001Ready? We just go right into it. >> Good. >> Okay. Thank you again everyone. We greatly appreciate it. Need a motion to approve the minutes of the regular board of education meeting of 9:3025. John Anthony. All those in favor? >> Okay. Okay. Dr. Farley. >> Okay. Just a very quick thank you to everyone involved in all of tonight's celebration. Today we acknowledged uh all of our faculty members who were who received tenure, right? We did that earlier this evening. And then tonight we recognized our board of education. So again, a huge thank you to our board of education for all of their time, their efforts, and their dedication to our school district. Um tonight we have one report. We have Mr. Payne who will be providing us with an overview of our students accelerated in
002learning, our sale program. So I'm going to turn it over to Mr. pain. >> Yes, >> it's right there. [Laughter] All right. So, very quickly tonight, I want to talk a little >> Mr. Payne, I'm gonna ask you to turn on your mic. >> Um, so we're talking about the sale program. I'm off to a great start. By the way, let me say this. Uh, of course, thank you to the board and my gift to you is speaking tonight, so you'll >> I'm off to a great start. Uh, before I do start though, I want to recognize Miss Ross, uh, Miss Daneiro, and Miss Ezeriti in the back. >> Yes. uh who are three of are three of our four gifted teachers and you're going to see tonight as I speak. Um they certainly deserve
003that applause because we're developing this as we go and they are working unbelievably hard on curriculum on getting the kids um instruction and working on projects and competitions. So we're going to talk a little bit about that tonight, but they are doing all the hard work in the back. So I do thank them for what they're doing and for being here. Um so what happens? So essentially in the elementary level K5 we have um several requirements that really branch out into 68 and even sometimes into 912 but for many of you on the board and in the audience you've heard of AIS where we have to give students um academic intervention services outside of the curriculum. So what we have on the elementary level and in the junior high school level as well is we
004have a separate period where students who need um specific interventions almost entirely but not exclusively in English and math get specific uh targeted individual or small group instruction. Um and then the other students do different um things dependent upon uh what the curriculum calls for or what they may be uh what level they may be at. So this period that we have for each grade level is shared and each of the different groups of kids are split up based on what they need. It's really individual time for them to get um the services that they need. It's really broken up into what we call tier one, tier two, and tier three. That's uh MTSS or multiple tiers of um systematic service or student services. And what we do is we essentially start lowest and we
005go with tier one. These are students that just need a little intervention. Tier two and three is where they need sort of greater interventions. Um and then this year for the very first time, we have our sale program that fits outside of all that. So students that don't need tier one, tier two, tier three are in our sale program or what we're calling uh you've heard us say the gifted program. And I do want to just uh turn to the website. If you look up on the board there, this is uh on the website for all parents, but if you go under district and curriculum, and if you ignore the picture that comes up, there we go. um this is the criteria by which all of the schools in our district, all of the elementary
006schools are being selected for either tier one, tier two, tier three or sale. So for the very first time, and and I'm very proud of this with the principles, with all the teachers, um Miss Buchmi's here. She's been tremendous working with several of our colleagues coming up with this criteria. We have a district-wide criteria for each of those um different tiers of service. And then uh of course the sale program fits outside of that. What happens during this period and and it's um for each of these groups of students, they're placed in that category for the entire trimester. There are exceptions to the rule and we meet monthly to decide if kids should be moved, but basically the entire district, all of the students are placed in that intervention u block for that particular trimester.
007Um and then they have the ability to work hard and maybe uh reach a different tier or get the individual services they need and perform, you know, on these different criteria so they can place um where they belong. Um so what are we looking at during uh this block for the sale kids? If you have the document in front of you or if those of you are looking at it, we have uh in the four schools about 50 kids per grade or about 200 probably 200 and some odd kids for the entire district. So about 15% of the kids in the K5 world are in the sale program. Um right now if you have the document in front of you as we're building this curriculum you can see we're working on what we call units
008and the units are roughly aligned by month. So we're looking to do things that are outside of the normal curriculum because remember the kids that are getting services um in tier 1, tier 2 and tier three. We don't want them to miss any curriculum. So all of the students in sale are not getting the regular curriculum. They're getting enrichment. Um we're doing things like map skills, innovation and design, some scientific experimentation, space exploration, Arctic exploration. And if you have the uh chart in front of you, you can kind of take a look at this grid um that talks about the units as we go through. And one of the exciting things that we're working on with the teachers is that all of these units are either going to be project based or competition based. So
009there aren't any grades, but the students are going to either compete amongst themselves. We're going to have some competitions inter school um and then with the different buildings um or they're going to compete even on a national or state level via the the web or even other competitions um or they're going to develop their own projects. So instead of having a grade, they're going to actually create their own projects or compete on the different um the different competitions that we have and that's going to be sort of the assessment of how we're doing. Um finally, the big piece here um is where do we go for the future? So after we start this program, we're looking to build into the 68 world and of course the 912. So the goal of this particular program as
010we go through is to kind of build each year and maybe next year with the board's permission and Dr. Farley build into the sixth grade, the seventh grade, the eighth grade and so on. So that's a short synopsis of the sale program. Be happy to answer questions if anyone has them. >> Question on the the the will occur during the day like when? So each grade has um what we used to call a flex period. Um and so dependent upon the building you're in. Second grade is all period let's say two. I'm just going to make that up. And they all get that for that particular grade. They all get at the same period. >> And that's when AIS services occur. >> And then other students would be going to tier one, tier two or
011tier three during that same coexist. >> That's why they can't coexist. Correct. >> Okay. And then for those so anybody not in AIS will be have access to the sale program. So, it's a it's a little trickier than that, but if you look at the criteria to be in the sale program, you have to fit specific criteria. There's some teacher recommendation. There's also RR ready universal diagnostic exam. There's the state assessments. There's um some other class-based um assessments that we are going to be doing. So, it was sort of a multi-tered approach to getting into the sale program. Okay. >> So, so a a class uh kids will leave at a certain period to go to AIS. Some will then transfer to do the sale program through different. >> So, so for that particular period,
012all of the kids will be going to tier one, tier two, tier three interventions or the sale program. >> Okay. Or staying in one room. >> Those who are not >> they're all going to one of those four areas no matter what. Yes. Okay. So, like I said, and and I know I went over this very quickly, MTSS, um, tier one is the very lowest. Again, you're looking to build skills in ELA and math and maybe some of the the sciences, the social sciences. Um, tier two gets a little more specific. It's for students that need definitely targeted help usually in ELA and math. And tier three is generally the step maybe before a student is classified. Um, so that's high level small groupoup intervention mostly in ELA and math. Um and that data on
013each of those step is used to determine whether they're going to be going to the next step or moving down in a step. Um it's crucial and this is a big piece for our district and and we've been doing this but we're doing it very well this year for students to be classified. You really want to have a lot of data because just classifying a student without having that really isn't doing anyone a service. So now with this program, not just the sale program, but the entire intervention program, any student that's going to be classified should really have moved through our system. And each step of the way, they should have had specific data that said, "Look, we tried this intervention, it didn't work. We tried this intervention, it didn't work. Now, let's move to
014the next level where students might need a little more specific intervention before they get classified." >> I guess the goal is not to have to have them go through each level of AIS. It would be to one and leave that one. The goal for all of them, with the exception of the sale teachers in the back of the room, is to make ourselves obsolete, right? You want every student to be classifying out. In a perfect world, we want all of our students in the sale program, and it would be a great enrichment program for everyone. How >> how does I know I'm throwing this at you, but when we when we look at the group of kids that go to the AIS program, what's the trend? Do more move to a next level? Do most
015>> shift out or >> It's a good It's a good question. It really depends on a lot of factors. So, some of it is sometimes behavioral, right? How much work the student is willing to put in as they're working with the teachers. Um, some of it is just, you know, they're they're struggling with math. We get them through math, but they still have to go for English, right? So, sometimes it's really a multi-ubject approach. So, it's a three-dimensional approach where we might just focus on math for the first trimester. Student does well, then we can focus on English. So, it really depends on the needs and then their ability to work and then respond to the intervention. So, I'd love to tell you that every kid moves out of the interventions, but sometimes they just
016get different interventions that help them with other things. These interventions are not going to help them with everything. We usually target one or two specific skills or needs. There's probably some students have five or six different needs. So, they're going to have to continue to go to intervention, but for something different, which is good for them because then they can meet success in some of those other areas and then work on something else. >> So, there's no trend you can track with. I mean, I know every group of students is different, but is there a way to see >> is level one as effective as level two as as is level three? >> No, I think I think the exciting piece, Mr. Phillow, is that what we may want to start tracking is the number
017of kids then that don't need any interventions, which then, you know, conversely might be our sale program. That might be the this might be the first time we can gather that data, >> right? >> Okay. So, >> sure. >> So, going back to So, it's a good question and and the teachers in the back of the room, we we've said we're going to start reaching out to other schools, but here's the thing that's a little different for us. Um, if you think of your traditional gifted program, I know this came up several times last year as we were kind of exploring this program. The traditional New York State definition of gifted is usually a particular, you know, used to be IQ score. some standardized test score and it's generally a very low percentage um 5%
018you know four 6% we're looking at about 15 16% of our kids in sale. So for us to match up you know correctly with another district we want to find someone who's doing the same thing. The other thing that we're we are still building this and that's why the teachers are working so hard. We're kind of proud of kind of putting together like almost a West Babylon touch on this. Um and as Dr. fairly knows because we've been spending a lot lot of time talking about this. New York State is developing this portrait of a graduate and developing and building some of those skills in is new for all schools. So, we are definitely reaching out to other schools, but their programs may be slightly different than ours. >> Both. Yeah. So, um, you know,
019I'm not going to put them on the spot, Miss Ross, um, you know, Miss Daneera, um, Miss Ezer, but, um, there are some national competitions online that we're looking at that kids can compete, you know, obviously on the web, um, which will allow us greater access to a tremendous number of kids in competition without really interfering with school time. And then we have some nice fun things where we're going to compete by school and by grade and things like that, too. It'll be fun. Um, we figured and and we spent a lot of time talking. We're hoping, you know, getting away from that grading piece, but still having some form of assessment is really going to be important for this program. >> Is it called sale in other districts as well? >> No. No. >>
020That's we came up with that. >> We did. We uh we stole that acronym years ago. Correct. >> Christopher Cross. >> Uh yeah. Yeah. Right. Sailing away is what we used to call it. Um but we wanted to get away. >> Yeah. We wanted to get away from the concept of gifted um and make it more of an enrichment case. Yeah. So yeah, someone may be doing it in which case we'll claim copyright someday. We'll steal it. We'll steal it back. >> In terms of the data collection, so are you mostly using the Cadians I Ready as the diagnostic or have you kind of looked at the multi-tered system supports and looking at data differently through the programs? Do you think you're kind of sold looking for a permanent product? What is >> eventually um
021MO, we'd love to find the perfect test, but we're using a combination of different things. I mean there's no perfect formula and one of the things we're seeing with the universal diagnostic you know you mentioned I ready which is what we use um is this sort of criterionbased versus computer intuitive b questioning and we're I I think we're leaning more toward back toward criterion based um whereas right now the computer kind of bases the questions based on whether kids get it right or wrong and we're not entirely sure whether that's giving a good picture of the kid. If a kid guesses and gets it right, it's they're going to get a harder question, but we're not going to necessarily get a good picture of the kid. So, right now, we're stuck with those, but we
022are looking for others. >> Good question. >> And that's why you have the teacher recommendation factor in there. >> The teacher recommendation factor is in there and and you know, we call that classroom grades, things like that. But we're really looking for data. So, one of the things we're leaning away from, and just to be clear with um with the board, is >> teachers just saying this kid would be great there isn't going to work. it's there's got to be data behind it or some evidence behind it. Um, you know, in the form of potentially some grade or some some assessment or some built-in benchmark. Um, we're leaning away from this kid is always just love school, so let's put them in the sale program. Um, because then it would kind of break down the
023whole system of where they fall into other tiers. So, we we we are definitely leaning much much much heavier this year into raw data. And I'm not going to say entirely quantitative, but it's not as much qualitative as we used to have. Are you I know it's so new to the game, but are you finding it help you kind of create those multi-tered systems for checklists to be like we tried this intervention, we tried this intervention? >> So, our teachers have always been very good at that. I think what we're doing now is developing libraries of assessment, you know, interventions that work and and we've always done that, but we're sharing them more now that we're we're kind of setting the district-wide curriculum. Um I think we're sharing more and we're reaching out more. We've
024got some great um liaison teachers, intervention leaison who are working with teachers but also developing some of those assessments and some of those shared pieces and they're spending a lot of time building libraries of shared resources for teachers. >> That's wonderful. >> It is it's a lot of work and it's really it's unique to each district. Every district does this. Um and we're doing our own thing as well as trying to you know take as much as we can from other people. >> So but this this is a sale. Yeah. >> What's something that we're doing differently than another district? Well, >> I honestly truly believe by getting we're getting for this particular program, um I think we're getting more kids involved than maybe other districts do with a traditional gifted program. We're giving more
025opportunities for those kids. Um and then using every district's using data, but I think the way that we're approaching the data since, you know, we're we're getting relatively new to this, I think we're being very uniform across the four schools now. It's and it doesn't sound like much, but it's not five schools, it's four schools, so it's a little easier. Um and we're sharing more information for the first time across the district. So we're meeting here as a group with principles and with some of our liaison to talk about what's going on in these each of these tier one, tier two, tier three and the sale. And if someone wants to make a change, they do it to the entire group as before we used to just do it as a building. And I think
026a lot of schools still do it as a building. We're doing it really more as a district. It's it's a little more time and it's definitely labor intensive, but you know, we're finding it enables us to talk about what's going on. >> Right. Well, as a district and everybody has input >> and everybody has input because we all kind of have a stake, you know, horse in this race. so to speak. >> Quick question for you. >> Um, and I guess this is the time we're doing Q&A, right? Um, you mentioned earlier that the goal is for the kids that are in the tiered program to eventually get themselves out of the tier program and into the sale program. Right. >> Right. Um, what about the what happens with the kids that are currently in
027the sale program? Will they have to vacate their seat for that level of circulation? >> It's a good question. And so what would wind up happening as we obsoleted kids out of the other, we would have more teachers available to do more sections of sale. >> So you'll open more spots because right now you say it's capped at 16, but that could be fluid based off. >> It's capped at 16. I'm going to say this to teachers. You know, right now the biggest struggle for the teachers is rooms, which you know, we talked a little bit about the UPK and finding spaces. Um, but rooms correspond to number of kids. So yeah, it's capped at 16. There may be we may find a time we put 17 and we're not going to throw a kid
028out >> because of that. Um, but the interesting piece is the higher the tier you go, tier three, tier two, um, tier one as you work your way down. The tier three are very small class numbers, right? Four, five, six kids per class. If we get rid of five kids out of tier three, which is a good thing. It's a very good thing, right? Then we open up more teachers that could potentially teach more sections of sale. >> Got it. And then they'll eventually move up that ladder of the tier level and then eventually possibly open up more spots in the sale, >> right? which would open you know >> and the idea is to not kind of force a child who's already in sale and excelling. The idea is to keep them in the
029sale program. Although we will find and this is you know I will say this right um we are going to find some kids maybe from trimester 1 that might move out of sale and might need some tier one intervention that's going to happen you know and that's going to be a part of this process. >> Okay. >> Thank you. I appreciate you got it. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. I'm gonna turn this mic that I couldn't find. and we're gonna have Miss Grace Goble share her statement for the evening. >> Good evening everybody. Today my report is on the junior high school students. Um I visited the junior high school um student council meeting on Friday and I got the chance to speak with some of the students there. Um their overall consensus
030is that their school year is going pretty smoothly. Um many of them attended their first or second homecoming and they were all very enthusiastic about the parade. Um they also me quite a few mentions of possibly starting some new clubs at the junior high school. Um and some of the student council teachers adviserss were saying that you know that would be great to look into. Um, a lot of the sixth graders were very eager to get involved not only with student council but with other clubs and activities. Um, additionally on behalf of the student body of West Babylon, I would like to thank you all the board of education for volunteering your time and energy to serve our community to the best of your ability and make West Babylon a safer and better school district
031for us. Um, we all very sincerely appreciate it and I would also like to thank you personally for giving me such a warm welcome as I entered the role as exeicio student member. Um, happy board of education appreciation week. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Okay. At this time, statement of residents on agenda items only. Any resident wishing to share a statement. Residents must share their name, address in any organization they represent. They can also write this information on an index card and give it to the assistant superintendent of finance and operations. Comments about individual students or employees are not permitted. Each resident will have up to three minutes to speak with a total of 15 minutes allotted. Responses will be given after all statements. Questions needing further research will be addressed at the next
032meeting. Okay. Okay. We need a motion to approve the consent agenda. Patty, Steve, all those in favor? Thought you're raising your hand. Stop. Okay. And that's it. Oh boy. Okay. Statement of residence on any general topic of discussion. Uh >> all right. That balance. Uh residents uh please come to the podium, state their name, address, and any organization they may represent. They should also write this information on an index card and give it to the assistant superintendent for finance and operations. Comments about individual students or employees are not permitted. Each resident will be given up to three minutes to speak with a total of 15 minutes allotted. Responses will be given after all statements. Questions needing further research will be addressed at the next meeting. Okay. We need a motion to enter into postexecutive session
033to discuss the district district clerk position and contract. >> Frank Anthony. All those in favor? Good. Okay. >> Thank you very much. >> Good night everyone. Thank you. Good night.