we convert a school bus into a mobile clinic? I mean, we've got to do something because the fact of the matter is that... So you've got to find an agency that can perform the service. Well, Mosaic does our dental. Is that what it says? You would have to find an agency that can perform that service. here's the other part of it which is i'm happy that you're having this discussion because it's connected to the larger drive for community schools that's essentially what we're talking about community schools wraparound services for students so we're looking to build that out right now part
058of the board had already funded the family community engagement position once we get that position um solidified and we're working to make some adjustments there the that person that my thinking was that person would be responsible for coordinating with the community agencies this is a model that we know that where it works our district is largely economically disadvantaged disadvantaged so in order to do the work of educating them these things are important so yes and y'all are right on brand this was discussed at the budget testimony we're all aligned so just that was great great discussion great ideas to them um And then this is the career and technical education expansion. We know as the students phase in, we're going to need more support in the classrooms because they're dealing with heavy machinery, et cetera,
059et cetera. This one's self-explanatory. It's based on a need. So going back to that, I think a holdup here for me is the proposal of adding three TAs for CTE. when we have such a shortage of TAs already. I guess I don't understand how those are going to get filled. Because we still have an obligation to budget for the position. Our efforts to be able to recruit and attract is divorced from that intent. We have to have the positions in order for the program to run effectively. And then on the other side of the house, we work out to get the people. So are we going to be able to fill them because every TA that comes in, we're in such a short time for special ed, we continually get pushed in special ed. So
060will we even be able to get there? So that speaks to the idea of funding the sort of advertisement budget, working with other things. I mean, this is a very complex, nuanced process that has multiple factors in it. And so we are working from the state level down to the local level. So we're working within that. This, we're talking about budgeting for it. Our ability to do it is going to be contingent upon other factors as well. But are there not mandatory positions? These ones? Yeah. They're not mandatory. So I guess where I'm coming from on a budget side is we currently have practices in place of prioritizing or only putting TAs in special education until those positions are filled. So these positions are going to be incredibly far down the line. And if there's
061not, I'm not going to say probable, I'm going to say likely chance of those getting filled in the budget year, those salaries that we've budgeted for. Could be used for a one-shot initiative or something I understand it's not a lot of money But those can be used for a one-shot initiative this year and then budgeted for what it's more likely if they'll be fit so so I don't want to conflate the those those things yes important, but this though It's not like IEP driven. I would still recommend to the board that we have them because they're working with they're working with heavy equipment and things like that and we want our cte program to really run effectively well steve i mean is there are there special qualifications for example for the cte uh tas because
062it wouldn't make sense to me that and i'm just using this as you know it's not even probably related but you had someone that you know was an auto mechanic that wanted to work in the you know one of the fields or whatever as a as a ta and cte We're going to tell someone that has specialized knowledge but maybe didn't get the appropriate certification to be a teacher that you have to go to special ed? I don't think that makes sense. No, no, no. So for this program. I would administratively place the TAs in that program. But what I'm saying is you're not just looking for somebody. The people that are TAs have to have some related special knowledge, right? It's not just somebody being put in the position because, you know, we finally
063got to the 37th TA. That would be our hope. Well, no, I'm asking. Dude, does it have to? They're really there to help with the supervision and management of the classroom. We would, of course, provide some in-house training. Ideally, if we had someone that had a career adjacent field to the particular area of supervision, we'd want them. And we have equipment in these rooms, right? Yes. And our rooms are fairly sizable, correct? Correct. Okay. And so if a teacher is working with one particular student, you know, from a... liability standpoint that we would need to reduce flower reduce district exposure would they also be required to have the certification to have a to have a certification yes they would need to be certificated yeah so are they more on the instructional side of things or
064are they more on the helping out with the equipment side of things because i think those are two different those are one and those are one and the same they would have be monitoring the students and working to support the classroom teacher i i think that this is a morass that is being weighted into personally I think this needs more thought well I will say when we spoke toward the teachers in the department head I think the teachers would really like to have that support budget for and I understand if you think different but we're trying to be responsive to the teachers that are talking about what they need for their classroom the teachers would also love kindergarten TAS and all sorts of things I mean we're that's I understand. It's just, it's a matter
065of if it's going to be a requirement for the position that they have training on the equipment and things. I think then there's a legitimate argument to be made of having these positions as a priority. If it's having another TA, then I think that it's the same situation that we're in with all TAs, and I can't get behind that. Is this a generic TA, or is this a specific? TA that's the question I think I would imagine that they would have I mean let's not imagine let's know what's the situation they would need to have they would need to be onboarded to be able to assist with the equipment in that classroom and to supervise so you would have to have some qualifications and some background or training through the CTE department and the teacher
066that's in the classroom um so these summer enrichment extended learning opportunities we have we have one that we're looking to expand that exists and that's the one for ct steve can talk a little bit about that sure so last year through the griffiths institute we had a stem camp for kids we're looking to expand that michelle hall's working through the griffiths institute and then Through the this funding we would like to see those expanded also We had a very successful drama program at the high school a couple of summers ago where the students Who they didn't necessarily have to be in drama club, but who were interested in drama? We ran a three-week program that included practice at the Stanley Theatre and a production at the Stanley Theatre We would like to see expansion of
067that type of programming down at the middle level the elementary level and capture kids in all parts of the city so right now it's it's in the the planning phase i went to jones school a couple of weeks ago during the red program they had an auditorium full of kids who were engaged in extracurricular music activity so stem drama music the arts and then intertwining our summer camps for athletics that we've run for the past three years just to be able to expand these opportunities to kids because there are kids out there who this is it keeps them tied to school it gives them something productive to do over the summer so can we talk about program design what this looks like timeline on a day-to-day in our schools and budget, how much this is
068costing or how much the proposal is. So right now we're working to finalize the design and we're working and tweaking those things. There was a survey that was sent out because we wanted the voice of our stakeholders to gauge employee interest. So right now we're all of that work is happening simultaneously while we're building this. And so we thought we backwards mapped it a little bit, you know, approximately how many individuals would we need to run it? how long would it run would be the duration of time. And then we put out to gauge a stakeholder input and now we're working on finalizing the design. So it's really in this beta stage of design. Funding. Funding. What did we go together? So in your letter sheets that we have there under, I believe, teaching regular,
069we have 400,000 slated for salaries and 100,000 for contractual. So this is teaching salaries. Yeah, I can tell you. The salary summer academy, it's 8, 21, 10, 153. 21, 10. Sorry, what was the last number? 153, 8, 21, 10, 153. And while we're looking at that too, so with these summer institutes, are we also looking at providing transportation or will this be a requirement for students to get there on their own? So we're looking at all of those factors. We're considering, you know, to the extent possible, we would love to transport the students because we want to make sure that they get in there and transportation is not a barrier, which goes back to the... earlier theory of action of effectively maintaining inequality. We want to make sure the person that doesn't have transportation has
070the same opportunity as the mom or dad who does. So we're considering those factors in its design. And I know that this has been proposed and talked about since we began it. Are we looking at all? I know you're in the design phase. Are we looking at moving it, right? Typically, we have a lot of things that happen. Are we looking at moving some of these to other areas to kind of meet the needs of those students? Man, we just sold a line today. My God, I just love you all. So, yes, we ideally, we would want it in four corners of the city. We break the city down in four quadrants and have it at a location. That would be our hope. you mean like drama in one place yeah something in another and
071then it also bus runs you know you're talking if you're talking bus runs it how how much is that going to cost so yeah so like significant you talking like millions so if we're providing transportation have we and how many weeks is this broke this summer academy i just want to mention let me hold on before we just talk about that so the goal right now part of this design may be This year the program that's offered so in transportation is an impediment this becomes cost prohibitive We might say for this quadrant of the city this year is this this quadrant city this program is centered on that Because it's really will help those kids in that neighborhood, which is sort of time on a bus But these are the considerations that we have to
072flesh out as we continue talking So we have some flexibility with how we do that to get around the transportation issue if it becomes a significant cost Well, I'm just curious How many weeks is this program going to run? Is it going to be a six-week program? No. Steve, I believe we had decided it was going three weeks. Three to four weeks is typically when we run our cast because we like the kids to enjoy some other things during the summer. Three to four weeks happening all at the same time? Same time. You like math and education? All the same time. Math and science? Simultaneously. During the summer? How many hours of it? Steve was that the way? I feel like if they're full days and transportation may be a little bit easier. That's the
073issue that we received feedback on with the summer camps. It was an hour and a half at JFK for baseball. two hours, let's say, at Donovan for softball. Like, it was impossible for your child to... In our initial conversations, we were talking about three hours, maybe three to four hours. This particular building, this site, no movement to any other site. You're in this building. This is your area and scope of programming for that particular quadrant of the city. But this is all good feedback as we're flushing... Is there a way to bring a community part... What's the official word? System of care. partner to extend these to longer days. So our responsibility is the enrichment, the athletics, the drop, whatever stem, and then almost like a lunch portion. And then the building can remain open
074and bring in a system of care partner. And I, you know, this is obviously just talking through it, but I do think that prohibits us, especially when you go from school being open nine to six, so to speak, in those same children that we're trying to serve. for four hours potentially without transportation, I feel like the participation may be low if it's not something that can be utilized longer. Does that make sense? Yeah, that's really good feedback. No, that does make sense. And the challenge is we balance that out, but that's 100%, I think, a real concern. Then it's also how long do my teachers in the summer want to be in the building? And do the staff want to, you know? So we try to, what I've seen has worked best was like a
075four. our model when I've seen it work best because people look at it like I can still get up, you know, I can do my role and then my day is not going. So we're balancing that, but this is all good feedback as we're thinking about this. Right, and I understand that from the enrichment program or getting the coaches, but I'm saying for the morning or the afternoon piece to whatever. Oh, an additional program to keep it open. Can we work with system of care partners? Call it what you want. It may be a little bit less not structured, but at least playgrounds are open and supervised and the gyms and whatever that may look like to allow parents or guardians to have their child. Like the half day for the enrichment part is huge.
076Maybe the afternoon piece or whatever hours you're looking at be the optional. And we bring in system of care. We work with Oneida County to hire some of our own. I know they have that youth program like they do at the parks where it doesn't necessarily always have to be a teacher, right? It could be more recreational. So what we'll do is we'll take that feedback and we'll explore that and what that would look like. So it would depend on how we structure the contract if we put that personnel under them we we could and say they our security wouldn't work with them like we did the teachers it would depend on how we structured that i i don't know how you can have things in the schools and then say to one of our
077system of care partner you render security i don't know how that works i don't i'm not sure that that would be the case i think the minute we open the school i mean this is my perspective i might be wrong but the minute you open the school you have to put security in there. So, you know, that creates an entire logistical nightmare. And my point is, if you're going to do this, you know, you might do it for four weeks. You might do it four days a week. You know, I'm not, I'm a little, I understand that you'd like to do it in every corner of the city, but we may not, at least starting out, we may not have. logistically the capability to have four things going at the same time because it's four
078sets of secu- you know in four different places because it's four sets of security it's four sets of bus routes And I don't know, Mike, am I wrong? Does that geometrically increase the amount of bus routes because you got it going? Like if I'm living in South Utica and I want to do something in North Utica. Yeah, to get there on the appropriate time. So it's geometrically increasing it. My point is while it's aspirational, I think doing it in one location and making everybody come to it would be the way to do it. would be the way to do it and using the best building that offers the most options no matter where it is as the hub. So we're looking so the design of it Again, just speaking about transportation. So one, of course,
079we'll always have security in the building. The question is whether they're running through the COSER or whether they're coming out of General Fund. I just want to address that. I'm not saying we shouldn't have security. But in regards to how it works... I'm not saying that you're worried. Not for you, Joe, but clarifying for the public. You get what I'm saying? I've got to clarify that. So... But in regards to the design of it, there's a couple of ways you can do it. You can do a neighborhood school model and say the kids in this school that have been walking distance, this is your hub and this is the program we're offering it. Or we can do it a model where you have all the kids route into one school. We're still fleshing it out
080and we're taking in this feedback and this is something that we're definitely going to think about and then look at what design is going to... do the three things. Number one, programmatically, what's going to be the most effective for student learning and student support, logistically, and then from a financial standpoint, what will be the most sustainable. And those are the three ways we look at that. So when we look to come back as we're fleshing this out, we would have a proposed model to say this is what we envision this looking like, and this is what its true cost based on this design. I think this is a great idea. So one of my pet peeves that I kind of always go on about is and you talked about this a little bit earlier. Fundamentally,
081we are an educational organization. Our institution is designed to come here, it always has, and to educate our students, make them strong, right, so that they're ready to go on to college or go on to the workforce and be prepared. However, as a school district, we have taken on way more. So we continually are asked to provide different things that have nothing to do with education. The amount that we have to budget for security right so that we can keep our schools safe for the outside world the amount that we do into finding space for pantries for clothing all of this we know this is what helps make learning important and this is what helps make our students arrive however as much as i love all of these programs and i want to see them
082in We also have to make sure, as much as we're thinking about all these things that would keep them enriched over the summer, if we are still not able to pour money into making sure that that September through June, that we are not pouring into making sure that these students are adequately supported, our teachers, our TAs, everything else. Yes, this is great and we want all of those things however we we have to look in the budget of but what are we taking away and not supplying through the school year in order to help and in an ideal world we love to do in an ideal world and I'm pregnant myself in so much trouble for this we would have a city that would support its youth and we would have boys and girls in
083this so that it didn't fall on us because it all falls on us and it's us When we're looking at a budget, I think it's important for people to look at how much is in this budget that goes beyond academic, arithmetic, all of this instruction. The REDD program, we provide because we heard from the community that said, hey, we need extra help. There's nothing for these kids to do. So we keep them in school even longer. We're looking at opening our gyms. We're looking at the policy of how we can use it. And all of that falls on us and the cost falls on us. And people want to look at the budget and be critical, but they're not paying attention to everything that's in it. Because not only are we taking educational, we're taking
084everything else that all of these organizations should be doing outside and placing it in our schools. And I love that because we live in a community that desperately needs that. However, we do just have to take a tiny step back. And that's what I want to look at, because at the end of the day. Our September through June has to be fully prepared, fully staffed, and we have to pour money into that. Got to get that structured, and then we can do all of these things too. So it's something that for this budget, I'm going to ask everyone. A million percent. A hundred percent. Please look at that first before we're going into this. And I feel like we can't remember what school district it was that presented it in ISBA about this, but one
085of the city school districts downstate who... work and i'm pretty sure i've had this conversation before with a bunch of you but they've worked with their city government that school district had put in all the money into capital improvements gymnasiums athletic fields auditoriums cafeterias which we've done and are still doing and then with through inter-municipal agreements with the city the city came in said we would love to provide opportunities to the citizens of the city in these great spaces that you've built we're gonna flip the bill for staffing and running the programs so that we can have joint use space or would like to move towards not saying for this budget cycle i'm saying is a long-term plan because those are the types of things that are sustainable they don't cost the district money we've
086already made these investments and then we can partner with these things either in sort of revenue sharing all those types of things that make a sustainable uh investment instead of what like one-shot investments right and i think that you both have Made pretty powerful statements and I think that's a million percent true It's in us to want to help our students our babies are are you know provide? Opportunity for our educators to make additional income and you know secure from all aspects But there's gonna come a point where the city and the county have to work with us and be at the table to say we provide all you know you look at buckley pool and addison miller those places are packed those are our students and our kids we also don't want to take
087away from those opportunities of them learning how to swim and playing at the park when the county and the city do offer it unfortunately it's not accessible to everybody it's also not i don't want to say marketed but you know there's not stuff coming to our children or to our educators or to our our staff to say hey there's an opportunity for you here something's already been created how can we work with you we provide meal sites all summer we have monitors at a lot of the buildings handing out food we have to come together we have they have they have to step in because we can only take on so much our staff can only take on so much we know there's a need for enrichment through the summer and september through june first
088and foremost but Some of these partners have to come to us to say, how can we provide support? And I think one of an example is to, and just shout out to Chet LaConte because this is something that he did, right, two years ago when the pools were understaffed. And so he came to us and said, you have a pool. So we began offering life guiding courses for free for our students, which then led right into those pools. So he. hires all of our students and we're able to staff so like that is a great example of something that we did and there has to be more collaboration there so could i just talk about summer enrichment for a minute what is that a euphemism for is that like the kids are going to learn
089you know they're going to get some classroom learning or is that just fun and games yeah no no everything we're wearing well no the only reason i'm asking is because like you know i've been on this since i've been on this board It drives me crazy that our kids show up at Proctor unable, you know, a majority of them unable to do the work being advanced socially. And I know we're making gains on it, but like as much as I want to be the head of a summer camp, I want to be the head of an arithmetic, reading, writing, and science summer camp. Like I used to attend when I was in school Okay, that's what I want to see I I think it's great that they're gonna do all the fun and games But
090it's doing the work so that when they show up in high school Okay, they can read and write and then we don't have to worry about the systemic Whatever it was that you called it. Okay, because You've got some kids, and it doesn't matter where they are in the world, they show up to high school and they're ready to rock, and they take advantage of whatever the programs that we offer, which we should be offering, which we should be encouraging children to take. But there are any number of kids that show up that have the capability, and they'd be willing. But they're not ready and they're not able. So I want to increase the number of kids that are ready and able so that they can take advantage of it. And it's replete throughout the
091district and we're, you know, making gains. But if you got to put the carrot out there, which is okay, you get to go kick a ball around or do something fine, but they need to be, they need to be in the books doing their work. that they didn't do or to catch up so that and then they find out oh I went to this camp and I did all these different things and I've learned and all this other stuff then they go to school and they say oh my goodness you know this year's a little easier for me I'm going to do that again next year so that next year is easier for me. Or they now understand classes that they're interested in, so they do want to take those advanced classes. They want to
092take the college classes. It gives them, and obviously that is the goal, which is one of the things that I love from our STEM camps, but also those sports camps do teach them something. I'm not saying they don't, but my point is I'm not here to, and again, I'm here. I just want to be clear. This is more about education with a little bit of keep them there, but I'm not here to try to figure out daycare. On that point, we removed the requirements for attendance for summer school. Are we anticipating due to that or encouraging plus anticipating? an increased enrollment in summer school programming because those requirements have been loosened? And if so, has that been budgeted? That particular provision has not been an obstacle in recent years, and our summer school numbers remain
093relatively similar. And we also do offer summer school programming at the elementary school, targeted interventions for kids who are not meeting the benchmarks in ELA and math. But it's not enough. It's two weeks. It's not enough, and we could definitely expand the educational programming. If you just allow me, I think you've had a very fruitful conversation. I think it's very valid points. The first thing is I think there should be intergovernance and interagency collaboration. We've been since. I've been here at least we've been very vocal in meeting with the mayor we've met with the county I've met with all of the leaders I'd like to um give a shout out to Assemblywoman Buttonshaw who has been a very good uh partner in this work and so we welcome from the office of the superintendent any
094collaboration for any leader non-profit religious community leader to come see me and we can talk about these things I also want to really contextualize our work here The difficult challenge, and I'm thinking from a management perspective, is that we are dealing with historic disadvantage. We are dealing with what I call the socio-political historical context of the students and how they have arrived to us. And what that means is some of my students have parents that were miseducated. My system, I tell myself, I speak to my story. My grandmother went to segregated schools. We have people that are emigrating from different places around the world. And we have students that have different circumstances of no fault of their own. And the goal is to how do we effectively. address those societal ills. Remember, the school is
095Grand Central Station. Every train goes through. Rich, poor, black, white, yellow, gray, it all goes through the school system. And with that comes societal disadvantage that's inherent in our society. And so I talked about effectively maintained inequality because we have to figure out how do we expand the access to the opportunity to say, okay, when you get to high school, as Joe's you're talking about, have you all commented on that you are academically prepared. Now, some of that comes from the management of existing resources, lesson planning. the instructional walkthroughs that we're doing. This is why when we speak about what we're doing for the year, we're talking about proposing an increase in assistant principals to give our building principals the opportunities to be instructional leaders and operational leaders to make sure that the instruction is
096rigorous and that it is culturally responsive and that it is engaging and accessible to our students. But when you look at the overall framework of what this says is, I'm proposing that we prioritize early intervention at elementary school because we don't want the kids to come to high school not being able to read and do mathematics. We're also talking about how do we address fiscally responsibly address those gaps. Now I'm going to go a little theoretical here. You talk about the works of Annette LaRoe, which she did a book called Unequal Childhoods. And what she found was stark class differences from upper middle class, rich upper middle class, down to working class and poor on how child rearing practices were cultivated. based on the opportunity and the resources of the parents. I'll make it a
097little more personal. My mother was a teacher. Every summer, whether I went to school or not, my mother sat me down in the classroom and she said, you're going to do this work. When I was in third grade, I didn't realize that the workbook my mother was giving me was a fifth grade workbook, but she built the discipline there doing that because she was a teacher and she knew that I need to have a command, a facility of language to be able to access things in American society. My students don't all have that parent that can do that. So what I'm saying, what I'm saying is the things that people do for their kids, you're going to go to Disney, you're going to go on this trip. I'm going to build a bunch of experiences
098for you using my capital. The other kids don't. So what happens in the summer is they're in a house. There may or may not be text there. There may not be any enrichment opportunities there for a variety of factors. And I'm losing ground. So when they come back to me in high school, I got the high school teacher saying the kid can't read on grade level. Dr. Spencer, you want him to pass a regents? I got him. He's five grade levels behind. So it's both things simultaneously when we're talking about this and how we address it. I think I have a question on that because I think that's a bigger conversation and we can continue to talk about it but how did they get to ninth grade not being able to read or write I
099think we have I went and I agree with Tennille when she says this we have to make sure the September through June is there because with this no child left behind and I don't want to say holding back or providing additional services or getting into smaller classrooms with you know a teacher and and less students how are they getting to ninth grade you know and that's a conversation for us and and deeper but where does the budget support that to say hey this child's in first grade second grade still not reading it kindergarten level wait wait wait to piggyback off that's what i'm going to say too so i understand what you're saying we all do We're teachers all of us here are teachers. We're exhausted. We've taught all day. We have the lesson plans.
100We have the structures we're doing Infinite number of paperwork that's now required. What are you doing now to help all of us at this table? to strengthen us and to give us the needs so that we can meet those students because we are as all of us are here and we're pretending that we are teachers we are that parent that excitement in the room that's responsible so what are we giving to our teachers so that what you're talking about feeds into us because if we are not supported not only can't we do the work that you're asking We're going to do below the work that you're asking because we're burnt and exhausted. What are we giving to this health? And that's where it's got to come from. Before you go down that road, absenteeism, chronic
101absenteeism. I always see it in family court. And now it seems to be. I mean, it's just, it doesn't matter. It's not just the Utica schools. It's everywhere. Okay. But a kid's missing 30 days of school. Kids are missing 60 days of school, 80 days of school. Sometimes it's just because. Somebody didn't feel like getting up that morning and doing what needed to be done. You know, kids completely detached from the school system. That is our obligation. so what are we doing because the hammer's got to come down come on all right okay okay you're supposed to bring your kids to school make sure your kids get to school i don't care where you come from yes just lastly on tineal's point too though i think we are all aligned philosophically theoretically the district as
102a community, as a Utica community, is, I believe, aligned on the theoretical, philosophical framework. I think we do have to look now into the next chapter of like... be taking those practical steps of what does it look like to try to achieve that. So this is, I'm happy to address, I'm going to address a couple points. So thank you, Joe, because that's when I went to testify in Albany about chronic absenteeism and provided the board with that memo that spoke to it. What we learned when we studied our data is that the longer the students are with us, once we get to the secondary, we're about a 16.7% to get the chronic absenteeism rate increases by 16.7%. We know from surveys that we have students that are disengaged. And the point that I'm making is
103that all of it is interrelated. When I've done the superintendent hearings and I'm meeting with families and students and they submit their essays to me, I can see the gaps in the instructional thinking and writing, and we have to work to shore up those gaps. Now, part of that is looking at what are... How are you supposed to shore it up? When the kids aren't being made to go to school, I I don't care what level where you come from anything else I want to know What are we doing? to make people Get their children to school Punishing doesn't work punishing doesn't work punishing doesn't work I Understand that whole routine I do understand the whole routine I've had cases like that I get it. Yeah, I went to high school once to and skip
104the class one one but then again my point is you're supposed to be monitoring what's going on the parents, the guardians, and we need to make sure that we are communicating that information and that we are doing something about it. What's the follow-up? I don't know what, I don't know. We need to start filing PINs and JDs. Sorry. One of the factors that we're looking at this is, we're looking at this, this is really... This is the larger debate. Depending on where you are on the coin, you have two types of sociologists. One that speaks to structural impediments, meaning the system is designed to produce the outcomes that it's producing right now. Then you have those that are a little bit more conservative on the other side of the pendulum that speak to... purely intrinsic
105and motivational and cultural factors for how we explain this phenomenon. The issue is a confluence of both factors. There are structural things that are inherent in the system that have been here for years that we are working to address. And there are also cultural factors. We've seen this with COVID, just training kids to come back to school again and get involved. We also know, and the point that I'm making, is that as the kids go through the system, Those that are not able to read and write and perform academically start to become more and more disengaged because they cannot access the curriculum or the curricula that's being provided to them. So there's two things to do. This system has to improve. I know that quantitatively. I know that culturally. I've been here enough. My cabinet's
106done a strong assessment. We got work we have to do as a system. However, the part that we are trying to also do is work with the community and work with the students to pull them through. So it's not one or the other. It's both simultaneously. Now, when you talk about what are we doing in the buildings? We are working to add additional support to our building principals who are managing a large quantity of students and need time to be instructional leaders as well as operational leaders. What I know from working in Buffalo, Rochester, New York City, and New Hampshire is that depending on the location that you're in, the principalship can look different. There are some principals where they don't get a chance to be instructional leaders because they're operational leaders. They're putting out
107crises. They're putting out fires all day. So they never really get to the real strong instructional meat of what we're supposed to do. And there are other systems where it's a little bit more balanced. So what we would like to do is give our principals with the balance so that they can... better support the teachers who have the closest proximity to students on a day-to-day basis. So this is really strengthening building supports additionally. In addition to the other things that we have, Steve, would you like to talk about the AIS facilities and talk about how we're also working to provide support? And then I'm going to talk about professional development and how that will help the organization. So we currently have AIS facilitators at each of our buildings who really are assisting the principal on
108the instructional leadership side. But the elementary schools absolutely need more help. Like Dr. Spence said, the goal is to have our principals be instructional leaders, but it's typically... And you hate to say this, it's the last thing that they get to on a daily basis. So the addition of assistant principals, starting with our largest elementary schools, will not only provide support to the principal, but it's also going to provide support to the teachers, because they will be able to assist teachers where they need it the most. Effective classroom management, working with those students and the systems of care providers to mitigate some of the behaviors that they're facing in class. It will be a tremendous support to the teachers and to those building principals It's targeted reading teachers. Yeah, they're still in there at the
109same capacity increase I have to say as right now it is at the same capacity because we decrease them from two years ago But so this budget remains still with the same amount allocated. Yes currently this current budget does I mean, I know we reduce them but my question is Why would we reduce them and not increase them to the prior level? Because isn't our problem reading so we're looking so we're look Just saying, unless there's some philosophy. Wasn't there something with BOCES or the grant? Yeah, so there was an MOA that the union did not sign, which would have allowed it to become a sustainable program, so to speak. But I want to address that. When was that? This was before I even got here. How much money did it cost to sustain it?
110I think it might have been a million dollars. So I'd be more than happy to look for a million dollars in this budget to cut it out because we need the reading teachers. That's coming. That's a priority that's coming further in the slideshow. Thank you. And here's the other thing I want to say. There is more than one way to skin a cat. Every instructional leader has their levers that they implement in the system to do that work. As an instructional leader with an urban education background, I also come with a variety of levers where I can say we can get to it a different way. I know that we need to strengthen our Tier 1 instruction, but I also know that in the immediate... We need other supports until we can really get to
111our tier one instruction. So I just want to be very clear. Because it was done that way doesn't mean that in perpetuity it would always be done that way because as the instructional leader, I'm working with my cabinet. I'm doing the building walkthroughs. I have an administrative cabinet monthly, and we review the data, and I listen to my building principals, and I make adjustments based on the instructional needs of the organization to which I propose to the board. So I have five questions that are increasing complexity. Oh, God. One. APs. Yes. The increase, it's about an $870,000 increase. How much of that is sort of salary adjustment for current positions? How much of that is new positions? These will all be new positions. No, of the $870,000 increase there, what's the breakdown? So are you
112talking about what's up on the screen? Yeah. Okay. So the assistant principals, the seven, are new. So that 1125, 361 was what was budgeted previously. So this is, okay, this is... budget over budget you know i understand that there's there's nine current aps yes there's their salaries increased this year as well yes i was just wondering what the breakdown was between the nine current aps the amount there that's just salary increase for them and how much of it is new salary from the seven new positions uh so we have we will have seven between 105, Steve and I were looking at that this morning, between 105 and 110. You know, it's all dependent upon experience. There's steps that go up. So we had to just kind of pick a range in there. Second question. Go
113ahead. Nope. Nope. Nope. It's six elementaries and one AP at Proctor that is budgeted. So it's not, the goal would eventually be to get to all buildings and increase, but the focus for 26, 27. And I just want to be clear. I'm going to say this again at different points. So if anybody looks this over. We're looking at this now. This is overarching. We are going to have some reduction somewhere. So right now, this is what we're saying. It may be there. It may not. Anything that we reduce when we present the final budget, we'll say this is what we initially proposed. After looking at it, this wouldn't be sustainable based on where carbon aid projections are. So we made this, and we'll propose it to the board. Right, but middle school is not. getting
114touched with APs, proctors, anyone, and somewhere. Elementary. And how are you determining who's getting an additional? I'm loving your question. So we look at a ratio. It's above 500, correct, Steve? So at the elementary school, we're looking at the schools that are right around 500. Sometimes they dip to like 497. And the schools that are in excess of 600, beginning with the largest schools, because obviously there's a process to fill those. So we need to fill those in priority order. proctor we're looking to reduce right now there are five assistant principals and we're looking to reduce the student to assistant principal ratio down to 450 to one assistant principal i was there with six assistant principals i was there with four assistant principals for many years and i can tell you the building ran at
115its optimal efficiency with six assistant principals yeah yeah Because it's 450 kids for an assistant, right? So right now it's 500. So now we go down to 450. Think about managing 450. So this has already been brought to our attention before. If we can add more and decrease that, we actually have a better chance of that assistant principal coming up and saying, well, hey, Jason, right now when we're down to 250, let's say, Jason, you're interested in this. What are we looking at for college? What's going on in your attendance? We now have the ability because right now those APs are... They're walking the halls, they're trying to get kids into classes, they're doing all this, and they're dealing with so much disciplinary issues and that. They don't have time to get to the core
116so that we are meeting these students at their needs. Thanks, Jason, for being a model. So understood this here, but if we could really look towards the future of making something, I think you're going to have a wider impact there as well. Part of it, too, Colleen, is that I want to emphasize this. I mean, we know the organization suffered from so much instability at varying levels in the organization. And we know that when that happens, it erodes systems and practices. So part of this is building the bench, which is why we want to invest in professional development. One of the things we talked about, and I told this to my administrative council, I said, I want to know every shining star that we have that we can provide support and development so that we
117have our own internal bench that's ready to go as opportunities present themselves. So this model, to speak, what you're talking about is like a phasing model. We got to look at the sustainability of it. I would love to increase it more if I could, but we're looking at this for right now. And then as we get closer, if we can afford to keep it all, we will. if we can afford that more we will but we're going to look at the sustainability okay okay jason go ahead because i still have my four other questions so with the uh six elementary it would look to me and what i'm hearing is the criteria used to identify those buildings is likely headcount yep student population that's solely it and i asked because we know my belief excuse
118me is we may have smaller populated buildings in terms of child headcount that may have higher incident rates or other needs of students that I want to make sure that we're looking at the larger picture. So, yeah, what makes the work so complex is that you have student population, you have student needs. You have the management practices, experience of the person in a role, building capacity. So it's so many different variables. Sometimes it's purely a management. We've got to provide support to provide better management. Sometimes it's the needs, as you're talking about, are so extreme that it could warrant that. So for right now, this was kind of our objective. way of looking at it looking at student population but that's a good point and something we'll take into consideration very good point okay questions
119two three five um can you explain to me the sort of the main difference you know the super in the week difference of job duties between an elementary principal and an elementary assistant principal the so The principal is the final authority in that building. The elementary assistant principal is supporting that person. So how that role functions, I've seen it nuanced in different ways. You have some principals that say, you know what? I'm going to take care of, we're going to break it down by a student. I'll take grades nine through 10. You'll take grades X or an elementary case of B5 through three. We'll break it down by grade bands. It may be that, you know what, you're going to function on this instructional aspect of it while I focus more on the operational aspect
120of it. There's different ways to pair that relationship based on the needs of the building and how it's being managed. So I guess the kind of question is, is that sort of a building principal level decision? or is part of also we've created the we have created it's been proposed i forgot which one now the school leadership superintendent school leadership is this a building of a framework on a district level through that position through yourself through mr felchi of how the unified approach to this position or is it a building by building approach? I just love your questions, man. All right. So it's all, there's all interconnected. So part of it's two, number one, I've always in our training, I've always looked at assistant principals as principals in training. You should be expected to work
121around the wheelhouse. That role is looking at the assistant superintendent school leadership is looking at the school leadership models working with their building principals and then also providing direction and say hey you can better leverage these principals assistant principals by doing these things based on the needs of the building but the building principal has some autonomy in regards to how they're going to manage that relationship. It's similar to code the co-teaching model with general education teachers and special education teachers. There's a variety of different ways you can design that classroom based on this particular framework or model to make the relationship best support students. So it's a conversation both from the district level and coming from the building. There are some things that are non-negotiables that any person should be able to do in that
122role, but then there's also flexibility with the leader that they're working with and the needs that they have. can I just add something so also and it goes back to what dr. Spence said when he presented on January 27 this district also needs a succession plans and we need to hire people I when I was hired by Dan Loewengart I'll go back to that in 2000 as an assistant principal at Donovan middle school I remember two things from that interview one your hours are 24 7 which was fine with me and two I'm not hiring assistant principals I'm hiring building principals So we have to look at it like we're hiring people who we see a potential that down the road they can be building principles so that we're not scrambling all the time to
123fill positions when they become available. And that's extremely important. Agreed. And I love that. Can I speak to a good example of that model? I want to just, I got to give some flowers to my people. I think that model in practice. was Mr. DeJesus at JFK. As you see him there, look and gravitate towards the instructional district goals that we work to develop. And him being able to work with his faculty and staff to continue that very important work. What would have been a challenge if he wasn't there and I had to maybe take someone from the outside. Bringing someone outside of New Diggins is different in a lot of places, right? So we know that. So it would take more time to gel. But because he had already been there, he kind of
124knew the players, he's still adding his own leadership style, but he was able to keep the building moving. And I think this picture is great with Congressman Manion and the district superintendent because we did work and he was able to implement it in his building to keep the pulse on it. So we're looking to have more opportunities like that rather than... When I bring somebody in that wasn't in the organization, we don't necessarily know what their training is, what the professional development they've been exposed to is, and now we have to then either add that professional development and training and acclimate them to the culture that we're building here. So it allows for greater continuity, and this would be something like that in practice. So other building supports. So attendance teachers. Can you kind of
125explain? What the role, the daily sort of operations of the attendance teacher are. What are they doing on the day-to-day? So attendance teachers with which we've expanded to all of the schools now in the district including all the elementary At the minimum in a part-time capacity really are the boots on the ground. They're looking at the Attendance data they're working directly with the building principal and support team to find to identify those kids who are not regularly attending and they are the ones who are going to the houses to meet with parents about student attendance and they're working with the probation department and the assistant principals and support staff when it comes to filing pins petitions but they really are the intensive laborers as it relates to attendance interventions at the school and then targeted
126assistance teachers can you explain i guess the design of the program what they're doing on the day-to-day because it it seemed like i hear some mix things from building to building about how many students are being pulled out of the classroom what the design of those programs are and I'm curious to what the intent of the design is or what it shouldn't be so the intent of the design of the design is to have so additional support to those classroom teachers at the k-2 level in some cases third grade to work with that teacher and to close the reading gaps from identified students in those classes so i know years ago we had the intervention now it's targeted at assistant teachers are they supposed to be working in a way that's similar to how that
127concept is working in the past or is it a different kind of design it's probably a different kind of design than when we had intervention labs but in a couple of slides dr. Spencer's are going to get into strategic planning for closing the reading achievement gap because really that's the foundation of everything that we're doing and it's directly impacts every teacher well in light of that and I'd like to just warn everybody that we're stopping at 1045 and whatever Whatever we don't get to, we will start on the 10th. And if we have to, we'll schedule more to get through. Okay. So, again, one of the things that we looked at... was early literacy investment with a focus on K-2. Again, we want to get the early interventions as students enter into the system with
128varying levels of preparedness. Not as important here, but I just want to talk about that. Part of my goal is to, as an organization, is several things that needs to occur. Number one, And we'll talk about the professional development. Each organization has a particular focus and theory for how they educate students. What ends up happening in education is as we get professionals that come into, they all went to varying schools, they all have different philosophies, which is good, different schools of thought. And when they come in, they may or may not have X skill needed for urban education, which is its own complexity. So school districts like ours spend a lot of time on professional development doing a lot of the work that should have been done in pre-service education. How do I know? I
129was a pre-service teacher. Some of the classes that I should have taken, I would have better prepared me to enter the classrooms. So we know that, and we know that we need to provide that level of professional development, which will then help strengthen our tier one instruction. But because we're not necessarily there yet, our early literacy investment with this K-2 focus is... is another way to really target those reading skills. Because if the kids don't get it by a certain period of time, it will be a game really costly. So Steve, I'd love you to talk about this initiative. And I also want to say this. To show you how much of a living document this is, this came on the heels of a discussion that we had yesterday in planning for this meeting when
130looking at the data and then we said, okay, you know what, we need to make an adjustment that's sorry to include this in a budget. So that's how real this planning is up until the moment. All right, Steve, you go. so so if i could just go back quick history so coming out of the pandemic um there actually was a presentation to the board it was i want to say 2022 where nationally schools were seeing significant regression in reading scores coming out of the pandemic so immediately the district went to work brought in a specialist who specialized in the science of reading That right after that the school year that summer after that board meeting all of our principals reading teachers were trained up in the science of reading and then that specialist took us
131through the process of aligning all of our reading curriculum materials including the adoption of a new reading program with a committee of reading teachers that was directly aligned to the science of reading and that's commendable because that was a year or two before the governor the New York State Education Department pretty much mandated and required that all schools realign all of their reading programs to the science of reading we also brought in BOCES curriculum specialists to work directly with our reading teachers we've now adopted DIBELS which is in a pilot at three of our schools to better diagnose and screen kids for reading deficiencies And now that will be rolled out in all of our schools. We've provided the professional development for our teachers, but the missing piece is we don't have the manpower. If
132you look at our data, the number of kids who need tier two and tier three interventions, it's a lot. we do not have the manpower vis-a-vis reading teachers in the school district we have approximately 32 to provide and to reach every kid that needs intense reading interventions especially at the k2 level so we're proposing a three-year strategic plan to increase the number of reading teachers that's just one part of it And this, the plan though is directly aligned to the report that was written after the small schools lawsuit was decided in the favor of the small cities. We were the lead plaintiff during that time. It goes back down a long time ago. and Steven Eubing who was working out of the University of Rochester with East High School wrote a comprehensive report on all
133the small cities including Utica and in his report it says that we needed at least 30 additional reading teachers in order to close this gap so and then the board in July was very clear they want to see every kid reading you know, up on grade level by the end of second grade. So now just wait, can I just ask a question about this? So this attacks all of this. We can't wait. So we've lobbied to Dr. Spence's lobbied each year. Previous superintendents have lobbied for the funding for additional reading teachers. Um, math intervention. Do we evaluate our kindergartners when they come in? I'm sorry. Okay. We do, right? We screen them. So like, do we keep data on what we find? okay so what percentage of our kindergartners like are prepared for school i
134would have to get you that information joe i don't know but if you were to take a guess what would you say i don't want to guess i'd rather okay okay would it be less than 50 probably but i would want to have the hard data okay so isn't it isn't it more about we pushed for a pre-k program too so we've been pushing for free Well, I think even Bert, we used to do the Bert through too with the literacy books. Like all different forms. And I know we want to stick to time, but even looking at this budget, I mean, the school district has four pre-Ks out of the 13 buildings that we already don't have room for. We look at all the partners we work with. Notre Dame only has three. Why
135isn't there, you know, Theobaldman, I think, is one, and North Dakota Senior Center is one. Where is the push, just like we say with the city, for more in the community to see if they can increase? room so we can service more kids. We don't have the room. CHRIS RODGERS. And I think that was also reflected in the governance budget, right, Steve? She wants to focus on expanding pre-K. And the room is definitely a challenge. STEVE LADERMAN. Well, room's a challenge. But again, I'm not sure the whole drop the card on the doormat routine gets people into our programs. but our upk is free full day now i i understand but you can only notre dame can only take i think for a full day something we we we have to do something to get
136the kids coming to school prepare our beautiful public library too is a cool talk about bringing kids in and reading we have this beautiful library that has a lot of space can tap right it's got books there too right right so like looking into structures and we have partners yeah we have partnered with them remember last year we had put the um literacy boxes in the community we were working with the with them but there's a silver lining to all of this there's two things i want to say we're all talking about transformation. It's urban transformation. Our growth is going to be incremental and it's going to be sustainable. In order for it to be sustainable, it needs to be incremental. You don't want to see real large swings. So we made growth last year
137in regards to three through eight. As we're building this out and our kids are in the system longer under this new model, we're looking to see greater growth. So it's going to pay off dividends over time. And yes, all of this is a part of the conversation, but yes, it'll pay off over time. So I understand the state budget's not yet adopted by the legislature, but if the governor's executive budget were to be adopted as is, how does the UPK initiative affect us? That's a good question. You're talking about expanding across, just the expansion of it? Yeah, I forgot exactly. We'll have that answer on Tuesday. We'll have that answer for you on Tuesday. Just to circle back, as you're talking about all of these things, again, we're talking about readers, we're talking about people
138that come in with different knowledge, not understanding probably how to tap into all of our youth because everything is different. We want to see that money in here to streamline because it's our job. So that is our job to make sure that our reading teachers and all this, right? are prepared and that we're putting money into services to get those teachers supported and prepared. Otherwise, it's not going to work. Yeah, I agree. And I want to give a shout out to my director of special education that has developed a pretty robust training for our teachers. Unfortunately, we're not getting the participation that we think we would want for special education teachers that are working in that area. And we'd like to see that increase. But I know that we intentionally provided that training with the
139hope. that we would have great participation. Steve, you want to expand upon that? Well, I just want to say that the bulk of the professional development that we're requesting in this budget is geared towards the training for teachers in reading DIBELS and then the youth-led curriculum that goes along with K-2. So that's absolutely true. We need to get the teachers to make sure we're providing that support for them. That leads into... You know, what we're talking about, again, the idea of homophily, you know, an organization becoming insular. When an organization becomes insular, so too do its ideas, and it starts this perpetual thing. You don't have a growth and expansion of ideas. So we want to make sure that we are providing, again, our members of the organization across all levels with opportunities to find
140out what's happening within the industry of education and come back and turn key that information to us to help build our perspectives. A lot of a lot of our educators are regional they've been here this may have been the only school district that they've worked in so we only know what we know we only know what's consistent with the training we've been provided so we want to make sure that the professional development is number one responsive to district trends and data. We want to also make sure that the professional development opportunity tool allows us to keep, to stay abreast of things that are happening within the field that are changing so that we can become responsive to national trends, statewide initiatives, and also have some tools to implement that. So some of the things that
141we're talking about, and Steve, you want to just expand upon these things here? about the summer although I'm sorry summer Leadership Academy so we're looking to really enhance our professional development and training of our building administrators in order to give them the tools that they need to so we have sent principals to Harvard here and there over the last couple of years but we really want to see a systemic leadership training for our principals through the Harvard Graduate School of Education so we are requesting I want to say it's $200,000 which is the cost of sending up to 30 administrators we want everyone there together getting the same leadership training so it's consistent I will say I did do it in 20 2000 five before I went to Proctor and it was probably the most
142meaningful professional leadership professional development that I have participated in and it's been very meaningful to our principals and administrators who have gone there. when you're saying administrators who are we talking about we're talking about our building principals building assistant principals that's the priority and then if there's additional spots um academic leaders crc chairs because one of the things that i've realized the organization could benefit from is really there hasn't really been a strong emphasis i believe there's been little evidence to suggest that there's been strong evidence of evidence of leadership development. It's not just about going into a role. It's your ability to lead. It's very challenging not having had an emphasis on leadership to come into a district as complex as ours with our complex needs and to lead. And so we really want
143to make sure that across the aisle, our building principals have the tools so that they can lead in their buildings and effectuate change. Again, each district Think of it like a sports team. You got the triangle offense with Phil Jackson. Everyone has their own mantra and design as to how they educate children. We have to build our brand for if a Utica administrator can do this, and how do we know? Because we know Utica emphasizes this. We know that Utica teachers focus highly on differentiation. If you come to Utica, you got to be able to do that. That's the type of organizational capacity that we have to build. Absent that, what you will have is people that have varying degrees of effectiveness and talent just because that's just life. They all go to different schools
144and all have different schools of preparation. Is this a good time to stop so we can? Oh, yeah. Let me just, and then we're going to make some investment into our special education training, expanding the Timbs Academy, which was already board approved this year, and providing some therapeutic crisis intervention training. These are the types of professional developments. But, yeah, we can, and then this was the last thing, you know, talking about our sports clubs and elementary opportunities. Yeah, we're going to want to talk about those more, so why don't we put a pin on that. And then. Yes, capital and debt service as well. We're going to pick up more on this. Okay, so it's two slides. I think it's two slides that are left for this. And then the way we had structured it
145was after... This presentation is just context. I just want to reiterate. This is just context. And then there was the budget detail that was provided. And then just any other, and then the questions that were asked. We'll get into budget detail, you know, on Tuesday. We're probably going to clear the decks on most things on the agenda just to deal with that. So I think that's probably best. I need a motion to go into executive session. All in favor? Aye. okay we're going into executive session um but uh i thought this was a a really high quality meeting today with a lot of good questions and a lot of good information being provided so uh hopefully we'll pick up on that on tuesday and uh i want to thank everybody for coming this morning and
146we'll go from there okay so we don't need to go in the room