10/21/2025 BOE Regular Meeting 1

001Come out of executive session, please All in favor the motion to adjourn the special meeting All in favor it's adjourned, okay I'd like to welcome everybody to the regular meeting of the Utica City School District Board of Education I do want to note for the time that we are starting a little bit later than the designated 630 time. And I want to apologize for anyone at home that's been waiting for the meeting to start. Okay, so we have the color guard from Proctor. They're going to come in and present the colors, which is our standard here now. And then we will all stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with

002liberty and justice for all. I just wanted to ask a question. Chief Lane, I understand that the team won an award. Yes, sir. Can you come up to the podium and tell us a little something about it? There we go. Hi, I'm Chief Lane. So I'm the new, obviously, NJRTC instructor at Proctor. So, yes, recently we hosted our first PT meet. So if you guys didn't know, in the area we compete with Mexico. They're an Army... Mexico's Marine Corps ROTC unit. Carthage High School is an Army ROTC unit. And then we compete with another one, Buffalo. They have the Western Maritime School. They come out. So they have like four high schools come, and there's a traveling trophy. So we compete with pull-ups, we do planks, and we do shuttle runs and stuff, all physical

003fitness. And then Carthage High School, for the last seven years, has won that meet every time. So that's 23 PT meets in a row they've won, and we won for the first time. So it was really exciting for the kids. And now we hold the traveling trophy until we do another PT meet. So hopefully sometime in December, we'll kick back up and do more. Great job. Thank you. Thanks for all your support. Okay. My understanding is that the soccer team is here tonight. Some of the soccer team. Why don't you come up and tell us what's going on. Give everybody the news. There you go. Good now? Alright. So to recap, I'm Nick Gallillo, the boys' soccer coach. I have representing our team tonight, Essien Varas-Adamas. He's our speedster lefty defender. And Rico, he's another

004speedster, another defender, also plays a little bit of attack for us. This year we've been doing very well. We're 11-3-2. We are looking at sectionals. We have a game on Thursday night. Hope to see everybody there. playing against Rome in the quarterfinal game. If we're fortunate to win, we will move on to semis next week, which will be on Syracuse. We're senior heavy this year. Big. I mean, our guys are big. Big, fast. We've got a shot. A senior heavy team, they've been with us for like three years. They're doing well, and we're hoping to keep it going. Good luck. Is it true you're heading off to practice now? Yep, heading there. Guys, we've got to go back to practice. Good luck. Good luck. Okay, can the clerk call the roll? Present. Mrs. Danielle Padula.

005Here. Mr. Donald Dodge. Here. Mrs. Tenille Newk. Here. Mr. James Paul. Here. Mr. Jason Cooper. Here. Mr. Braden Anna. Here. And our student representative, Heather. Here. We do have a quorum. Sorry. We do have a quorum. I'm going to read some resolutions, but the first thing I'd like to do is call for the public comment. Is there anyone signed up for public comment tonight? Okay. I need a motion to approve the following resolution related to Helen C. Finelli. The Board of Education of the Utica City School District records with sorrow the passing of former employee Helen C. Finelli. Mrs. Finelli was employed by the Utica City School District for approximately 36 years in the district as a teacher in science. at Roosevelt School and Utica Free Academy. Mrs. Finelli's dedication left a lasting impact on

006everyone she met. She was loved by the students, their parents, and the teaching staff. Resolved that the Board of Education expressed its sincere sympathy to the family of Mrs. Finelli and that this resolution be saved upon the records of the district. You want to adopt them all at once? Okay. Then I need a motion. relative to adopting a resolution for Monique Sorrell. The Board of Education of the Utica City School District records with sorrow the passing of former employee Monique Sorrell. Mrs. Sorrell was employed by the Utica City School District for almost 14 years as a 7th and 8th grade math teacher. Mrs. Sorrell's dedication left a lasting impact on everyone she met at Notre Dame and Kennedy, where she touched countless lives. She shared a deep bond with many colleagues throughout her career, resolved

007that the Board of Education express its sincere sympathy to the family of Mrs. Sorrell and that this resolution be saved upon the records of the district. I need a motion to adopt the resolution for Peter B. Decker. The Board of Education of the Euclid City School District records with sorrow the passing of former employee Peter B. Decker. Mr. Decker was employed by the Euclid City School District for approximately 36 years as a special education teacher in General Herkimer, Kernan, and Jones Elementary Schools. Mr. Decker prioritized the well-being of his students and made a meaningful difference in the lives of countless children and their families. For a time, in addition to teaching, he also served as a PTA leader for all the schools in the district, a community role he found deeply fulfilling. Resolved that the

008Board of Education express its sincere sympathy to the family of Mr. Decker and that this resolution be saved upon the records of the district. I need a motion. to adopt the resolution for Joanne E. Dietland. The Board of Education of the Euclid City School District records with sorrow the passing of former employee Joanne E. Dietland. Ms. Dietland was employed by the Yucca City School District for approximately 24 years as a school media specialist, a library media specialist. Ms. Dietland's dedication left a lasting impact on everyone she met. She believed that the library should be the hub of the school where students spent time enjoying reading or investigating research problems. She was loved by the students, their parents, and the teaching staff. Resolved that the Board of Education expresses its sincere sympathy to the family of

009Mrs. Dietland and that this resolution be saved upon the records of the district. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Okay, so at this point, I'm going to take things a little out of the presented order and I'm going to ask our student representative, Heather Concepcion. to provide us with an update. Hello. Oh, thank you for the gift. I love it. Okay. So I am going to voice a few concerns from the student body and what progress we're making on those. So first concern is inappropriate behaviors in restrooms. There have been some reports of students engaging in inappropriate activities such as vaping in school restrooms. Additionally, there is a need for better restroom maintenance including air refreshers due to the congestion in the bathroom. So we decided that students should report these inappropriate behaviors to

010their assistant principal so an investigation can be initiated. Another concern is security guard conduct and staffing follow-up. Since the last board meeting, this has been a great concern among the students regarding security guards befriending students and a general lack of security personnel. This shortage was evident during the recent fire drill, where proper protocol could not be followed due to insufficient staffing at each door. There are also reports of security guards being inattentive due to phone usage. The principal is currently working with a team to improve security procedures and expectations. In addition, students are being reminded of procedures and expectations as some students are sometimes not as cooperative as they should be. After meeting with the student council officers October 19th, Principal Palladino will include a student representative on her security committee to voice concerns, ask

011questions, etc. The last concern is that enforcement of protocols. The lack of adequate security personnel raises questions about the ability to enforce protocols effectively. If a serious incident were to occur, the confusion caused by insufficient staffing would create additional dangers for students. Their solutions are that there is a school safety plan in place and drills are conducted regularly per the New York State Education Department. and additional security will be requested for the 2026-2027 school year. Positive events around the school are the senior sunrise on October 24th and the boys soccer team made national sectionals and there will be a haunted house hosted in Proctor's Auxiliary Gym on Sunday, October 26th from 12 to 3 p.m. and there will be regular meetings with student council officers so we could better we can better show the student

012body. And we are also currently holding a mascot contest to identify an animal that can dress up as a raider whose name starts with an R. Thank you. Great. Oh, there's also, for our seniors, there's also a Johnston's representative who will be taking cap and gown orders. For more information regarding seniors, it's been sent on Parents Square and in the mail. Thank you. Well Heather I have to say thank you for coming and sharing the concerns that students are having at Proctor and I'm certain that those concerns will be looked into and I am hopeful that they'll be addressed prior to the 26-27 school year so Thank you. Does anyone have any questions for Heather? Yes, I know at the, I'm pretty sure if I remember correctly, at the last meeting you talked about trying

013to reach out to the other school buildings to talk to their student councils and principals. Did you have any, did anybody follow up to get you contact information for that? Unfortunately not, but I posted a question in Google Classroom, so I got more input from students. So next meeting, I'll filter through and just provide that information. But yeah, I'll also try to reach out to other schools. Okay, yeah. We could have somebody get you the email addresses too so that we kind of have more collaboration between the different student councils so that they, I think our student reps do it. I think you're doing an amazing job bringing your concerns to us and being able to facilitate you being able to talk to the other schools that you can bring all those concerns I think

014would be a really positive role. like if she if I don't know if the clerk's could just send the student rep our email addresses to so that she has them is there anything to that we could do to as during the meetings that would help you be able to voice your concerns and have input You don't need to answer that now either, but if you think of anything, let us know so that we can try to incorporate those things into the meeting. Anyone else? I just was curious because I saw the announcement for that and you had certain parameters that you had to meet in order to be able to participate. How did those come about, if you don't mind me asking? Do you know? For an event like this, it's going to be outdoors,

015so they don't want any fights or anything like that going on. So one of the requirements is that you have not skipped or haven't been in an altercation recently, or at all, I think. Good. All right. That's a great standard. I'd like to see it applied throughout the entire school. Is there anybody else that has any questions? Okay, I move on. You know, it's not School Board Recognition Week anymore, but as an ex-officio member of this board, happy School Board, belated School Board Recognition Week. And thank you for all the work that you're putting in and keeping us informed on student concerns so that they can hopefully be addressed. Thank you for generally caring about us. Thanks. Thank you for caring about your school. Okay. Okay, you feel free to leave whenever the mood strikes

016Okay, I'm gonna do the announcements and reports so PTO PTA shared decision-making student councils CSE a chairs title one UTA Good evening. I'm Bonnie Dawes. I am the vice president of special areas for the Utica Teachers Association You mentioned it was school board recognition was last week. The Board of Education has a vital role and responsibility in ensuring all students receive the best possible public education. And we thank you all for all your service to the Utica community. We also want to congratulate Denise Collins, who is a speech language pathologist at Columbus Elementary School. She was selected to receive the Central New York Labor Council's annual. Samuel's Gompers Distinguished Service Award. She received this honor for active union participation and commitment to improving the lives of fellow colleagues and community members. Since it's October, it's

017National Bullying Prevention Month, I thought I would share a few thoughts. Kindness is not just about being nice. It is an active choice. It is a choice to use your words to build others up, not tear them down. And it's the choice to be an upstander, not a bystander, when you see something wrong. So be kind to yourself and be kind to others. And NYSIT is a longtime flagship sponsor of the American Cancer Society's Making Strides Against Breast Cancer. Last year, all our locals raised $773,358 at the Making Strides events. Our UTA building representatives and teachers. donating and constructing baskets to be raffled at our leadership event. This will help to raise funds for breast cancer research, patient services, and education. And now we need an additional counselor at Donovan Middle School as we are

018down one. The two counselors are currently covering the entire building load of 733 students, putting them well over the suggested caseload. And continuing, we are still receiving reports from our special education teachers that they are short of TAs in the classrooms. And to end, our negotiations team is looking forward to negotiations that are to start this month. And the air is crispier, the days are getting shorter, and the leaves are changing. However, the best part of the school year is still ahead of us. Thank you for your time. Thank you. UAA. UTC, Teamster, Local 182, SEIU, Local 200B, Mohawk Valley Buildings and Trades Council. I was going to call next the Treasurer, Ian Conley. Good evening, everyone. Well, I wasn't... Well, the only reason I asked was that... I wasn't sure when we were going

019into our second executive session. I didn't know if we wanted to do that before or after this report. Go ahead. Good evening, everyone. So for this meeting, I have the tax report. At the time the report was made, I had received the tax information from the city for tax payments received through September 28, 2025. With the remaining balance due for this school year of $21,197,963.78, we received 23% roughly of our tax revenue. Since then, the first due date has passed, October 7th, so we've received more money, and I will have that for next month's report. Also going with taxes, last meeting I mentioned pilots. We had received about two-thirds of our pilot revenue. We're now, as of today, we've seen 97% of our pilot revenue, so we just have a few more outstanding bills that

020we're hoping to get by the end of the month. So I've enclosed the general fund budget status report, cafeteria fund budget status report, and cash balance reports for all district bank accounts for the month ending July 31st, 2025. Just a little commentary on that. So July was a very busy month for myself, Heather, the entire business office and finance team. We were working to prepare for the audit, also closing our books and opening, preparing our opening. entries for the new fiscal year. Earlier in the month, you had the special meeting for the audit, so the audit went well. So, yeah, it was a very busy month. Since then, we have officially closed the books for the last fiscal year, and we're now moving forward with the new. Does anyone have any questions? Not at this

021time, I don't think. All right. Thank you. Thank you very much. Why don't we do the reports of the special committees? Okay, so, pardon me? Okay. As far as BOCES is concerned, I attended the meeting this month, and, you know, I think there was some discussion about their budget calendar. You know, at this point, there wasn't much more to report on. That wasn't just the nuts and bolts of our meeting. So that's all I have for that. Is there anything about the executive board, Braden? Nothing on the School Board Institute executive board, but there was a NSBA annual business meeting October 16th. It started at 4 o'clock and ended at 946. There was three bylaw amendments. All of them failed. 34 proposed resolutions on advocacy. All but one of the recommended resolutions passed. And all

022but one of, all but two of the non-recommended resolutions failed. And I will send a... update on NISBA's advocacy resolutions to the rest of the board in full so as not to bore anyone else. Okay. Audit and finance. I think we have a meeting scheduled. I just can't recall the date. Capital projects. Anything to buildings and grounds? Oh, buildings and grounds. I was thinking CTE. Sorry. Yeah, we started our building and grounds walkthrough last week. We went to three schools. We picked them up again Thursday. So over the next couple weeks, we'll bring all the final reports to the board, and then we'll meet with the principals upon conclusion of all schools. I have a question. Sure. So for the building and grounds meetings, when you're deciding what buildings are going to, who plans that

023schedule? Stephanie and Kathy traditionally have been reached. Now they're working with the schools directly to reach out to them. We are, it's hard with the times right now, so I think we only have two schools on Thursday, but Stephanie's been providing us the update. Who provides the tour of what rooms you're going to? There's a team, so there's security. Mr. Ferraro's on there, the principal. Us as a committee, Stephanie comes with us. So are you going to any room that you want on these buildings and grounds and checking them out? Or are you going to the rooms that were already pre-chosen for you? So it's more structural, like I guess like the perimeter of the building, the playgrounds, the vestibules are our main concern. So we went to the first three schools. We went to

024Jones, Conkling, and General Hookmer first because they have started either the playgrounds and or the vestibules. And then there's stuff on our spring checklist that was going to get done over the summer. So we're kind of evaluating that. And then for phase three of the capital grounds for any funds left over, we're looking at potential. projects, we kind of, I don't want to say like we go into rooms and look at things, but it's more structural stuff or cosmetic or things that need to be adjusted. And then we look at any upgrades. So if like we did recently have the cafeteria tables purchased and stuff like that. So there's no typical space to look at. We kind of tour the whole building, try to highlight where the capital project is and what we're doing, what

025the changes are going to be, and that's really how we stroll through the buildings. There's no predetermined what we're looking at or what we're going to see for the most part. So when you're visiting classrooms, we don't really go into many classrooms unless they were on our list. So we're not really looking at, I'm just saying from the walkthroughs, I kind of guide them. We're looking at the building as a whole, and we're basically just strolling through the hallways and showing what is going to be either. picked up in one of the phases of the project or in-house maintenance and things like that when we're doing the walkthroughs. So we're also looking at structural issues that are happening too. So we're looking at everything when we're walking through. Okay, so it was the consensus of

026the board. Well, not the consensus of the board, but of your committee that General Herkimer, there's definite issues. of overcrowding in certain rooms where we have multiple teachers in one area yeah so we in general harkimer we traditionally go into more classrooms because that that we like walls were temporary and now they were part of our checklist so they're permanent or they haven't been addressed yet and things like that we traditionally don't go into classrooms just to not disrupt one the teaching but two um the schools are fairly large and it does take time and we try to go to all special areas so the gym the cafeteria everything like that general hurricane room has been on our list um i would say the last two years or two school years because um there's like

027multiple teachers sharing a room special like ais enl targeted reading um so it's been a concern of ours i believe two of the projects out of like two out of four of the classrooms or one got a permanent wall so that helped but those are Those are like we were at Hughes a couple years ago because they had construction going on in their room, so that's been closed. So those are the rooms that we're looking at to see what's been changed. We're going back to General Herkimer on Thursday to look at some of those other issues. They're also down staff there as well, and there's targeted reading, I believe, and one-on-ones going on in the hallway, and we're trying to. bring that to the attention of the administration to Wasn't this already brought to the

028attention of the administration last year from this school? Yeah, so I think that they added a special education. I know they're up to 90 students that are receiving speech currently, so there's a lot of services. Two special education classrooms were added to that building in the last two years, which has complicated things and also because of the number of IEP needs. the school received one full-time speech pathologist in addition to what they already had this year and mr. Smith is using he has his target assistants that's what that's where where kids are being taken out of the classrooms facilitate the target assistance program and I think one of the concerns from at least myself but I'm sure that we all share the same concern is how schools are picked when extra classrooms are needed like

029special education in general Herkimer or pre-k's inside buildings because they feel like how do we or you guys look at that because it's vastly different from each building so I can say as far as special education programming when dr. Davis was here she took a holistic look at every single special ed program and classroom in the school noted the inequities and a plan was designed to even out the programs and the classrooms as best as possible general herkimer at one point was one of the schools with the fewest number of special education sections so part of that plan reallocated to special education classrooms at that school but that was all part of the design to try and more equitably distribute special education class I just wanted to just interject for a minute a number of

030years ago we did a building space analysis right and I'm sorry yeah space review one was the last time we did one so i'm just asking so we're currently in the process of one now so we just met with i called the vesda office special ed came and walked the buildings with me looking at the spaces when i'm talking about a space review i'm talking about all of the spaces not just special ed right we did that so part of the space review is the special ed portion has to be done first okay so we did that about seven or eight months ago we're in the process of finalizing the complete space review for SCD for facilities planning for review so that's in the process no it takes time yeah and and I think we

031did one with dr. Davis I think the other concern of the committee is we're placing special education rooms but not the resources so lacking washers and dryers lacking full-time nurses so that was a large concern and one of the reasons why we're going back to general Herkimer on Thursday is to That the space is there to accommodate that's great and wonderful, but we need that full support of to provide for those rooms So there's they currently don't have a washer and dryer and they are They have a part-time nurse and I think that's fine. Like if we're looking clearly there's not space So if we've got teachers in a hallway, which is completely unacceptable and what we saw what the board saw were pictures of teachers in a room and they're literally separated by nursing

032room, hospital, like a triage dividers. How if we have students who are getting special services and are getting services for speech, reading, and they can hear everything that's going on from a hospital divider, how is that effective for their education? I've got a, I guess a different question. Can someone explain to us the process for increasing classroom space? So I guess it's the space review that we're doing now. So I guess we started about eight. Some of this predates me, but from a historical lens, was there, the space study was to examine whether or not there was a plan, a feasible plan to move the sixth grade to academies, to the middle schools, which would allow for greater space in elementary school? No, that, when we had, when I asked for it, and this I'm

033not sure I think it might have been beforehand but I want to say before you know mr. Karim was here I think I think he was a superintendent and I asked that well I asked for and I believe it was done they went through every school and identified all of the spaces that were available and there were specials there were because you know remember back at one point there was art on a cart and all this other stuff so that we were looking to see at least i was looking to see and i think the board was looking to see is there some reconfiguration adjustment that could be made you know to deliver the services in a in a you know more reasonable And I think I'm not sure what we're talking about But this

034was a conversation three years ago that we had that all of us had there's a structured plan There's blueprints for this possibility of the perspective of sixth grade was moving to the middle schools We were going to build that make it own its own addition We have the blueprints and everything that was created waiting on SCDs approval somehow. We're still stuck in this realm and we have elementary schools bursting at the seams, but we also have other elementary schools that have space. So why are we adding different things and why are we not looking at that population and moving them to different schools? I just want to speak to the space study. So there are many concepts and ideas throughout the administrations, I guess I would say. So this space study incorporates a lot of

035those ideas, but until the space study is reviewed by facilities planning with... movement of any grade level it has to be finished by them first so what happened so what happened with the blueprint and everything this was two years ago yeah so those are those are part of the that's part of but not only what was going to be submitted or is in the... So actually, there's... It's in the works. And I don't want to speak, but there's an application that was signed by, I think, Dr. Davis to submit a space review study. And it literally takes months to do. And I just want to go through the whole process with you. It's four or five visits from the VESDA office, the special education office. making sure that you have to fit all those needs

036first before they let you do any capital project or add anything on to any building. They have to make sure you're within the square footage spaces for all those classrooms, you have enough classroom space for all those, and everything that goes along with special ed. So that portion's done. That has been submitted. They've come and visited? Yeah, so I walked the building with the VESDA office three times to go over each space. Like what building? All buildings. How long ago? Probably like four months ago. Okay. Can we just back up really quick? When those blueprints were given to us like two or three years ago. So they were concepts. Yeah, concepts. So those are written into the facilities plan that we submitted to the state. Okay. So I helped Dr. Davis. We wrote a facilities

037plan, long-term plan, had more than one concept in there. Sixth grade was one of them. So that's what was submitted the SCD and for them to move forward they have to evaluate all your current spaces Every every space in every building to make sure you're utilizing them, right? Correct way and you're accommodating special ed They're not gonna allow you to put I'm just saying give an example of six classroom addition on if you know You have special ed needs and your classrooms are not you know the right size doesn't have you know adequate like bathrooms or changing stations or whatever the needs are in those classrooms right so would we pass that right now Well, it's not a matter of your pass right now. What they won't allow you to do is if you're going

038into another capital project and you want to do something in that building, they're going to tell you that you have to take care of this first. That's what I mean. So would they at this point right now from the look of the building, is that what SED would come back and say, no, you have to take care of this? You special ed needs. we're at that are we at that point so i guess what i guess i would tell you is from the walkthroughs that we went through most of the spaces that special education is now is is adequate under what the state calls their guidelines like um i don't know the exact numbers but i can give you close like a 15-1 classroom the minimum requirements are you know 920 square feet and you

039have to have a bathroom and you know i'm just sure we have that Yes, for most of the spaces. Most, but not all. So we could be like 15 square feet under the requirement, and it's not really going to put you in jeopardy. It's substantial compliance rather than... Right. We're not hundreds of square feet under the guidance. Okay. So when we're saying most, is it that... There's these minor square footage issues or is there like rooms that don't have a bathroom that need a bath? So now not all of them are required of a bathroom. So What I'm saying is that I would say 90% of our 95% of them meet the needs for the Section that's in the classroom. Okay, and then going back to the middle school Plant concept whatever it was some

040that was submitted to SCB. All right part of the that was part of the facilities Plan that we sent to SED so that's there's this long facilities plan you have to send to them on You know what you're doing and why you want to do it. You have to birth rates. Well, they're conceptual, right? Yeah, they're all okay. So we're not locked in. No, you're telling them what you think you want to do It was right before Thanksgiving where I thought we were told by the state that like each classroom would be 700,000 or remember that? Yeah, so put a little bit of the cart before the horse, I guess is what I'm saying. You know, we have building aid for classrooms. And once the space study, the review is done and figure out what

041you're moving where, then you can kind of come up with a concept of what it's going to cost you, what you're going to do. I mean, you could sit here and say, we're going to do this, do that, do this. You know, okay, we're going to build a six-way academy. You're going to have a gym, you're going to have a cafeteria. You know, there's a lot of things that go into that that change the numbers dramatically. So where are we right now? So they've come, they've assessed the building, we've done those steps. So special ed has reviewed the drawings and the buildings in person for every space. They finish up their, I guess, their final review. They send that to facilities planning, and facilities planning then finishes up the space review for the rest of

042the buildings. Mr. Ferraro. Have you walked us through the steps that I asked about? And this isn't about you. There's been a lot of stuff just kind of thrown around in this room. And I asked a question. I just want to make sure that I get the answer. Can you just say it again? I'm sorry. What's the process for increasing classroom space? So you mean increasing the square footage of the building? So if you need four more classrooms. We've got a school that has, because our population has increased. It's a space review. So, okay. So SED is going to tell you if they're going to give you money for that space review. And again, the first part of that space review is special ed. So Vesta. Okay. Again, you have to make sure that's adequate

043because if you're going to do a capital project, increase the square footage of a building, you have to fit all those needs into that project first to basically move on with the rest. Which is quick. I'm not done with this point. I want to return, but I just want to segue while we're on this for one minute because I think a lot of people get confused too because this was something originally when we had talked about CTE, we had went in for this CTE high school. We wanted to do an additional high school, but it was SED that came back and said no. People also had this idea like we can't do a second high school. We want to so bad, but because we... years ago they made the poor decision to consolidate into one

044as he has come back and said you have not shown growth where you now have this overwhelming population coming in so until you see that they will not allow us another high school correct correct so that and there and there was not available space yeah there's so many requirements we couldn't with the land the land required the land requirements prevented us from doing it in the first place well it was SED it was SED but we we didn't hit if you go student square foot right okay no it was like a 45 acre parcel or some enormous number and there there's not land inside the city that fulfills that but We did speak to SED and SED said no. Right, so that we're not even, I mean, the concept of land doesn't matter. Yes, we

045could do that, but... I think we should go up there and... taken by eminent domain. Space in general is part of the SED function. And we have to collect because of... We can't just say we're going to go put four classrooms on there. You've got to make sure that the student population fits the needs. That's kind of why I asked the question because people have this misconception that we can just do what we want because there's a need. They tell you what the per pupil square footage is for a school. I'd like for people to hear that. We understand that there's a need. We want to do what we can to fulfill that need. But there's a process that we go through and that it doesn't always work out in our favor to get there.

046But how can we, you know, where can we find an area to work through those challenges? So the space review is the first function of that. So once we get that back, we'll have a better understanding of what we can do. But I'm just gonna give you an example and I'll say everybody says Proctor's overcrowded I understand it but from an SED standpoint and square footage per student. It's not That's really where it comes from that's so that so that's the reality of it so, you know what we Say and think we understand but not in the state's eyes. So I guess the question that I have is now that we've address the issue that we're basically prevented from doing a lot of things from by state ad depending on where we are in a

047process or what their evaluation is there are things we can do to improve how the schools in the classrooms and the extras and all of the little needs you know we can do things to address them but but the the reality is that if for example in order to accommodate something you have to move classes services something else to another school okay yeah Okay, I'm just saying. If we have a school right now that is overrun with teachers in the hallway, doesn't it make sense to look at, okay, what's Jefferson doing that's close? What are these schools? And looking to moving places where there's space. I don't disagree with you. I don't disagree with you. I think that that's something that we can look at. But, I mean, the reality is when. did we you

048know like when are we going to do something when are we gonna look at it when are we gonna evaluate it when are we gonna try to do something I just want to just make one more comment so back in 22 23 when you're talking about getting art into a classroom getting getting music into the classroom we Mike and I went through all those buildings with a fine-tooth comb spaces were reconfigured walls were put up additional classrooms were built and the schools to the best of their ability were where we kind of wanted them at that point in time but I just want to remind people since then a lot of it has to do with special ed because we were not meeting the needs of our special education students this district has added 16

049special education classes in the last three years most of them have gone to the elementary We've increased our speech pathologists by nine full-time FTEs, eight occupational therapists, three physical therapists, six social workers, four guidance counselors. And a lot of that has gone to the elementary schools to better support them and to ensure that we're actually placing our kids based on their IEP needs, not by numbers or where there was an opening in a program. That's streamed the elementary schools. There's no question about it. Can I ask you a question? And you may not have this off the top of your head. How, because I feel like we're seeing a lot more pre-Ks in our building and ground stores. And I make no mistake. I love that. My concern is some of the schools, and I'll

050use like Kernan, for example, I believe has two, that is currently, in my eyes, overpopulated. I know the state may say something else. How is the placement of pre-K evaluated? So we've actually moved a couple pre-K classrooms out of our schools to make room for some of these special education classrooms. Kern was one of those schools where, you know, in our evaluation, it was... it needed to be there at the time but we can definitely look at that again but i just want to i just want to let you know you guys did accomplish what you were setting out to accomplish back in 22-23 but now over the last three years this district has made a significant investment through the leadership of the people here to support the special education department and ensure that our

051kids are getting placed again based on need not numbers or available openings which is good for the kids but again it's placed to strain on our teachers because we have teachers a teacher assistant shortage it's placed to strain on the schools especially at the elementary level and I don't see so much the classrooms being an issue like you know if you take a sixth grade or fifth grade the concern for me walking those buildings is to see some of the AIS and ENL you have three special services going on you have kids who are English learners and other children like and then a divider and now children learning math on the other side and then reading on the other side it is I'm not The quality to me is being jeopardized. So I never, I

052don't want to say like see overcrowding like 35 kids in a classroom and I'm walking through those rooms and saying, oh my God, how. classrooms are beautiful top of the line I truly believe that my concern is in these smaller areas or we're walking into libraries that have three or four services going on at a table like that is the quality of it and those are absolute valid concerns and I did meet with mr. Smith today and we'll be meeting again to try and troubleshoot some of the issues that he's facing there And I do want to say, like, this is, I think Mr. Smith has done a great job. And he has done a great job. And this is no fault that there are teachers in the hallway because he doesn't really have another

053option at this time. And to teach at General Herkimer, like, that's amazing. The kids were obviously, like, so well behaved. This building was immaculate. It was very disheartening to see stuff in the halls when it's not traditionally what we see at most of our schools. And I don't even have a solution, so I feel like I'm excited to see what, after the building tour takes place again on Thursday, if there's any immediate solutions to better serve the staff and the students in that building for sure. I just want to clarify one thing. So when we talk about SED and approvals, that's really for state aid. You could build whatever you want, but it's going to be on the levy. So it's going to be either 100% on the taxpayer or 2% on the taxpayer. So

054that's where SED comes into play. I just wanted to make sure everybody was aware of that. So that's a big, you know, comes to a big decision maker. You could build another high school if you had the land and wanted to. It's a matter of if it's 100% on the levy or not. So I just wanted to make sure we, you know, clarify that. We need to hear that. Right? So I guess then what are the action steps that we're taking regarding this next thing, building a ground habit they've got to walk through on Thursday? What are the action steps? So what we'll do and what the administration will do is they'll continue, like we do with everything, we'll continue to study this and look at it. There's an issue with space. There's some tweaks

055that we can make to free up some of that, and we'll provide a report at the next scheduled board meeting. But I want to give them time to fully think through this, and we'll provide an update. And we'll share the minutes with you. Kathy's just off. This oh no you hit Stephanie's a minute. It's the Pia. No, sorry You did send me those Okay, anything else on that? Excellent Pia committee No Sorry, yeah, we met last week We actually got some things accomplished we wanted to uh to look at providing additional equipment to to some of our, or not to some, all of our sports. We want a wish list to be brought about again, a second wish list for all the coaches and what they need, what they're looking for, some of their expectations.

056We're going to invite our coaches to our next meeting so that we can get their input. We just wanted to kind of get the lay of the land this first meeting for the school year. um what else did we do this it kind of went into building and grounds because with that comes a space for storage and where are we going to put all the equipment pretty healthy wish list and we asked um dr spence and mr pattison to kind of go back and see if this is really the final wish list and extend that to the next meeting well there's a wish hang out okay there's a wish list and then there is What each of the teams should start out with standard baseline equipment, right? Standard operating equipment we're moving away from the

057wish list especially as we're moving away from ESSER We are it's standard operator equipment is what we're looking at so that we can build on the budget in fact that in year-over-year Because it's what they need to be successful Okay. So I have a question for PIAC. Do you guys have a list of active coaches? Do you have a list of how many coaches are coaching what sport, how many we hire, how many? Yes. Okay. Yes. And that changes because we're still going higher. We just had the winter sports for now. Falling. They put last year's on there just so that for, I think last year's was on there for the list. So they went to those coaches. So who provides that? Who's in charge of that? it's the ad yeah yeah okay so can

058we as the board please receive a copy of all of the coaching positions that we have so i'd like to know everything through throughout the year of all sports that we have how many coaching positions that we hire how many volunteer opportunities we also allow and then i also like to get a report from five years ago so that we can do a comparison and see where we were five years ago and where we are now i can make it a motion if i need That there was a I don't think we need a motion. We just need to make sure that... I'd like it before the next meeting. I can happily make it a motion. Make it a motion. No, I'm more concerned that five years ago it was COVID, so I was going

059to ask you if you'd say like 2018, 2019. We'll say 2018. 2018, 2019. I'd like to make a motion that before the next board meeting, the entire board is provided with a list of all coaching positions that we have, including volunteer. How many... coaches do we have for football how many volunteer positions are they receiving i'd like to see the pay scale with that as well then i'd also like to make a motion too that we also received something from 2019 or sorry let's do 2018 2018 that's going to show us everything so that we can do a full comparison all in favor hang on we gotta have a discussion okay okay so i'm I guess my question is, how is it decided whether somebody is a volunteer coach or somebody is a paid assistant?

060How does that work? To my knowledge, it's usually through the application process. People apply to be the head coach or an assistant coach, and then we get applications for people who want to volunteer. Well, the reason why I'm asking is, like, for example, if just somebody thought we should have... eight assist paid assistant tennis coaches and a head coach how does that how does that number get arrived at who determines that yeah language in what so the teachers contract determines how many coaches we can pay for a season yeah i'd like to see it i'd like to see a copy of that because like for example depending on when though that language was put in it may negatively impact or positively impact our our ability to coach our teams oh really okay In the near

061future maybe even for the spring sport season this year. And it depends on student interest, you know, and athlete interest. So year to year that could change. Also, things, factors that are considered a lot of times are age appropriateness. So if you've got a lot of kids at a modified level where they need a lot of oversight and... special attention you might need a coach and sometimes the following year retract that based on enrollment so yeah i feel like that was it No, no, you were in the meeting. I was saying because we talked about that at the modified. We feel that we're maybe lacking some assistance or something like that. And then you look at track that has 185, and we have the same amount of coaches as we do for like a softball.

062So, yeah, I think the ratio. We had last year's numbers. Just to clarify, so you are saying, so the UTIP contract you guys have. actual number of coaching positions in the contract so yours is just pay it's not how many we can hire so there's a list of coaching titles and then would index their tie to so if we said we wanted four assistant coaches on track And four head coaches. I'm just throwing this out there. We're not saying that before we get phone calls and text panics. We're not saying that. Eight coaches. I don't know if we find that many coaches. We'd like to. Can the UTA, the contract just states a stipend, correct? It's not we only have the ability to hire two? It has to be a job title. Right. So you

063have to add it. That's going to be an MOA. Well, I guess that was just a concern. I think that's the clarity that we're trying to figure out right now. You can create the position, an additional position, based on health and safety, based on the needs of the students, right? The student athletes. And fill it that particular year. If the following year we have 30 less kids at that level you can use choose not to fill one of those positions You work through the athletic director would work in concert with human resources I guess my question though is does the UTA contract state a maximum amount of coaching coaches that we could have? So you have head coach, for example. We're getting like all no's from the background. No, I get that. Head coach, assistant

064head coach, assistant coach. Correct. My understanding is like the contract would say, it doesn't say you can have five assistant head coaches and three head coaches and. For assistant coaches it says if you're if you're filling a position that's the head coach This is the stipend range if you're filling a position that is an assistant head coach This is the stipend range if you're filling an assistant coach, this is the stipend range. It doesn't say, like, okay, the chess team can only have one assistant coach and one head coach. There's no limitation on that. It's really a function of what... The pay. No, not what the pay, but what the... somebody feels that there should be that many coaches for a particular sport. I'm going to contend that I've never seen... this is superintendent human

065resource officer a superintendent recommend anything additional than the titles that are in the contract without specific or authorization resolution to increase that title position for that particular school year okay i've never seen it that's fine yeah oh no no we're just asking the question yeah how to get there yeah okay good do we need to take a vote on that yes please okay uh all in favor opposed motion carries policy committee the policy committee met earlier in the month we're recommending three policy amendments, a policy reaffirmation, two regulation amendments, and a regulation to be repealed, which are all in new business. And that's in the new business? Yes. That was a very nice report. Nice job, policy committee. Do we have a motion? To what? To do what? Adopt them now? Do you want to

066do them now? Why not? Do you want to do them separately or all together? I'd be happy to do them all together if you want. Did everybody read them? I did. Some are old. I just wanted to specify something. In case there's any interested public watching, the only real substance to change any of the policies was... 8600 which had a more onerous appeals process than was necessary by law that more onerous appeals process has been eliminated and that's why the appeals process is being deleted from that policy so that it's actually easier if in the strange case there was a denial to make an appeal and that's really the only substantive change everything else is typographical I'll make a motion to adopt policies 8110, 8202, 8600, and 8602. I'll do the policies first. I'll second.

067Okay. Any discussion? Great job. Great job, policy. Yes. Are you on that? You want to get a round of applause? No, sorry. I can't. Okay. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. I'll make a motion to adopt Regulation 8202.1 and 8600.1 as amended. Okay. Second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. And I'll make a motion to repeal Regulation 8600.2. Move it. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Okay. Those resolutions, those regulations, and those policies have been adopted. Code of conduct, anything to report? No. We're going to schedule something for the month of December. Communications, equity, and outreach. anything to report just hitting all of the points that we need for this year our goals and everything that we would like to see in the school so laying

068the groundwork for that and then we'll be bringing in our AV coordinators and everything to discuss what we need one of our big pushes this year was for right now in the athletics with huddle working on our streaming services still a lot of work to do but it's great to see it started it's great to see that we're able to stream those games and watch it's really important for our students but working on those equity pieces so that we're aligning with all the schools so we've got some big goals and some big shoes to fill this year we're going to be diving into that again next week has there been any uh progress on the proctor morning show no i don't think it's start yeah i think november was the goal but we've been getting

069some elementary morning school videos which have been really nice to see him but i think november for prof there we heard is the goal yeah yep okay so i believe do we Did we do CTE? Well, CTE, we just had the ribbon-cutting ceremony in September, so right now everybody's digesting. They're in the schools. They're in the buildings. So that was our month for September, and then I think are we meeting? Every other month, I think, right now. Yes, so we're meeting in November. And I think we're going to meet with the new curriculum. Yeah. And go that way. Okay, so now that we've... accomplished all of that would you like to make a motion to go into executive session no why don't we do the presentations first why are we going to go into executive

070well let's let's let's do a let's approve the minutes while we're there here you need a motion to approve them the september 21 25 september 21 25 special and regular meeting and the october 7 25 special meeting i'll i'll approve them collectively Is there any motion? Second. Any amendments, deletions, corrections? Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Okay. It passes. So the only thing I think we have left is the superintendent's presentation and report. Yeah, why don't we... We'll take a five-minute recess. Wait, can we do his presentation before we go into executive? Yeah. Yeah, that's fine. The call is back in off of the recess it is now time for the superintendent's Presentation and report. Okay. Here we go First of all, good evening, everyone. Thank you all for coming out today. We are coming

071on the Hill as a school board recognition week, so it's a very special week. On behalf of the district, I want to thank you all for your countless hours of service and dedication to this community. It's a thankless job. Leadership is not easy, and you have dedicated your time to this community. So I want to thank you on behalf of the district. Again, and you'll see this with every report that I have is we really focus on the achieving our district's mission and vision. And those two words. accountability and continuous improvement is really rooted in the work that we do because in order to transform a district the progression has to be incremental and it has to be sustainable long term so we are looking year after year to make demonstrable progress in different areas

072of the organization with the understanding that over time we will get to where we're trying to achieve which is perfection and we'll always chase that again we everything we do is again centered with our district mission vision You know, we want to get to that graduation line, 100% graduation rate. That's one of our goals. And again, we're centering our work around that. I want to call the attention to just a couple of notable achievements in our shared government structure working with the board. As administrators, we work to carry out that vision, but it's the board that provides us with the resources so that we can be successful in our work. And some of those things, as I noted here, is one, funding our Raiders Extended Learning Day program, which we've seen a really significant impact

073on the student achievement as a result of that programming effort. We've also, and the board's also continuing We continue to fund a system of care by providing our students with wraparound services because we understand that the schools are being asked to do a lot more and we are trying to make sure our students have every opportunity to be successful within our walls. And then we've also funded, the board's also funded the student device replacement plan to make sure that again our students have the tools necessary to do their work. Also, part of 24-25 years is transitional leadership. It's always entering a community is never an easy thing. It's a lot to learn, a lot of cultural and historic practices to learn. And the board's doing a good job at keeping me abreast in regards to

074that aspect. Also, working, helping last year, being able to pass a budget, a $291 million budget that provides us with the tools and resources that we need to do within this current fiscal cycle. Again, our career and technical education component, we built it, but we also needed the faculty and staff to support that work so our students can enjoy the myriad of pathways that we had. So we thank you for the work that we've done there. And then again, you know, to the capital, the $120 million bond referendum to make sure our debt levels are stabilized, but also making sure that we have the quality facilities here within the district. Also working through committee work to ensure that we have not only a timely but a good audit, some of the best ratings that you

075can get. And then the completion of our fabulous CTE program, which is, you know... Looked at is more and more as a model for the state and what we were able to build there together So this again is the aspect of shared governance This is the fruits of your work working on the board to ensure that the district has the resources necessary to be successful And we thank you for that. I just had a question. Yep. Sorry just dawned on me Is there bond rating? Where's our bond rating at the present time? It hasn't changed. Normally what has to happen, you go out for a huge debt issuance. Then they'll come in and re-rate you. We went out for a couple of bans this year, so they took a look at it, and there was

076no change to it, which we had a two-step upgrade a little over a year ago. Oh, we did? Yeah. Yes, we did. Excellent. A year from August, yeah. Oh, that's great. So it's stabilized. Nothing's changed. Good. Glad to hear that. Thank you. And in doing that, there's a lot of momentum that is really starting. We're gaining traction as an organization. The district being recognized on a Forbes list, number 98, the only school district in the state of New York to hold this distinction. We've seen progress in our I-Ready results from 24-25 year that showed significant growth. We're also seeing academic gains, particularly in our three through eight core academic instruction. And so what you're seeing again when we talk about sustainable and incremental growth is that we see the organization growing academically. We see the

077proficiency increasing. We have over 10,000, we have about 10,000 kids approximately. So when you see those percentage numbers, 9, 11%, that's a good bulk of children that have now demonstrated proficiency. So the work of the organization is moving along. It's a collective effort. As I said, you guys give us. the resources to do our job and we work with us as an organization to implement the will of the board. So we appreciate you for that work. And it's also good to highlight growth. In an organization this big and this complex, there's always something that you can pick apart. You go to Pepsi Cola and look at that multinational corporation, you can find the mop bucket anywhere that hasn't been changed. The truth of the matter is we look at the aggregate performance of the system

078and you look at the performance year over year because Rome was not built in one day. And I cannot stress that enough. But again, thank you for those resources and tools because we could not do that without board action. So I appreciate that. We appreciate that. And so now I want to talk a little bit about the three through eight ELA testing results. And I'm again, I'm pleased to talk about this amazing faculty and staff, amazing administrators here in the Utica City School District, really working to educate our students. And so what you'll see here is, and I'll give you a high-level overview, and I also have slides thereafter that really illustrate what I'm talking about here, but we have ELA proficiency increased 9% overall from the 23-24 year to the 24-25 year. The ELA

079proficiency across New York State increased by 7% overall. from the 23-24 year, but the district actually outperformed the state average by two points. So, this is really good information to have when you're talking about a district our size and a large, complex, urban institution with students that have the intensity of needs that we have. So, I couldn't be prouder to stand here before you all today. ELA proficiency met or exceeded the state growth average in 24-25 for five out of six grade levels. ELA proficiency increased in 24-25 by 11% or more in four. out of the sixth grade levels. So this is really a testament to the work that's happening within this district every day within our walls, within our classrooms. And here what I have, and I won't just go through all of these,

080but you'll see, I gotta get a microphone that can move around. We'll add that to next year's budget. But that's a joke before I get a foil. You'll see here, what you want to see is you want to see incremental growth over time. So when you see free food aid efficiency rate for all students in the district versus New York State, we're looking to see here, are we moving in the right direction year after year? And if we're going up, that's a good sign. And so you'll see the blue line is the state average and this denotes where we were. So in 23-24 you see for third grade in ELA we're at 21% proficiency. We moved that needle to 35%. It's not exactly where we want to be, but the level of growth is amazing

081to see and I couldn't be proud of the work that our educators are doing every day in the classrooms as well as the support system. So when I say that the board provides the resources, We're being good stewards of those resources because we are delivering gains to show that we are moving the system forward. And this is why I couldn't be more appreciative on behalf of the district because you helped us to realize the RED program, which we also look at as a key factor as well. Again, you'll see this trend for the, you see grades four and five, and you'll see the growth in these particular areas. And then you can also see where it was flat in one year, but then we see the growth has rebounded. So this is what our growth

082also looked like for the eighth grade. And part of the work that we do as an administration is we look at the high level trends because that helps us to keep point where we need to allocate resources or where we need to shore up things. Or, and sometimes we also ask is this a trend with the state, which is why we look at the state line because we want to see how did the state perform as well. Now I'll move to the math proficiency. So again, math proficiency as measured by New York State assessment in grades three through eight increased by 5% overall from the 23-24 to the 24-25 school years. Math proficiency as measured across New York State increased by 3% from 23 to 24-25, demonstrating a 2% higher increase in the district as

083compared to the state average. So again, we've exceeded the overall state average in regards to growth by 2%. Math proficiency met or exceeded the state growth score on average in 24-25 for four out of six grade levels. Math proficiency increased by six percent or more in four out of six grade levels. And this is Conklin School for those. Shout out to Hazard Galinsky. And so again, what you'll see in this presentation, and this is available on the website, is you just look, we're looking at the trends and we're looking to see where we are making growth. Any growth is a good growth because we're going in the right direction. Again, colleagues, does any district have problems? Could we do things better? Yes. But overall, from a systems level perspective, the district is performing better in

084the subsequent year than it did previously. which is a testament to our faculty and staff, the leadership of the board, as well as the work of the administration. So we want to make sure that we acknowledge that work because that's a positive thing. And again, we look at these trends and you'll see the growth from the 23, you'll see the four-year look back. Same thing, we have a dip here and then we see a rebound in eighth grade. So this is the big picture outlook for math. Now we'll look at science. And so the New York State grade four science test was last administered in 2022. The New York State grade five science test, which replaced the grade four test, was administered in 24. So there's a changing of the grade bands. Science proficiency as

085measured by the New York State assessment in grades three through eight increased by 11% overall from 23, 24 to the 24, 25 year in the district. Science proficiency as measured across the New York State increased by 9 percentage points from the 23, 24, 25 year, demonstrating a 2% higher increase in a district as compared to the state average. And so again, you're looking at the four-year look back and you can see how we're performing even as the grades bands change in regards to when the test was administered. And this is our grade eight performance and a look back over time. So overall, We're not where we need to be. Do we recognize that we have challenges and that we have work that we need to do? Yes. But when we look at the I-Ready scores

086from last year, it follows the same trajectory as students. the pre-test, which was the beginning of the year, students performing better on the post-test. Then we will look at the state-issued barometer, which is the state examination. There is evidence that suggests that students have learned last year, and as an organization, that is what you want to see. So when I talk about this, I'm talking about this in concert with the board's work of providing us the resources so that we can do our very critical and important work, and we thank you for that. Now I'll transition to just this year. I've been coming around the schools, hosting town halls, speaking with children, and speaking with educators, just to let the children hear directly from the superintendent. I just want to say, when you're talking about

087town halls, you're actually talking about assemblies with students in them, right? Oh, yes. Thank you for clarifying. We should try to use that. Yes, assemblies. Instead of that $50,000 word, thanks. Okay. Yes, assemblies with students. Going out there really to talk to students about, you know, the behavior expectations for the district. Colleagues, we've got to do some really critical work here. You know, just doing this tour, just speaking truly from the heart, and I ask the students, you know, how many of you believe that you can be successful or possess what it takes to be successful and that the students raise their hand, you'll see it there. But the amount of students that did not raise their hand, that possessed, that believed that they can be successful or have what it takes, as a system,

088we have to make sure that we are wrapping our arms around these kids and giving them the confidence that they can succeed. And so when I asked that question, I asked all the educators in the room to take note of who didn't have their hand up. And so that was one of the things that I got from that, and I know that we have people in our community partners, and we're working to provide that social-emotional support to our students, but we've got to get them there. And that was, that I was surprised to see that. So what's the long-term plan for remedial action for that? For what? For remedial action for the number of students who don't feel that they can be successful. So part of that is getting our students connected to the school.

089So when we rely on our school data from last year, school culture and climate survey, the amount of students that said that they felt disconnected from the organization from any one particular reason or another is really getting kids into the fabric of school. And it's a... comprehensive plan. We look at the curriculum. Is the curriculum culturally responsive, culturally and linguistically responsive to students? Do students see themselves in the curriculum? Or are we still learning that as an African American you get Huckleberry Finn, you were a slave and that was your greatest contribution to American society? It's also thinking about the ways in which we empower our young people to breathe life into them when we're working with them. So it's a comprehensive view of this and to really go after it. trying to get our

090kids more immediately engaged with the system. Has the administration done another school culture survey this year? Not yet. No, not yet. We're going to issue that in November. Okay. And then the last time that it was done, were those statistics disaggregated by different? They were and provided to the board. So in terms of system of care, have we seen an upward trajectory based upon those services of students believing that they do have a space in the school? We have to issue out a survey particularly around that, you know, self-efficacy and things like that and Likert skill. We have not issued that instrument yet widely. This is something that was two weeks ago was brought to my attention and just really being there with the kids. So it's one of our goals. We're looking at social-emotional

091learning. Right now we're looking as an administration to develop a committee to help lead that work within the organization. That's in the works. but this is all in real time dr spence i know i'm a broken record on this and i'm sorry but the obviously the goal we've had a reduction in altercations and other types of events that have taken place we're trending at proctor that's right we've had a reduction we're trending lower and the goal is zero and we're spending $10 million to support, you know, with our system of care. And I know that I'm a broken record, but I think the most effective piece for the system of care will be having probation in the school to supervise the kids that need it, especially the ones that are committing altercations in the school

092and and that's not intended to be punitive in any way because generally it's just a diversion program where they get a chance to talk to people and their their their progress is monitored their attendance is monitored by people who are responsible to monitor it and the hope would be that some of the kids that would normally be disciplined out of the school would be able to remain in the school and attach to the system because there would be more concentrated monitoring and services in some of the homes that need them right so I'm just wondering you know when you talk to the kids and you went to do the assemblies you know was there any discussion about the expectation level from and again i'm assuming that the rest of the board um supports this that

093we we don't want um altercations and incidents of i don't want to use the word violence it's not fair but you know aggressive behavior the schools and that we want that completely stopped as best we can what did you say to the kids you were you gonna say something I was just gonna say I don't support probation being in the school okay so the So it sounds like that's a conversation for the full board to gain some more perspective there, seeing that there's differing opinions. Well, we'll have probation come in and make a presentation on what it's going to look like, and then we can decide. Yeah, so I did meet with Judge Caldwell, who's an intimate part of that process, as well as Jimmy Soldier, talking about the services that they offer. And the

094program that they have is designed for the... That is not accurate. So the information that we receive so in life we assume everything follows the normal distribution curve Then you got your percentage in the middle So the kids that probation is looking for is that the tail end of that distribution curve in terms of the offenses? So there are students that may need a more more intensive Intensive support system And we're not shying away from that. We had the meeting. However, for the incidents that we're seeing, I don't know if those rise to that level. But again, we take it on a case-by-case basis. But to answer your question fully, we let the students know that this is our expectation for their behavior. And there will be consequences. We've spoken to the students. And I

095think overall, we're going to continue training lower as we are right now. This is not what. somebody knock on wood who's close to wood last month um our student representative brought forward a suggestion or concern to the board about the possibility of holding student-led meetings in the school so that they can get a better understanding of perspectives and concerns in the student body it seems like something like that would help track the student culture within the schools where is the administration on following up with that suggestion I will follow up the building principal and that and ask the building principal that question I'll report back to the board And then, so I just want to transition, I think, and just talk about transportation because we have seen an uptick in utilization from our students. So

096what you'll see is the overall allotted amount for transportation for the 25-26 year. And then we sort of break it up between leasing contracts and then our in-district costs, which represent our people. And then I also just want to provide a, just to break that up a little further to talk about the, with the REDD program, of course, the 28 runs we budgeted for about $575,000 for 100 days. We have 10 new routes, and then we had, you know, the regular consumer price index adjustment on the contracts. So every time we add an additional route or we move the kits here and we didn't budget for it, that cost. Mike, I don't know if you want to just get off for a little bit about that. Two things, Mike. One, the increase in students that

097we're transporting, I think it's about 8,600 now as opposed to 7,000. Please confirm and then just talk about us managing additional routes because we'll probably end up needing a budget transfer based on the uptick in participation in transportation. Yeah, so we are transporting about 1,000 more kids than we did last year. And when we say 1,000 kids, it's not like 1,000 new kids. There are kids that were able or had access to transportation last year but didn't choose to take it and are now taking it this year. And there's a lot of factors, I'm sure, you know, especially with the cost of everything that's going up. So they're taking advantage of the busing. So that's where we're seeing a lot of those students come from. and those cost monies right it's price per run to

098get those kids to school you can you know say whatever you want when it comes to budgeting but when it comes to transportation it's it's hard to to get that number nailed down just because of the increase or decrease in runs so that's really the what you're seeing this year so um 10 routes is accurate right now that could increase or decrease it as the year goes typically it won't go down by much They're up by much now that we're a couple months into the school year. And, yeah. Okay. So how did we end up getting an increase of how many? Ten right now. I'm sorry. How many students are? So it's not an increase in students. It's an increase in students we were transporting. So last year the average was, you know, 72. You

099know 7200 7400 fluctuates here and there but that's like the average right now or you know, 82 83 84 Significantly higher than last year. When did that come? When did we come to realize that that was within the first couple weeks? You know, we make it you we try to make adjustments. We try to make adjustments that arouse We look at it every day talk about it all the time. We see what we could do to limit the increase in the budget But we got to be realistic. We have these schools the kids school on time So I mean that's what we look at first. How long it's gonna take if we consolidate a route if we you you know speaking about Our bussing in our routes. Did you ever get that app fixed? We

100had that parent come in and was complaining that the app. Yes, there was nothing wrong with the app So we did try to contact the parent a couple times. We didn't get a phone call back. I did talk to the parent in the hallway here after the meeting just to see what the issues were so we could try to resolve them quickly. So, yeah, we never heard back from the parent to help resolve that issue. So the app is working? Yeah, there's nothing wrong with the app. It doesn't matter what kind of phone you have? Even a Don's flip phone? Well, I don't know about Don's flip phone. Well We don't have any issues or no other reported issues and like any other platform There's gonna be operator error or there's gonna be glitches Like,

101you know Amazon's web services went down so there's gonna be things that happen But for the most part we don't have too many complaints and we do try to work with the people When they do have them to try to get them fixed And so we are pleased to state that we will be starting the REDD program November 10th. It will be run Monday through Thursday from 315 to 6 p.m. There has been a lot of demand, I would say. And Steve, are there any other comments that I'm missing besides this general update? Sure. The program is structured the same as it was last year. The priority is an academic power hour, the first hour. ICANN is in the process of recruiting our teachers for at least that portion of the program. Wait, Steve, hold

102on one second. Let me just... That is one significant shift. The program will go through ICANN. The reason why the program is going to go through ICANN is because we're going to convert the monies into an expense-driven aid. We started the program partly using our fund balance, our savings account, in order to make sure that the program is sustainable. We want to make sure that we're getting the, I believe it's 98%. BOCES aid or maybe anywhere between 88 and 98 cents on a dollar. So it'll be a renewable revenue so that the program can last in perpetuity. So this is why we are funneling the program through the ICANN service. So any of the teachers that are working, any faculty that's working, they're getting paid through us or they're getting paid through ICANN? Through ICANN.

103they'll get paid through ICANN. So how are we monitoring what is happening? How is that being balanced in between? So are they working then for ICANN or are they working for us? They're working for ICANN. We had discussed this conversation previously. It would be no different than a teacher working at YMCA for after school or coaching at another place that's disconnected from the school. But ICANN isn't certified to teach, right? Do we have a large volume of teachers teaching? Yes, let me get to that. So they're using, so to be clear, let me put this on a formal record. We built the program. We created the demand. And I mean we, I mean the district. ICANN is servicing it, but it's still our teachers, our people. It's our administrators. We will be working to monitor

104that and concert with ICANN. They are helping us in terms of the structure of the program for sustainability purposes. So would it? Would it be fair to say that our teachers will be in the club? Because I see their posting for, I see that, I think, Safe School. Is it just ICANN? It's just ICANN. Okay. So ICANN has postings that they're now hiring for after school RED program. What are they? What are those positions? So what we did, and Steve, I'll let you answer this, but what we did is we sent out a survey to our faculty, staff, and administrators to gauge interest to see how many people would like to be employed. And we took that same list and those data points and gave it to ICANN so that they could reach out to

105our people so that they can work within the program. So they're doing the hiring then, obviously, as well. Was the pay rate comparable? The pay rate is comparable, if not the same. I believe it's the same. Steve so I can't as paying the teachers $50 an hour they can choose to work one hour two hours three hours that encompasses any planning time as well and the other unit members that get higher teacher assistance I think the rate of pay is 25 per hour they're looking but the priority is to get our teacher so like dr. Spence that a survey went out there are 174 staff members teachers TAS secretaries who are willing to work in the program like so that information was shared with I can and now they're recruiting they're reaching out to those

106people student enrollment started this week so there have been blasts out to the parents yeah for enrollment and last year we had a wait list in several schools what is that I know it'll We always say MLK had almost 100% participation. Other schools that face on demand. Is there a minimum or a maximum amount of students that are eligible for this program based on their school? So as the program kicks off, ICANN's goal is to enroll 70 students per building for a total of 700. No, no, no. And then they're looking to up that to 1,000. That's correct. So the ultimate goal is to service 1,000 students. But that's only 100 per building. Yes. So when you say they're hiring our teachers first, does this mean there's possibilities of other districts coming in and working

107in the RED program now? That question I can't answer. Go ahead, Dr. Smith. Yeah, if we have anyone else that's qualified to provide instruction to our children, we will hire them. And the expectation is that we are servicing our neediest students. So, yes, but, you know, our students, our faculty and staff have first dibs on it, so to speak, of course. But, yeah, we want to make sure we get these kids educated with high-quality programming. So we're spending how much money on this program this year? It's around. for approximately four million. So that money is going to be paid to ICANN, correct? Correct. Okay. And do we have an MOU with ICANN? No, no MOUs needed. We just, it's a, we create a contract for the program. Yeah, contract. Yeah, yeah. Okay, and that's been?

108Signed. Okay. And who is overseeing the ICANN performance? Our administrators. Well, I mean, is there a particular person designated or is it a multifaceted approach? It's going to be a multifaceted approach. We're going to have a couple of administrators looking at it until I can get the person hired that's going to specifically do that. That was Foles' right. That was the thinking behind a family and community engagement department, to have a person at that level that can do that work. Sorry, interject for a second. Forgive me if my memory is lapsing. I didn't have enough coffee today. But did the contract for ICANN for this program ever get presented to the board? No, it did not. It goes to BOCES. We're just adjusting the terms of service. But ICANN is using our buildings. They are.

109They're currently using it. That's the wonderful world of... it's a closer coasters yeah okay the question that i have is what are the metrics that we're measuring the actual attention paid by i can and the recruiting levels and performance for the people that are going to be rendering these services what are we measuring what what is it you know who's designed the program That's going to be delivered to our students. I understand. It's through I can I understand it's through BOCES but who decides how and what is going to be Delivered to our students this year It'll have the same format. I also provided this to the board, the outline, the format, the power hour, the level of customization, the types of programming that the buildings will have. What we can do is at our

110next board meeting, Steve and I will provide an update. But again, there's an academic power hour. It's a non-negotiable. We're working on targeted skills that students need help with. And then we're also building in other enrichment opportunities to help students with their social-emotional learning. I just have a question. If we're only going to service 70 kids per building with the goal up to 100, and it's to target our neediest population, what about all those people that, like, I don't know, I feel like it's a false hope for a lot of families who they may feel that they need it or the parent may feel that the child needs it. Like, I still don't think servicing 100 kids per building is a big number. You know what, I would love to have more kids. What I'm

111happy to say is that I'm happy that we created a product that has the level of demand that it has, that people find it valuable. And so last year, I think it might have been 70, we pushed it to 100, and part of it comes from the staffing ratios that... I can't have to have if you're considered an after school. So we're working through that with the hopes of scaling up and it'd be probably great discussion for our 2627 budget to to talk about if the board has interest in making this skill and it's up what that looks like. Okay. And then our principals present to principals have to stay in their buildings. No, principals in that half. I just wanted to add to that that the principals, though, really want to be a part

112of the program to ensure that the academics are being carried out the way that we as a district want them carried out. So we did get a commitment from the building principals. And if the power hour is at 315 to 415, I believe contractually they're still there, right? So they will be involved in the curriculum piece, so to speak, or providing that to the teachers that do stay. Well, there's different levels of commitment, right? There's different levels of commitment to the various schools when it comes to delivering educational services during that RED program. Different levels of availability. The way they're looking at it now is we're looking to hire people specifically for the program, and then I believe they're going to be deployed, you know, throughout the district to show that we have parity in

113regards to staffing. Because the goal is to get to 100 kids in each building. Okay, so... I'm just, you know, we're going to, I don't even want to open that can of worms, so never mind. Okay. Okay. I just want to just provide an update. So on October 1st, I had the opportunity of attending the Utica Royals, Royalties Parent Night, just another great opportunity to engage with parents and students and our broader community that's committed to this work. I've taken a position since I've... entered into the district of really making the district you know the hub and the center and being a welcoming place for our community partners that are critically engaged in the work of educating young people so it's part of the Utica United framework and it was a great opportunity to attend.

114We also had the opportunity to, when I say we, the director of CTE, Michelle Hall, Chief of Operations, Mike Ferraro, we had the opportunity to attend the State Assembly Standing Committee on Economic Development and the Committee on Small Businesses to discuss the impact and effectiveness of the economic development programs funded and enacted in the 25-26 budget. And what we really did on our state floor was really talk about the ways in which Our CTE model is increasing not only educational attainment by way of providing a more credentialed citizenry post-secondary outcomes, but we're also expanding occupational attainment because of the amount of local and small businesses that are saying that we want your graduates before they even graduate. So we're going to have a direct impact on the immediate community here in Utica by doing the

115work of the school district. And it was a pleasurable experience to speak to that work. And one of the... One of the chief of staff reached out on behalf of the assemblywoman to say this should be a model for the state and they are very interested in learning more about it. So again. I can't say this enough, the district's not gloom and doom, you know, the mop bucket theory. There's so many good things happening in regards to what we're doing with the district and other people outside the area are taking note. So I want to just, I can't convey enough that pride in the Utica City School District and being happy to be on this journey as we are building momentum and moving forward. Mike, you were there. You want to provide some words on

116the experience? It was nice to hear from the chair and the assembly that you know to be a model for other school districts and we tried to show how the investment in the school district from the state aid or money from the Taxpayers to build the CT how that's gonna go back into the system and how it did go into the system building it Maintaining it supplying and hopefully reap those rewards down the road with getting high quality trained you know, professions that we need. Just in our district we need, let alone all the other small businesses. Some of these people will go on to start their own small businesses, which will in turn, you know, maybe provide services for us. Because we do rely on a lot of the small businesses in our surroundings.

117Thank you. And thank you for accompanying me on that journey, Mike. I just want to chime in here. I think what... What's great about the whole thing is having the community engagement. The businesses that are engaged in being a part of this from the ground level from you know really saying that I see what you guys want to do. We want to be a part of it because we know that we want to give those folks or those kids a place to be when they come out you know once they graduate and they've got a trade and we're gonna put in the work with us. I think is a really big part of what's happening here with the CTE. And, you know, I'll even add to that because I think there's a source of personal

118pride for me to be able to speak to the work that's happening here. A lot of times when, you know, just in passing, we get compared to systems that are nothing like us. You have to compare the district to a comparable. complex urban district because we have a unique set of challenges and a unique set of gifts. So to be compared to other urban districts and be looked at as a model in the state to receive the email that I also shared with you all as a board was just a personal point of pride because that means people are recognizing the work that we all are doing together in our shared governance structure. So I couldn't be any more proud at that moment. I know Mike was proud. I was proud. It was a good

119moment. Okay. I just want to just talk about on the, I had the opportunity a couple of Sundays ago to attend the Commissioner and Board of Regents dinner with other educators from the 5th Judicial District at Syracuse University. I had the privilege of speaking with and hearing from the Chancellor and Commissioner Betty Roser and it's always great when I get a chance to connect with leaders in the state and really talk about the good work that's happening here in the district. And so when I think about as we're ending on the heels of the school board recognition week and we're going into another year I'm thinking about the momentum that we're building. Only district on the Forbes list, three through eight academic achievement is trending in core content areas. This is irrefutable. It's coming from

120the states. Quantifiable metrics. You talk about the CTE program that we built. under budget, on time, fully staffed and to hear people on the state floor say that that work should be replicated. It really is a testament to everyone, board's leadership, faculty and staff, but also the administration and everyone in this community as we're working to provide our students with the best outcomes. So as I always say, our progress will be incremental over time and it will be sustained growth over time and we've got a good start and we'll continue the progress. And that concludes my presentation. I do want to circle back to one item quickly. The probation talks have been ongoing for a little while now, and I really do feel like in order to move forward at all with that, this board

121really does need to hear from the probation department, and I think Judge Caldwell would also be much appreciated. So I would like to... We make a motion that the board clerks reach out to the Onita County Probation Department and Judge Caldwell to see their availability for coming to the next meeting. We're calling a special meeting. I think that's great, except, you know, I think it's the board's purview as to whether or not we want to include something as a presentation. I was contacted by probation as well as Judge Caldwell about it. They weren't ready for today, so they just asked if they could have some time. As you know, I am a proponent of having some type of service for the children that need it. you know i will endeavor to try to get that

122set for the next meeting okay so i don't think we need i i mean i i think i i appreciate that there being a motion but um i don't think the board clerks are going to be calling the probation and the judge we'll just if you want to make a motion that'd be included as a uh presentation subject to the availability of uh you know the Probation department and yeah, I'm fine with amending the motion that but I would also include figuring out their availability So if it doesn't work out for a regular meeting, we just have a special meeting. Yep. Absolutely Then yes, I'll amend the motion for that. Okay that so I need a second Okay, any discussion all in favor? opposed motion carries You're opposed. Okay motion carries six to one okay

123so next is superintendents report so we're gonna have pages who needs pages I would ask for a motion for executive session before that before we pull the pages and add pages yes okay get a motion for executive session to discuss what personnel matters and legal opinion okay Need a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Okay, we're going to an executive session.