001You good? Good. Good evening. Sorry for the delay. I need a motion to approve the minutes of the regular board of education meeting of 4225. Patty Kathy. All those in favor? Thank you. Dr. Farrell. Hey, good evening everyone. Thank you for joining us tonight. Um, before we kick off our four fantastic presentations for tonight, I would like to take a moment to thank our PTAs and our administrators for working together to plan a number of uh transition activities or programs right for end of the year. For our elementary students in particular, we have uh building tours occurring with our building principles. We have um families have been invited to uh join May and June PTA meetings. In addition to the fifth grade special end of the year plans, there's a special celebration for all of
002our current fourth graders um that's occurring in all of the elementary schools. Again, in partnership with our administrators and our PTAs, we have a letterw writing campaign uh that our elementary students again are very much involved with and our principles will be mailing these out to our elementary students this summer. Uh joint PTA family picnics are occurring at the end of this school year. Again, those are all being planned as well in partnership with our admin team. Uh we have an additional social worker that's going to be pushing in uh into our classes uh starting in the next like week or so to provide some additional supports right um at our elementary level. We're establishing a date and time for families to come uh with their elementary student to drop off their school supplies and
003we also have um forest committee that's planning a special forest celebration gathering. Uh the details of that are being planned and will be shared soon. So definitely a lot going on uh with regards to our elementary students. Last week I sent out a parent square to all of our families. Um just really including information with regards to our special education class program placements. Tonight we have a presentation um from our student services director on that will go through our program placements as well. So you'll hear a little bit more about that. Uh a couple of other pieces. Uh all school districts you may have heard are required for the new school year to have a student serve as an exopicio board of education member. So we are very excited about that. Um they are to
004participate in public conversations right as part of the board not executive session in terms of the private personnel um you know and student manners. Uh so our senior high school Mr. Yri and the high school admin team um has obviously shared this information with our senior high school body. We had 22 students who expressed interest. Uh initial vote happening to narrow that field down and then the official vote will also happen on May 20th um at the high school. So then after that then we will know who our student representative will be for our school district. Um couple of pieces I'm going to ask actually we have a lot of students in the audience which is great. Um I just need to share with everyone. Apparently, there is this um Tik Tok trend um that
005involves um Chromebooks, right? Um very important. Um and we're going to send something out. Uh this unfortunate trend involves students inserting things like paper clips, pencils, push pins, and other like metallic objects, right, into the Chromebook device ports um to intentionally short the device, right? Obviously, first and foremost, there's a safety concern with regards to that, right? um our students can um obviously you know fires can be caused by the sparking of it, the puncturing of the actual lithium battery. Um so first and foremost it's a safety issue and a safety concern. Um and of course obviously then there's a code of conduct in terms of actually damaging right um property. So we just want to invite and share this with everyone um so that again from a family perspective and from a student perspective
006right of course we no one should be engaging in any of this um for both um the on the safety side and also again obviously that's a violation of of school conduct code of conduct as it's um defacing right property. Uh the last piece is a reminder again to families and our students right that uh the Chromebooks are monitored right what students look what they search right that is monitored so the Chromebook should be utilized only for school district work right for um appropriate information right your searches are monitored um so again reminds of this please okay um to ensure that it is used uh properly and the last piece that I have in this section of the agenda is a reminder to everyone to please vote. May 20th is our uh proposed budget vote
007and our trustee election. 6:00 am to 900 pm administration and Santa POG. That's all I have for this section of the agenda. Okay. Uh there's no other statements. Quick question in reference to the um the student board member. Is there a way uh would that the the release of that vote would that be integrated into the vote for trustees or is that something that just happen? I know it's separate, but would it be something that could be incorporated into the Oh, like for us to announce it that night? Yeah. I mean, I I don't know if you're adding angst to the people waiting to get the results, but um I don't I it is a it is a a state position in a sense. I don't know if that's something to Yeah. No, we could
008definitely talk about I mean, listen, it would be an exciting piece because they are and it was Mr. Lur's idea to have the vote on that same day can tie it all together, right? So we can we can talk and come up with a plan and uh that announcement happens that night as well. Yep. Okay. All right. There's something. Yes. Exactly. Elected by their peers. So awesome. Okay. Great idea. Go ahead. And there's no other statements. That's correct. Uh so it goes back to you, Dr. Farley. Oh, that's right. Okay. So now we are um we are up with our superstars. I'm gonna invite Mr. Liry and Miss Durban to the mic. start us off, Mr. Yri, and then, uh, introduce our student leaders. Absolutely. So, uh, thank you for having us tonight. So, um,
009at the high school, we we use a variety of different, I'll call it metrics, measurement tools to judge, uh, whether or not programs are successful. It could be, uh, enrollment data, could be test scores, athletics will use, wins and losses, playoff appearances, things of that nature. But I wanted to share something about Science Olympia that I think is telling that talks about really the success this program has had over the years. So Mrs. Durban has been the head coach of Science Olympiad for 19 years. In those 19 years, 13 years they have appeared at the state level um in competitions for Science Olympiad. So in a sense 13 out of her 19 years they've made it to the states. And if you compare that with other programs, that's like that's like dynasty level. So, we're
010very proud of them. Um, Mrs. Durban is incredibly dedicated. The students are amazing. So, with that, um, I'd like to introduce Mrs. Durban, who will then introduce our students. I'm as tall as him. Um, hi, my name is Mrs. Duran. I am the head coach and I want to thank Mr. Liry because he is always always supporting of Science Olympiad and our administrators and our board of ed especially the emails I get that says when we send the pictures and say what are they doing and then I try to explain over email what they are doing which is also why we're here so they can demonstrate this is about the kids this is not uh about us so I'm not going to tell you what they do they're going to tell you what they do
011so we have some members here this is AP week for them and these are mostly AP students so It's uh it's a little stressful for us, but these are the ones who came and we have our officers who'll be showing you what we do. So, we have Joel Kolas, who's our president, we have Gabby Kjinsky, who is our junior president, Addie Eglund, who is our testing captain, and Erin Fer who is our building captain, our treasurer, and now we have that new Yeah. equipment manager. We have she holds. So, they're going to show you some things in our in our brief time of what we can do. And maybe in the future we can uh I know you want us to drop something, but we can do that maybe in the future. Can't really hit
012the keyboard now. Got something in the way. Do you want us to move the keyboard or someone hit the right arrow? No. Could someone hit the right arrow, please? My hands are a little hindered. Okay, there you go. Okay. So, first of all, science olympiad is a national competition since 1985 and all 50 states have science olympiad. So, um in New York, science Olympiad has the most teams in the county, meaning we are against more teams and it's more competitive than any other county. So, there are 22 events and they change every year. One of them is this helicopter, which you get to see later. And each year we send three teams to regionals. And regionals has around 70 teams. Like I said, one of the most in our area. And only the top six
013to eight teams moved to the state tournament, which we've been fortunate to been to 15, 13 years to be said. No, we're good. So this year we sent three teams to our regional tournament with our team one placing fifth and we got the opportunity to go to states. At states, we did pretty great. This is the 13th year which we've been the states and we've been we've competed eight times this season in invitationals, regionals, and of course the state competition. And in all of those competitions, we have earned a medal in a variety of events. Our team has had a successful season and we are so grateful to have many opportunities. Here are some of our highlights from this season. First off, we finished fifth overall in the region out of 70 teams. Many, many
014medals were earned. We earned one medal at Princeton and seven medals at Yale, including a gold. We competed at various invitationals, including Dick Smith and JSO, which were two virtual invitationals. And we also competed at South Windsor, which was in Connecticut, and Mount Academy, which was in New York. We also earned three medals at states competing against the top 60 teams in New York beating our previous record by two. So in science olympiad you never work alone. Um every event is completed in groups of either two or three and we feel that this has helped us all learn to compromise and cooperate better. As for the team as a whole throughout the season we've created strong team bonds. I know myself personally, I've met a lot of my closest friends through science olympiad and this
015has motivated our Olympians to always show up for their teammates and become someone that the team as a whole can depend on. Okay. So, we have a wide variety of building events in our uh club. Uh one of them is tower which is the event that I do as well as Molly Shimsky who cannot attend today. Um the basic goal of of the tower is to build the lightest tower that could hold a load of 15 kilograms which is around 33 pounds. And uh standard tower is right here. Um this year we had a very successful season uh at the Yale Invitational this year. Uh me and Melanie won second place and most notably uh Philip Delega and David Aguular won sixth place at regionals. Uh helicopter is also one of the events that uh
016we do. Um it is done by Joel Kolas and Julian Cruz. Um uh they construct a helicopter to fly for the longest time and they won many medals throughout the season including eighth place at the states competition. This is a helicopter. So like the goal of this is to fly for the longest amount of time and states around. Very cool. So it a twisted rubber band. Is that with that? No. Let's wait. Maybe you break Maybe you break their record. 5,000. Oh jeez. Breaks a lot. What are the blades made out of on there? Um, it's called Myar. So, it's kind of like wrap, kind of like stretch wrap, but little and a little more expensive. Okay. Uh we have a we have a lot more building events that we do. One of them is
017Air Trajectory that on team A is done by Melania Shsky and Nicole Rex. And this season they have had a very successful uh they've had a very successful season this year. They won many medals uh including sixth place at states. Um, and air trajectory is basically just like uh like a cannon where you launch a a ping-pong ball that is supposed to hit a target and the closest target will get the most points. So yeah, that is air trajectory. Uh we also have bungee which is done by Chris Alexiotis and Will Horowitz and they uh the goal of bungee is to have an elastic cord attached to a mass that is dropped uh and they are supposed to get the they're supposed to be very close to a certain height without uh like hitting the
018platform. Um and this year they had a very successful season as well and they got I sixth place at states. Uh we also have um electric vehicle and robot electric vehicle is done by Joel Kolas and Julian Cruz. Um electric vehicle is right there and bungee is right there. And yeah, that is just a sample of the many building events that we do. I worked this year doesn't look like anything but pretty much what we did was um all year we worked um almost every day for about an hour and the goal of the event like uh said as close as ground to the ground whatever target on the day possible without touching. Um so with the help of we kind of a system of equation and a graph that we find on the day
019where exactly we have to pinch off the bungee so that when it drops very how do they how do they measure the how close you get what what's they use a uh photo in physics class this past year. It's like a very precise camera. Okay. And then they use a measurements, right? It depends on the ceiling. So it's supposed to stick on the ceiling. Really flies around and this top this rotates a lot. So the ceilings are normally like 17 to 20 ft, but depending on higher also chang in the wiring. Yeah, they Okay. So, in addition to our building events, we also have multiple testing events. Three of them are shown on this slide. Two of them I participate in this year. Fossils I did with Aaron. Um, for these events, the students have
020to research all of the information independently. And for some of them, you're allowed to bring in a two-sided cheat sheet. And some of them, you can have as much of the information as you want. For astronomy, my binder ended up being a total of around 600 pages by the time we were done with the competition. And these events, it's a combination of written tests, and for some of them, there's also a lab portion, such as forensics. Here are pictures from some of the virtual invitationals we did working on our testing events. That's me. So, future science Olympiad. So, every year we hold triyouts to get new members. We have 45 members in each science Olympiad team and we have three teams. So all the opportunities that we are given are because of you guys. So
021we want to say thank you for being so supportive throughout our season. That's it. Thank you for representing the district so well. Oh my god. Yes. Absolutely. Every time we get any of the emails, we're definitely all completely in awe. I mean certainly obviously yes. the physics and all the brain work behind it. In addition to that, I think there was something that someone said, right? We never work alone. We never work alone, right? And and that what you're learning through that process, right, of navigating each other's strengths and weaknesses and lifting each other up and one feeds off of the other, right? Those are life skills that you're just naturally as a part of this process because you're never working alone, right? You need each other. We talk about that all the time, right?
022As a board, as an admin team, we're a team, right? We all uh support our district. We all work together hand in hand, right, for for our programs. That's you guys are what you're doing now. That's life skills, right, forever. So, I do appreciate that and I appreciate that you highlighted that, right, as one of the main pieces that you're always working together and supporting each other and moving each other forward. So, well done. And like uh Mr. P said over here, we are so proud of you and so proud of how well you represent your community. And WB, I need to take a picture of all of you. So, come on over. Come up to the front. I want to see the back of your shirts, too. I saw something tape, right? Or what?
023Duct tape is like Oh, that's awesome. That is cute. Let's take a group picture. Come on. Right up here. Yes, definitely. And I had special special shout out to Mrs. Durban, our fearless leader of this team here. I don't want I don't want to get home. So, okay. At this point, I would like to invite uh Mr. Heaton who is here. There is Mr. Heaton. How are you, Mr. Heaton? Wonderful. How are you? Good to see you. I feel bad. I don't have any helicopters or bungee cords or anything. everything they're very tough acts to follow. Sure. Um so Mr. He is gonna uh walk us through. Yes. Uh good evening. Thank you for having me. Um we're going to talk a little bit about the high school music program, grades 9 through 12. Uh
024I'm just going to very briefly go through uh what we came up with as a department. Um first thing, our student info. Uh looking at some data, we found out that approximately 25% of all of the students at the West Babylon High School are enrolled in at least one music class. And out of that portion of students, about one in 10 take multiple classes. So we do reach a fairly significant portion of the school. Uh as far as any kind of awards and recognition, we have our principal quality achievement awards. We have some drama club students who are nominated for the Roger Ree awards every year. We're fortunate enough to send students to the all county music festivals every year and some years we're able to send students to all state festivals as well. Uh
025and then we also have students who participate in many schemia events like the day of percussion, the day of jazz, day of tuba, things like that. Um our data analysis, it's kind of different from the the standard classroom setting. Uh most of what we do, it all depends on which class it is. If it's a performing group ensemble, we're listening for musical progress. Uh written tests are great, but not always the best way to tell if our students are uh progressing the way we want them to. Uh and then we put on our concerts, which are coming up. Uh the first one is three weeks from tonight. So, we're coming up on those. Uh for our program accommodations, one of the biggest challenges we found has been reaching the needs of all students. uh over
026recent years uh with the reduction of our pullout lesson program, the number of periods we have devoted to that um our performing ensembles are generally considered to be six day a week classes. We meet once a day with the performing ensemble and then once per week the students are uh coming down for smaller group lessons and as the number of lessons devoted to that uh the number of periods rather devoted to that has gone down we've ended up with much larger groups than we've had in the past and sometimes the combinations of students and or instruments that we have makes it very difficult to develop the way we want to. Um, one way to kind of look at it is if we had a math class, it could be made up of students who are
027both honors calculus students and regions algebra students. Even though they're both trying to learn math, it's a very different math that each one is trying to learn. And sometimes we'll have them at the same time in those smaller lessons ensembles. Uh and what that ends up doing is it makes it difficult to provide either enrichment for our advanced students or appropriate remediation to those who are struggling to maintain at grade level. Uh our teacher information uh we've been able to use our professional periods effectively to try and increase that gap in lesson periods. Um so we've been able to add in a couple of extra smaller group lessons. Uh but we do still have uh in the past we used to have maybe five or six students per lesson group. uh some of our groups
028now are up to 9 10 11 12. So it's it's almost doubled in size which does make it a little bit difficult to focus on specific instrumental techniques especially in the band and orchestra program uh because the combinations of instruments is is a little difficult to work with. Um professional development for our teachers. Uh the district does a great job of offering professional development to all of its staff. Uh, unfortunately, a lot of the professional development is geared towards general education classes. And as I mentioned before, because our our program is very different from the traditional general education classroom, the professional development isn't always as effective for us as it is for say math teachers or science teachers. There are opportunities for us to get professional development from local organizations like NISMA, NISCAM, Scamia. Uh
029we've had teachers go to balanced mind conference before. Unfortunately, we don't always have the budget to make that happen. So, we're we're always trying to find ways to to kind of meet in the middle. Uh collaboration between teachers is definitely encouraged, but again, because the schedule is being very tight, it's not always possible to do that, but we do try to seek each other out uh as much as we can for advice, ideas, uh working together, things of that nature. Um technology towards the music department. Uh it's not as in-depth as in some of the other classrooms. We're using acoustic instruments for the most part. Um district provided technology is great for us. So there's really not a lot of issues in terms of technology. We're doing fine with all of that. Uh the other
030big piece besides our lesson group comes from the materials and supplies. As we've discussed in the past, uh instruments have a shelf life. We we do everything we can to keep them in good working order. Including this year as I've been teaching one of the orchestras, I have glued together two different instruments to keep them working because we we have a very tight number of instruments for our students to use where sometimes the larger instruments are shared throughout the day and if something snaps off of one of them, we got to grab the wood glue and let it sit for a couple of days. And so far so good. Um but we are at a point where some of the instruments are reaching the end of their useful period. Um previously we had had a
031five-year plan that was approved for replacing some of the older instruments um with the budget conditions the last few years that's been on pause. So I know that we all are aware that this is a situation as we're evaluating the program. We just want to make sure that as things continue to hopefully trend more positively that we can get back into that plan and start replacing some of the older instruments. Uh and finally, just to kind of close things out, uh much of our educational progress occurs during those lesson periods for our band, for our chorus, for our orchestras in those smaller groups. And what we've been learning over the past few years is that there's kind of been a difference between lessons and what I'm going to call like a sectional where during the
032ensemble periods during the day, like during the band period that meets every day, we're putting together the entire band or during the orchestra period, we're rehearsing the entire orchestra. And then in lessons, we're kind of doing the same thing just with a smaller chunk of students. and we're losing the time to help the students develop on the actual instrument itself. We're producing students who are great at playing certain pieces of music, but some of them will still struggle to be a great flute player or a great violinist or a great basist or a great drummer. So, what we're trying to as we move forward with scheduling and staffing and things of that nature, if there's a way that we can kind of reconfigure our lesson program up at the high school, we can take that
03325% number and all those students who are achieving great things outside of the school, we can bump that number up a little bit higher. Um, and I know Mr. Olirri always talks about the the the sports analogies. We want to try to avoid having our quarterbacks in the same drill as the defensive lineman. And that's what tends to happen sometimes if we have to put certain instruments together at the same time just for sheer timing. So, um, that's all we really came up with. Thank you very much for your time. And if there's any questions, I'll answer them as best I can. Question Indie. The a lot of what was said by Mr. Heaton was also echoed by Mr. Duran. Yes. in reference to the Yeah. No, no, I'm saying in ref even in prior
034presentations in reference to getting into more specialized groups or levels of skill. I don't know if I'm using the right term there on the instruments. What what is the remedy there? I mean, what how how do you how do what would be required to alleviate some of that? Additional sections. Um additional sections. So, it's not just a time thing. It's a it's a although they go hand in hand, right? It's because uh all of our teachers we're you know we don't really just necessarily have a band director. We don't have an orchestra director. Pretty much all of us are teaching something else. Like right now this year I'm teaching one of the orchestras at the high school. I have one period of lessons a day to work with the entire 39 period uh 39 member
035orchestra and then half the day I'm at the junior high school teaching some other courses down there. Um, our chorus teacher is also teaching two piano classes. So, as we're scheduled to do more and more things that way, the number of periods each of us has available in our schedule to teach those lessons shrinks. And that's why the professional periods are big help to kind of bridge that gap. But many times we're talking one and a half lesson periods per day to to deal with 60 students sometimes depending on which ensemble it is. So if we kind of divide that up, you know, one and a half would be eight lesson sections a week. That means we have roughly eight or nine students per lesson if it works out in terms of combinations. Like we
036have in the band program, there's three different types of saxophones. And at first glance, it might make sense, well, we'll just put all the saxophones together, but the alto saxophone plays one part, the tenor saxophone plays another part, the baritone sax plays another part. So yes, you can then work in that group on saxophone specific material, but then you spend much less successful time working on the actual concert repertoire. So we're looking to try to find more of a balance between where can we work on the concert music and where can we help develop these instrumental skills so that we can use more challenging concert music each year during our programming. I'm just a Mr. Have we always been in in that condition where we're at now or did we have right so we have
037the enrollment of students right um so that plays a role right in terms of the number of sections right and all those different Thank you so no not necessarily right y and also in terms of different budget right like where um maybe in years past right um okay there's kind of additional sections here well that can then the smaller group lessons could then be instead of seven, eight students maybe, then threeish students each, right? Like, so that's that's that variation. Path practice, we've realized that like four or five, maybe six is kind of like the sweet spot. Uh because then if you have a 40-minute period, by the time the students are setting up and giving them enough time to pack up so they make it to their next class on time, um you have
038about six, seven, eight minutes per student where you can really go through and fix individual things like, "No, your hand is in the wrong spot. You got to hold it this way. If we have 10 students, like my uh my first violin lesson group is 11 students. And sometimes I try to reconfigure and you know combine the cellos and bases together so that I can separate the first violins and have like five and six. And that does help a lot, but we can't do that all the time because even though the cellos and bases are playing the same parts much of the time, they don't always. And there are some slight differences between those instruments where now it's okay, I'm going to work with the cellos for a couple minutes, bases practice for two minutes
039while I work on them. You know, having ninth and tth graders, they're not always the most driven to to be self-motivated if you give them individual practice time. So you can bounce around the room. Yeah. So if the group is naturally smaller, okay, let me see what you got. Perfect. Let me see what you got. Perfect. And you can actually spend that that extra time developing the musician. And like I said, that'll increase the level of the repertoire that the students are playing because you can hand them more difficult music and they have the basis to pick it up. And that, you know, ultimately improves our program and more students would then attend the NISMA solo festival and we can get more students into all county and all state and things of that nature. So
040is the issue is the issue the number of students in the room at the same time or is it the amount of time you get to spend with each one of those clusters of instruments? Combination of both. Yeah, it's it's kind of a combination of both. Yeah. Okay. Yes. We're basically referring to again seven eight n students. You talk about your instruments that are um that are going bad that you need to replace. Is there a program put in place? Maybe Dr. Farley, you could answer that question also of how we replace our instruments. Is it done yearly? You know, is it something like they'll put a a list together to you and we'll replace them? just trying to put together exactly how we would get new new instruments in place for our students. Sure.
041It was um I I want to say approximately five years ago. Um Bill Duran when he was uh working through K through 12, we had put together like a it was a five-year purchasing plan that was approved by the board of education. There were certain instruments that were slated for year one to be purchased and year two these are going to be purchased. Year three these are going to be purchased. And I believe it was the first two years and then yeah the so the third year was done and then he we rearranged some things to try and squeeze some that were in year four or five over but the last two years it's been on pause because of the so last year when the budget failed that was also removed right like so that's
042the pause that was referenced and that was you know knowing the situation that we're in you know it it's it's not I don't want to be up here and say we need our instruments like immediately like we all understand it. It's just if we're going to evaluate the program, we just need to, you know, the teachers, we just wanted to make sure that everybody realizes we had this plan in place and when it's possible to do so, we want to make sure we continue with it because the the instruments that were purchased was a a huge help. The the tubas in the first year or two, great horns. Yeah. And you know, the kids are doing well with them. So, we definitely want to go back to the remaining, right? And in reality, then continue
043kind of that that cycle, right? And it's the same with athletics too, right? Like so we did the same thing that same year. We met with the athletics and we established a five-year on the uniform, right? Like cycling in different plans. Um so we absolutely want to go back to that right now that we're you know in the trajectory in terms of that we're at right like to to go back to those uh those plans from music department, from the athletics department. Absolutely. Definitely. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay. And we have Dr. Mckelen. Come on up. Our student interim director of student services. And we also have Liz Deal with us today too. Um who will be um providing an overview of our student services program evaluation. So perfect. Makes me feel a
044little less when more comfortable. So, um, so having been in the district since October, I've had the the absolute honor of being able to work with many of the the special education teachers. And, um, I think the first recognition needs to go to the the special education teachers and support staff um, in this district who are just miracle workers um, in being able to support the students and um, really take what what they can. and they they they spend so much time and energy trying to find innovative ways to to educate our our students with specific learning needs. Um, one of the things that I found is, you know, going in and had the opportunity to do some observations in the classrooms and just watching that creativity and the ability for teachers to um, understand
045who these students are and what their learning needs are is just amazing to see. So, uh I think that that has to be our first applaud to to you know the staff who are here. Um and in evaluating the program, one of the things we reached out to is um some of the elementary school teachers and asked them you know what are some of the things that uh you utilize to assess students and um you know using ready math and I Ready and Spire and Benchmark and teachers college and a lot of teachers will will rely on teachers pay teachers to find materials to be able to work with their students. um they rely um very much on the standardized testing for students who are qualifying as special education students. We have to require we
046have to rely on that standardized testing, the cognitive testing, the educational testing and that will guide our um decision whether or not a student qualifies for services, what level of service they require and then um have re-evaluations every three years determine the progress. Okay. And yearly we do progress monitoring. So, uh teachers do um uh various uh utilize various different tools for that progress monitoring. Um it might be the benchmark, it might be I Ready. Um it's really a very various tools that they would rely on to gather that information. So um one of the things that when looking at what motivates students um a lot of the teachers felt that the technology that we use for students and being able to rely upon u different programs that we use really is very helpful. So
047it really motivates students and it really tacks into that multiensory learning approach that most of our special education students require. um being able to use uh brain break videos, being able to use virtual experiences, virtual field trips, um and using materials being taught uh visually and auditorially. Um, one of the things that uh they felt that was really would be helpful for our students is really kind of looking at the curriculum, making sure that it aligns with the general education curriculum more so that if the student is moving into a less restrictive environment or more restrictive environment, they're able to do so with ease so that there's not that challenge of of catching up once they make that move. Um, our goal is always to build independence with our students and we never want someone
048to be kind of trapped in a placement um because that's not really healthy and it doesn't uh inspire growth. So, one of the things that uh teachers were looking for was more professional development in that area. Being able to look at how do I collect data, how do I support decisions with um like the science of reading, how do I look at those kind of tools um and and more behavioral uh supports also. You know, many of our students, um, every behavior has a a motivator and a lot of times that could be because a child is feeling academically challenged. So, they will act out in a way because they're not feeling that they're able to to be successful. So, teachers want to be able to kind of be able to figure out a way
049to assess that a little bit more. Um so when we're you know looking at the elementary program um again it's just that that the benchmark program is very helpful. Uh we that have an 812 program that just started this year um that students came in there and those are are uh more significantly impaired students students who would rely on more of a applied behavior analysis approach to learning. um the they didn't really have a curriculum in place. So, we've uh brought in what's called unique learning systems which um still will talk about because we're also using it at the high school level um as well. And unique learning systems really takes in that whole multiensory approach and it really uh tacks into the ABA approach a little bit more. So, um I think it's been
050a a big help for for our students in that program. Moving forward for next year, we will also um have more students coming in uh preschool students coming in in kindergarten who will require that level of support as well and that approach. So, we've developed another class both the first grade and the kindergarten class will be in the same building which will be very helpful as far as providing supports for that for those classes with um you know the social work psychologist, speech therapist, the occupational physical therapists uh be very helpful in there. So um when we kind of take it up into the the junior high level um now classes become a little bit more contentbased. So a lot of the teachers are um feeling the challenge of how do I remediate skills that
051maybe students aren't coming in with while also meeting the the challenge of the curriculum. So, it's been very exciting to see when I go into several of the integrated co-eing classes and you can see that special education teacher really refining and really working with the students and and meeting the needs um and breaking the tasks down, being able to identify what those students need to learn. Not only the students who are classified are identified as as having special needs, but many of our general education students as well. So, um that's been very helpful. Um I know we've kind of kind of tagged team right up into the the high school level. So if you want to high school y hi. So I just want to echo what Dr. Mlin said. You know we couldn't do
052what we do without the amazing teachers and support staff we have. Um at the high school level we use different things to analyze the data. Um definitely in the region's data that comes in. Teachers give quarterly exams that they analyze the questions the type of questions how the students are doing. But again, the progress monitoring that every special ed teacher does for every special ed student um is monitored roughly about every three weeks. So there always um analysis going on of how the students are doing. Um for the program accommodations, teacher utilize various modes of instruction to adapt to the needs of the students. It also helps build positive relationships with the students. um with the supports over the years that we've put in place, we've seen a lot of students have been able to
053succeed and exit out of special ed um or take higher level classes that don't have the special ed support, which is what our goal always is, is to get them into the least restrictive environment. We also have many students who are attending Wilson Tech working to gain certificates as well as their diplomas. So, they definitely are trying um and working really hard, our students. Um some of the things the teacher teachers at the high school shared um again for the students coming up to the high school they do struggle with the reading. So that unique to learning program has definitely been helpful. Um but just working on those struggling readers to help them because that will help them across all content areas. Um the professional development we had over the past few years has been
054very beneficial. Last year, our integrated pairs, our GENED teachers and our special ed teachers um participated in professional development sessions throughout the year. Um so they both attended together through CMDI and learned um different um inclusion uh models and then they practiced them. The um instructors came in, observed them and they were able then to meet, gather feedback, work on their goals. Um, so that actually was probably one of our most successful professional developments that happened that both the GenEd teachers and the special ed teachers came back and had rave reviews and was like this was like the best thing we did. So, which was great. Um, another area that we would definitely like to work on is a more comprehensive curriculum for for our alternately assessed students. Um, up at the high school level,
055we are getting them trying to get them ready for working in the community and community skills. Um, so curriculum to address their academic needs as well as the functional skills in the community, community safety, workbased learning and vocational skills and as well as working on their social skills and coping skills. Um we have definitely over the last few years alternatively assessed program. Um our students have been out in the community at various work sites with our vocational programs. This year we're using abilities through TR. They go to Tropical Smoothie, Bergen Point, Stables, the Chestnut Bay Equestrian Center, Bricks and Minigs, Walgreens among others. So every day they're out in the community. They're practicing their work-based learning. They're at internships. We've had some of our students actually get jobs during the um holiday seasons. Um when
056Kmart was open, we used to have kids that got jobs at Kmart back in the day. Um, but we definitely have kids who are our students who are getting employment. With our younger group this year, we opened up the WB cafe that has been a huge hit. Um, and has allowed our students to work on customer service skills, inventory, money skills, and much more. Our students also are working in the food pantry to work on their prevocational skills. And then last month, we started uh board games and lunch with the teachers where teachers will come down during their lunch periods, play games, you know, board games with the students. It helps work on their social skills as well as creating bonds with staff members that they might not know in the building because they're in
057such a small um program and only a few teachers. But actually it was so well received by the teachers. Mr. Deain was down there playing headbands with the kids. So um a lot of good stuff going on at the high school. And uh I didn't get the opportunity uh when I present you presented this to to the building team. I had um My steel on my one side and Mr. Ian Rogers on my other side and I refer to them as my left and my right arm because they are phenomenal as special education chairpeople. They are so knowledgeable and um really willing to work with the staff, work with the students. So, you know, I really have to to thank them for for really kind of guiding me as we're going through this whole process
058as well. Um we have um currently 682 classified students in district. that doesn't include our preschool pro students and it doesn't include our out of district students. Um so when we're looking at the uh reconfiguration and being able to support students in the the buildings, you know, uh Dr. Farley was, you know, kind enough to share that information out with with the community as far as where the programs are going to be located. So that herculean task of of um making sure that we were not disrupting students as to the greatest extent possible. you know, some students will will be moving and and u that's unfortunate, but many of the students were able to stay in their programs that they're currently in and um so, you know, I again kudos to the staff in in
059the special education office that the clerical office have been outstanding with trying to to coordinate that uh fielding questions from uh families as they come in um about, you know, where their childs are going to be placed. And so we have reached out to most of the families that have um had their cse meetings as well already. There are many that have not taken place but um once those meetings happen families can be notified at the cse meeting but will get the services for the following school year. So if you have any specific questions or got a couple questions. Yeah, sure. On the uh alternatively assessed students, is that because I I've heard people sometimes in conversation talk about what other other districts do. Is that are there actual programs or is that just something
060that each district comes up with itself? Whatever that program is going to be involved. um there's a a system called the kite system and there's um a system in place where to do that alternative system assessment there are benchmarks that the students have to achieve. Okay. So the curriculum is is really kind of built into that piece of it. Um so it's DMLA I believe is what it's it's what it's called and it's the um it's a curriculum that the students have to u kind of pass each sequence of it and and move forward on. So it's for the most part for them it's built in there. But how you implement those is really what um I think the teams here are looking for. You know is what are some some strategies we can use
061as the students get older. Um we we really do want to focus more on on functional skills and life skills while also still challenging students to be um the best that they can be. So, not just kind of getting stuck in um okay, we're going to take you out to the community and you're going to work at Target and stock shelves, right? Because, you know, that's it's an okay skill, but we can really work on more uh inventory at that point and really uh you know, en enhance the skills a little bit more for the students. So those those opportunities like the offsite the skill enhancement or the the opportunities to strengthen skills uh is that just ideas and places we come up with or are there companies that are part of a program in
062which there are opportunities that are tiered so it's not just a greeter at a store it yeah I'm sorry so this year we use um Abilities which is an outside company that we use that does the vocational program so they will find the work sites they will talk to me I'll go we'll I'll visit them okay Um, but they do and they kind of do it based on student interests, student needs. Um, some, you know, every student in our program has various needs and abilities. So, we kind of try to make sure we can hone in on where they are going to be most successful and where they can grow. Um, so, but they do rotate too. So, they go to all of the sites so they're not just stuck in one place. Okay. So,
063right. And if if a student's going to uh say they're going to a restaurant, they'll work on various skills because you know it's great to learn how to fold a napkin, but that's not all we want you to do there, right? You know, we want you to So last year they worked at Fridays, TJI Fridays, and they worked at the back end if I'm saying the terms right and then the front end of the restaurant. So they were in the kitchen, they were measuring, they were weighing, they were working with the food and then some of the students also worked where they were handing out the menus and cleaning the tables and doing that stuff and then they would rotate. Okay. Other questions? Another one. Yes. Uh I know I know I know last year
064uh you know obviously with the budget you want to pull up the program the we have the like it was where it showed the program the placement of the programs. Do we need that? Well, I I just a question in reference to I know we had last year in order to uh I guess save money and and uh work with the budget we had we had taken some things that were being services that were being provided and we moved those in house. I remember uh you working with Marie to provide some services for students inhouse rather than outside services. I think I think you're uh was that in terms of the reading, right? So I believe there were some reading services that were being provided by an outside agency. Then in working with Mr. Hanley
065and Mr. Payne, we were able to have some of our own people provide that in the training. I forget which. I my my question is just generic. In the situations where you can choose between an outside service, an outside company that provides services for your students or it can be provided inhouse. Money not being an object, which we know it is. But what tends to be the better option? Well, if you have your own people, right, inhouse, that's definitely, you know, from our lens definitely the better option. If you have your own people that are appropriately trained in what the child needs, right, the specific program that they need, then definitely in absolutely. Okay. Yeah. From a cost standpoint, are the outside services tend to be cheaper than inside services or uh No, it's typically
066actually tends to be the opposite, right? That the outside Well, it depends, right? Because it also depends on who is trained and is in house and what their current salary is right if you have a more right you know uh seasoned right um teacher that has been in the district and has all these right their salary is much different than someone that's brand new so that really would depend and would it also it would also depend I guess how many students need a specific type of service if it's only a handful you may not option for inhouse again it also depends right because um when to pull the students, you know, comes into play, right, in terms of their schedule, what program they're in, selfpainted versus ICT, right? Um, it could be that the program
067is prescribed for a particular student in a onetoone ratio, whereas, right, something else may be prescribed in a 3 to one, right? So, kind of this multiple factors that come into the mix on the on the when and the how. Okay. And sometimes those obstacles require us to then have both, right? Like someone inside and someone's outside. Yeah. Right. And that does it it falls right back onto the question of the curriculum. You know, if we have a fairly strong reading curriculum say um you know there might just be a handful of students who would require a more specialized reading program um because they are getting the instruction in whatever setting they're in. Okay. So having and that's what some of the teachers were asking for is more training in that science and reading more
068training in that those uh areas to be able to support students in all settings resource rooms integrated co-eing in the the self-contained classes as well. Okay. Yeah. So for the most part we the board you know has as has the information the community has the information in terms of where the programs will be but this gives a nice kind of comparison. Yes. So you see you know 2425 where the classes are and um you know when you look at 2526 you see that the the classes haven't moved around all that much. We've tried to move up the integrated co-eing classes um in the buildings that they're in. I think there may have been one possibly two integrated co-eing where the students may have to move around. Um and again what we tried to do is
069keep students in what the program that they were in. Um some students may move because their home school is moved and it may be more beneficial to them to move to a different to so if they were in ICT and in in Tuker and now their their program is going to be in Santa um it may be more beneficial for them to move to that program. So we've been making those determinations um based upon student need and and the profile of each student. So and that's the function of the cse meeting. So um okay so um you know when we look at um this was just a quick little glance at you know how many students uh were moving. So we had 64 special education students at Forest Avenue. 15 of them moved up to
070the junior high. Seven are moving to JFK. 11 to Santa Pug. 16 to South Bay. 15 to Tuker. And again that's mostly based upon where the obviously because forest won't be open so we need to move them someplace um and they'll be moving for the most part as a group of students. Um so you may see again a similar class in in multiple buildings but again it's based upon the profile of the students in those those settings. So um you know student movement for the most part it's I don't know how this worked but there were no students who moved from JFK. So, anybody who was at JFK in special education this year, they'll be receiving their services at JFK next year as well with the addition of any students coming in from from other
071programs. Okay. Um, Santa 17 students moved, South Bay only 13 students and Tuker nine students. So, um, you know, it's not not a not a lot of of of movement. So, you know, I think that's kind of a nice thing to see for our special education students. Um and again some of the the CSSE meetings haven't happened at this point. So um you know to to say where a student is going for next year is a little bit premature. Mhm. for those students and I couple of points right so just as a reminder not just our district right there you know special resource room support services right are provided in all of the schools right um consult services provided in all of the schools right uh related services speech PTO right those are provided in
072all the schools when it comes to specialized programs like the ICT which is commonly known as inclusion or the integrated setting um that is not u in all of the schools in all of the grades right and again this isn't that's not unique to WB. And the same thing for the special class programs, right? Like your 812s, your 612s. Those are a maximum of six students, a maximum of eight students, specialized programs. Um those don't exist in every grade in every school. Again, the the enrollment and the need isn't there, right, in districts to have those replicated throughout. As such, irregardless of the consolidation plan um or not, um when the CSSE meeting does agree to and make that recommendation, then students have always traditionally then moved right to where that placement is so that
073they can get the academic, the social, the emotional support, right, that they need in that specialized self-contained program or the ICT program. Um can you know for the most part we're aware of that. I think those questions now in particular obviously because of the consolidation, right? like um it's important to just remind everyone that those are that's basically standard operating, you know, procedure for special education. Exactly. Right. Across all school districts. Yeah. Any other questions? I just want to thank you for limiting the number of acronyms you use. I try very hard. It can get overwhelming. It's like it's like cling on something like this. But thank you so much. Actually, I used to teach class and part of the class was called acronym bingo and we would go through all the acronyms. Sounds like
074fun. Related service only. You found one. You found one. Thank you. Thank you, Liz. Thank you, Dennis. Okay, that's it for our presentations tonight. Sure. I'm sure. Okay. I have more for later. I bet. Okay. Statement of residents on agenda items only. At this time, residents wishing to share a statement should come forward to the microphone, state their name, their address, and any organization they may be representing. Residents can also write their name and address on the index card provided and present it to the assistant superintendent of finance and operations prior to giving their statement. prior to giving their statement. Please be aware matters relating to individual students or employees cannot be discussed at a public board meeting. Residents will be given up to three minutes to share their statement. The statement of residents is
075scheduled for 15 minutes. We'll record the statements. Questions presented by residents. At the conclusion of all statements of residents, we will respond to the statements and questions we can answer. For questions requiring further research respon responses will be provided at the next meeting. That is almost a presentation. So, I have to You say it every time. I know. And I do nothing. I don't I do not I do not fix this. Jayen will we'll we'll work on that. Sorry. Hi. Uh um I'm a varsity uh softball player through West Bon. and I've been on the team for about 5 years now. So, we've seen a lot of different changes. Um, I started my eighth grade year with a team that was 0 and 11, but over the past few years, we made a big statement
076for ourselves. So, we want to thank you that on behalf of the West Valley Eagle softball team and softball booster club, we want to thank the school district for accepting our donation of the dugouts. Our JV and varsity teams worked really hard to fund raise for this and it's amazing to see our efforts come to life. The new the new dugouts mean so much to us, not just for staying prepared for during games, but for building team spirit and focus. Um, as a team, it definitely helps us a lot because now we're all going to be together and be able to talk more and really just build a good environment together. Um, we're also super excited to share that for the second year in a row, we've made the playoffs. Uh, we are currently uh
077right now we are currently 14 and three with two regular season games remaining. So hopefully 16 and three by the end of the season. Um, it's an honor to represent West Balon on the field and we're proud to wear EOS across our chest. So, thank you so much for accepting our donations and thank you for all that you've done for us. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you. Proud. Thank you. And yes, thank you to the booster club for the donation. Really appreciate it. Thank you. Well done, girls. Let's go Eagles. What was the most successful fundraiser? Um, so we did a where we sold raffle tickets and we saw shop for a few hours and we were able to sell a bunch of tickets and that's what's the most money shop we raised over $2,000. Nice.
078Great. Great. Awesome. Awesome. Very cool. Yeah. Anyone else? Everybody's good. Okay, we need a motion to approve the consent agenda. Steve, Patty, all those in favor strings. Kathy, you good? Oh, sorry. Sorry. No, now I'm turning too quick. All right. Policy review. Motion to wave the first time reading and adopt policy 4326 is revised. Steve, Patty, all those in favor? Is everyone? Okay, I need a motion to cons We need a motion to consolidate policy 4327-R into revised policy 4327. Kathy, Steve, all those in favor? Okay, motion passes. We need a motion to wave first time reading and adopt policy 4327 as revised. Anthony, John. All those in favor? Need a motion. We need a motion to uh wave first time reading and adopt policy 6410 as revised. Kathy, Steve, all those in favor. Need
079a motion to wave first time reading and adopt policy 6800 as revised. Patty Kathy. All those in favor? We need a motion to wave a first time reading and adopt policy 6415 is revised. Patty Steve. All those in favor motion to retire policy 4310. Patty Kathy. All those in favor. And we need a motion to retire policy 4100. Patty, Steve. All those in favor? And we need a motion to retire policy 4315.1 and policy 4325.1-R. Patty Kathy. All those in favor is everything. Motion passes. Old business. New business. Yes. I have two um two quick items. So, as we mentioned earlier, our PTA is working with our uh building administration team are working together to host joint family events at the end of the school year, right? as part of you know as a result
080of again our elementary consolidation looking to join our families together our students together um for the end of the school year right so due to these special circumstances um again typically these would be like the you know um PTA picnic right and things along those lines again we are doing those in partnership um you know with the district I would like to move forward and um authorize and I would then assign our school resource officers to be there right and our custodial team again this really is equally planned on both sides, right, under our efforts of our transition plan, right? So, I wanted to bring that up and just, you know, to share with the board and ensure we were okay with that plan for us to, you know, proceed as if it was a
081regular district event because it kind of sort of is a little bit, right, where they they really are going hand in hand. Are we going to we're okay with that? Mhm. Okay. Um, and then the next piece is I had reached out and sent out an email. We know that we have our budget vote coming up um and trusty election on May 20th, right? 6 a.m. again to 9:00 p.m. Reminder to vote. um we are required to have a chairperson right for the um for that day right um and typically right it would be in terms of the board president obviously Mr. Polo, right, is one of the um candidates, right, that are uh running. So, as such, I reached out to the group and say, can I have a volunteer to serve as a
082chairperson? Really the responsibility entails at the end of the night once the district clerk right and the attorney finalized the night in terms of the voting results the chairperson would you know be there obviously for that evening and would then read out into the mic into the microphone the official yes no you know the results of the day right um so Mr. Recommendado thank you for um responding back to my email so I I would need a motion to um formally um appoint Mr. recommend to serve as our chairperson for the budget vote and trustee election. Do I need to say anything else to that? Okay. Okay. Do I have to say do I have to actually say we need a motion to approve? I think she just made it. Okay. All right. All right.
083Okay. All those in favor? Wait, first motion. Uh, sorry. You threw me off with the uh motion, Patty, Steve. All those in favor. Great. Congrats. Okay. Um, oh, that was it. My third one was a special shout out to our softball girls in the back. That's it. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Uh, at this time, residents wishing to share a statement should come forward to the microphone, state their name, their address, any organization they may be representing. Residents will also write their name and can also write their name and address on the index card provided and presented to the assistant superintendent of finance and operations prior to giving their statement. Please be aware matters relating to individuals, students, or employees cannot be discussed at a public board meeting. Residents will be given up to three
084minutes to share their statement. The statement of residence is scheduled for 15 minutes. Hi everyone, Anakus, 5129th Street. Um, I just want to say it was so nice to hear Mr. Heaton's presentation today about the music. Um, I second that everything he said. we need to um offer the students better um instruments, more time, more lessons. Um and then I don't know um if there is a way to like next year or in the next time if he could present before the budget proposal was adopted because I feel like you guys already made your decisions on how the money is being allocated. So I feel bad that he came in and and Mr. Duran came in and I just don't know how that works. So, I'm just saying for next time. I love, you know,
085hearing him speak tonight, but I feel like, you know, he's not really getting what he needs if decisions were already made. Just saying. For next year, that's all. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Say something in general. What's up? Are you okay with me saying something in general about programming? So just um in terms of the programs just in general so we have a program evaluation policy right in every four years right um so all of our departments math English science social studies family consumer science technology um music special education I think I missed some in there um every they're on a rotation that every four years right um a full program evaluation occurs so I just want you like so it wouldn't be Mr. Heaton and Mr. Duran, that would be next
086year, right? It would be whichever subject areas are up for their review. And the way that that process works is, you know, there are multiple meetings that lead up to in terms of here. Uh the nice piece of that is that that discussion that happens, right, um at administration and also with SQRC throughout that process, then some things that are highlighted are then able to be addressed through the current budget or maybe it has nothing to do with the budget, it's just kind of some changes internally. Um, and then ultimately kind of this is the, you know, culmination, right? And it it gets brought up to light. If I recall correctly, when we first established that multi-year purchasing plan of equipment, it was as a result of the program evaluation, right, when we initiated that.
087So, I just wanted to bring that up so you wouldn't be expecting him back here with the program next year. Okay. Right. Thank you. Right. That's all I have. Thank you. Okay. We need a motion to adjurnn, Patty, Kathy. All those in favor? Have a good night everyone. What? Patty. Oh, I'm sorry. Patty and Patty.