Putnam Valley Board of Education Meeting - December 11, 2025

001Not yet. >> Good evening and welcome to the business meeting on of December 11th, 2025. We are being led by the pledge this evening by the championship cheerleading teams. I pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. >> Great job. >> Very good. >> Okay. Uh I'm going to open it up for public um comments on agenda items. Not seeing any. We're going to uh the treasures report for October is available in the business office and we are going to move to the consent agenda. Mr. Oliverio, >> resolve to approve the consent agenda items 2 through 10 as presented to the board at this meeting. >> Second. Questions or

002comments? The consent agenda includes approval of minutes, approval of updates to the substitute listing for the school year, cseps placements, approval or rescending unpaid work hours or additional work hours for various staff members. This one includes postseason fall stipens, two extended unpaid leave of absences, and we're rescending the previously approved unpaid days off of a for a staff member at their request. Revising the 2526 school year calendar to move the March 19th superintendence conference day to Friday, March 20th. March 19th will become a regular school day. Amending the location date of the approved wrestling overnight trip, which is turning it into a better opportunity for more athletes to participate. Approving the universal prek program with the YMCA for this school year. Approving budget transfers over $25,000 for the period November 11th through December 9th. and

003approving the spring 2026 coaches and stipens and one winter 2526 volunteer coach. >> Thank you, Mrs. Bolino. Are there any other questions or comments? All in favor? >> Opposed? Abstensions? The resolutions pass. >> Okay, we are going to do We haven't done this in a while. It's so exciting. Um recognition Pride and Putnham Valley. Dr. Love. >> All right. Good evening everyone. So, we gather here this evening with some exciting news to celebrate our game day cheerleading team, the state champions. So, give them a round of applause right now. So, I think it's fair to say, and I'm sure I'll get criticized for this, but this is officially the most successful athletic team in Putinham Valley school history. All right. They've won two of state championships in the last three years with a second place

004finish in between. 02 points off the mark. So I think by far the most successful team we've had in Putham High School history and we are thrilled that they are here this evening to be recognized. They've sort of been on the tour to the elementary school to the middle school performances champion of breakfast of champions this morning and uh we couldn't be more thrilled to have them honored here. I know escorted in and out of town by the Pton Valley Fire Department. Um we want to make sure that these accolades are very well celebrated. So I would like to extend my congratulations. I know there's a couple other individuals. They're going to say a few words and then we're going to hand out some awards. I would be remiss if I didn't mention the fact

005that two of our very own student board reps are also on the team. That's why they're hiding over there and not in their normal seats. So uh so I'll invite up our athletic director, Mr. Rob Webb, to say a couple words. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. I would like to begin by thanking Dr. Lu and the board of education for recognizing our exceptional cheerleading program this evening. I am incredibly proud to celebrate our New York State champion game day cheerleading. This marks, as Dr. Love said, their second state championship in the last three seasons, which is an extraordinary achievement that brings immense pride to our community. This success reflects far more than a winning routine. It's a result of their dedication, discipline, and countless hours of hard work both on and off the mat.

006This team is truly a model program, demonstrating excellence not just on the mat, but also in the classroom as they've earned a scholar athlete recognition from the New York State Public High School Athletic Association this fall. This accomplishment is a testament to the hard work of the athletes, but also the continuous support of their families and especially their dedicated coaches. Please join me in welcoming the coaches of our state championship program, Kelly Wilson, Nicole Dona, and Joe Dona. >> Um, we just want to say thank you for everyone for recognizing us. Um, especially the fire department for our welcome home. That was a little crazy. We didn't realize how many firet trucks we had. Um, but also to the girls, we are extremely proud of you and um, you had one goal this season and

007you you went above and beyond for it. Um, and you the hard work you do every day and you in the wellness center, you keep pushing like even into this winter season like you guys are doing great things. So, keep it up. Yeah, I'm waiting for that. Um, so when your name's called, just come on up to um Dr. Loft. Maria Argeru, Naomi Viviano, Kaylee Borchek, Kylie Bo, Elelliana Broccuffalo, >> Jolen Castro, Alyssa Grippo, who's at dance, Ava Jacobson, Franchesca Kennedy, Nina Lamont, Sierra Morz, Isabella Monahan, The next the next two aren't here but I name Maline Moner Ava Petrillo Savannah Quick Angelina Ramo Savannah Simmons Annayia Tisil Vienna Toti Zati. >> All right. Want to take a picture? >> Oh, yeah. Sure. >> Well, they have to come. Yeah. You don't want to do

008like Congratulations. >> Very proud. >> Great job, guys. >> Great job, everyone. >> Congratulations. >> You can go. >> It's okay. >> Thank you. >> You're going to miss the data presentation. Barbara the Lord. >> Can't believe they don't want to stay for the data presentation. >> Oh my god. >> All right. >> Huh. >> Okay. And we still have people in the audience. This is great. >> They didn't all leave. >> And we thank you girls for staying. So, >> they were like, "We had a choice." >> Huh? >> I said they were like, "We had a choice." >> You always have. >> They always have a choice, but we're always pleased to see them. >> Okay. Um, our first presentation tonight is a data presentation that we've been asking and waiting for with

009baited breaths. Um, so, uh, Dr. Lu, do you want to introduce this topic? >> Sure. So, we're going to begin with our assistant superintendent of curriculum instruction, Miss Jackie Lavine. uh we'll get started. I know she'll be joined by some of her administrative colleagues as she goes through. So, welcome. >> Thank you, Dr. Left. And good evening, board of education, Putnham Valley community, parents, teachers, administrators, and anyone watching this evening. Um it is my honor and privilege to be able to celebrate and share our data for our 2425 assessment school year. Um, at the end of every school year, we take a host of assessments from state assessments to global assessments and we're going to be talking about the results from those assessments and how that data informs our instruction and our planning for the

010school year. Um, so I'm just going to dive right into it. I will be joined by my incredible colleagues, our principles for each building, as well as our K12 instructional specialist Rob Lup this evening. So, I look forward to welcoming and introducing him to all of you today. So, the purpose of our presentation tonight is to share the assessments that we take, our proficiency of the Putham Valley Central School District students, uh, grades 3 through 12, and, um, what that, uh, means in in different capacities depending on the assessments we're looking at, our glows and our grows, areas for growth in places where we're focusing in to improve proficiency. Um, and of course, what we are doing specifically to improve proficiency. I want to start us off with how we compare in our grades 3

011through 8 in ELA and math across the region. The charts you see in front of you are comparing us to the 18 school districts of Putnham, Northern Westchester, Boseies. These districts are including Chapaqua, Peak Skill, Briercliffe, Austining, uh, North Salem, Halane, uh, Garrison, um, Brewster, Carmel, etc. So any school district that is really within our area, the 18 school districts of the Putnham Northern Westchester Boseies. Um this is how Putnham Valley compares to the Putnham Northern Westchester region in both ELA and math. But you'll see at the top that we also have some really fabulous news to share about our school district for each building. But in particular, you'll notice that our elementary school is in the top 3% of all New York State elementary schools, which is a huge accomplishment. Our middle school is

012in the top 24% of the same news report, US News Report, and our high school is in the top 19% of all New York State public high schools. So, that is really something to be very proud about considering the type of schools that we are being compared to. New York has some of the best education there is. Um, and not to mention these lists also include charter schools as considered public schools. So just to put that out there that this is all public schools in our New York state area and that's where we stand here in Putinham Valley. This chart here compares us to the lower Hudson region that includes Putinham Northern Westchester Boseies southern Westchester and I believe Rockland as well if not also Orange County but definitely Rockland. So this is a large

013a much larger group of districts that we're being compared to and again districts that are included in this um catchment area includes Scarsdale, Eastchester, Mount Vernon, Rye um many districts across uh the lower Hudson Valley. So um that is again where Putham Valley stands where on the left our colorful chart again this is three through eight through three third grade through 8th grade compared to the lower Hudson region in both ELA and math. So, based on the data that we're going to see tonight, um, districtwide, there are some changes and developments that we've been working on. Some of these are ongoing. You've heard us speak about them before, like the writing continuum work we are doing to streamline and align our writing practices and raise expectations for writing across the board. U, but then there

014are new developments this school year. For instance, we've added a K12 instructional specialist who you'll meet shortly, Rob Leup, who um is a high school teacher, but he also supports many teachers around the region, and he's going to go around the district, and he's going to talk a little bit about the work he's been doing um specifically in certain areas and groups. We have added a second ENL teacher to our middle school, creating a comprehensive ENL program in every building. Students receive at the very least the minimum supports that they require and then some. So, we've been able to increase the amount of support we're providing and that's going to matter in a few slides when I show you our ENL proficiency data and how wonderful that is. Um, and then we also have taken

015a real hard look at our culture and discipline. We brought Dr. Holly in to work with our colleagues on cultural responsiveness and how to support students in all ways including their social emotional ways. Uh, we have a committee that's working on culture and discipline. We meet regularly. Um, we have revised our mentoring and induction plan. We have a new mentoring plan that we worked over the summer with our headbuilding mentors to develop. It's a 4-year induction program that includes intensive learning in something called studying skillful teacher. In year two, all year 2 teachers that are going through their tenure process will be uh studying with a master teacher from our own district trained and prepared to deliver the skillful teacher framework to these teachers. So, our untenured teachers are going to get increased support. The

016third year will be um made up of IB and literacy training to really deepen their knowledge of best literacy practices and best IB framework practices, the ATLs and the learner profile so that they truly understand the initiatives and the work we do here in Pontav Valley and our guiding principles. Um we are focusing on our co-eing teams especially at the secondary uh level and this March for superintendent conference day we're bringing in consultants to work with our secondary co-eing teams. Uh that will be a focus area for the spring and going forward into next school year. Um we have aligned our math instruction. We've spoken about this before in other presentations. We've adopted the Eureka curriculum. Now K8, all teachers K8 are using Eureka to support our math because we've had such success with it

017in all of our other grade levels that have been using it. So seventh and eighth grade are currently in year one. Um last year we consider year zero because it's the year we adopt the program. They're unpacking it for the first time. They're diving into the lessons. They're getting the materials, they're figuring out what those materials are, the scope and sequence, matching it to what they do. So, this is year one where they've done that work, but they're still learning, they're still implementing, and they're still tweaking. Uh, we have also fully 512 implemented IB work. We are working on authorization in our um high school. We've just started with the um candidacy work we've begun, and we have a um a coordinator there, Cat Shutz, who's been working with our teachers to develop their units.

018Um, so that's happening in 910 now, but we are an authorized school at the middle school. And we are also authorized as a DP program. We're an IB world school in our high school. And we have, of course, had targeted professional learning in literacy, science, and math. Those are some of our growth areas. You'll see tonight in our data. And um we have done a lot of work investing in literacy especially in the science of reading uh programs that um I know Margaret will be eager to talk a little bit about later tonight but also in our middle school as well. So we'll talk a little bit about what we're doing at the secondary level to focus on that work. Um in and in addition I'll talk a little bit about the science work especially

019that our science teachers have been undertaking in all grade levels middle school fourth grade to fifth grade science teachers collaborating together but also at the high school level where our teachers are currently attending workshops on those new investigations for the regions and learning about how to implement those investigations and prepare for the new regions. Um so that's where things stand K12 in terms of the changes and developments that have taken place to address some of the areas that we'll talk about tonight in our data. Um and now I would like to turn it over to introduce you to Rob Hle who is our K12 instructional specialist who's going to speak tonight a little bit about the work he's been doing and how he sees um development in the areas we've been talking about of the

020work he's doing. walk around here. Hey everybody, I'm Rob Leafro and I'm learning how to use a microphone. Okay. Hey, hi. It's really exciting to be here with you all. I appreciate the chance to get to come explore some of the work that be we've been uh developing this year in this new role for the district. Um it's been like incredibly invigorating to get to work with all these awesome teachers who I've known for so long, but now I'm getting to um work with in a different capacity. It's just been really exciting. So, thanks for all the support we've gotten. I'm looking forward to a lot more. So, the plan for tonight, I just have a quick little snapshot of the kind of approach that we've been taking with the instructional specialist role. Uh like

021a little bit of a dive into one particular project that's kind of representative of the work that we've been doing and a quick survey of some of the projects that have been undergone. So, um so here we go. So, actually one of the things I do want to mention the instructional stuff that we do develop has to be contextually driven. So a lot of the things we come up has to be situated in the classroom and in the building and for that teacher. So it's not like a one-stop shop. So in that this is part of a data presentation, I kind of wanted to situate this discussion in that data role. So one of the things that we're working on is um broadening uh the what we what we use as data to inform our

022instruction. So in addition to standardized testing, what other kinds of data are we using? We're also trying to take a much deeper dive at like a more granular level. the kinds of uh exploration and investigation of data that can really really deeply inform the instruction rather than just sort of like a the broad brush strokes that we sometimes only have the time to do. Um so with that in mind um quick overview the move um is to work in all three buildings in all subjects. Um the teachers are driving the instruction based upon things they're seeing in their classroom and data that they're getting in any number of capacities. Um pretty much typically we identify uh some meaningful student learning need and goal. Um once we've established that uh we explore the teacher experiences around

023that. What are we doing that's working? What can we shift? What do we already know? There's a ton of knowledge already in the classroom already in the building. So how can we build on those funds of knowledge that are currently present? In addition, we want to support that understanding with the academic literature that is out there. Um so I get to dive through all the stacks and do a ton of uh research and then sort of try to repackage it in a way that's um more like pragmatic for us. Um so like translating theory into practice to a certain degree. Um once we understand that we develop some teaching and learning practices addressing that initial need and goal. Um but not just that particular goal really the idea is to contribute to the broader teaching

024and learning culture of Putna Valley. So that's sort of a quick overview of that. Um the approach that we've been taking is developing. It happens through emails, individual meetings, conversations in the hallway, big multi-team meetings. So there's a lot of things that that uh ways that it is happening. Um one particular project we thought that would be helpful to um demonstrate some of the work that we're doing is this question analysis project. It's happening in all three buildings in different ways. Um it's cross building. Some of it's uh oriented to building to building some of it's individually centered and it's interdiciplinary that it's across different um subjects. Um what we thought was really important about analyzing questions is pretty much whoever like asks the question is sort of running the show. Um and if you're

025a student and you get to ask that question, you're sort of driving the learning. And so we thought that would be um a productive way to kind of dive into instructional um exploration. So one of the things that we do want to consider is how much agency are our students having in their learning. Um so around that sort of premise where we took a look into at the elementary school um a group reached out and they said hey we want to look at um the some of the uh testing data and the ELA um and ELA from New York State which they they crushed, right? Um so like they did great. So like like let's see why they did great. And so when we looked into we said it might be really productive also to

026um bridge over into the math um discipline as well because these kids are taking those tests across both areas. So what we did was actually started to break it down at a very very fine grain level by looking at the question stems in the ELA and math and see if there's any correlation in how the kids were doing with uh regard to the question stems. And it seemed to be that um one of the areas that we want to continue to support them in is in the area of transference of understanding. The kids are understanding something at a great level, but when there's a transferring uh opportunity that that's an area that we can probably get a little bit better. I mean they're doing phenomenally but that's an area we'd like to kind of um

027help support all our learners in all the buildings. Um and when we talk about transferencers you know we can really take a deep dive there's you know near transfer where the understanding is a very closely related concept but the thing that's challenging most students is when you transfer an understanding far. So when we switch the context um there can be a little bit of a a um uphill climb for everybody. So um we're developing some um instructional approaches to that as we move through these like big projects. They take time um and they take you know investment from everybody. So that's been really really exciting and eye openening for me as I've lived at the high school forever. Um I I knew how hard they worked but it's a little bit humbling to see the

028elementary school work happening at the middle school. Um we are also doing some question analysis. This came from uh the seventh eighth grade math teachers. They said the kids are coming in with a million and one questions the minute they walk in the class. And we said well let's let's take a look at those kinds of questions. So these are student generated questions. Um so we did we did a bunch of research around how do we sort of categorize the math questions. Um and we learned that there's a million and one ways to do it. However, we kind of recognized that there's like the verification question uh application question and then the complex question. And uh so they b they just decided like we're going to watch each other teach and write down the questions

029that the kids are asking so that we put them into categories and we're meeting sort of unpacking what we're seeing and their their goal is to help shift the questions from more that like sort of like beginning verification land to the more complex level where you're doing connections looking for causality and interpreting. That's where we want to move toward. That's what they're driving that and I'm just helping as much as I can in that regard. At the high school, there's also a question analysis project that drifted over from the middle school into the science department, largely in physics, and it's moving from there. This one is the the teachers looking into students questions as well. But she's really trying to understand the connections between the tasks that we assign students, the questions that we ask

030students, and then that impact on the questions that they generate themselves. So, we're looking into that kind of thing. That's drifted into a bunch of different places, and people are kind of joining on that project. So that's really really um like super inspiring. So um that's just one project of a of a range. We have a kind of like 15 to 20 of of like that. Um uh one major one that we worked on and we're continuing to work on is the fifth grade science. Um it's it's been uh really exciting to have people from fourth and from the elementary school and the middle school join together to see how things are working. Um programmatic discussions. Um took a deep dive in some of the data. We've done some research around the kinds of things

031that help support learners in the area. Um like these are big multi-building kinds of moves and the dedication is like remarkable. Um that has been happening and so we're learning quite a bit around the kinds of things that we can continue to do to support the kids in that and that arena. Um we also have an inquiry learning project where people are kind of starting to see that there's basically two frameworks around inquiry learning. There's those who are inquiring to learn like we kind of ask a question to learn about a topic like um then there's the the learning to inquire and how often that happens we're wondering. So like when you learn to inquire within art or music and maybe different to a certain degree than when you're learning to inquire in a math

032or English um setting. So um they're exploring that there's a really sort of like on the ground handsoriented uh connecting multiple programs in a grade level. Some grade levels they have multiple programs they're juggling. It's incredible. How do we sort of sort that out? There's a really fun veteran insights project. Those are the people that um unlike me, they're at the sort of the uh retirement end of the employment continuum. And so on their way out, we're like, "Hey, can we steal as much of your wisdom as we can before you abandon us?" Um so we're meeting and discussing some of their insights around teaching and learning. There's a group that's really excited about experiential learning, so we've been able to send them to different places. And then there's also those who are just like

033um at the classroom level working on redesigning their lesson structure to help anticipate some of the student needs prior to the lesson so that we can um prepare and create some avenues for student success prior to the lesson. Um as well as uh creating opportunities for kids to have more processing uh moments in class because there's so much like cognitive load that all the kids are juggling. like how do we build in opportunities for kids who process at all different rates and levels and depths to have that chance to do that. So there's a lot more but that's um all I uh have time for. Um going forward we're hoping to continue to collaborate with everybody on these projects and I kind of want to find a better way to connect everybody to all these

034projects that are happening um the resources and the plans and uh so that's their plan going forward and everybody else had a color on their like a very fancy slide so I put a little chart um just I wanted to fit in. So that's one of the charts from one of the student analysis questions. I think this one's from the I picked from the math one. So we have our verification application and the complex questions. So So um that's that. So um yep. Okay. Thank you for your time. >> Thanks. >> Research tells us that teachers learn best collaborating with one another and learning from one another. And so you can see why someone like Rob Leup is excellent for this type of role. Not only is he flexible, malleable, eager to learn and curious

035about all the different grade levels, but he has such a great grasp on learning and learning science and understanding um what it takes to really move learning forward. And uh his role is primarily pedagogical um instructional. It is not about choosing curriculum programs. It is not about choosing materials although he may recommend something to someone. Um he is truly about what is happening in the classroom. what are the instructional moves teachers are making or need to make and what data can we gather to inform that and improve that. So, um, cheers to Rahm. Thank you so much for being here tonight, Rob. All right. Another K12 um item I want to just share before we get into each building's individual data is our data about our ENL students and um how our demographics have shifted

036and yet what our data is about those students and their proficiency levels. So um we have had a large increase and currently these are our numbers down at the bottom. So um this is our population of students but you can see over time the increase that has occurred in Putnham Valley schools. However, on our niceslat scores, you'll notice that a majority of our students are in the transitioning to commanding, which means their proficiency with the English language is high. And our students are um not always taking this assessment the first year they come to us. That means it really is due to a lot of the work we're doing here. So, students may enter the country, this may be their first year here with us, they don't take this test at the end of that

037year, but they may take the test at the end of the following year. And so our scores are showing that the work our teachers are doing with these students is phenomenal. And just a few points to make about this ENL work and why I things like the board approving that second ENL teacher is so important for us to have a strong ENL program in each building. These are the types of gains that we are making in our schools. About 85% of our students are in that higher transition um expanding or commanding phases of the proficiency. um and only a small percentage of our students are at the entering or emergent proficiency rates. So these are just very important um data points to note because it says we are doing tremendous things with our ENL student

038population. So even though our demographics are shifting, it's not having a significant impact on our overall uh data in ELA. Okay, I would like to invite up Dr. Margaret Podesta, who's an absolute joy to work with every day and such an amazing, incredible leader. She's going to talk a little bit, brag a little bit about the elementary data. >> Hi everyone. Here's a picture of the bubble bus because you have to start on a high note, right? Um, and we like to make Mr. Olivivero happy. Uh, I'm happy to be here tonight and it's always a pleasure to talk about the work that we're doing at the elementary school and the results we're getting with our student growth and progress. This first slide shows grade three from last year, the ELA assessment. They did a

039phenomenal job, our teachers, our students, our entire support staff who work together so well um to bring these students to these high levels where you see such a high majority of students scoring of three or four proficiently on the ELA test. So, this takes a lot of work. We've come a long way in the past 10 to 13 years. And um I give kudos to our faculty. They're always ready to learn, always ready to stay current with what's available to us and do the research to find out what will work even better. So, this is a good time to um not brag, but celebrate celebrate the work that we're doing. Always looking to grow. Um we don't take that percent three top 3% in New York State of elementary schools. We don't take that lightly.

040Um, a lot goes behind that with professional development with support from the board of education, our administration, materials at our fingertips and the faculty that we have that is so skilled. And here we have our grade four superstars from last year with the majority in the level three and level four area on their ELA exam. Um, the third graders last year still took paper and pencil. our fourth graders, this was the first time that they were taking it on the computer, which is a different experience. You know, learning to highlight, learning to underline, learning to go back and look at the text for evidence on the computer. So, we always probably don't give our students enough credit with technology because they've grown up with it. Um, but they're showing us that they can still perform

041as well, really well. Math as well. We have a very strong math program. We've been using the Eureka curriculum for years now. Um, our professional development with that started us off extremely um, strong and that made all the difference uh, with our teachers who were le relearning math themselves and learning the strategies and the number sense. This carries over into problem solving, real life mathematics and just understanding how numbers work. So this was our grade three uh really very strong in the region and in the state and grade four as well. So what this shows of course is the uh percentage of students scoring a one, a two, a three or a four. We're always aiming for that three and you know you know me, I'm aiming for that four and um many students are

042really uh showing us that they are able to do this and show proficiency and be ready for the next grade level. While we're celebrating, we're always looking to grow, to improve, and to provide our students with what we can um as far as academic progress. So exciting. We've had our first UPK program join us this year on campus. That's exciting for us as a school. We have these little Putnham Valley residents who are in a nursery school that is basically attached to our elementary school. They've been joining us for assemblies. They've been joining us for special events like book fairs and picture day and parades in the school. So can you imagine those students who are getting acclimated acclimated to their elementary school already joining us as students? We have similar curriculum materials. We have

043similar classroom setups. Our teachers are talking to each other. Um we sometimes share snack supplies. So we're just really working collaboratively with them. We're so happy that they're here. their arrival and dismissal do not interfere with our day. Um, and we really welcome them to most events that we can. So, that's exciting. We also have had a literacy curriculum review committee begin where we have a team of teachers from multi-grades really digging deeply into what we're doing with the science of reading, what we're doing with the materials that we have to work with our students, and where any gaps might exist. So far as we follow the reading league guidelines, we're not seeing that many gaps at all. And when we do, we usually have something that's already filling it. So it's not just scholastic

044literacy, but it's the Hegerty program, its foundations, it's wordly wise, it's Scholastic alone wouldn't even do it for us because of all that's required with the science of reading. But we do have a heavy small groupoup instruction program with Scholastic. We also have a very deep and firm phonics program, word work study program and building vocabulary. We have ongoing professional development with the writing revolution. I give a lot of credit to Mrs. Carrie Berdett who's taken on this leadership role in literacy in our building. We have many teachers who are quite skilled with the writing revolution strategies that supports the writing not only with scholastic but writing across the content areas. And we're finding that to be an excellent approach to learning writing and and the growing sophistication in writing that we're seeing in the

045elementary school. Some of you may remember our first graders in the spring sharing their own writing ending with the word clearly very often um as they sum up their work in first grade. We have quarterly team data meetings where teachers meet with our AIS team and administration. and we go over where students are um growing, where some might need extra support even for a little while. So, we take a close look at that data as a team, support students where we can and where they fit into different levels of support in the building, sometimes just in their classroom during an intervention block that we use for support and enrichment. And so, um this close look at data as a professional view makes all the difference for these students. We have a very heavy focus right

046now uh on tier 2 academic vocabulary. We're talking about question stems. We're talking about transfer of information. And think about it though, if you're reading a question and you're in third grade and there are words such as infer, compare, um, evidence, words that aren't necessarily vocabulary tied to science or math specifically, but tied to understanding the English language. This is tier 2 academic vocabulary. We've started to bring back introduction of a word in my morning announcements. Teachers are working even on Monday at the professional learning hour on how they can integrate academic vocabulary with a more explicit approach through all the content areas in writing, reading, conversation and of course we grow academic vocabulary by reading as well. So there's a big focus on that to help us in all areas. We also are bringing

047more exposure to higher level multiplechoice questions. So it's not just they read, they understand, we can talk about it. But how do you approach multiple choice? When we look at the data, many of these children were able to answer multiplechoice questions by pro process of elimination, going back to the text, finding information to support their thinking. This is a skill. It's not an automatic thing. We really do teach these young children how to do this, and we're focusing more on it now. We've been meeting with the middle school a bit to discuss writing science growth expectations. Um, elementary principles had a great talk about the fifth grade science test just last week at our Boseies meeting. And this is this is a challenge right now because we really want to teach that hands-on science. We

048want to teach inquiry and conversation. And we also need to teach them the skills for the paper and pencil or I should say computer-based test. highly structured um efficient RTI process. We are so proud of our RTI process in the elementary school. My past few assistant principles have all taken this work seriously with me. Excuse me. And so the forms have become more revised, more efficient. We are not meeting just to meet. We are meeting to discuss the progress of students and how we can support them efficiently and we're looking at data and the appropriate instruction that goes along with it. The word study and phonics review is a very important part of our ELA program. We have teaching assistants who support that work as well. And so it's not only the reading and math

049AIS teachers, the classroom teachers, but we have skilled teaching assistants who work with small groups and who continue to progress the students in their um reading skills. We are as a team looking at an ex and examining a universal screener for our students which would give us more information to go along with I Ready and I think we are needing that especially in our lower grades to serve our students best. So, that's a work in progress. Thank you, >> Margaret. Drink water. >> Take a drink of water first and then question. >> Um, I have a question regarding your refusals. Have you seen them decrease over the years? >> We basically have no refusals in the elementary school. Less than 10 in the whole school. Right. Great. >> And I'm happy to say that every

050year usually. Okay. >> And it's a huge change from a few years ago. Yeah. >> Great. Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thanks, Margaret. Thank you. >> Thank you, Dr. Podesta. I'd like to invite up now we have both Travis McCarti and Jamie Zaka, who Jamie can come up if she'd like. She doesn't have to. She could just stay. But, uh, Travis will be sharing a little bit of about the data from the middle school. But I just do want to also say uh before we dive into the data how very proud I am of the amazing work done by our middle school in multiple places but in particular the challenge of bringing on the middle years program and how hard they have worked to develop really amazing beautiful units align them to standards and

051still take state assessments. They have done tremendous work. I'm so proud and I'm so proud to share that they are still outperforming a majority of the region in a lot of areas. So, um, I'm going to turn it over to Mr. McCardi and Mizaka to talk a little bit about that wonderful data. >> All right, good evening everyone. Um, thank you for being here this evening. Uh, we're starting off with a wonderful picture of our middle school. Um, built in 1972. Um, we do have our students up on the hill. This was first responders day. There was actually a helicopter in the outfield of the baseball field. So, our students are up here waiting for it to take off. So, they were very excited to be on the uh edge of the field to see

052that event. And thank you for all those that came for that day. Um so, I've already reported a bit on this um during our opening of schools presentation, but we're going to revisit um these areas. So, fifth grade here, these are our ELA results. Um, and as you can see, 68.9% were proficient levels three and four. And as Dr. Podesta said, um, our goal is always to reach, um, level three. And of course, we're very excited for our level fours. And our challenge always seems to be those students that are on the cusp because they move that scale score every year. So, a student may miss it by one question and fall into a two. So, we're always looking at those students with regards to academic intervention services um in the areas of reading uh

053for our ELA and in the areas of math um as well. These are our sixth grade ELA results and our sixth grade continues to be of high performing in this area. Um 81.8 eight proficiency. And as you can see, the majority of our students are levels three and four with uh six refusals. Our seventh grade um we are at a 65.1% proficiency um with 18 refusals and uh we're uh aiming for those level threes and those level fours. Um we had a few more students on the cusp here with level two. Um but again those students that are identified do receive um academic intervention services. And finally for 8th grade um we have a 67.8% proficiency um levels three and four and uh 18 refusals at the eighth grade. And I know there was a

054question about refusals. We actually see it's it's quite an interesting phenomena that you uh observe over time with middle school students. Um when they come over to middle school in fifth and sixth grade and then they transition to seventh and eighth grade. Some of these students have been taking these exams since third grade of course. And by the time they get to seventh and eighth grade, um, some of our seventh and eighth graders formulate their own idea that I don't need to take this assessment because it doesn't count on my report card or I don't have to take this assessment because um, it's not a region's course. Um, so New York State has allowed those refusals since the beginning. And what I've always observed, even though we see a decrease in our refusals, we do

055see more of our refusals from our seventh and eighth graders. And um sometimes we have some interesting um conversations with those students as to the why. Some families they've never taken that exam and other families um by the time those students get to seventh and eighth grade there's persuasive conversations amongst the students to say um well I can just refuse it that day and then they read a book. So um again we see 18 students refusing here in 8th grade. Travis. >> Sure, sir. >> I noticed in fifth grade there were 23 refusals. Is Is this refusal phenomena >> popping back up, do you think? >> And the question also, sixth grade, there were only six. >> Yeah. >> Say it again. >> I'm sorry. Last year's population of the fifth grade was at our

056highest grade. We had over 100 >> microphone, please. >> Sorry, I talked to the mic. Nobody can hear. >> We have the most kids in fifth grade last year in the building. Okay. Okay. >> So, it's our largest class. >> So, percentage-wise, it it would not impact as much. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> Yeah. So, our smallest group this year is in seventh grade. So, last year they were in sixth grade. Um but that largest group is at I think 139 um this year. So, it kind of goes along with the number of students in the grade. Um although we would love to see that refusal rate drop. I will tell you there's a big transition from elementary school to middle school. um gradewise they're on a four-point rubric um with grades and in the

057middle school they're on percentages. So that transition for families going from a rubric score to a percentage score is is a change. Um and of course they're checking Power School daily, you know, and uh they definitely give us feedback as to uh their progress, but again that transition is is definitely exists. Thank you. So, jumping to math. Um, in fifth grade last year, um, we're at a 70.3% proficiency. And as you can see, um, we see more level threes and level fours and, uh, a few students on the cusp. Math in grade six, um, we're at an 85.7% proficiency and, uh, again, 10 refusals. um and significant growth um in those areas of three and four. Grade 7 uh 73.4% proficiency um 18 refusals and grade 8 um at 53.4% proficiency. But I will share

058with you this does not include our algebra 1 students. So out of a grade level of 110 students, um 50 of our students, so half of those students take algebra 1 and we had a 100% passing rate in algebra 1 last year. So 100% of our kids um passed that and as I presented in our opening of schools um the average was an 85% for those students. Um, and if you can see, we're we're really looking at half of the grade level here. So, half of the grade level um we're seeing more threes um a small percentage of fours, but we are um as uh was mentioned earlier, we're in year one of Eureka Math um for our seventh and eighth grade students. Um, we have used Eureka math in fifth and sixth grade in

059the past, but we're really uh diving more deeply into Eureka math in seventh and eighth grade um moving forward. So, as you can see, we have a lot of tests in middle school. Now, we're moving on to the science. Um, and this is in uh fifth and eighth grade. Um you're going to see this actually um compares us to Boseies and we are just under the average for Boseies in fifth grade. Um and then in 8th grade we're actually outperforming the Pundum Northern Westchester region. Um so we see 52% um proficiency and then 62% proficiency. And our final slide on science. This actually just shows the progression from the year before to this year. So I know the board had asked how many years has the science assessment been out. It's been out for 2

060years. So on the left hand side it actually shows the 23 24 data and on the right hand side it shows the 2425 data and we have shown improvement um which is what we're always gearing toward. Um and I know there are administrators in the room who have been attending meetings including myself um with PNW Boseies where they talk a little bit about science 21 and what that offers our students. Um we also talk about the New York State Assessment and then we also talk about some of the new workbooks and materials that are coming out and of course that topic of AI and who's actually assessing these exams. Um, you need a whole board meeting to talk about the science exam. I'm not kidding. Um, and I will tell you it can be a

061little bit frustrating because we're teaching our kids to authentically analyze data and charts and graphs and maps and to give a full response and if they're missing a keyword or they're missing a number, they will get zero credit on that question. So it it it can be of great challenge to our kids um let alone our teachers who are analyzing these questions who are looking I've sat in these meetings and looked at some of the questions and I'm like but I think that's the best answer but it's not and they chose this one. So two answers that are very closely we've debated those questions and these are fifth grade questions. Um, and I would love to see some change moving forward, like since it's a computer-based exam, how come it's in black and white? It

062would just make more sense to me being in color. Um, and certain things like that with images of there was a comparison of dog breed and what were the characteristics that the children were supposed to take and analyze and say. Um, so it's deep. Um, and we will continue to look at this. Rob is a great asset to our community and working with our teachers. And I think the best part is in the IB philosophy is the process and then the reflection. So, we're all risktakers right now and we're all reflecting on the process. So, um, it's not an easy exam. >> Kudos to the elementary school for meeting with us and having those discussions. I know Miss Bro is also working with our our science teachers as well. >> I was going to ask

063you uh have things started to meld nicely with the exam and the instruction itself and it it seems it still is not quite there yet. >> Not quite there yet. Um, we're we're going into year three now and um, we're finding out more and more as we kind of peel back the layers and I think um, it'll it'll change and improve over time as as assessments do. Um, and then they'll change it on us again. Um, so that once we get comfortable and we understand it and we master it, they change it on us. >> I got you. >> Study the history of education a little bit. >> Um, >> I have I >> So go ahead. Yeah, sure. >> Um, what are it? So, PNW Boseies is outperforming us. I'm wondering if it's likely

064because most times fifth grade is in the same building as the third and fourth graders. Um, I see that because our fifth graders are in another school that it could be adding a different type of problem that you know on top of an already difficult black and white test on the computer. um what is being made like what is being I know that you said that you are collaborating school to school >> what kind of collaboration is happening to bridge that gap I'm just curious >> sure so the collaboration has been around um the use of vocabulary and um making a claim and using they they talk about ratidac and they talk about restating um but in our most recent meetings we can do all these things and then they're looking for a key or

065they're looking for a number. So I think what it comes down to is the information may be on the page and what we need to do is build that stamina with our students. If any of you in this room have children, their attention span is about 10 seconds. We used to say we can stand in front of a sixth grade class and talk for they they can hold your attention for 6 minutes and we used to do that by kind of grade level. Now their attention span with social media, with technology is literally seconds. Um, so kind of helping them build that stamina and look at all the data on the pages. Now mind you also this is on the computer. >> So they're scrolling between pages to look at all this data and then

066put it all together to answer a multiple choice question or to type a claim. So it is a a daunting task, but we're getting there. Apologies for the interruption. I just want to clarify. We're actually outperforming PNW Boseies even though it's only by 1% here for the fifth grade, but we are actually >> I thought you said it was the opposite. >> That's okay. No worries. Yep. We are actually doing better than the region and we will continue to do so. I also just want to add um as we uncover more about this science exam, I think the piece that we all recognized this week in this amazing meeting we had was that number one AI is grading these responses that have no partial credit. So it's like you get the point or you don't

067get the point. >> And if the system is trained to be able to recognize a particular word or number or um something from a chart and the student is able to answer the question but does not mention that particular item, they will not get credit for that question. And so students on this past exam this past year, answered the question correctly but didn't get full credit for it because they didn't mention how they got that answer from a particular chart. And so it's very frustrating to teachers because they're teaching students to think. They're teaching students to analyze. They're teaching students to summize and to be able to bring information together to create a response that makes sense and they're still not getting the credit for it. So what we actually discovered is that we're teaching

068kids multiple ski skill sets, not just in test taking and in science um and in thinking and critical thinking, but also in how to formulate a response that AI is going to recognize is correct, which is um highly frustrating when you're really trying to be true to teaching content and teaching kids to think and not teaching to a test. Um, so I would just encourage you by saying continue with the process, help kids learn science, those investigations we talked about being invaluable of making sure that they're having the experience of doing experiments and coming up with hypotheses and being able to prove those hypotheses wrong or not. Um, and and figuring out the science as they go is far more valuable than what this task is asking them to do. >> Thank you for sharing

069your insight. We appreciate that. It's almost as if, and I hate to say this, it's almost as if the teachers need to start using AI to grade their science assessments in class so that the kids understand what AI is looking for. I'm sure we'll get to that day, but I don't think we're there yet. >> It sounds frustrating, but >> I I mean, and I do agree with Crystal, but if if this is if one, if it's frustrating, why are we like why is why is it being done by AI? Um, and if this is what is being done, if it's that if that's going to be in the future, then unfortunately, >> I mean, it sounds like you're doing the right things, identifying those words. >> Thank you. And I will tell you the

070one thing that this has done, it's strengthened our collegial connections between the elementary school and the middle school to bring our teachers together to dive deeply into this work. And I love that because when you're faced with a problem or an issue, you solve it together. And I think that's what's drawing us together on this. >> Good. >> For sure. >> Thank you. >> Do you want to discuss the changes developments before I talk about sixth grade or after? >> Absolutely. >> Yeah. >> Let me talk first and then we'll talk about sixth grade. >> Okay. >> Does that work? >> Y. >> All right. So, some of the changes and developments um across the building. Um number one, I just want to recognize um my assistant principal Jamie Zea. She is outstanding. She's an

071asset to our middle school and she actually works with our staff every 3 weeks on data. So, we have so much data between the New York State assessment data, our I Ready data, our local assessments, um looking at student work and diving deeply into the writing, and we'll get there, um is super important. So, I just wanted to recognize her and her ongoing support with this work as a whole. Um, in addition to doing all the other daily demands of being an assistant principal, Sam, you know that well. Um, it never stops. That to-do list just continues to grow. We check them off and then we continue to grow that list again. So, uh, kudos to all the great work she's done. Kudos to all of our teachers in all the collaborative work that they've

072done in the areas of science, in the areas of math, and in the areas of reading and ELA. Um, so I do want to start off with utilizing science 21. Um, as we mentioned, and something that, um, Jackie actually shared with us in the summertime was a workbook called Measuring Up Science, which we did share with our fifth grade science teachers, and they were like, "Ooh, this looks amazing. It's aligned to the um, ST standards, and it has a lot of the similar aspects of the science exam." Um, so this has helped kind of build those New York State science assessment questions and to help better prepare um, our students. >> Travis, is it online or is it an actual workbook? >> Both. >> So, we gave it to them. >> It's different online than

073it is in a book. So, you have to do both. >> So, we actually gave them the workbook and then they asked for the online version. So, we got both. >> Okay. Thank you. What's the name of it again? >> Measuring up science. >> Thank you. >> Yep. They actually make a fifth grade version and they make an eighth grade version. So, I recently shared the eighth grade book with uh Michelle Dugal and uh we're taking a look at that as well. >> Good. Thank you. >> And again, please understand that um the eighth grade assessment measures the learning of our sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. And that fifth grade assessment is our third, fourth, and fifth graders. Um keeping that in mind, uh math curriculum. Um, as Jackie had shared, um, we're in Eureka

074math year 1. Although our fifth and sixth grade teachers had used Eureka, um, previously a bit, um, we're now in year one for our seventh and eighth grade. Um, the science of reading and explicit um, instruction and writing. Um, Jamie has done a phenomenal job um, working on the actually K12 writing continuum. Um, and I don't know if she wants to share a little bit. I told her I wasn't going to put her on the spot, but she's so educated with regards to this. I'm going to let her talk a little bit about that science um, science of writing um, or writing continuum um, K12. >> Good evening. I'll use the microphone this time. um because I'm so involved in data like I pretty much can spew the numbers off the top of my head

075and that's like it's 142 um that's why I was trying to get the point across that the opt outs was actually a small port proportion to the population but with regard to the writing continuum this was kind of birthed out of science of reading um and what we do is we look at all of the writing across the district um we've done this in several different ways in that we've um prompted and use the same prompt for students K through 12 to see what kind of writing um is brought back. Um and really the purpose is to not only examine teacher practice, but also to really understand student thinking. And at the end of the day, numbers do talk, but why students think a certain way with certain questions or how they answer with certain

076questions is just as important. Um, and part of my data work has been looking at how are students thinking when they are asked a specific question. How do they respond correctly or incorrectly? And let's try to figure out how we support them within the classroom. Um, part of the writing continuum has also birthed um different kinds of um really building to building relationships. Um whereas we are going to fuse some of the IB work that we're doing with from our eighth graders, their community project with some of the 11th graders. Um we are going to look at what DP writing looks like with our eighth graders so they have that kind of vantage point of hey these are the expectations. How do we start to unpack that? Now um it also has bridged some of

077the elementary school success with um writing revolution and bringing that into the building. Um I have also been working with our social studies teachers on what does writing look like in their classrooms as well as the frequency of tasks um and kind of developing again what are they writing, when is it happening um and what are students really thinking as they are asked questions. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Wow. >> Thank you. >> All right. And as um Jackie Lavine shared, um we do have increased ENL support at the middle school. We now have two full-time ENL teachers um which has been a tremendous um help um with regards to our programs. Um we do utilize monthly PD sessions where our teachers are collaborating together. Um, and one thing that's unique about the middle

078school and also similar to the elementary school is our teachers have a common professional period every day that they work together and collaborate. So in addition to um the once a month PD sessions after school, they have daily common um time together and uh one day a week they actually work on their IB curriculum and unit writing and the other days they work on aligning their content area and then of course they talk about students and we have RTI. Um and then they also have parent meetings during that time as well where we invite parents in um to speak with their teachers. Um we have increased spiraling New York State assessment questions. Um some call that test prep, but it's not really test prep because we spiral these questions in all year and then we

079have a little heavier more emphasis on them once we're approaching the assessments in the spring. um literacy curriculum review, looking at the reading that our students are doing and the skills that they bring with those books. Um and then finally, our IBM work. Um being authorized doesn't mean we're ever done with IB. Um they come back in 5 years and we're continuing to grow our units um across the board. and actually grade levels 5 through 8, more of an emphasis on year 1 in grade 6, year 2 in grade 7, year three um in grade 8, but our fifth grade teachers build that foundation through their work with um their approaches to learning skills um as well. So, we appreciate all the support of all of our teachers and that actually helps our building especially

080when we um have to move teachers based on um grade level needs and such. So, I know there were some questions um that the board had before we move on to our high school. >> Um first of all, your the daily time together that's a specific grade or all grade levels together? >> That's a specific grade. So our fifth grade has common professional period daily together. Sixth grade separate daily together. So they're not aligned. Although our fifth and sixth grade um does have a little bit of alignment just based on where in the day they have it. So they could swap their lunch and their professional so that their professional could align and we've actually used that time to meet with our fifth and sixth grade teachers together. >> Okay. Thank you. Y >> um

081and I apologize, Jackie. I should have um mentioned this prior, but I'd like to see trending of data because from what I see year over year sitting here, the sixth grade has consistently outperformed other grades with their scores. And we've talked about before, what's the best practice? What's the special sauce? What are they doing that can be carried to the other grades? And I haven't seen that yet on your results. So, that's what I'm asking. And I know last time we as when you were here the other day or a couple months ago, um Crystal put it much more eloquently than I did. So if you have anything to add to that, but from her, I'm not an educator, so I can't speak to that, but >> sixth grade consistently is outperforming. >> So it's

082a wonderful thing to have um a specific grade level out of many that are performing amazingly. I want to say that because we're talking about like the top top of the top right now, right? Sixth grade is doing something very special according to last year's data. I was going to ask for the same thing just having the wondering of is this a cohort thing or is this a pedagogical thing that's happening? Is it the same pattern? And my understanding is that I believe that it is historically that we constantly see the sixth grade really outperforming and it doesn't mean that the other grades are not performing well. they are the sixth grade is just doing something that's a little bit different um if that's the case with with um historical data for sixth grade. Uh

083the reason why I mentioned that is because there's such a stark difference um in the number of level twos and I'm very interested to see what's the pinpoint there. I'm also interested to see the correlation between the opt- out numbers being lower or the refusals I should say. We never opt out, we refuse. Um there's there must be a correlation there. There's there's something happening. Um even with the percentage uh perhaps being a little bit more similar than the actual numbers from the cohort. Um I I would venture to say that sixth grade probably has the fewest out dots or refusals in the grade in the school. Um so we need to see what's happening there and it's a wonderful opportunity to be able to have other grade levels even just have a discussion about

084what does test sophistication look like? What does the thinking look like? what does the questioning look like to Mr. Lethrop's point earlier um it's important that they be able to have that collaborative discussion and I think that's probably why you were asking the question of are they able to meet all together um just to see and it might not be able to come up in conversation so visiting one another might be a really good opportunity but there's something going on that's amazing in sixth grade and we have to figure out how to replicate it. Um, I would also say that it seems to me after looking through K through uh eight, I'm sorry, three to eight that there's a dip in fifth, they go back up in sixth and then there continues to be that

085dip in seventh and eighth. Um, eighth, we know that the algebra scores uh, you know, are removed from there. So, I think that that's a little bit hard to compare, right? When we're looking at the the numbers. Um, but I would also say later on when we hear about the high school that there's something really amazing happening in eighth grade algebra that we need to figure out because those scores are not the same as the high school scores. And so we have to look at that as well. And so I just think we have some opportunities here to do some inter visitations and to learn from one another. Like Miss Lavine said, um, teachers learn best from each other and there's gold to be uncovered here. So great job with with that those sixth grade

086numbers and the numbers overall. >> Thank you. Yes. And and to your point, um we're actually working on inter visitations. Um we actually have um speaking of algebra 1 teachers, our algebra 1 teachers actually visiting the high school. Wonder >> to see um the model that the high school uses. Actually, not just visiting algebra, but visiting various math classes. Um our seventh grade um math teacher visited a fifth grade math class. Um, so we're we're encouraging that opportunity and subbing for our teachers and a lot of the stuff that you had mentioned with regards to understanding that sixth grade, we are diving into um know that we are um we're investigating it. We're having our teachers collaborate with one another to discuss um best practices across the board um so that we can um continue

087to grow. But we've seen that phenomena for some time now. That change, that transition from elementary to middle is a big change for those students. And we're trying to figure out how to um continue to grow them and to keep and to sustain the positivity and those great results across the board as they transition over. >> Yeah, for sure. >> Absolutely. Thank you. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> Thank you. I was just say just to clarify um so the the slide we have for eighth grade math results that cohort is the algebra cohort at the high school. So that the high school algebra numbers just like the eighth grade math numbers are now are absent of those 50 kids who had already taken the exam. So it's that same cohort minus 50 of your highest achieving

088students who already took the exam. So those students move on to geometry, right? While these current eighth grade students then are the high school algebra students. So I always for anyone who looks at algebra, I encourage them to look at both across both buildings to get a better sense as to how students ultimately performed on that exam. So if we were to take this year's algebra students and next year's algebra students in the high school and add them together, that would give you a true cohort of how our current eighth graders performed on that exam. I'm wondering if there's I I don't know if maybe Miss Lavine has looked at this already, but uh just to disagregate the data between eighth grade and the other students that take the algebra region so that we can

089determine if there is a difference in fact because 100% is an amazing number. Doesn't get better than that. I'm just saying. So, I think we should and if that is the if they are one one number right now, if they're all included in that one number for the high school, that means that that actually brought up the high school number. So I I would >> they're they're not so high school number is is excluding the students who already took it in eighth grade. >> Exactly. >> Right. So it looks >> lower, but if you were to compare in the other 50 kids who scored an 85 the previous year, it would be a much higher level of achievement for that cohort. >> I see. Okay. >> The best way to do would be essentially to

090put a two-year trend in there to show well 50 of the kids took it two years ago. >> Mhm. >> The rest of the kids took it one year ago. And when we combine those two, that tells you how that class did on >> our track. Absolutely. But it also needs to be just said and I I think that you said it um uh beautifully Travis just about that it appears in these charts that level fours go down tremendously in eighth grade. They really don't. Our highest performing students are taking our regions at that level when they're taking that region really a year early. So, um that needs to be celebrated. Awesome. And I have to say, um, having gone to the two middle school concerts this week, the difference between fifth graders, sixth graders,

091seventh graders, and eighth graders is when you watch all four in a row. >> Yeah. Some of it's the teachers, but some of it's the age of the students and what they're going through as learners as emotional wrecks sometimes and and with all the stress. I I also think that we have to recognize that students grow at different levels and sometimes there's a there's a comfort and the real hormones haven't hit until seventh grade. So, sixth grade is kind of like a nice little cushion grade. So, I just want to say and I know you guys are looking at the students all the time in addition to the teachers. So, thank you for that. >> Thank you. And thank you for to the board for your support. We appreciate it. >> Appreciate it. Thank you.

092>> Okay. Um just a word about this item here, the literacy curriculum review for the middle school. Uh just so that the board is aware, NICE has given us a great deal of resources and guidance in how to support our um preK through three literacy with the science of reading, but they have not provided a lot of guidance in secondary. So we are actually working inhouse using the guidance documents that are available and um our own knowledge and expertise and maybe even a little help of AI um to form our own literacy curriculum review documents and resource to look at our middle school literacy curriculum. So that is work we're doing in house. It's not actually something that we have a whole lot of guidance for. Uh we'll be working with someone from Boseies to

093support that as well. Um, but that is something that Jamie and I are working and Travis are all working on together. So anyway, >> so I just want to throw it out there a little back of the envelope math. So if we add in the 50 eighth grade students who took the algebra exam, that brings the proficiency rate up to 82% for eighth grade math in general if we look across both exams. >> So you would essentially be adding 50 students to the tier four >> since they all scored at a 85 or higher or average 85 or higher. >> Thank you, Dr. L. All right, I'm very excited now to welcome Matt Melo from the high school, our high school principal to talk a little bit about our high school data. You're going to

094see some really amazing results from our students. We always have areas to work on. We recognize that. Um, but especially when we get to the latter slides of this particular section of our presentation, I just can't say we couldn't be more proud of the students and the teachers in our schools and what they're able to accomplish. So, let's turn it over to Mr. Melo. All right. How's everyone doing out there? Oh, yeah. >> Uh, yeah, lot lot of questions about inquiry. I know Mr. Lrip talked about like, you know, throughout the district we're looking at inquiry and I get up here and I'm like, like, you know, my question, my my burning question, how do you make a data presentation interesting, exciting, invigorating, and I don't know, I don't know if there's an answer to

095that. >> We only had a slide with a lot of colors. >> Yeah, that's you're that's absolutely right. a lot of color on the sides and that's a home run right there. Um I I want to start off with just congratulating um our our game day cheer team. Uh they are truly truly amazing. I I love the fact that the um shirts that they got this year for winning states are gold because you guys do you have set the gold standard for game day cheer, you know, throughout section one and the state. I mean you are the team that all the other teams uh click it right. Clock it. Clock it. Clock it. Um yeah, okay. I'm just not that cool. Um but anyway, uh yeah, it it's a gold standard. They are the gold

096standard of Chile. All the other programs are coming to Putin Valley to see what our program is doing to be successful. So, a lot of hard work, dedication, um and I love the fact that they go to the elementary school and there's all these elementary school kids. I get to see them do this routine and they get all pumped up and excited about it because that's how you sustain programs. So, um, all right, let's get on to the exciting world of data. Um, all right. So, uh, right here, uh, this is what's a little bit more difficult about high school regents data. It's not by like grade. It's not as easy to just kind of put out there, uh, by grade because there are so many different regions exams. Um, so, uh, you know, you

097can see here on the right, um, it kind of gives you what that all that color coding stuff is really all about. Um but I think the the the key to focus on are the passing rates um that you see there. Algebra 80%, English 87, geometry 68, living environment 76, global uh history 93, chemistry 80, earth science 84, and US history 93. Um so uh you know you can sit there and digest it. Hopefully you develop some questions because this is about inquiry. Um I don't want to sit here and go through you know every single one of these. Um take a look at that and you know there's some things that jump out to me. I'm curious to see like what jumps out to you with the region scores. >> The geometry jumps out

098to me. We were just talking about the algebra students >> who are now taking geometry in their first, >> you know. >> Yeah. And I think that's the obvious one that that sits there. Uh I know that we've been uh having discussions. We've been, you know, I think we've been very consistent with geometry throughout the course of the years. >> Um yeah. So it's not like this is a dip, you know, in the last like year or two with geometry. I think this is where we've consistently been. Um, and it's one of those things that we constantly look at and what can we do differently? Um, you know, that we're addressing those scores. Uh, you know, uh, if you look at geometry, uh, for us, I got to find the colorcoded piece up there. >>

099It's yellow, but it >> yellow. Thank you. Yeah. So if you look at at at yellow, look at Boseis um you know throughout the course of uh you know look at throughout throughout all of the the region um it's much lower right um you know but ours is is you know really low so I think it's important to note that and it's one of the things that we had a lot of conversations over the summer um we're making adjustments to what we're doing with um our geometry programs hoping to see what that can do um you know as far as moving forward But that definitely is one that stands out. >> I also see that both social studies >> I said >> uh exams are rocking it. >> Rocking it. >> That's because the principal

100was a former social studies teacher. >> Well, he values this more than anything. >> Yeah. And I I mean throw in there ELA as well. If you look at those three, right? You know, we're talking about humanities type courses. Um I think that, you know, it kind of stands out in that area. Um I wish I had a a magic reason why u but it might be the fact that we do a great job at the lower levels when it comes to reading writing so that when they get to the you know uh regents in you know 10th grade 11th grade that are reading writing heavy both the uh uh history exams and the ELA our students excel in those areas. Um you know I think that might have something to do with it. Um

101you know it's been a focus for a long time in the district. I can feel like 15 16 years ago there was a major focus on like hey what are we doing with writing. So um yeah that's that's a good one to look at and I think we're very consistent when it comes to um the other you know the sciences. So >> um uh Mr. Mccardi had spoken about how they're doing like cross cross teaching with some of you know the other math teachers coming and teaching in other grades. Have you thought about doing that for geometry? Perhaps a different perspective from other teachers. >> So, one of the things that if you talk to math teachers and we've had discussions as a math department about this, uh, you know, geometry is like a rather

102unique kind of math, right? All the other ones when they started throwing letters in there, I got a little bit lost, right? When it's just numbers, it was kind of easy for me to to handle math. U, but then they started throwing letters and then there's symbols and stuff. But geometry is a little bit different than the other maths. Um and I think that's one of the reasons why I think uh it's you know typically um math uh geometry skills are something that students struggle with all along and they don't get a lot of geometry exposure in the younger grades. So those are kind of the conversations that we've had at the high school. Um one of the things you talk we talk about all the time is uh you know we have the IB

103program and you know we constantly ask how do we get more kids to you know be in an IB class and IB class is in 11th and 12th grade. um and you know do they have the skills or are they getting the skills in you know uh 10th grade ninth grade eighth and then if they aren't or if they need to be different skills what do we need to do with those conversations one of the conversations that uh Jackie and I uh have been putting together is with the world languages uh because we noticed that world language in 11th 11th grade IB world language um it's not really replicating the amount of students we have a huge drop off from 10th to 11th grade right and it has a lot to do with um the

104skills that they need in 11th and 12th grade, the confidence that they need in 11th and 12th grade to go on to like an IB Spanish um course. So, what is it we can do going all the way back now to sixth grade to develop different skills that will give them a better opportunity to be successful or the competence to be successful in 11th and 12th grade? >> I think for geometry, sorry, jump in. For geometry, I think a lot of it goes back to what Mr. Melo said in terms of the prerequisite skills. And if you look at our numbers, you'll notice something that's very unique of so that 100% of kids that average an 85 on the algebra regions go on to geometry. And you would expect there to be a huge gap

105between honors where those kids would continue and regions. And for year after year, we don't see a huge gap there. In fact, some years our regions kids have outperformed our honors kids, which would be counterintuitive to what you would think would happen. But when you start mapping back and say, well, how is that possible? How are the regions kids outperforming the honors kids who are supposed to be accelerated? But you realize what those honors kids missed was an entire year of eighth grade math, >> right? Because they took algebra in eighth grade. Whereas the regions kids sat for an entire year of eighth grade math, learned many of the prerequisite skills they needed to then be successful in geometry. Whereas our accelerated students skipped that year, skipped those prerequisites, and then what we find out

106is they struggle in geometry because they don't have the same base knowledge that their peers do when they take it a year later. >> So that so that's I think a big piece of it. And we've had conversations all the way back into the middle school. What what other opportunities do we have to capture those standards? How do we get those kids the sort of some of those prerequisite skills earlier before 8th grade so they're not going into that geometry class in 9th grade with nothing? >> And that's kind of the some of that back mapping work that we're trying to do. >> Good point. >> Yeah, I think now that we know we have a that's a really great point. That is like a really great point and an aha that I I hadn't

107put together. Um but certainly now that we know that we have to figure out where to put those standards back in. And I would just say this actually, you have a really great point about going back to elementary. Um, I wouldn't be able to speak to this for our elementary school, but I know that in other elementary schools, geometry has, for a lot of reasons, been put on the back burner as, oh, it's just those shapes. Well, guess what? It's not. And actually, that's probably the math we use most in life. And so um you know I think that the more uh that we understand how important every standard particularly in math really is um that it has this driving force to what they have to do in the high school. And we see that

108with the new um it was new then common core math and now nextgen math that even things as simple as part and whole for a kindergartenner come back in high school classes through number bonds. Right. And so it's just very interesting to see that trajectory and that pattern. And perhaps that's the reason why the store the scores have been stagnant in, you know, in those lower ranges. And and not that I'm suggesting this, but in I've been part of this conversation in other districts where I've worked where we've walked away from eighth grade algebra for that exact reason because when you looked at the trend of data year after year, you were seeing excellent performance on in algebra in eighth grade and then those kids were tanking geometry in nth grade and then they were

109leaving math. I'm out. So whereas the point is to accelerate students to get them to higher levels of math in high school, in their junior and senior year, they found great success in 8th grade, they they got um struggled through geometry in nth grade and then they just didn't continue >> beyond that and which is to totally counter productive for what we're trying to accomplish. So I don't think Putnham Valley has the same data, but obviously we're seeing some of the same struggles for those kids when they get to nth grade. Well, we had that same discussion when we were discussing science. >> Correct. And we we recently held a meeting this year to sort of uh reaffirm that that was the direction we wanted to go. And it involved middle school and high school

110teachers, middle school and high school administrators as well as some district administrators. And we left that meeting with the decision that we're going to continue to offer eighth grade math to all. I'm in eighth grade science to all because the detriment to accelerating some or all in eighth grade >> would become a detriment to those students as they continue through the high school sciences because they would essentially be missing skills that they would need to be successful in the high school. >> Yeah. And that's that's a valid point about you know another way that we are collaborating with the uh with the middle school and you know trying to understand what courses to offer um or how to offer them. uh you know we go through all these discussions like oh you know regents in

111eighth grade and there's like the new you know profile of graduate right coming out or um you know which means you know it says that you don't need to pass all these regions exams to graduate there are other assessment measures that you can use which kind of defeats like some of the things that we're trying to do you know some of the adjustments and the time and effort that we've been putting into you know discussions with eighth grade math science um well kind of you know throws that out the window because it it's a moot point at this point you Yeah. >> And one of the things that you know, Mr. Oliver, you probably know this, but you know, uh, students that are going on to Boseis Technical School in 11th grade need to have

112a certain amount of sciences before they get there. And, you know, if you have eighth grade earth science, it gets them that extra science, uh, you know, instead of having to double up in a science in 10th grade. So, you know, like there was a reason for it, but now if that's going away, you know, why why are we spinning our wheels in that direction? So, um, yeah, I think Mr. record said it before like yeah as soon as you start to get comfortable with what you're doing New York State tells you to do something different >> change it >> but again I think the focus always comes back um the administrators and teachers are looking to do this kind of work the focus still comes back to students and what's best for students to

113help them get to where we want them to be as successful adults so I congratulate you for keeping students at your center >> and a history is what's be best for kids right I mean we all know it's history. Uh this is just another look at this comparison to the lower Hudson region. Um it's not that much different. Uh here's the IB scores at a glance. Uh again, there's multiple IB courses. Uh you can see that it's broken down between uh the higher level and the standard level and the subject group areas. Um and one of the things that I think I am I am incredibly proud of how well we do compared to the rest of the world. Um, you know, think about this. Not every school in New York State is an IB

114school. Actually, very, very few states, uh, schools in New York State are IB schools. Um, a lot of the schools worldwide are private schools, um, exclusive schools, uh, that only take specific types of students, and they're all enrolled in these IB courses. We are competing against all of those when we look at these statistics. And I think we're doing incredibly well. And this is, uh, six years uh, six years into testing for the program. So, um I'm really really proud of where we are. Um and we talk about backward mapping. Um this is where we want to be and we want more students to take advantage. We're this IB for all philosophy. Um we believe all students can challenge themselves in IB courses and whether they score high low doesn't matter. They're going to get

115something out of those courses um you know more than what you're going to get from just a regular regular course that you would take in school. Uh so we're constantly looking at this and how to make IB courses more accessible to more students. Um it's one of our major goals largely because we're doing so well in what we do. It's a testament to the teachers um to the to the to the board for investing in this program. Um and especially to the students as seniors who are pouring a lot of time into these courses as seniors where I know I wasn't as a senior. Matt, I I I know that there's a charge for AP courses. Is there a charge for the higher level >> uh all? Yeah. I So, the difference is like in

116an AP, you're paying for an exam. In IB, you're paying for a course, right? It's a two-year course that you're paying for. So, it's not an exam that you're paying for. IB has multiple assessments. Um, you know, as opposed to AP, there's one assessment at the end in May that determines what your grade is in an AP course. Um there's internal assessments, external assessments, um there's essays, uh there's speaking, there's all these things that go into your IB score. So, you're paying for a course. >> Could this cost be a deterrent to having more kids in there? >> And how can we address that issue? >> So, I'm I'm going to ask that you stay tuned for our upcoming budget presentation. >> Okay. >> Um Yeah, but absolutely. Absolutely. I've had students come and talk

117to me about it. I've had parents talk to me about it. Uh and if if we're really want to be, you know, an IB for all and be equitable, I think, uh, you know, looking at how these tests are paid for, here's something that we need to do. >> There's a huge expense for these families. >> What is the cost, if you don't mind, what is the cost for >> $123 per exam? >> How much? >> $123 per course. IV course. >> For a course? >> Yeah. per year. >> That's exact. >> It's a two-year course, so you're paying $123 >> per the for the for the two years. >> Yeah. And you pay it in your in like hopefully you're paying it in October of your of your senior year. Um we we you

118know, but think about these parents that are facing, you know, parents of seniors. It's, you know, the Ivy course that they're paying for, Duchess Community College courses that they're paying for. Um there's college applications that they're paying for. Um, you know, the tax bill comes in at the same time. They're really saddled with a lot. Um, and then, you know, then the holidays come roll around and, uh, you got to get your favorite principal, you know, something for Christmas, too. So, >> start safe. >> Thank you, Matt. I I was wondering about that because, uh, I I know the potential of our students is very high, but some of them could be driven away from it because of the cost. And that's a concern. >> What? I'm I'm going to wait for the next presentation,

119but that would be an incredible equity issue. >> Yeah. >> That I know our district is probably addressing. So, >> all right. Well, the cat's obviously out of the bag. So, for our budget presentation, for the instructional budget presentation, uh Mr. Bellow, Grace, myself, we already had this conversation. I'll be making the recommendation to the board that the district cover IB exam IB course um costs. and we'll have much more detail and explain why what makes IB different than AP versus DCC. Um the budgeting standpoint in terms of it actually doesn't change my our expense line at all because we already budget for the expense. It's only going to we're going to see a slight decrease in our revenue overall. So we have a plan in place. Um I will be recommending that the board

120cover IB exam IB course um costs for all students moving forward. And it's very similar to we talk a lot about CTE for our students who go to Boseis for CTE. That comes at a significant expense to the district and we don't ever ask those students to to flip the bill to go to that CTE course, right? Um, so why are we now asking others to pay money to participate in a course? And it has to do with course participation, which is different than paying to take an exam or paying for credit. And we'll talk more about that when we come through the budget season because there there is a difference between AP and IB and DCC. Um, and we'll be able to articulate that during the budget. Yeah, >> I I just I think

121it's important that we um have clear um and communicated rationale for whatever um the district is recommending to the board for which uh items to pay for. Uh and the reason for that is because a very large sect of our community um still is very attached to AB AP courses for a lot of reasons. Um, and I just want to make sure that that we have strong rationale in place uh for whatever decisions we're going to be making in the future around AP or IB. >> The quickest reason the quickest reason is students can sit for an AP course and not take the exam and pay nothing. >> Exactly. >> Students cannot sit for an IB course and not pay for it. >> Okay. >> So, we are we are creating a roadblock to the

122learning >> whereas AP would be just a test. it'd be a roadblock for the test >> and not the learning that that occurred throughout the school year. That's the simplest difference between the two. >> Sounds good. >> Can't wait for that presentation, Dr. L. >> And we continue to appreciate our student speaking up about this. >> Yeah. But you know what? I think just a huge huge shout out to the student reps, too, because uh you know, they they they came forward. They they talked to me about these things. Um you know, they they you know, talked to our IB coordinator, Mr. D. Gregorio. I mean the students you know articulated these struggles that families are having at that time and it you know allows us to then sit there and have the conversation right

123um it's all about inquiry right inquiry and reflection that's the IB program and why are we not living that ourselves so um they brought up the questions to us um you know about this and uh it makes us reflect on what we do so I really appreciate that >> and it doesn't help them but it does help the future so they are providing for students going forward which is tremendous >> forward yeah that's All right. Thank you. >> Great job. >> Um, all right. Uh, Ivy Data Trends. Um, yeah. So, one of the things I we keep saying this, um, we have more seniors involved in um, you know, higher level courses. I don't mean IBHL courses, but, um, their senior year, uh, you know, so we have more students taking part in these courses

124senior year than we ever have. I mean, it's it's one of those things that we've noticed bringing in the IB program. Um, and so that's what's really really great about this. We offered AP's, you know, dcc courses, um, in 11th and 12th grade, uh, or 12th grade, you know, prior to having the IB program here. The numbers aren't even close to what they are now with students that are taking IB courses. So, we have a lot more students working a lot harder um, in their senior year. Um, and believe me, we hear it from them on occasion. You know, we hear it from them. You know, they just want to like chill out and be high school, you know, students. Um, but they're working hard and we really appreciate that. Um, for uh, each subject

125there are three or four assessments. For example, Spanish SL includes a 15-minute oral listening and reading assessments. English HL guided textual analysis, comparative essay, 1,200 to 1500 word formal essay, 15minute oral assessment, and then biology. Uh, these are just examples. Scientific investigation, multiple choice short answer and extended response. So, and when we talk about IB courses, there's multiple assessments that are involved in an IB course, not one test on one day. Um, college acceptance, this is kind of like just a snapshot of our college acceptances last year. Um, we send surveys out to students to get the responses. Um, that doesn't mean that they all went to these colleges. Uh, some of them might have had, uh, a couple really difficult decisions to make about the college that they're going to go to. Uh but

126you can see uh that uh our like the college acceptances are really really impressive. Um I think that's our first student internationally St. Andrews Durham. Um I don't know if you know that school but it's a incredibly prestigious uh school in uh in England. So um it's really impressive to see this Duke uh you know our first student ever to go to Duke. Um five students at Cornell right now. um not that graduated last year, but over the course of the last four years, there are five students that are at Cornell. Two of them are in the exclusive Dyson uh economic school. Um so we're really proud of uh you know where our students are going and what they're accomplishing. Um I'd like to say that's all because of me. >> U but no, it's

127not. It's because they work really hard to do what they're doing and so do our teachers. Uh there's some scholarship data uh that's out there. Um this is one of the things that Mr. Dagoro and I have been talking about. Um how do we how do we better capture and uh uh the guidance department, Miss Keller, um we, you know, we've been talking about how do we better capture um you know, all these great things that these kids are getting when they go to to school. So that's one of the projects that we're going to look at. Um uh what u uh IB requires you to do is a program development plan every year. Um so this is one of our program development plans is how do we better capture um this scholarship offers um

128exclusive u uh kind of uh uh scholarships that they get awards that they get and um honors programs that they they get into because we're starting to see more and more students get these opportunities when they go to college. Um which is which is just amazing. Um and you can see there's just kind of like a little snapshot. Um >> these are the ones that were offered to our students. Yeah, and this just a snapshot. It's not all of them. What we're relying on here is students to respond to us, you know, and give us that information. So, our project this year is going to look to see how do we better capture that before they go away. One of the things we don't know in June is um we don't know like the students

129that got diplomas, the IB diploma, and we won't know in June like what other schools have offered them because of that. So, they don't get their scores until July. Um, so we don't know exactly what that is. So we're relying on feedback from the students when they, you know, after the fact. Yeah. And they're kind of moved on, you know, like you know, flying planes and stuff like that. >> Good idea to ask them beforehand. >> Yeah. So we're trying to figure that out, but that's one of our projects this year. >> It's a lot of presidential scholarships. It's very impressive. >> It it is like like um we are we are really really proud of what our students are doing, where they're going, um, and how successful they they are. Um, yeah. As always,

130this is our our Bosei site. I think I showed this last at my opening of schools uh presentation, but it shows you where our Bosey's numbers are. Um, one of the things that we keep stressing to our especially our 10th grade students, it's becoming more and more competitive um to get into the programs at Boseis Technical Center. Um, and sometimes there's a program that they really want to get into and they don't get into that. Um and sometimes it has to do with the you know their grades um you know their academic and behavioral record in high school um could limit the opportunity that they have over at Boseies because it's becoming so competitive. Um so uh we stress that to our students uh because we want to be able to offer that. We want

131every student to be able to pursue the uh high school education that they want. Um, so we have to start with uh making sure they understand um that it is competitive to get uh into the programs that they want to. >> Uh here's a a a listing of all the different programs that our students are involved in. >> I love awesome. >> And then we have our 9 to2 changes and developments. Um we we are beginning the middle years program. Uh we applied for authorization. We're like in the uh process of oh gee uh our our IBY coordinator um is Catshuts. She's done an amazing job of reworking our collaborative periods um this year so that we can have a focus on approaches to teaching and learning um skills as they pertain to IB. um

132really developing that common language that they need, understanding what has to go into um IB unit plans um you know so that we can start to develop these unit plans but it's led to really rich discussions in those collaborative meetings about teaching and learning. I know Mr. Le has been a a part of uh you know a bunch of them as well. um you know and he is able to kind of use that to connect with other buildings, other schools um you know with kind of like seeing what they're doing, what we're doing. So it's it's been really beneficial having reworked our collaborative periods this year. Um largely because of the middleear's program coming in um but we're using it to really have rich rich um uh academic educational discussions um with them. Um like

133I mentioned before, we're doing the backwards planning with world language. We're also doing that with math. We we constantly look at our programs. And we start with, you know, our uh most like exclusive, more difficult programs, more challenging programs, and what do we need to do to have more ch uh children attempt those? You know, like I I've talked to people from all over the country, principles from all over the country. And you know, you hear about schools like in Colorado where kids are doing calculus in 10th grade and you're like, how is that possible that they're doing calculus in 10th grade, but you then have to look at, well, what are they doing in the grades before that that are allowing them to take something like calculus in 10th grade? Um, so, you know,

134you start to have those discussions and they're they're really rich discussions, especially when we talk about backward mapping. Um, and we might what we can do districtwide to provide better opportunities or more opportunities for students when they get to uh their junior senior year in high school. Um, the science of reading training that's going on. Um, writing lab development. We've incorporated our Tigers 101 um that we worked on last year into our writing labs this year. Um, which work on social emotional skills. Uh, you know, uh, um, we've had, uh, uh, what's her name? Stephanie Clark from Circuit Consulting in uh to go over like uh DBT uh dialectic behavior training um with the staff that we can then utilize with the students. Um things like, you know, all right, like let's just shake it

135out a little, shake it out, right? You look around the room, it looks a little lethargic in here. Everybody should stand up and let's just like shake it out a little bit, right? Um but the the science behind that and why that really helps students um refocus, reenter um so that they can now move on with their learning. Um it helps me a lot too. Uh uh let's see, our science team is working on the new regent exams. Um you know, they've changed the the regent exams. Um the uh what what is it the what the investigations that they have to do um and they're preparing to be able to offer those next year. Um they new new science regences are offered this year but our students are going to be taking the um old

136regents not the new regents. Um and that way we can fully understand the implications of the new regences u because there'll be two years of data for them. Um the new uh science regences earth science and uh biology um it's earth science and space earth and space science and biology were given last year in the spring. our students didn't take it. Schools had the option of taking that. Um, and those schools that took it, uh, their scores, uh, were not were not good. Um, so they're like really trying to rethink and understand what was going on. We decided to kind of like hit a pause on that so we look at it. And I really appreciate what our science teachers did and saying like, wait, let's just get an idea of what what's going on

137with this test, bettering our understanding. We'll have two years of data for that test before our students have to take that new test. So um we're happy um and proud of our science teachers for being advocates for their science program. So um and then preparing for financial literacy. I think this is interesting the financial literacy piece because we've been doing this in multitudes of ways for years at Putnham Valley. I mean if you're in an economics class um you're getting this financial literacy right there. But we also have math for personal finance. Uh we have real world finance. We have IB business management. Um you know like when we talk about um you know the the financial literacy piece um and we have a a guidance counselor Mr. Campion that is um if anybody's ever

138uh you know uh been in and around him and he grabs you, you're stuck in like uh you're stuck in a in a you know an economics lecture on on investments u you know that you can't get out of. But if you listen to him, you're probably going to get something really valuable out of that conversation. Um but uh you know and and Mr. Campion's talking with students that come in his office um as well about you know what they can be doing or what they should be doing at their age. Um so financial literacy every time like you know I hear like what are we doing? Um we've been doing a lot of different things for years. Um climate literacy um we have an environmental class this year. Uh but it's something that's kind

139of woven into um all of our subjects at least. I know again the best subject history. Um I taught ninth 10th grade ninth 10th and 11th grade history for years. Um and there was always work in the curriculum on climate. You know whether you're talking about early history or more recent history. Um you were always bringing that piece into uh the coursework. But New York State has new requirements for literacy. Has has the state uh set up the uh curriculum for the climate literacy yet? >> March. I thought it's March. >> March. >> We have to start teaching. >> Does they say a year or just when that comes out? >> Great. Great question. I would love to see what what is contained in that because you know I I question a lot of the

140>> nonsense that floss around that that topic. It's K through. >> What's that? >> It's K through 12. >> Yeah. Well, >> I I I would just like to see what the state is promoting. >> This is a nickel. >> Yeah. I mean, I'll let let Jackie talk a little bit, but we Jackie, you know, kind of strong army to to being part of this New York inspires um consortium at Boseies and, you know, it's all about learning about what all these new changes >> are going to be. You know, like there's going to be like a seal of climate literacy, right? A seal of finance. We're going to give ribbons and bows and stuff to all these graduates, you know, because they've met certain requirements, but we don't know what they are yet. Jackie,

141>> I I don't really have that much more to share because we don't know what they are yet. are still waiting but we are part of this cohort that's meeting at PNW Boseies um kind of quarterly and uh it's really to unpack everything from the portrait of a graduate to these expectations to what is really happening with the multiple measures of assessments as I've mentioned previously I'm on the plan pilot so there's that piece out there too that's informing the PBLA work that's going to be expected of of districts so um more to come I guess but I did strongarm Matt into joining you can understand the the financial literacy that's that's very important and you're right Matt uh you know even while I was here those topics were ongoing you know many of the

142instructors the the climate literacy >> your guess is love to see what they they want to promote >> that's right we'll see we'll see and we'll make sure that it works for Putnham Valley so did you have any any questions >> I think Any questions? >> It's excellent. >> Thank you, Matt. >> All right. Thank you. Have a great night. >> Jackie, just a quick question for you. Um, >> the RCI process, has that been aligned at all of the buildings or all of the buildings using the same form, the same process, the same or similar, I should say? Um >> I would say our MTSS team has been working on align aligning that process. Our MTSS team is led by Leticia and our our assistant principles are key players on that. So they are

143constantly collaborating on that. But it does look a little different in every building just because of the nature of the age groups. So >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you Jackie. >> Just want to thank everyone who presented here this evening. It takes a tremendous amount of leadership and vision and oversight to make all of this possible. So, um, huge kudos to Jackie and all our other colleagues that are here this evening and thank you for all that you do uh to support our buildings, our students, and our families. Thank you. >> Yeah. Thank you all. >> Thank you. Very nice job everybody. >> Excellent. >> Um Okay. >> Okay. So the the next presentation is the first reading of policy 1,120 and policy 1,120 regulations, school district records. Um >> it's only eight

144pages, so I'll read quickly. >> He's kidding. Zip through that. >> You don't have to read that. >> So this is based upon uh we're undergoing our regular uh policy review cycle now. So this was the second we did the zero series already this year. This is the 1000 series. So the changes are really based upon the recommendations from NISBA specific to school district records which is really mostly governed by the freedom of information law. So, we created we accepted many of the revisions that were requested or recommended by NISVA, our policy committee with Sam and Crystal. Uh, myself, Jackie, and Moren met to review and this is the first reading of the updates to that records policy, uh, including naming a records retention officer, a records access officer, and lots of other exciting stuff.

145>> They were new. Those recommendations are new. >> These this is a old policy that includes recommended changes. >> Okay. >> Right. >> Okay. So that's just the first reading and we'll do it at the next meeting. We'll >> Yep. So obviously available on the website for anyone who wants to look at it or through our policy manual. Also available on the website and next meeting it'll be up for a second reading and a board a board adoption. >> Okay. Thank you. All right. Um, students, you have a report for us. >> What is going on in your world? >> I just went to the bathroom. >> The NHS would like to thank PVHS communities for their generosity in providing 300 families with a Thanksgiving meal this holiday. 144 bags of food were collected. The

146toy drive and code drive are still going on. There's currently six boxes of coats filled. The IB dance class and the yearbook club went to see the Rockettes in New York City last week. >> Um the music um department had the gratitude festival and it was well attended and it was a great night. I don't know if anybody saw but there was a lot of great performances. It was really nice. And the sophomores went on a tour of Boseies on the 4th of this month and spotlight awards were on November 25th and a lot of students were recognized for their um accomplishments this school year so far. >> Yeah, thank you. The spotlight awards were are always amazing. They were great. It's really nice to see students recognized for effort and for um focus and

147for cheer being cheerful and being happy. You know, it's you know we oftentimes we we recognize students for their grades but don't always recognize how important attitude is and um the spotlight awards I think did that. So I think it was really nice. Um thank you Uh, okay. Dr. Lu, did they steal your thunder? >> See what we got here. >> So, good evening again. So, I'm going to begin by just acknowledging that we last met before the Thanksgiving recess. So, I hope everyone had a restful, relaxing time during their Thanksgiving break. Right before the Thanksgiving break, I was able to attend the gratitude festival, which is always one of the highlights of the school year. getting together, packed into our music room to see many of our former current students as well as special

148guests like maybe one unnamed board member uh who got up there and sang and played at the piano. So, it's it's always a highlight of the school year and it's amazing to see uh how talented our students, staff, and community are and always humbling for me who possesses about zero artistic talents across any of the disciplines. So, um, I'll work on I taught myself how to play free falling on the guitar before I had a kid. >> Amazing. >> And now I think the kids have destroyed the guitar a long time ago. >> I'll expect you on the agenda next year. >> Thank you. So, I was going to work with Ben and Chris sound like this to give me some private lessons, but >> uh, so our elementary school had an assembly holidays around

149the world. I know Sam and Barbara were able to attend. Our high school held their spotlight awards as they do periodically throughout the school year recognizing students for many things other than just simply academics. We had um an information meeting with the consulting company who did the electrification survey or plan for our school district. So this is a state required plan that we must have. So we paid a company to come in to do route analysis. Um check out our utilities that are available. I know Dave is working on updates in his presentation to cover some of the highlights of what the electrification plan is. This is for electrification of school buses. Um I wanted to clearly state that I think there is about a 0% chance. The state holds true to their timeline. Um

150there's remarkably um unrealistic. Putnham Valley, it would be considered a privileged district in the fact that we actually have the power at the street level that we would need. And despite that fact, we're looking at well over $10 million just to get up and running. And that's after the state promised incentive. So, more information coming on that, but it's really an unrealistic expectation for public schools at this time and maybe forever, but uh certainly I anticipate the timeline for that changing because it is simply um it's not going to happen. Uh we had a lower Hudson Council school superintendent where I'm the president-elect. We held a board meeting uh executive board meeting and we actually have tomorrow is our monthly meeting. Uh there's been a lot of work going on there. have actually been on

151the phone with the commissioner's office, with Niscus, with the governor's office, legislators and assembly people, um, senators, uh, from all over the state working on a variety of issues. So, that's been a new experience for me, uh, being on the executive committee of that and a very eye openening experience doing lots of the stuff that I hate doing like advocacy work. Um, but I'm getting better. I'm learning. So, we've already begun our 26 27 school budget meeting. So, we've met with each of the buildings and most of the departments. I know Grace and I are finalizing those. This is our first step in the process. Everybody sort of lays out their wish list. Then we come up with a bottom dollar amount and then we go back to them and tell them all that they

152can't have what they want. So, they have to start cutting things. Uh but we'll get there. That meeting hasn't happened yet. We had uh actually a couple times this week we had our first negotiations meeting with the PBFT which I think was yesterday that they start mixing together or it was this week and then right before this meeting we had a much larger meeting with district administration and members of the Pton Valley Federation of Teachers Executive Board going through um many of our agenda items for the year and our middle school held their chorus concerts earlier this week. I do want to highlight now we spoke a little bit about the CTE program at Boseis. our 10th graders had the opportunity to visit Boseis earlier this week and 60 students um went over on the

153tour. So 60 of our current 10th grade students went over just to check out CTE, hear from their programs, their counselors, their teachers and some other students and hear a little bit about that program. So certainly seems like a large level of interest of students who wanted to at least go over and check it out. We spoke about our UPK program. So, we're actually our grant I mean our application window is open now for next school year. So, if you have a child who will be four years old on or before December 1st, 2026 and live within the Putham Valley School District boundaries, you are eligible to enter the lottery. The lottery uh we anticipate supporting up to 40 students and the deadline for that submission is December 31st. I know a mailer went home

154to every house in Putnham Valley, not not the school district, but every physical address within Putnham Valley. Should have gotten a postcard just so we're not missing anyone who may have their first child entering preK. And as well as there's a wealth of information available on websites, newsletters. Jackie is mouthing something, but you could just speak in your mic because I can't read lips. >> The newsletter went home. The newsletter went home. >> Yes, the newsletter mail. >> The newsletter, not a postcard, went home. Ours came today. >> Excellent. Yours was great. >> Big old picture of you. >> Did I Okay, that looks I don't even want to see it. And I did want to recognize part of the gratitude festival was uh sort of in memory of Ben Lauder who um unfortunately passed

155away in a tra tragic um incident over the summer. And but the Louder family was there in attendance and actually provided a $2,000 donation to the Pton Valley Music Association. So, I do want to recognize the generosity of them and the unfortunate tragic loss of a former student. Some of the upcoming events, our middle school has their band concerts coming up next week, December 16th and 17th. Our elementary school has their holiday gift shop where all items are free. That'll be at the elementary school from 10:00 a.m. to noon on Saturday, December 13th. Wednesday, December 17th is the holiday potluck uh at the Pont Valley Middle School cafeteria, 6 p.m. Please RSVP so we know that you're coming. And we have a public hearing that's available out in the community right now. This is just

156an update to our district safety plan. We had to add our emergency cardiac care uh including AD part of the plan. So, if you check it on the website, it's on page 21. And that will be voted on by the hopefully approved through resolution by the board on January 8th, just prior to our next scheduled board meeting. And then we have a couple fundraisers that are out there right now and information should have gone home to everyone. Our high school national honor society has their coat, glove, hat, and scarves drive. Uh, Girl Scout Troop 2936 has their giving tree located outside of the Puthton Valley Library for non-p perishable food and basic hygiene hats, gloves, scarfves. You just leave it under the tree to the end of September. I mean, end of December. And our

157PTA has a fundraiser coming up, their pocketbook bingo event, which I know is a huge money maker for them on Friday, January 23rd, Courtland Colonials, when the doors open at 5:30 p.m. >> I I won a pretty sweet Coach bag not too long ago. still haven't found the appropriate use for, but one of these days I'm going to use it. >> That's it. Thank you. >> Yeah. And I'd like to thank the students for, you know, telling us like how much was collected because I think that's really important for the district to hear. So, I really appreciate uh Elelliana sent me an email and then you told us about the food tonight. um our students at all buildings do a tremendous job um of giving back to the community and I think we need to

158recognize it for the hundreds of people that are watching our board meetings but as you know as many ways as we can you know show appreciation for what they're doing for the community. So okay thanks Dr. left. >> Thank you. >> Uh, new business item number one, please. >> Okay. Resolved on the recommendation of the superintendent of schools to appoint Amira Lana to a probationary appointment as a teacher aid effective December 15, 2025 with a probationary period of 52 weeks December 14, 2026 at the elementary school on step one of the CSEA salary schedule. Second >> questions or comments? All in favor? >> Opposed? Abstensions. The resolution passes. >> The next one several are resignations. And just to say before we start, these are really hard to hear sometimes. These people are people that I've

159worked with that that have helped us and supported us for years. So you know we will accept or not their resignation. Um but all of them are will be missed. So I just want to clarify for some they're for different reasons. Obviously we want to celebrate those who are retiring for the purpose of retirement and they'll have uh throughout the school year we'll have the opportunity to celebrate them. Uh we have a cherished teacher in our middle school who's relocating. Uh so she'll be resigning, but um unfortunately for her not to retire. She's got many years left to work. Um but she'll be relocating with her husband and just simply too far to travel. And as well as we actually have a happy resignation. I think the last one on the list is a current

160teaching assistant who is resigning for the purpose of um beginning her student teaching here in Fountain Valley. So good. Um there is a huge chunk of retirees for the purpose of retirement and they'll be deeply missed and I thank them for the many years of service but we also have sort of bookend resignations for other reasons. >> Thank you. >> Crystal number two. >> Okay. resolved on the recommendation of the superintendent of schools to accept the resignation of Putnham Valley Middle School teacher Shannon Perino from the district effective December 25th, 2025 as per document 99-26 attached to the agenda and official minutes of this meeting. >> Second. >> Questions or comments? All in favor? >> I opposed abstensions. The resolution passes number three, please. Resolved in the recommendation of the superintendent of schools to accept

161the resignation of Putnham Valley Elementary School custodian Carl Deniscoco from the district for the purpose of retirement effective the close of business on February 27th, 2026 as per document number 100-26 attached to the agenda and official minutes of this meeting. >> Second >> questions or comments? I'm not sure the elementary school will be able without Carl. >> Carl, >> how long has he been at the elementary school? since I was there. Way back when. Yeah. I mean, a long time. >> Jeremy, was he there? Did it say the next thing? Some of them said how long they were there. >> Yeah. >> I was looking at Liz for hand signals, but I'm not sure. >> 26ish years. >> Yeah. >> 30. >> Not 30 years. >> Got to be pretty close. Yeah. >> Institution. >>

162All in favor? >> Opposed? Abstensions. The resolution passes. Number four, please. resolved on the recommendation of the superintendent of schools to accept the resignation of senior office assistant assistant Katherine Flecia from the district for the purpose of retirement effected a close of business on July 19th 2026 as for document number 101-26 attached to the agenda and official minutes of this meeting >> second >> questions or comments all in favor >> I opposed extensions resolution passes number five please >> resolved on a recommendation of the superintendent of schools to accept the resignation of custodian Brian Gibbons Jr. from the district for the purpose of retirement effective September 1st, 2026 as per document 1026 attached to the agenda and official minutes of this meeting. >> Second >> questions or comments? >> He has been here for 24

163years. >> All in favor? >> I opposed abstensions. The resolution passes. Number five, please. resolved on the recommendation of the superintendent of schools to accept the resignation of teaching assistant Elizabeth Melo from the district for the purpose of retirement effective the close of business on June 30th 2026 as per document 103-26 attached to the agenda and official minutes of this meeting >> second >> questions or comments all in favor >> opposed abstensions the resolution passes number six please >> seven7 Wait. >> Resolved on the recommendation of the superintendent of schools to accept the recommendation of senior office assistant Gail Orifice from the district for the purpose of retirement effective the close of business on June 30th, 2026 as per document number 105/26 attached to the agenda and official meetings of this meeting. >> Second. >>

164Questions or comments? >> All in favor? >> Another one we're going to miss. Yeah. I I >> opposed. Abstensions. Resolution passes. Number eight, resolved on the recommendation of the superintendent of schools to accept the resignation of teaching assistant Maria Bellanick from the district for the purpose of retirement effected the close of business on June 30th, 2026 as for document number 106-26 attached to the agenda and official minutes of this meeting. >> Second. >> Questions or comments? All in favor? >> I oppose extensions. The resolution passes. >> Nine, please. >> Resolved on the recommendation of the superintendent of schools to accept the resignation of theater manager Susan Cummings from the district for the purpose of retirement effectively close of business on June 30th, 2026 as per document 107 26 attached to the agenda and official minutes

165of this meeting. >> Second. That's going to be tough. >> Questions or comments? >> Going to be tough shoes to fill. I mean that that is a position that I It just baffles me who we can get to replace Miss Cummings. Um >> well, we'll see. >> Like likely we will not be able to. >> What's that? >> Said likely we will not. >> That's just the reality of it. So we're going to have to figure out how to best fulfill the responsibilities in which she's fulfilled for many years. >> Uh all in favor? >> Opposed? Abstensions. The resolution passes. Number 10, please. resolved on the recommendation of the superintendent of schools to accept the resignation of teaching assistant Joanne Papard from the district for the purpose of retirement effective the close of business on

166June 30th, 2026 as per document number 108/26 attached to the agenda and official minutes of this meeting. >> Second >> questions or comments? >> Yeah, that's another individual that will be very difficult to replace. I I'm sure Mr. Odell is crying and so is Dr. Mera. Uh all in favor I >> opposed abstensions. The resolution passes. Number 11, please. >> Resolved on the recommendation of the superintendent of schools to accept the resignation of teacher aid Maline Degan from the district effective close of business on January 23rd, 2026 as per document number 111/26 attached to the agenda and official meeting minutes of this meeting. >> Second. >> Questions or comments? >> All in favor? >> I. >> Opposed? Extensions. The resolution passes. >> Number 12. >> Result on the recommendation of the superintendent of schools to

167adopt the 2026-27 school year budget calendar timeline as per document number 98-26 attached to the agenda and official minutes of this meeting. >> Second. >> Questions or comments? Um, will this be on the website? >> Yes. >> So, thank you. >> It's part of the budget page on the website. >> Okay. All in favor? >> Opposed? Abstensions. The resolution passes. Number 13, please. >> Resol resolved on the recommendation of the superintendent of schools to approve the first reading of revisions to policy 10120 and policy 10120 regulations as per document 11426 attached to the agenda and official minutes of this meeting. >> Second. Questions or comments? >> All in favor? I >> I opposed abstensions. The resolution passes. Okay. Um I'd like to open it up for public comment on any topic. >> Barbara, were you

168going to read anything? >> Let's wait and see. Hi, I'm Rebecca Mckne, longtime resident of the uh the district and a mother of a ninth grader and a fifth grader. So, if you'll recall, some concerned parents and and I were here at the October meeting asking for you to look into an incident that was very concerning. Um, and after that meeting, you you did look into it. Um, I'm talking about um a child that is exhibiting a pattern of continuous unprovoked violent behavior. >> I'm sorry to interrupt. I just and I'm sure there's going to be others. You guys, you can't speak about other people's children. Speak about your children and and their experience. That's totally fine. But I'm just going to ask everyone to refrain from just like nobody here would want someone to

169go up and speak about their child. >> Of course, >> just I know we're not using names, but I don't want to be able to sort of even connect dots. So, >> understood. Absolutely. >> So, after that, you you did address it and I'm thankful for that. Um, but fast forward a few weeks and the issue is is is back again. So, I just would ask that something be done because on the very first day back at school there there was an issue. Um, my child hasn't had an issue yet, but five members of our Cub Scout pack have have had issues. And every time I see the middle school phone number come up on my phone, my heart is in my throat because I wonder if today is the day that my child has

170a runin. I'm not an administrator. I'm not a teacher. I'm a CPA. So, I don't pretend to understand all the rules and regulations that you have to follow. I understand that. And if nothing can be done to to get the child the help that they need, then I would at least ask that there's a monitor assigned to to shadow and prevent any future opportunities for violence because the teachers can't do it. They they have classes of, you know, 20, 30 students. I understand that. But the kids need to be safe and I'm very concerned that it's only a matter of time before something serious happens again. >> That's it. >> Thank you for your input. >> Thank you. >> So, like all matters, just like last matter, I can assure you that it's being addressed

171as it always is and there's always something we can do and we always do everything within our power to do it. So, um, we handle every situation with a great deal of care and, um, urgency and the incident you speak of is no different than any others. So, it it's being handled just like all situations are handled as they emerge. So, that's really, I guess, the only promise I can make um to the parents that are here this evening. Thank you. Good evening everyone. Uh many of you are familiar with me. My name is Assad Bayunas. I'm a parent of two high schoolers now. One um soon to be Sunni graduate who is also a class of 2023 graduate here um and a middle schooler in fifth grade. And um I come before you today

172not as uh not not only as a as a concerned parent of a fifth grader and these two high schoolers, but also as a federal administrative judge whose job includes evaluating and assessing psychological records and mental health issues pertaining to adults as well as children. I draw upon my experiences as a juvenile court prosecutor in Florida where I served as a division chief handling not only cases involving uh uh violent juvenile crimes but also involving uh issues of psychological and mental health related to issues pertaining to children in ju in the juvenile delinquency system in South Florida which is obviously a very different environment than here. I have specialized training in the DSM, the manual put out by the psych psychiatric community and a in a wide variety of issues that come up in child

173disability cases as well as um issues relating to behavior, depression, anger management, and so forth. Finally, I come to you today also as a concerned Cubmaster of Putham Valley's Cub Scout Pack 53. I'm here tonight in support of a few of our Cub Scout families. So far, as you heard, um thank you Mrs. McKnney um that five of my cub scouts currently in the fifth grade have been um victimized by a very specific child. And I'm not going to go into the details of that or or addressing the child itself. Now, you should know that I don't know this child. I don't know his family. So, I don't know the situation going on there, but I do know the families of my Cub Scouts. My concern tonight before you has not simply to do with

174my Cub Scouts and their families that feel that they are in danger every day that they walk into the halls of our middle school sitting only a few desks away from this child or being in the same classes where this child has an opportunity to do something which none of our parents would ever wish to think of. But my concern also extends to the well-being of this troubled child. Now again, I don't know the specific circumstances that this child faces, and I don't think anybody here necessarily does either. And I'm certainly no expert. My training as a judge, my training as a former juvenile prosecutor, and my experience in both of these areas raise a um and has taught me that these types of behaviors do not exist in a vacuum, and there's a lot

175of other issues that may exist. And there's a lot more beneath the surface that we're not privy to. Now my question to the school board since a lot of what the school can do is limited by the parents and the families willing to cooperate and whether they are willing or not is not something I'll get into. But it's the kind of thing that the school only has a limited amount of action they can take. So the question I have is what else can the school district, the school board, the school administrators do to provide or assist and this child to get the services that it that the child and the family needs? What is the next step? Do we reach out to government resources such as social services or CPS or law enforcement or family

176court? My suggestion is that there must be some level of action taken by the school beyond simple disciplinary actions which have not resulted in any significant change in behavior including um uh that there must be some election that um that has to be taken in order to protect our children. Now, just as significant, I know that I'm not certainly in a position to give the school board or parents any kind of legal advice, but as someone who sits in a judicial capacity, it should be noted that at least one family that's been affected in the situation does have the ability and the right to take legal action both against the school and against that family because of the injury suffered by that child. And that child, so you know, set was out of school for

177an entire month. Please don't talk about this. This is about the victim's family, okay? Not not the child in question who who committed this. This child and and they're here tonight. They can speak as well. >> Okay. That child was out of school for a month because of the injuries recovering from that that incident. >> So, I'm going to jump in just for a second. I don't want to interrupt you. I'm so glad that you came out to speak tonight. But I am on the policy committee and in that capacity, I want to remind everyone here tonight of what our policy says about our board meetings. It states in policy 12:30 that the board will not permit in public session discussion involving individual district personnel or students. It does not even talk about having to

178mention a student's name. It is evident that this conversation is about a student and that is against our policy. So, we cannot allow that to happen. If you have a particular experience that you'd like to discuss about your children or your experience with other uh children of people that are here tonight where they give you permission to be able to speak in that capacity about their child, that is different, but we cannot speak about another child where that child's parents has not have not given that permission. So, I'd ask you to just abide by that policy. >> All right. And just to make it clear, I've been actually asked as the cubmaster to come in and speak in support of these families by these families in particular, which is why I'm not I'm not addressing

179anything specific to that child because I have no contact with their family. But I've been asked by the families of at least two well two of the specific families to talk about this. Now I'll move on to the next issue I was going to raise into in terms of this and this is more of a general issue as I understand that there have been several DASA complaints in relation to this incident and I obviously won't go into the details of that but the thing that gave me a lot of pause was that the families informed me that they were either told or given the impression that they should withdraw those complaints and if they didn't that they would simply be found unfounded. Now, that notion is extremely troubling. If the school district doesn't do its

180job in protecting the children to the to the point that the parents have to file complaints with the New York State Department of Education, the thought that the school district would respond by saying it'll probably be unfounded, is a major problem. Now, I'm not suggesting that that's what the end result will be, and I sincerely hope it's not. But when a parent tells me this, my first thought as a as a as a judge, as a former lawyer, as a parent, the hairs raise up on my neck. That wait, that can't be the case. And when an incident like this happens, the parents are left unsatisfied. And you have to take those complaints and those situations seriously and you have to investigate them and deal with them impartially and sincerely. Coming to it with the

181perspective of well it'll be unfound we'll make sure it's unfounded or something to that extent makes the parents feel makes the families feel these specific families feel like the decisions already been made and this isn't going to be resolved in a manner that's going to bring them any comfort. However, considering the lack of satisfaction that these victimized families are experiencing, it would not also surprise me if one of them did take legal action. And I'm sure that's something the school board would like to avoid. I urge the school and the administrators of the school to take the situation seriously to act on DASA complaints generally sincerely and to find a way whether it is through social services CPS the courts whatever to deal with this situation in a manner that helps provide them with services

182and helps bring some comfort and services to the families as well. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> So just to clarify a couple points there. Um, you have my absolute assurance that all DASA claims are taken seriously, investigated, documented, reported. Um, I've never heard administrator once discouraged. In fact, I've only heard administrators encourage parents to fill out DASA forms because it actually gives them a little more um, strength in their investigation and what they're able to accomplish. So, um, if anyone is ever discouraged from following from filing a DASA claim by one of my administrators, I would ask that you reach out to me directly and immediately because that is not something that we would stand for and that should ever be expected here. Second of all, the answer to your earlier question regarding services

183is absolutely yes. We work extremely closely with all Putin County services and if even students who live in Westchester County with Westchester County service providers, we match up families with counseling. In fact, we offer out of district counseling right here in our buildings. So rather than asking families to travel to Carmel to receive free counseling service. We actually have a county counseling service right here within our buildings, we open our buildings. We give them space to save Puth Valley students the time and families from traveling there. So we do all of those things. We match up our families with whatever any supports that exist, whether it be free supports or whether it be uh insurance provided supports that are available for them. So the yes we absolutely take all dosetic flames seriously and we investigate

184them and document them and report them and services. Our clinicians are excellent and we have people dedicated whose whose job it is to ensure that families not only receive the services that are available to them during the school day but that we match them up with appropriate services for them outside the school day. And I'll go back to my previous statement. We're aware of the incident. It's being handled um with the utmost care and urgency um as we can. The other point is yes, while we greatly rely on families to cooperate that that's not the beall end all, right? We have mechanisms and we have things that we can do with or without um parent buyin if the child is presenting certain behaviors within a school and that's something that we have certainly done in

185many times in the past. So while we always look to partner with families and we want to find a solution that works for everyone, it's not a family doesn't have the option to just simply say no and leave us helpless. That's not not the case. And we do have other legal ways in which we can accomplish what we need to do for that student and for the students in the school. So I think I addressed all of yours. Thank you. Good evening anyone? everyone. Um, name's Joe Ferraro and I wanted recently uh, Governor Hokll signed into law a new uh, tax reduction act that allowed uh, municipalities and I'm assuming school boards uh, the same ability to reduce um, the to to increase exemption from uh, what is currently 50% of the assessed value of

186their home if they f fit into um particular uh financial circumstances. And the new um law that was passed allows us to go from 50 to 65%. Um, so what I wanted to I I've not been able to find anywhere the timeline for when uh towns, counties, and school boards are able to then elect to allow those uh increases because I know we went from 35 to 45. It was a staggered amount. Then finally got to the max of 50 uh while I was still on on the board. I wonder what the plan may or may not be for getting up to 65 uh%. But then I would really like to know what the tax dollar shift would be based on the current uh exemption rate. So we we already know how many people are

187filing for those exemptions uh that specific senior exemption. um what the addition of going up another five or 10 or 15% what that shift would be for everyone else cuz that's important for I mean as much as a town or a county might want to be able to do what's been allowed by um and it would be unpopular to not go up to the max um but at the same time what that means for everybody else if you do that so that's one thing on a lighter note I think the Susie Cummings and Joe Mard leaving the same time I call shenanigans and conspiracy theories on that because that's really a big deal for the arts uh area. Um so I want to leave on a lighter note for that. >> Thanks Joe. >> Thank

188you Joe. >> I was going to try to do that math real fast for the exemption. No idea. >> Okay. Uh okay. um presentations for upcoming meetings. >> So, our next meeting is scheduled in next year. So, our next meeting will be January 8th, 2026, and we'll be doing our multi-year financial planning presentation. So, that'll be facilitated by Dr. Chan. And then the meeting after that, January 22nd, will be our budget/opening of schools presentation. If you remember, we combined those two for athletics and technology. So, those are our two January meetings upcoming. >> Okay, sounds like a plan. Uh, board member comments. >> I have uh just two things. I I want to echo what you said, Barbara, about the spotlight awards. I I actually met three parents over the past weekend at various town

189events that were being held here and they were so prideful over the fact that their child had received this recognition. And one parent, very poignant, poignant poignantly said, "You know, Sam, my child had never been recognized for anything." and it just made her day and wowed her and and that really moved me and I love the idea of the spotlight. Uh and I I hope that tradition continues. The other thing is I don't know how many of you are aware that we have a PTSA, a parent teacher student association representing the high school. Dr. Chan and myself uh attended uh their first meeting of the year and um they they are a lot of people think they're defunct. They're not they're still here, but they certainly could use membership in that organization. And uh I

190would love to see uh the amount of people who sign up for it continue to do so. They are on uh our our web page I believe PTSA and um they're affiliated with the national PTA movement, but they're a separate entity. You have the PTA for the middle and the elementary and the parent teacher student association for the high school and uh both organizations PTA PTSA uh are there to service the students to provide activities and um you know various events. I I think it's worthy, but I was shocked to see that um the membership is is nowhere near what the PTA membership is. And uh I know that as students get older, parents kind of back off a little bit. Kids are going to take care of themselves, but the PTSA is an important

191component. >> There's also a lot of scholarships that PTSA offers, or a couple, I should say, not a lot, but a few. Um but and you have to be a member of the PTSA to be eligible to be on to receive a scholarship or to >> That's right. That's correct. So that is correct. Yeah. >> And you did you get the notice about the meeting >> from >> I I received it from Moren. Moren posted it. Yeah. >> Okay. >> So >> I I wasn't aware the day of >> I'll be honest. I I thought I thought they they no longer existed. I remember when Ray Cooper, the very first principal at the high school, formulated it and he wanted a PTSA because he wanted the students involved. He said, "At this level, the students

192should have a voice in, you know, what's what's going on." And um over time, uh the the importance of this organization, I think, um well, the involvement just wasn't there and they're trying to bring it back. uh the president and uh some of the other individual officers of the uh organization that were there that evening when Dr. Chen and I met with them. Uh but it's it's a worthy organization. I'd love to see the membership increased. >> Okay. >> It'd be great to get information about the meeting prior to the meeting. >> Yeah. It' be great to get information about the meeting at PTA and PTSA prior to those meetings. >> Yeah, I know they need to send that out, but Moren did. to work with them. >> Yeah. >> To to make sure that

193we get it. Good. That's great. >> Great. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mory. >> Good. >> That's all. >> Um, it would also be nice if they sent, >> you know, the board, you know, an in even an invitation to join. Like I never saw I mean at the elementary school I was there for several things and there were people there signing up, >> but I never saw anything from the high school. So I I just didn't know about it. So, but that'd be good. >> Okay. Anything else? >> Um, go ahead. >> I just have something short. As a mom and a nurse who spends so much time advocating for her patients, I just want to say that you are advocating for your child and I think it's wonderful and that people should continue

194to advocate for their children. Um, as a school board member, I do trust the process and there are a lot of things behind closed doors that even ourselves aren't privy to. Um, but the district in my view, what I've seen does take things seriously and um, I just want to encourage people to continue to advocate for their children. >> Thank you. >> Say thank you for your words. >> Yeah. >> Um, two pieces. I just want to um comment on the reason why I I felt the need to read the policy. Our job is to protect all children and all staff members. Um and we have these rules in place to make sure that the privacy of any child or staff member is never violated. We would never let that happen to your child and

195we would never let it happen to anyone else's. And so I just want to make that clear. It's not that we're not listening or or wanting to hear from you. it's that we have an obligation um and myself I have an obligation sitting on the policy committee to make sure that our policy which is our law is properly enforced. Um so I just wanted to make that clear. On a lighter note um I am very excited about this Tuesday's concert because uh uh Miss Joselyn Krauss has invited the community to play Jingle Bells with all of the students. And so we have a group of like eight people that are going to be playing Jingle Bells with the students and I'm so excited about it. >> I'm getting added to that. Somebody is giving me

196a stick of bells. >> That is wonderful. And Dr. Loft, I did volunteer you to play triangle at some point or jingle bells alongside Daniel Hernandez. >> Can I at least do the cowbell? You know, a little more cowbell. That's more my speed. Well, at the at the seventh and eighth grade concert, >> concert, >> they did a pentatonic uh >> song and and they were doing >> sound effects on their laps and clap >> touching the people. It's like, oh my gosh, it was just absolutely amazing. It was really good. >> Our music program amazing concerts. Concert season is always fun. >> Okay. >> All right. Um, >> I'm gonna say thank you again to all of you for listening to us. >> Just Yeah, just Mr. Rafie, come up to the mic. >>

197Otherwise, people can't hear. >> People at home just hear our voice. It sounds like the wizard. >> Yes. >> I just wanted to say thank you um to all of you for your support. And as some of the parents that were here and already left and others that wanted to come and couldn't make it, um we're just concerned because more and more incidents have been happening after what happened originally and I already informed the parent and she will contact you about that DASA comment because it did happen. Um, but we're just concerned and like she said, we're just worried when we get that phone call, is it going to happen again because more and more students are being affected. So, we just wanted to to bring it to your attention again. >> Thank you. >>

198Okay, we don't meet again until next year. Oh my gosh. >> Next year, happy holiday. >> Hope everybody has a safe um December and profitable new year. >> Yes. Happy new year everybody. Um motion to adjurnn. >> So move >> second. Questions or comments? All in favor? >> I >> Good night. Merry Christmas. Happy holidays everyone. Solomon.