December 12, 2023 - Board of Education Meeting

001good evening everyone U may I have pull the okay uh good evening everyone I have a motion to return to the regular board meeting to public session Mr Mr Mana all in favor oops um we still waiting for M he's here okay just all in favor I call a regular board meeting to order and all board members are present Dr Litman would you lead the lead us in the pledge of allegiance to the flag United stat United States of America please be advised that any event of fire emergency and an evacuation should be necessary an alarm will sound please note all marked emergency exits and evacuate well away from the building at this time we request everyone to turn their cell phones and other electronic devices on silent thank you moving on to item number

002three brall absolutely thank you president Singh so our first recognition tonight focuses on Casey Middle School throughout our district we strive to have our students be active engaged and invested during the course of their educational Journey at casc Middle School teachers through the use of Technology are empowering students to do just that I'd now like to welcome up principal Ryan Harding to share more about this Innovative initiative good evening thank you for having me tonight I'm very proud to be here on behalf of Casey students and staff and the work that they're doing to um kind of uplift and and promote the things that are embedded in our strategic plan so things like empowering students elevating voice uh giving students the ability to monitor themselves and really I don't know if she's here but there's

003the star of a show Zoe uh who you'll see in just one moment but couldn't be more proud to present the work that we're doing on digital portfolios and really tapping into kids intrinsic motivation thank you awesome thank you you pral [Music] Hardy the goal of digital portfolios is to give kids that ability to Monitor and move forward accordingly we don't want kids doing the autopsy on where their work was or how their quarter their 10 weeks went or their 40 weeks went we want them constantly reflecting so the technology is a tool that allows kids to go back and then determine where they want to go if I look back in it I can see everything that I've been doing I have a slide for ELA I have a slide for math I have

004a slide for science and social studies I made a slide for band and art it makes me feel good about my work and like I can see how I like got better by learning it's exciting to see her uh want to be successful that will sure help her do well in life those are you know key life lessons uh developing them at this early age uh will only um help her do better we want to reflect on the growth that we made over the course of the last five weeks the digital portfolio allows them to set goals for themselves saying okay this is where I've grown but how how can I make another goal to grow even more the overall go goal is to have them reflect on their growth from fifth grade all way

005to eth grade we as teachers work very closely with the technology integrator to help us streamline the process for the kids to organize all of their ideas and all of their work into one place see if the camera is adjusted to give it the way you want it in our classrooms today technology is being used in a supportive role it is alongside a lot of what we do it's really exciting for the students to be able to see all the growth that they have had and now it's self-reinforcing all the activities that we're doing that are digital in the classroom it's really going to prepare them to use the things that workplaces today are using it's one thing for us to say to the kids like we're so proud of you but for them to

006see it themselves and to feel it themselves it just is so meaningful and so powerful it gives them that sense of pride of something that they're able to kind of look back on and say like wow I did that and if I was able to do that what more can I do when students set their own goals it's really powerful this is 100% translatable to adulthood it's a real world skill and as they come out kids feel that sense of Pride and now we're focusing on that social emotional piece teaching kids self-awareness teaching them self-management all the things that we've invested so heavily in as a district are really wrapped up and baked into this whole process of digital portfolios awesome great work principal Harding and Casey middle school that's great exciting work going on

007every day in all of our school buildings our board members see it when they do school visits parents you know it because you come home your students come home and have conversation with you so this is just a highlight so again great work KC Middle School our next recognition tonight focuses on the ARs as you walk the district Halls into the Board of Education meeting room you were able to see the incredible artwork created by our students at Williamsville South High School and Dodge Elementary which was featured in the at the New York State borgs Association Convention the winning art alive sculpture from students at Williamsville North High School and por tricks from the memory project at Williamsville South High School community members were also able to hear two student compositions that were selected for

008the New York state school music association's annual concert series these incredible works are possible thanks to the work of our teachers our students and continued support from the community I now like to invite Jamie pitell director of the arcs to share [Applause] more Hello thank you Dr brownall and the board of education for having us tonight it's been an exciting year in the Arts once again um as mentioned right outside down this hallway here um we had a collaborative mural that was created by all students in grades one through four at Dodge Elementary School um all the students on behalf of Dodge Elementary we have with us tonight uh Tom NAB art teacher at Dodge Elementary who worked with the students on that beautiful mural and then we also have three pieces of artwork that

009are actually on display on the table in the middle if you didn't get a chance to see it those are from our students at Williamsville South High School from Mary Ellen Ryan's artart room and if we could have those students please stand to be recognized Cyrus clo Isabella Garcia and Claire Carmen yes [Applause] awesome the attention to detail and self-expression in these pieces are true examples of the incredible talent in all of our students no matter what age they are what Dodge and South have in common is that these are artworks were all featured in the 2023 New York State School boards Association Convention which is a virtual exhibit sponsored by the New York State art Teachers Association and tonight we would like to recognize them for those incredible talents and representing Williamsville in that

010exhibit awesome [Applause] awesome art alive as you walked in you saw real live Art In Action from our students at Williamsville North High School there you go this piece was entered into the art alive 20123 celebration hosted by the Buffalo AKG Art Museum which if you have not been it has reopened in the past six months and is absolutely amazing to go visit the annual contest invites participants to create living representations of famous works of art and at this time please welcome JX Rodriguez and Allison MOA our art teacher at North High schol to the podium to speak about the experience they also won People's Choice Award at art alive this [Applause] year hello this sculpture this Symphony of a sculpture is a result of an inspiring collaboration among a group of talented artists from

011Williamsville North our entry is not just an art project it's a testament to the creative incredible in the spirit of innovation teamwork and Artistry in its purest form Nick Cave whose art we have recreated stated that by bringing these figures together he seek to uncover the power of coming together as a community to make your voices heard our own imitation created to be worn by the very individual who sculptured it is a fusion of Art and human expression where students become both creators and living canvases and where the truth in its Rost form is spoken with art uh we were so honored to be chosen as the People's Choice winner this year and we intend to continue this um art alive initiative yearly um and go back every year this sculpture um is a new

012addition to the Albright Knox gallery on the second floor of the new wing and this artist Nick Cave is an African-American performance artist from Chicago who was inspired um to give voice to those who do not have it and what he would say was if you want to be heard you must speak louder and the students um really embraced this feeling so if I could please have the students of this sculpture take off your piece and I would like to recognize each one because each one of these students engineered this um wearable living piece had to figure out how to breathe in it how to see through it um how to build it so that it would stay so um starting on the left um that is Lena I'm gonna say your last name wrong

013mosic thank I did a great job Zelda abovich who wrote the um introduction that JX Rodriguez um read awesome um from behind Jay um valz Annie drot uh Nora Co Braun kby uh hadia mamil and Ava stuffler awesome thank you very much very much amazing amazing congratulations Miss MOA made those t-shirts for them too oh very nice art alive winners they also stood in those I believe for two hours at art alive what two plus hours they were on display so congratulations that Des a hand clap [Applause] also the memory project this time last year we shared portraits by Williamsville South High School art students as part of the partnership with the memory project I have a couple of the pieces up here and then also the display case right outside here and then up

014by our um entrance you'll also see another display case full of the portra copies of the portraits that were sent uh last year the memory project is a youth Arts organization that promotes Intercultural understanding and kindness between children around the world through handmade portraits our students create special memories for children facing many types of challenges across the Globe last year the portraits created were sent to Cameron specifically Benda in the city that is currently in Conflict Zone where children live um some information that they shared with us upon delivering the artwork according to the team they couldn't deliver the artwork immediately because the rebel forces were imposing a ghost town which um is when no one can leave their homes the ghost town was lifted at the end of September and all the children were

015allowed to go back to school and that's when they were able to come in and deliver all of the artwork which in a minute you're going to see a clip of the kids receiving it in Cameron and then shortly after they were put back into ghost town so just to give a a little bit of background on the circumstances that these children are living in and then you'll see in the clip that the joy these portraits The Joy art Arts can bring in challenging times in struggles and then our students receive the video every year as well so they too can see the impact that this artwork that their artwork has on others around the world uh Mary Ellen Ryland art teacher at South is here tonight and thank you for continuing this work with

016our students this year their portraits um they just received information this year's portraits that they are working on will be sent to Syria um so now we have a clip showing the students in Cameroon receiving our [Music] artwork [Music] thank you and God bless [Music] you [Music] [Applause] so three very different representations tonight of how the art or art and the Arts really have such an impact on many different levels and around the world and our students are are a piece of that which is phenomenal so congratulations again to all of our young artists and all of you who of our teachers who work with them as well thank you for your work also at the director level uh Jamie we appreciate everything you do also thank you very much um I'm G to switch

017my hat to music now and take a moment to talk about our young composers so in 1999 the New York State School Music Association nisma established a committee that was designed to assist teachers and students in exploring music composition and improvisation the composition and songwriting committee as it's known today conducts an annual Statewide student composition Assessment program through its calls for creators it's an opportunity for students to re receive feedback about their original compositions and songs through this process the most outstanding compositions are selected for performance at the nisma winter conference which just happened two weeks ago this year we have two two students one from Williamsville East High School Eli feldstein and one from Williamsville North High School Nicholas Weir who had their original work selected and showcased at the conference in the young

018composers honors concert series and it is a Statewide conference and for Eli specifically it was also I believe his conducting debut awesome so East um Williamsville East Orchestra traveled with Eli up to Rochester where or over to Rochester where it was and the full Orchestra was able to perform both Eli's piece and another students piece from from a different location but Eli conducted them which you'll see parts of in our Clips in a moment as well so at this time as well I would like to welcome Mr Michael vertas music teacher at North High School and also a member of the nisma composition committee to the podium to speak about the experience good evening everyone thank you for having us here tonight um the nisma composition concert young composers concert is part of the annual

019nisma conference that takes place annually every year in Rochester New York and as Miss pitell said uh the the concert comes from students who subm MIT uh their Works um in May the works are due in May to a committee and that committee is composed of um comp composition teachers composers and there are over a hundred uh compositions submitted Statewide and there are only about 12 to5 compositions selected uh from those compositions that are submitted to be performed live at this conference every year and uh I'm immensely immensely proud of Nicholas and Eli um us having two students from Williamsville Central School District representing our district and our community so well so congratulations gentlemen great job [Music] great hello my name is Nicholas and I am a part of the young composers concert at nisma

020the name of my piece is bombastic and it features a tuba and euphonium I am immensely proud it's really gratifying to see and know that I wrote it I wrote every every note on that page this is something that he's interested to do and when you have that intrinsic will that desire to complete a composition or do anything that's above and beyond what's required it's wonderful for anyone to see and I'm extremely proud of him in the work that he's [Music] done ultimately it was just a lot of figuring out how to take that one idea and stretch it further and further I work with him probably about half hour 45 minutes a week for a couple of months I think we met before school every day throughout um I think February March and April

021the biggest uh roadblock I honestly found was the end figuring out how to sort of resolve the piece after I had just explicitly decided I wasn't going to write it in a major or minor key I I was already proud of myself for just completing a piece but to hear that it was recognized as at least a little decent um was quite um exciting hi my name is Eli I was selected for the Nismo young composer series and my piece is titled AUM d i I didn't even realized at the time like what exactly had happened because it was just also unbelievable to me that like something I wrote could be selected for something like that it all started off as a a project we were doing in music theory I found this poem called

022uh Nature's Melody and I started writing for it well Eli's a sophomore um and I just think he has an incredible insight into music and um orchestration and kind of his vision of of the overall piece it has many different contrasting sections um so it it's pretty sophisticated for for a sophomore for Eli it's really special that not only um is he being featured but it's his it's his peers and colleagues performing the piece um uh for for that audience I was super honored when uh Miss AA suggested that the orchestra should play my piece because I I was expecting just for them to play it at the conference but the fact that my schoolmates could perform it is is immense right because these are people I spend my days with at [Music] school [Music]

023[Applause] congratulations again to Eli and Nick on this immense accomplishment we are very proud of you for representing Williamsville at New York state school music association's winter conference and thank you so much for continuing to support the Arts and all the amazing things all of these young people are doing every single day amazing absolutely thank you thank you very much Miss pitell I turn it back over to you president sing oh thank you at this time are there any board acknowledgements Dr Litman yeah I keep adding them uh you uh first of all I wanted to thank uh all of our art and music teachers uh and their students for the outstanding performances of what they have done and to remind us all the importance of Arts and Music is part of a well-rounded curriculum

024in our schools AB I know throughout the years you know when schools talk about how do we reduce our expenses uh art and music sometimes get in front of everyone but in the years I've been on this board we've worked very diligently to make sure that the re sources have been there for those important areas so again as they say sometimes music and art speak louder than words so uh we go uh I did wanted to uh talk about the Williamsville North Deca Club installation uh I went to the installation dinner which was held right before Thanksgiving uh I was happy to see a very large number of our North students who were receiving membership in Deca about 100 um I was very proud to see the number of our DEA students historically who have

025gone on to State and national competition uh I'm especially proud because the uh head of the uh program of deca Williamsville North is one of my former students Alan balson uh who is also now the uh chairman of the New York state board of directors of De um and again uh my son was a Deca member I was a Deca adviser when I was a high school teacher so I know the value of student extracurricular or co-curricular activities to develop our our students in their Ventures and business the other thing is this is the uh sort of the half year for the board at the end of of the board year we always do self- evaluation but uh as an academic we always do halfe evaluation so I wanted to just give a shout out

026to my board colleague leagues you know uh our board leadership this year has been exceptionally strong my colleagues on the board have worked very hard and diligently most people don't see that except here but in their outside times with professional development uh with working on policy issues with going to meetings and all the things that they do that keeps moving our district forward so again i' like to acknowledge my board colleagues from this end of the table to that end for all that you [Applause] do very nice um thank you Dr lman moving on to public expression I call on Miss blinger to review a public oh just just one more quick quick and um recognition I just wanted to give a shout out to all of the members of the Dei committee who worked

027so diligently on our Dei plan which has now made it a um model for other school districts within our region so I think they should be commended for the work that they did [Applause] great sorry about that uh moving on to public expression I call on Miss blinger to review a public expression format welcome to all who have come to observe this regular board meeting for policy 1510 the board allows up for up to 30 minutes of public comment a time when we invite members of our school Community to share ideas opinions and concerns with us while we are here to listen carefully we take your concerns seriously public comment is not designed to be a discussion therefore please do not expect us to respond tonight instead you will receive a response by email after

028our meeting because we want to maintain mutual respect and civility please ensure that comments are delivered in a respectful manner to the board directly also under state and federal privacy laws we are unable to entertain any comments related to employee Personnel information or any topic that may disclose information about a particular student on these matters we ask that you go through the appropriate administrative channels please note that individuals are required to sign up prior to our meeting and each speaker is allowed three minutes per comments you will be signaled at two and a half minutes so that you may conclude your remarks at this time we will begin public comments after I call on you please step up to the podium and State your name first person I have is Tony Vasquez good evening good

029evening hell see Sor okay in 2016 I proudly stood before this community not as not on this side of the room but actually I sat at the board table I was a school board member for six years in 2016 I served as school board president as president I vividly recall the proposal that I initiated here in Williamsville to change the name on our district calendar from Columbus Day to indigenous people day that proposal sparked huge outrage people were very very upset but I stood my ground although prop The Proposal failed 8 to one I was the sole member who voted for it in in favor of it but I stood my ground because I thought that it was very important I proudly touted the exceptionalism and the contributions of our Native American neighbors while I

030described in some vivid cander the atrocities depicted by Christopher Columbus and other persons that affected Native American people I was reminded of my Angelo's quote the quote goes as this I come as one but I stand as 10,000 I would add that I came as one but I stand and I stood for tens of thousands Isabelle Wilkerson author of the book Cass talks about a story about Nazi Germany she said that there was a na uh in that story one Nazi party member refused to give the Hitler salute because he was in love with the Jewish woman on that day he just folded his arms rather than to salute a regime that deemed their love illegal on that day he was Brave but she went on to say he could not have possibly been the

031only one who felt that something tragic was happening so why was he the only one amongst the men to not go along that day perhaps we can reflect on what it would mean to be him today I think I know a little bit about that I stood steadfast and today I applaud all of you for your efforts on this issue Martin Luther King said it best and as Dr Litman could could tell you I always quote Martin Luther King for some reason because he is my greatest oror cowardice asked the question is it safe expediency asked the question is it politic vanity asked the question is it popular but conscious conscious ask the question is it right and there comes a time when we must when we must take a position that is neither safe

032nor politics nor popular but we must do it because it is right and this is the right thing to do so I applaud all of you I came out of my retirement today to applaud all of you so I thank you and congratulations thank you [Applause] Tony Mustafa gasak did I get that [Laughter] right good evening good evening my name is Mustafa Dr Mustafa gek is it too loud okay good thank you for having me here and I applaud the previous speaker Tony for standing up as one and she's not one today so that's great news that we are all together together uh and I also wanted to address this Dei proposal for holidays um I live in on 5786 Millstone Court I've had three kids in the district I have a my wife is

033a teacher at the district um I'm a professor of history at Niagara University and I specialize in Middle Eastern history Russian and Soviet history as well as Central Asian history just like the diversity in our district I come from a diverse background I was born in Turkey my mom is from Greece my grandma is Bulgarian and I'm now a proud naturalized citizen of the United States of America one of my most cherished childhood memory is when uh our Armenian neighbors shared their Easter uh churk with us that is the bread that they make to celebrate Easter and I remember how we enjoyed the colored eggs and the CH egg together with my siblings and it was also a great moment always for us to share our baklava uh with them on our Eid holidays so

034holidays are always awesome opportunities to celebrate each other's culture but also to learn from each other while different cultures celebrate their holidays in different ways or for different reasons how they celebrate is actually uh awesomely similar uh there's always great food families come together communities are bonded even stronger and people give and receive gifts children always get sugar rush no matter which holiday they celebrate so celebrating holidays is a great Community function for everyone and should be cherished as part of our shared Humanity it is also our responsibility to support the students socially and emotionally kids want to be seen heard recognized understood by their teachers and friends if their holidays are not recognized and honored they feel that they are excluded and not included in the school culture and in all the holiday celebrations

035so let's make all students feel included and as equal part of the fact of this great Community thus holidays are excellent opportunities for all of us for all of our communities to thrive we should let our kids and families celebrate their holidays freely United all together without any concern fear or pressures holidays unite us so let them unite us all I congratulate the Dei committee for their excellent work they have shown us how it is already being done in other districts and how we can reasonably accomplish this here I hope and encourage the board to support an inclusive approach to celebrating the holidays across the district by approving this proposal thank you thank you very much and finally Halima amjad hello my name is Hala amjed um as a as the community grows so does

036the need needs of every school district um diversity inequality and inclusiveness is crucial for any school to prosper um as part of the growing Muslim Community in the Williamsville area um I'm thankful that um Senate uh the state senator Kevin Thomas and His co-sponsored presented this bill to include cultural holidays into the school C calendar um and I'm hoping with the you know the voting and passing of this bill will benefit the students and um as the previous gentleman um mentioned um growing up as an American Muslim born and raised here I definitely felt um being excluded from holidays I tried my best to participate in all the holidays it was um that were in school that was entwined in the school um but definitely felt excluded so I'm hoping that this this the pass

037of this bill will help my children I have three in the district um so I'm hoping that these two eids will um pass um and as well as the other cultural holidays that were presented um just to give a little quick background um people may not know that e um there two Eid holidays that Muslims celebrate one is Eid Al which is the celebration at the end of Ramadan the month of Ramadan and in many cultures um there is fasting in um Hinduism Christianity Judaism so across many religions around the world um the second is called ID adha which is uh the celebration of when prophet Abraham um he went to go sacrifice his son Ishmael but instead was giving given an animal so that is the second celebration so those are the two holidays

038that we celebrate in the year and it would be wonderful to see those um you those those on the calendar and for the students not to miss any instructional period um again thank you so much for the Dei committee and for the board for considering this proposal thank you thank you that concludes our public expression thank you um at this time we have a 81 Bose's presentation Dr Brown absolutely so we are very fortunate this evening to have our superintendent of irie W bosis Dr Mike kapana here to present he'll talk about Bose's programming and Bose's Partnerships and then he'll introduce his Bose's team that accompanied him this evening Dr capana I turn it over to you good evening um thank you so much for having me here uh it's privilege to be back in

039Williamsville it's been a few years since I've had the opportunity to come and speak with the board so greatly appreciate your time and Dr Brown Hall's consideration um so Focus for the presentation this evening is really to talk about uh our partnership with you as one of our component school districts and um the function that we have for the school districts in addition to that really talking through some of the unique um programming and Partnerships that we're building for our 19 component districts with me this evening I have Dr Elizabeth free who is our assistant superintendent for the win Rick and Technology service serves and Miss Anita Troutman who was our assistant superintendent for instructional services so a little bit about me before we get into the presentation I've actually been with Erie W for

04014 years wow um through a variety of positions prior to that I was a high school English teacher in Buffalo Public Schools and out at Dew High School um and and have enjoyed my time at Eerie one uh the opportunity for the district superintendency came up and um had the privilege to uh apply and serve in there role uh the agenda really around Eerie 1 talking about our connections with Williamsville and then looking ahead as the district superintendent which is a little bit of a unique role um I kind of look at that in three sort of sections one is serving our 19 school districts across Erie County uh and along with Partnerships with Buffalo Public Schools uh two is the day-to-day operations of the bosis we have around 1100 employees um and a variety

041of campuses for instructional programs and Technology ology that we're going to talk about this evening and then the third is actually serving as the commissioner of education's Representative to the field here in Western New York within Erie County so uh on a monthly basis I go to Albany meet with the commissioner the department and really try to serve as that voice of the field um back to S and then make sure that as regulations and changes are coming down the path reform that our school districts Dr Brown Hall the other superintendant are well informed as as well as Schoolboard part parners so to share a little bit about the organization um as a Bose's Board of Cooperative Education Services we have a board of education seven board members actually one of our board trustees Mr

042Mark meca is a former member of the Williamsville Central School Board and so they uh are in involved in the same Form and Function as the school boards in our component districts approving policies financial and also um curricular decisions uh they really are the representatives of the 19 school districts and um have done a fabulous job of moving the organization forward through their leadership and making sure that we have Progressive programming and supports for our schools Bose's Aid a little bit about how that works and you're probably aware from a nisba conference or other ECB events but uh Bose's Aid is um for Williamsville specifically for this year is just over $4 million um Aid ratio for uh the districts are all unique and driven by the property value along with um student enrollments uh

043in the district and so uh this year it's just a little over 60% and um again that figure that drives that Aid is is what we call arada which is the resident weighted average daily attendance that's a student enrollment snapshot that's taken in May and that drives your District's aid for all of the services that you utilize our organization um probably uh Bose's known for special education maybe a little bit of Career Tech but really is a a very vast organization with different Services constantly evolving um really looking at three different areas first and foremost administrative services this is the non-instructional support services for the school districts three different areas there Management Services Labor Relations and Communications Management Services is sort of the financials back office policy Services the CBO section six ecic the athletic

044associations those all situate within Management Services Labor Relations we support our school district Partners um with Labor Relations HR work uh and in addition to that uh serving as student hearing officers sometimes when disciplinary matters come up and then finally Communications uh we have communication services that are available to all of our school Partners uh from day-to-day communication to make making sure that we have a print shop that's available and all of the other services that go with social media and all of the pieces that schools are now responsible for and engaged in moving forward to instruction um Dr Brown Hall when we spoke leading into the presentation wanted us to focus a little bit on some of the instructional programs where we have partnership um Career and Technical education exceptional education and Workforce Development

045CTE as you see we serve right around 2500 students annually in our three now four Career and Technical Education Centers um 27 different programs including New Visions opportunities we have two p tech grants which are Early College High School opportunities for students um that actually can earn an associates degree at no cost uh as part of those programs exceptional education is where we have our special education alternative education programming at a variety of campuses and then Workforce Development uh we train actually around, 1500 adults annually in a variety of Workforce programs everything from short-term welding electrical systems to longer term programs like LPN in the health careers areas so very vibrant programming for both k12 and adult Learners CTE specifically our three Career Centers and probably most familiar to uh the Williamsville team would be

046our Harkness Center that's our largest of the three right up on aerod drive and Chik Daga we have our Kenton Center and our Potter Center and new this year is our kpan uh campus which is uh the first uh CTE Center in a business park in New York state so we've taken and and um right across from the airport relocated all of our technology programs to that campus and then freed up space at our other Career Centers for in demand skill trades programming those CTE programs are all approved by the state education department um probably also not super well known would be that all of our CTE programs actually have embedded college credit articulated in dual enrollment um the majority of our CTE students do go on to post secondary education and everything from the

047traditional cars cosmetology culinary to Unique programs uh we have an aviation program over at Harkness we have students earning flight time believe it or not in Planes um we have uh animal Sciences which has become very very popular criminal justice uh early childhood education Fashion Design and Merchandising and then the unique um aspect of CTE as well as our new Visions programs those are specifically for senior level honors students from the component districts that are interested in having a full year of embedded coursework um we have our connections program where we have students up at Millard suburban and at uh Buffalo General campus that that are interested in pursuing medicine we have the legal Academy over aesus College in partnership with UB uh zoo and Wildlife Conservation careers over at the Buffalo Zoo hosted at

048the zoo um and then um started up this year an education Pathways program where we have students in interest in becoming teachers on campus over at Buff State uh in a ful year program awesome uh plant Sciences will be starting next year at the Botanical Garden so that's a unique uh initiative coming forward and um the diesel Technology Program which is an on-site program uh in West senica diesel uh specifically is a high demand field but actually um very difficult to create the shop space for that so we've partnered with a business that hosts a group of students on site at that location so CTE is growing um and really strong programming opportunities want to thank you for your support of our Capital project uh we we came back it was probably uh pre pandemic

049with a proposal for our three Career Centers to have upgrades those focuses were really on warm safe and dry additions to the Harkness Potter and Kenton Center that work is currently being wrapped up and um we appreciate the board's support for that exceptional education another area focused uh really is on the special education programming we have campuses uh both in the Northtown Central and in the South Towns areas those programs are focused on really the full Continuum of special education services as a district you certainly have um self-contained classes within District within that Continuum but sometimes there's specific needs that students have that we can step into to assist and serve and so our role is to work with your csse and pupil Personnel leadership to make sure that if a student needs additional programming

050and supports Erie woses would be the next stop on that continuum typ typically we serve around 300 Special Needs students from across all 19 school districts um alternative education in connection with that is a general general education program but really geared towards high school students that might need a different path to to two graduation so we have our Edge Academy and some career pathway focuses for students um really I would just accentuate at the bottom future expansion is really critical for us and exceptional education uh the the increase of referrals for special needs students coming to the bosis and to other agencies and partners in the region is a factor that we're trying to make sure we can continue to serve that means looking at additional space so we've been working with our focus group

051of superintendents along with um our board and our organization and the leadership team to look at different sites across the region where we could add additional special education programming the winny Rick um Erie one is uh lucky to host one of the 12 Regional information centers in Western New York we support all of the technology connectivity networking cyber security Hardware software for over a hundred school districts in New York state that is an area that's had continued growth coming out of the pandemic we know that Educators have really engaged with a lot of those digital Technologies out of necessity but then also the engagement level with students so we focus on making sure that we are ahead of the curve that districts have access to those Technologies highquality professional learning and um really the Cyber

052and student privacy components that are so critical that's also Partnerships we have with vendors that we work with to make sure that your student and staff Privacy Information is kept appropriately um secure um in Williamsville specifically we have um Shan Christopher who is working with your faculty and staff Sean has been here over the last seven years integrating technology with both teachers and um teachers on special assignment focused on integrating Tech robotics coding and drones in the classroom so an example of our partnership directly uh working to enhance your instruction and opportunities for students the other role that I would just extent uate that we're really focused on moving forward is our function as a regional convenor for the schools and for the superintendents and for Boards of education and others so on a monthly

053basis I uh meet with Dr Brown Hall and the other 18 Superintendent at eie 1 that follows the trip to Albany where the Regulatory and other changes are coming forward so we can have those conversations and make sure that that is understood but that we're also giving feedback back to S um we have the same conversation with assistant superintendents and directors of curriculum at idab which is a monthly convening of of those leaders to talk about instructional shifts standards technology integration um special education advisory council is another area where we are bringing together special ed leaders from across the district on a monthly basis and uh business officials Labor Relations Specialists have similar connections the other uh work that we're very proud of is the western New York smart collaborative which has been a focus

054of the last year and a half our students and our staff the mental health needs of our school communities have been growing and so what we did is really reached directly out to the county executive's office to um office of Mental Health social services and said let's bring together our school partners with these important agencies and organizations and understand each other's needs and try to build more direct connections for students and school systems so that has been a quarterly meeting it's really well attended about 150 folks come together um and we really just talk through a very organic conversation about where there is a need for additional mental health supports and how we can make sure those systems are accessible um and readily available to our school [Music] communities organizationally similar to the Strategic goals

055that I'm sure Williamsville is working through we have our focus in research and Innovation as a shared making sure we're ahead of the curve in terms of the technology and instructional programs culture and climate of the organization Recruitment and Retention of employees and Educators is so critically important for our work to be uh available to the district so we're highly focused on that Financial forecasting really is looking ahead to make sure that uh there are no surprises for our school district partners that our services are um efficient accessible and that the the increases that we have in order to maintain the high quality service are manageable for our school Partners so we work to really look as a Bose's five to 10 years out in terms of our budgeting and development process your district will

056have participation meetings with uh irie1 representative that'll come through and meet with Dr Brown Hall and the other leadership folks to talk about the services that the district is accessing and making sure that um if there are new Services we're interested in that you have awareness of that but also that if there are changes in those Services uh we're prepared to respond to those and then finally advocacy and I would just add that this is something that we're passionate about specifically with all of the different reforms and changes um that are put forward to school systems to respond to so as a representative of the commissioner to the region please communicate back with with me with Dr Brown Hall to get the word back to say look at we need consideration around these changes how

057is this reform actually going to be achieved what is a timeline that's realistic around that um because I feel very strongly that the commissioner has been highly responsive to uh the Bose superintendent specifically and has accessed that relationship to make sure that they have an understanding of what's happening in the field so your voice in that conversation is extremely important really focusing on connecting with you as well as a a partner so uh you'll see every six months a newsletter that comes out from mie1 along with uh an annual publication we call collaborate which features the specific students and services and programming that Williamsville Williamsville partners are are accessing and that students are partaking in and um a budget booklet that will come out uh in the spring for those conversations for approval apologize we

058have your old logo up there I like the new one but that's from before and and last I would just uh certainly can take any questions uh if there are other topics that you're interested in hearing more about um our team is always willing to come back out or to share more information but we sincerely appreciate the opportunity to connect with you and please know that we are an extension of your school district your students are our students we're a service organization that is the reason that we exist is to provide high quality service to our partner districts and we want to be as responsive Innovative um and thoughtful about those services that we're providing happy to answer any questions thank you Dr kapaan I do want to um just stress in one of the

059slides I don't know if you saw but we have 253 of our students who are participating in um one of the B Bose CTE program so thank you for that also abely yes um I was just wondering I know there has been a big push for CTE uh through the state through the state level um and if there are people watching tonight their parents Guardians students who are interested in perhaps their students pursuing a CTE program what would be the best way for them to get information about that so our website um would have the most update information having conversations with the school counselors back in the home school is really the first starting point we would encourage uh expressing an interest in a CTE program and then um coming and seeing our campuses we

060have a 10th grade program uh called Career X which is an opportunity for 10th graders to come through and try every five weeks a different CTE program in addition to that most those programs are for juniors and seniors but we're even scaling back to the Middle School level so we invite our middle schoolers out and I know Williamsville has sent um uh the eighth graders out from all of the different sites to typically in January region week to come and experience the Career Centers but start with the high school counselor and then connect with us directly and of course we're always willing to have families and partner districts out for tours thank you sure I just have a quick question I'm sorry um I my son actually attends uh Harkness and we we enjoy it

061my question is about internships they go on internships but they go on a very limited number of times is that just strictly a budget issue and how do we solve if that is what it is how do we solve that like is that more money from us how what ises that what does that work how does that work so the internship is typically focused in the senior year right uh in May and it's a three- week instead of coming to the career center for their program they're out in industry in the field um part of it is transportation and so trying to make sure that uh certainly if students are able to get to those and families to those sites that makes a big difference um but we're working on trying because the need is

062so significant from our business and industry Partners we're working on trying to make sure that we have um more seamless connections with them them coming on site and then in some cases in certain programs those business partners are actually providing paid internships for students between their Junior and Senior year uh autoc Collision is an example of that so it's a transportation issue primarily um but we do our best to get uh field trips out to those sites as well along with just making sure that um that 3-week internship is fullon set up organized well advance so that the students can have that thank you okay with no other questions Dr Karana thank you very much your presentation and thank you Dr uh Liz freeze and Anita thank you very much it's the holiday season so

063we have some eie one gifts for you thank you for absolutely thank you so much this is wonderful oh I get one too thank you Anita oh thank you for coming thank you everyone have a good night thank you very much for coming thanks for so that's a lot of information that's great and the PowerPoint is available in board Docs I know board members have already seen the PowerPoint in board docs but our community members if you want access to the PowerPoint it is housed in board docs so thank you Dr kaana for providing that for us Dr Singh I'll turn it back over to you um well I think we jump right back into the community update okay yes we do absolutely so I'll take it from here thank you Dr s okay so

064this is universal human rights month and I W to just um make sure that anytime we have a designated month and we highlight those months I want to thank our executive director of communications Nick filipowski and his team because they put together very very um structured and informative videos highlighting individuals um past or present that have contributed to those months so with universal human right month rights month uh Nick and his team have done video projects on THD Marshall and Mary Beth Tinker so these are available on our website and I encourage you to really view these they're very informative and educational so thank you Nick and your team for these next we want to congratulate Aron Patel salil kis Naman kapore and Alexis sakov the first three are from Williamsville East and the last

065students from Williamsville North they created the aspire app critical knowledge on budgeting investing saving and debt management it's part of the Congressional app challenge winners from each congressional district are eligible to have their apps displayed in the US capital building featured on the House of Representatives website and the students will also be invited to Washington DC to attend the annual hashtag houseof code celebration so congratulations to these four students that is a huge accomplishment right especially budgeting investing saving and debt management right who can't use that this is the third time right huh this is a third year kids have done this is it is it just the third year or at a moment all right I'll look because I know we've we've had students in it before it's very very prestigious advanced placement recognition

066so 15,1 1550 eligible schools recognized by AP Williamsville East and Williamsville South earned silver award status that's the third highest award by AP 9% of eligible schools Nation right receive silver level AP School honor role recognition so congratulations to Williamsville East and Williamsville South the New York State Master teacher program Master teaches are exemplary K to2 Educators who demonstrate strength and articulate clear goals for future for first further developing their breath and depth in three knowledge domains knowledge of stem content knowledge of pedagogy and knowledge of their students their families and their communities this year we want to acknowledge and congratulate Andrea mango from Dodge Elementary Heather thuman from Williamsville North and Elizabeth Brooks from Williamsville South they've been selected to join the Western New York Region at Buffalo State University so congratulations to these

067teachers this is a huge accomplishment it really is computer-based testing so I know I spoke about this previously in some of the weekly updates but it's important that our families know that in the spring of 2024 the district will once again participate in New York state testing for students in grades three to eight parents will still have the opportunity to determine their child's participation in the spring testing Elementary assessments will remain paper based however we will be implementing computer-based testing for our middle school students while testing does not begin until April our students will have an opportunity in January to be engaged in the brief technology systems check anticipated spring testing dates have been shared by the elementary and middle school so that information is already out there the thing to remember though is that

068although the middle school is going to CBT computer computer based testing Elementary will still be paper based and parents will still have the opportunity to determine their child's participation in the spring testing so the Dei calendar comment period so we had some speakers tonight to talk about the recommendations from the Dei calendar subcommittee after those initial recommendations were presented to the board of education at the November meeting we opened a 20-day comment period where the public can comment on those recommendations the Dei calendar subcommittee met again last week Thursday to review those comments we had over 160 emails during the 20-day comment period now the majority of the responses were in favor of adding the observances of school holidays but there were some questions so one of the questions I kept coming up is where

069are the additional days coming from now the additional days will come from our already structured school calendar what does that look like so every year we have days that we are able to designate whether they be superintendent conference days whether they be fall recess this year for example the 2223 school year we have a superintendent conference day on March 8th we had off the day before Thanksgiving which is not something that is you know historically given so we do have additional days in the calendar that we can substitute for these days that we are looking to have off for students is a school year starting earlier or being extended by law we must have 106 180 school days 180 school days are required by law the days that count for student attendance cannot be before

070Labor Day and they cannot be after the final rating day that is indicated from the state education department so we don't have the ability to either start earlier before Labor Day or end after the last day which is the rating day so we don't have that ability we have to do with in those days what we have with the days that we are given how does this impact snow days well every year we either have between four and six snow days this year we do have six snow days we have 182 student days we have four superintendent conference days add to those number of days we are able to count up to four superintendent conference days for a total of 186 days anything over 180 we consider to be snow days so we do have

071six snow days this year when we have days designated as superintendent conference days on the days that we're looking at for religious or cultural holidays that may impact the number of snow days so it may fluctuate between three and five going forward does adding additional days off impact other breaks at this time it does not however please no there's a caveat if the governor does deem more religious holidays to be school holidays it may ultimately in years to come impact other breaks all right so I do want to say that the recommendations that we have the revised recommendations that were submitted yesterday that we have do not the other breaks that we currently have now I do want to talk if I may briefly about the revised recommendations that were uploaded yesterday there is a

072difference from the recommendations that were placed in board docs in November and the ones that we had to revise initially we thought that if we deemed a school holiday for example the governor has deemed Asian Lunar New Year a school holiday Statewide we said okay what we would be able to do is consider that to be a superintendent conference day where the teachers receive professional learning that day and the students have off we received notification this past Friday that that is not allowed the State education department does not allow that if you have a school holiday deemed by the governor you cannot then call it a superintendent's conference day and if you deem a holiday that the governor has deemed for another part of the state to be a school holiday you cannot call that

073a superintendent's conference day so the revised recommendation that is in board docs is to have the days that we have identified as religious or cultural holidays have them identified as superintendent conference days and our calendar allowing us to conduct professional learning for our teachers but students would still have off so that is the revised Dei calendar recommendations that the board will board will discuss and consider this evening so some of the comments were not only this not only demonstrates respect for cultural diversity but also Fosters a sense of unity and acceptance within our educational Community recognizing and including these significant religious holidays is a commendable step towards fostering a more inclusive and diverse learning environment other local schools do not follow this calendar will hooks us at a disadvantage with sports and child care our

074school district is highly rated bare minimum number of days and I will let you know we are not looking to have the bare minimum number of days for example this year again we had a superintendent's conference day on March 8th we have the day off before Thanksgiving break and we also have April 8th off for the total solar eclipse so we do have days that we are able to allocate elsewhere in the calendars for years to come we added what this would look like for years going forward keeping in mind that Asian Lunar New Year really isn't up for discussion the governor has already indicated that is a Statewide School holiday the um legislation that is before the governor Now deals with um Eid and I believe the governor already signed thewall as a school

075holiday for New York City and I'm not sure if or when that would apply Statewide on to the special education advisory committee we had a meeting on yesterday um and we discussed uh Kathy Rexel actually who's in an audience right now she actually discuss the staff of development for teachers that will take place on March 8th for our special education teachers well EX for professional learning districtwide for teachers but Kathy spoke specifically about the special education professional learning on that day our next steps were discussed in the 811 transition class at Williamsville North so our assistant principal Kristen Rizzle from North High School spoke about all the work that is being done so that class will be in place for the 2425 school year we talked about the anticipated approval of our new director of

076special education we spoke about realigning our director's duties and responsibilities and the restructuring that will occur under the direction of our special ed directors and our assistant superintendent Tony scano will be working with the Western New York Education Service Council on restructuring the special education department so that was all discussed yesterday we also discussed having some um consistency in our meeting dates so we will be meeting now the second Monday of every month beginning at 4M we also have volunteers from the cak who have volunteered to be a part of the action planning strategic planning committee for special education so they will be working with our outside facilitator Sue Fry on developing our special education action plan so there is a lot going on behind the scenes and our special department and there's a lot

077of updates we're providing to our special education advisory committee at our January meeting we will be looking at all of the recommendations again and prioritizing and developing a timeline I do want to uh remind our community members our parents and our stakeholders that when the Western New York Education Service Council presented their findings and recommendations at the July 5th meeting they explained a lot of these things cannot be done overnight they did explain that this can take up to a period of five years to really get our special education department looking the way we want it to look so that we're servicing as many of our students as we can and R structuring our department so I just appreciate everyone's patience in realizing that this heart work does take time and I applaud our special

078education department our parents for their input and especially our teachers for their input sepsa information and events now I know this came up at the PTSA council meeting because we really want to promote our special education parent teacher student Association we've included their website Link in this PowerPoint presentation so our community members and our parents can go and see what sepa really is about it supports families and students with special education or gifted programming needs they are real their their major focus is advocacy and they also have presentations and workshops that are not just beneficial to our special education families but all of our families in Williamsville the meetings are held here at the district office the next meeting is Thursday January 25th from 7: to 8:30 p.m. and Thursday March 21st from 7 to

0798:30 p.m. our superintendent inter High advisory Council will be meeting with the Board of Education in early January so one of the goals of Sak is to make sure they have an audience with the Board of Education and the superintendent they do meet with me regularly throughout the year and the board of educ liaison who is board member Moren Pullin they meet with us regularly throughout the year but they're going to meet be meeting with the entire board early in January to discuss three topics vaping discrimination and student mental health every student that will be participating in one of the groups will have required pre-reading and they'll be sharing that reading with the Board of Education members also they also asked to have open session time with the Board of Education to talk about other

080topics and that is not limited to these three topics so once we get that date secured we'll send it out to the board of education and that's the community update for December 12 2023 are there any questions about the community update items before I move on to the Staffing and class size report Mr bcal uh in terms of the uh State Testing I know eventually all grades will have to be Community computer based when will that be for elementary just so kind of parents have a little bit of an idea I'm going to turn that over to Dr Balan I want to say Dr Balan and um her team and our special ed directors have been working tirelessly on comp computer-based testing to make sure that it's rolled out smoothly for our district so although

081we're doing Middle School this year I'll let Dr B and let you know what timeline we have for the other grades yes thank you so much um the state's plans is that all districts will have um Elementary grades at this point it's three and four with over over the next two years that all districts will have the full complement of testing computer based um we are going to be sharing quite a bit of information moving forward with families to ensure that families know and understand uh the plan and the timeline and we welcome any questions asked at the building level also because it's going to be critical that um families understand what the landscape looks like there still is quite a bit of paper involved in computer-based testing so that is a bit of a

082confusion point because the name itself does not connote that but um in order to meet uh different student needs it is going to be necessary for some level of paper to be utilized even within a computer-based setting so more information to come thank you board member buan on the other end do they have any idea about readence exams on high school level are they moving has that been there's been some talk but I haven't heard any thing offici you are right there's been a lot of discussion I don't believe there's any set timeline I think it's really very much still in a discussion phase and I also know with the various options and different Pathways there's obviously quite a bit of information that has been discussed and will be forthcoming around um I would say

083bunch of a landscape changing at the high school level too but no definitive plans as of yet for computers per se lman question on the calendar um you know You' mentioned all the new additions which are all very valuable uh you know and you add the number of new days uh in recommendation one previously you mentioned that uh we're going to rename far break to Yom kipur recess uh I guess the rational why calling it yum kipur recess and not just yum kipur and the second part of that is I know we've already have a day built in uh but in the calendar you've shown or the number of days added is it understood that yon kipur is a day early in the calendar right because the chart that we showed were the additional days

084right and yam kapor is already added if we just have yam kapore on the calendar and it's a day off we have then in essence deemed it a school holiday right but we want to make sure that we label it fall recess and recommended to be a superintendent conference day okay thank you for that Clarity absolutely absolutely so I do want to move onto the staff Staffing and class size report and the Staffing projections report for 24 25 now these are dense reports and they are in board docs but when you look through the Staffing and class siiz report you will see that we have outlined the number of classes that meet our staffing I mean our class size ratios right so what we have put in place so you can go through this report

085and see that we are in very good shape as a district we truly are in very good shape as a district such that we have a number of classes that are even below what our range is so we are very very pleased to see that also that our students are in classes and our teachers are able to teach in classes where many of our students are able to get individualized attention so I really want you all to look through the report and um for our board members and our community members to see we are in very good shape when we are looking at our class sizes next is the Staffing projections report for 425 the Staffing projections report really is dependent on the reports that we get from Dr Steve grman so when he comes

086and he presents our enrollment projections we really build our staffing projections based on that so the projections really don't show an increase or a decrease in the number of teachers will need at the elementary level it does show an increase and the number of teachers we'll need at the middle school level because that number is growing right in the enrollment report shows an increase of 73 students at the middle school level at the high school level it does show a decrease so we are recommending a reduction of teachers at the high school level very similar to what we had last year but we are recommending a bank a hold as we've done in years past years ago we were recommend a 6.0 FTE this year we're recommending a 4.0 FTE knowing that we do historically

087get a good number of students that enter our district over the summer so that 4.0 FTE will be held as a Reserve Bank so that when we need teachers we can pull from that to hire them are there any questions board members with those reports Dr Litman but just for clarity it it says there's a reduction in cost of 254,000 that does that only includes um class meeting class size guidelines when we add the unallocated positions take up you know most of that so it's pretty pretty much a wash on things right with the number Paving correct there will be a slight increase of about um because when we talk when you when you see the chart because they're recommending one addition at the middle school four reductions at the high school a total of

088a net reduction of three which total is a 24, 487 th000 however when we look to add or have that bank of 4.0 that's 339,000 so we're really looking at a net of about 100,000 correct thank you Dr that's good thanks for member m Scalia so to clarify for you know clarification purposes so it's not you're not looking to cut teachers it's more moving around and and just understand it I don't you're very right reductions and decrease and they think oh then then class size might go up but it's you know you're allocating those three positions to to move around where class sizes might need to be absolutely and we we've been um Lucky in our district um it's not really luck it's strategic but we we've been able to because of attrition and retirements

089not have to lay teachers off when we say cut so it might be a cut at one level but just really a reallocation of FTE to another level like that for clarification purposes so the you know the public hears that absolutely I appreciate that clarification that was going to be my question how does this account for teacher retirements or long-term leave of absences right how depending on if you use the same number of teachers retired last year that's moving forward to this year how does that then affect this number right well greatly it does well yeah but the number of teachers last year we had an incentive we had 60 teachers and that probably won't happen again right because it was every teacher that was first year eligible that's why we had 60 so we

090estimate conservatively about 20 teachers that retire and so that's why we're able to cover these positions through attrition it's been 20 pretty much 2025 minus the incentive you did last year correct okay thank you all right Dr Litman I mean I'm sorry Dr lman sorry Dr turn it back to you you missed annual claims and AIT report the annual claims and auditor report that's not really a presentation that is in board Docs for review and to read as you know we do periodic Auditors reports that are in um board dots this one happens to be from January 1 to Janu to June 30th 2023 so it's for the entire fiscal year the 2223 school year U thank you thank you uh moving on to president's report there'll be onboarding committee meeting on January 4th at

0913:30 p.m. at the district office and like Dr bronal mentioned the the Sak meeting has been uh postponed to January the time and date will be uh determined later the next after school conversations with staff will be held on March 27th other events and building visits are on are in board [Music] dos on to item 6 B through F the policy Review Committee will meet on January 17th and ECB and nispa items are in b doogs are there any questions or comments Mr Man well on on uh uh letter E the um legislative committee had a dinner uh a few weeks ago which I attended Miss bullan uh pulin attended and Mr bullan attended and it was it was a uh a excellent presentation about some of the issues that are being discussed some of

092the bills that are being discussed in Albany regarding schools um there was a follow-up meeting with several school board members with state senator Shan Ryan who was the state senator for for Amherst and just a couple of the things that are seemen to be gaining momentum in Albany and I'll just mention two uh a lot of districts were looking for state funded uh a state sponsored incentive for Teacher retainment a lot of these districts want to keep those long-term teachers because they can't replace them correct uh fast enough so is there something that the state pension could do for the longer term teachers to add something on if they stayed an extra two three four years so that's kind of uh being discussed and uh the big one surprisingly to me was the um zero

093emission buses that the state is mandating I think in 2030 or 2035 35 yeah uh but you know every school district that has met with these companies that provide these zero emission buses are saying they won't have the buses they won't have the infrastructure to do the electricity and we talked about is there better ways for for a school district to be more environmentally responsible that that that could be done in a 10-year period instead of waiting for Missouri Mission buses uh as their state funding for buildings to be as energy efficient as possible that would seem to give school districts something they could wrap their hands around and manage uh um building by building and could there be funding for district to utilize their property for solar power to provide uh to school buildings

094so those were you know the zero bus emissions especially for some schools who bond for what they're saying they bond that amount for school buses which is a separate vote and what happens then if the if it gets voted down so a lot of concerns a lot of questions uh our state senator Shan Ryan uh um was going to look into that for us and uh again it's it's a privilege to be on that committee and if Mr ban or Miss pulin want to say anything but I thought it was a very well done uh uh evening yes we we were able to sit at the table with um representative Karen McMahon so okay um had good conversations with her as well um around some of the issues particularly around retention and also incentivizing um

095certain areas of Education where we are in the most dire need particularly special education so I thought the most interest enlightening thing part in the pun was the electric bus issue that is going to be a real issue for all of us all school boards they were up in arms yes they were like raising the the flag and warning us absolutely I just wanted to offer I'm the sea representative um just wanted to offer a point of clarification for their meetings and special events which I did not know noticed before so I apologize um sepsa meetings when they are on the calendar are at 6: to 7 and then they have an event 7 to 8:30 so just to be clear to the community there's the meeting that happens before at six o'clock and then

096the um they couple it with a special event um and and as Dr brownall said the next one is around the gifted education um but just to clarify and also just a point of Pride we are one of very few school districts that have a sepsa um so I highly encourage folks to check that out and um look at membership as well you for that we will um make that clarification in the yeah sorry did the document also no problem we'll make that clarification just so that when um individuals access it in board docs it's correct I apologize for that any other comments okay under board Le on assignments school notes from our meetings are in board doogs does anyone else have anything else to report under on [Music] assignments I did post my layers

097on report for Sak this um today actually but I did want to um address someone that talk to me about talking with the high school students about having a high school me board member um sit at the board table every month and that's something that we've kind of bed around a time or two before so I did bring that up with with them and it's something that we have more conversation about um as I said in my report they were pretty divided about whether they thought a high school student any high school student could dedicate and have the commitment to be here every month on a regular basis so I appreciate their honesty and recognizing that but we will continue to explore that as a possibility thank you um moving on under agenda items 8

098through 13 minutes Personnel business and finance exceptional education special needs and Student Activities instruction curriculum and other business may have a motion to approve the agenda has presented Dr Litman Mr Mana any discussion Miss casner yes I'd like to request removal of item 11 C which is the Dei calendar recommendations for a separate vote to occur immediately before item 14 all in favor of approving the new business and consent agenda has modified a second a second no you don't need you do not need to have a second to remove an item from the consent agenda we just move on to approving the agenda as modified sorry are you're right never wrong St behind I st ahead okay um yeah all in favor of approving the new business and consent agenda has modified motion carries unanimously

099on behalf of the board congratulations to Kathleen ratzel the newly appointed director for special [Applause] education stage stage uh good evening Dr Brown Hall and Board of Education Dr Bal over there Mr Sano I just want to thank you so much for the opportunity to serve as the Director of special education in our incredible District I look forward to the work ahead supporting our students and families and I am I'm really proud to take this position um I've been here quite a long time and I look forward to doing some really good work with all of you and for everyone in our community so again I just want to thank you for the opportunity congratulations thank you why at this time I would like to thank the following retirees for their service to the district

100Dana Kilmer special teacher at Casey Middle School retiring July 1st with 18 years of service yeah great job thank you Dr s returning to item 11 C we have a motion to approve the calendar recommendations has presented make motion Mr Mana second Dr Litman any discussion wner yes I move to divide the Dei calendar recommendations so as to consider recommendation 1 a recommendation 1B and recommendation two separately I'm uh requesting this because there are three main sections of the recommend Commendation and I thought it might be helpful to discuss and vote on each of these separately is there a second Miss pull in um all in favor um opposed motion carry six 81 U may have motion to approve the DI calendar recommendation 1A has presented Dr Litman Miss casman Bogner any discussion all in

101favor motion carries unanimously may I have a motion to approve da calendar recommendation 1B has presented Dr Spicer Dr Litman any discussion all in favor sorry question sorry I'm sorry I'm I'm behind here um so I I did want to discuss this part and I do appreciate the speakers that came out tonight in support of the calendar recommendations I am a proponent of diversity equity and inclusion and belonging in our district and have been a proponent of that um my concern with this was um the way that this is written to me I wanted to make sure that it is clear that the New York state legal public and school holidays are separate and different from our other religious and cultural observances and to do that I know in our uh calendar that gets sent

102home pretty much all of our religious and cultural observances are already listed in that with I believe the exception of quanzo which was noted in this recommendation so I believe most of these refer to the onepage PDF document that is on our district website and I would suggest that we leave the one page with the current legal public and school holidays or as in next year we'll be adding the Asian New Year as a school holiday and then have a second backside of that page that would list all the other religious and cultural observances so it's clear what are the legal holidays that where we need to follow first state law not um having it as a superintendent conference day and it is clear which holidays we may have some um discretion if that makes

103sense so I did not make a motion but I was hoping to have to get a sense after that what what other people think of that if that would be agreeable if you explain it once again might be okay yes unsure of why the need to do that I I maybe I just don't understand what what you're sure so the my rationale is as Dr Brown Hall explained earlier there's a difference of how uh the legal and school holidays which come from the state right and these other th holidays holidays and quotes if we choose to call them that um where they would be denoted a superintendent conference day and I just think to make it completely clear there's because there's a distinction between these two things it would be helpful to leave the one

104page as it is with only the legal and uh school holidays listed those days off and then on the as an addition to that list all of the religious and cultural observances as we do in our calendar that we send home and which I believe we do for the most part on our wits calendar as well so if I understand this correctly we're not going to change the one pager so it will still call be called Columbus Day or all recess like how it is now well I I didn't speak to the specifics to the Columbus day you're right I have I didn't address that I'm just talking about generally speaking adding so legally that day is Columbus Day so if we choose to REM rename it then that would be a separate issue so

105that is a good question what we would want to do about that because legally the the holiday is named Columbus Day but I'm my bigger concern is the fact that some days are designated as a day off from school and others are not does that make sense yeah I I I appreciate your explanation U it cleared it up for me however um I mean I don't recall seeing when I looked at the comments unless I missed it that somebody had a concern somebody of the Dei committee raised that concern and you know I don't want to let uh perfect be the enemy of the good I think that this has been vetted thoroughly it's had a tremendous amount of community particip um I I I am fine with moving forward and that's why I voted

106not to separate him uh to to vote for it as is I understand nothing is going to be perfect um but again we shouldn't let perfect be the enemy of the good um but I I I completely understand uh your rationale I just think that we've moved the committee has moved past this from my understanding they want some action by us tonight I mean I mean has a has a different as a measure to probably answer your question it might be possible in the one pager to denote with an asteris or highlight the dates in which we have multiple events like superintendent conference day or holiday like what we already have but we can have some other information added to it I mean just for clarity sake are you trying to differentiate by saying you

107know these are the required state and what we normally do and the second part of that is this is what our district is doing to enhance the eii for our community or or or are you trying to show with the legality piece that we cannot have school these days these other days it is not because of not the lack of legal recognition they can be superintendent days correct okay I I think that's not what 1B said I just want to get clarification of what we're asking because rename because in 1B what ex what it's saying is that we would denote it on both rame the following breaks on the board approve calendar at a glance onepage downloadable PDF and we're talking about these six Bullocks right correct we're so we are doing that so for

108instance on this list um even though Quanza Falls within our winter Bri uh recess typically that wouldn't be considered a legal holiday Good Friday is not considered a legal holiday um yam kapor is not considered a legal holiday I'm talking about legal holidays by this by the state's definition yeah but when we indicate on the one pager that you have yam off we on the one page we call it fall recess what we're recommending here is that we say yam kapor fall recess the recommendation is really the name change for 1B okay so maybe I'm confusing 1B and the next recommendation which kind of overlap and recommendation two correct okay all right I withdraw I'm very sorry no no no no this is clarification Al Al I I did I did see an advant i

109and I and I do recognize now that this particular one doesn't talk about adding the additional days to the one pager is that correct so when we talk about recommendation two it talks about adding these as superintendent conference days so they would be listed as superintendent conference days on the one pager and on the you know the website and things like that so they' be listed as for example you know yum kapor or Dali SL superintendent conference day and then parenthesis Dall so okay okay so I'll withdraw what I said I and I will and I'll say it again next time got it sort of um any other comments questions all in favor one b one b one b as presented uh motion carries unanimously may have motion to approve calendar recommendation two has presented

110miss blinger any discussion did you have discussion yeah you go first okay you brought up the other thing first yeah I'm sorry and actually this it kind of goes with what I was saying before but a slightly different version um I'm concerned that we are potentially choosing certain holidays to be days off for students without the necessary justification currently education law states the Board of Education shall determine whether school session should not be held at an individual public school or districtwide on a day where if School were in session absenteeism may result in the waste of educational resources because of a considerable proportion of the student population unlikely to attend because of religious or cultural day of observance so again I'm not opposed to the idea idea my concern is um in exploring how these

111particular days were chosen my understanding is only data for these particular holidays uh devali and Eid Al fer if I'm saying that correctly and I apologize if I'm not um were looked at and that we did not look at other holidays or cultur religious or cultural days in in terms of data so I would be more comfortable if we first clearly defined what we consider we Define as considerable proportion of the student population and if we had the committee evaluate attendance dat for all significant religious and cultural days to identify what days can be justified with the current law um and I do understand that there is a bill in play that may change this law and I think it may be in our best interest to wait to see if that legislation is passed

112then we would have a little more leeway here so those were my three points on that I mean I can answer that question go ahead as part the DI committee we looked at the reason we chose those three days three actually four days that time Lun new day wasn't a holiday was based on the legislation the legislation had these four days and few other days and since our community kind of has a representation from those four communities it made sense for us to look at those which were already part of our community so those are the day holidays we kind of picked Dr bronal can give more clarity on that no that's exactly right and for the second part of legislative thing that you mentioned yes we have a bill in the New York State

113Legislature it's passed the Senate and it's just gone to the leg assembly I think yes where it has to go through three committees and then Governor's desk if everything goes on schedule but there's no timeline for that it can happen this year or three years from now well that's not true it would actually have to be done within the 2324 legislative session but it it probably would not be done in time for next year's calendar that it is done after July 1 it goes to next year's calendar it's on the bill anyway so I'm not saying it won't happen but if it doesn't pass by the next year the Bild dice has started all over again the whole process might might happen next year or might happen I don't know when and what I think

114personally is uh our community kind of our community responses we had over 160 responses and over 122 responses were overwhelmingly for having this these holidays and as we have heard from our community over the year like having a holiday especially of during Eid F helps our students because the kids are fasting for days and having a day of celebration at end really makes a lot of difference for them absenteeism as you might see in the absentee report is is probably high at that on that day and uh we didn't look into absente reports for the teachers because I don't think we have enough representations from the teachers for all from these communities so it's only from the student Community we have absentee report so that's answering your question absenteeism and the legislature and again I

115understand that I understand what was evaluated um and I understand that that those days were chosen because that was legislation that was in play at least that was my understanding and those would apply to our community but again I'm looking at this in terms of the current law and the fact that we haven't looked beyond those days to see if there are patterns for other uh religious or cultural observances where we have high absenteeism does that make sense I just wanted to chime in on this I I think that the absentee thing I think sort got to throw out a little bit because many parents and many students say Hey listen despite the fact that it's a religious holiday you got to go to school and so I think that the absentee is almost a

116false positive and I don't think it's a true Narrative of how many people actually celebrate that holiday and I I understand exactly what you're saying but let's let's let's be on the right side of History here this let's be more inclusive about celebrating holidays and our community is changing a great deal and I think that th this makes sense like to our community and our growing numbers of people that celebrate these holidays inside of our community and I thank you um yeah I don't think anybody's against this and I completely understand um the point of view from um Casmir Bogner um but the the community wants action on this I think this is a living breathing document and it's going to change throughout the years and it's okay in my opinion to prove what's in

117front of us today knowing that things might change and I don't want to be you know a school board member that's waiting on all Al to do something maybe in the future maybe this session maybe next session again we're going to revisit this I'm sure several times uh in most of our Schoolboard careers but I am perfectly fine with um voting on this as presented Mr mman um well just to comment on that going along with Mr buan point you know you could say well uh we all would like to observe our religions appropriately but knowing that you have it as a school day that might reduce the options that you have on the other hand if you gave uh that holiday off those students and those teachers you know may feel much more comfortable

118observing their religion versus worrying about taking an absentee day a professional day or you know they often so it sort of it balances out I just play the Mr BC was go ahead it's all right just just to just to that because we're labeling them um superintendence days our teachers will still have to do that I I I understand why we have to label them um superintendent days but our teachers will still have to do that so that's my concern what what's the concern that if if our teachers want to observe those holy days they will still have to take a personal day yes yes and and they're more apt to do that when students aren't in session yeah um for clarification purposes so this tend would tend to at first all probability go into

119our snow days as you mentioned before if because you're gonna they going to one to one snow day correct and then you look at other dates to so for example I I'll use this year we have March 8th as a superintendent conference day right not a day of significance we would exchange that for one of these superintendent conferences this year we had the day before Thanksgiving as a day off not a day of significance we would move that to dwali right right and next year that actually actually falls on November 1st you know how hard it is for teachers to teach the day after Halloween so with that being a super it would it would bold well for 2425 so what I'm saying is we have days in the calendar that have no significance right

120now we would make them days of significance by moving those to superintendent conference days or these cultural or religious holidays and the reason I said one snow day is because then correct I understand that so that was one of my questions because I have I I'm all for this I'm not you know I I was one of the big proponents for Dei right oh yeah um because I have heard concerns from other community members about and you actually answered part of it uh by by you moving or by the district moving uh super com superintendent conference days around concerns of of you know it's another day I have to find Child Care especially for our elementary students um it's another day I have to might have to call in work it's another day so that

121was a big concern of mine hearing it from multiple uh families so you kind of answer one of my concerns by saying you'll kind of move it around um that that was a big concern of mine so um I'm glad to hear you would Pro possibly move days around it might still be issues for some families but um those are two issues in mind I I wanted to make sure it didn't eat too snow days away oh absolutely and that that's an issue of mine as as a person that has to call snow days that's an issue of mine too right and uh Mr Mana brought up a a a perfect Point many times when we have resolutions like this they they are not set in stone right we may have to revisit this in

122a couple of years especially depending on what the governor and legislature do right because I believe there's another bill making its way through that allows schools to start before Labor Day right so there's always changes and so we may have to revisit this um down the road on the second Eid the state has deemed that you cannot give an exam right cannot give an exam so if if the state says you can't give an exam I'm just giving an example then why would we why would this even be an issue giving this day right right you know I'm you know yeah you cannot you cannot give an exam on those right correct and I just want to be completely clear I'm not opposed to the idea per se I'm just concerned again and I'm glad

123to hear that we may revisit this and that that is clear to everyone sitting at this table and to the community as well because I know once you set a precedent for something it is very difficult to walk that back it's much more difficult than not starting the precedent to begin with right and I just again I think for me it's understanding do are we meeting the legal qualifications right now of considerable proportion of students that's that's a difficult thing to know and especially because we didn't evaluate the data Beyond those uh few days so those are those are my main points I will not say anything more thank you very much did have just one other question in terms of because you who was on the D calendar committee I apologize I I thought

124actually saying uh in terms of the sen the laws that are in the Senate they they're really only taking place for New York City is I read them correct city has been approved Governor signed that these are the ones for the whole state okay different so the that's what I'm asking all right so they're two different partial bills okay I I do have just one other question any the comments that came back did anybody ask about any additional holidays that we' have not considered at this point there was there was one request for rashash Shana question oh any other question Dr lman no I was just comment Russ Shana um and the idea that um for the uh Jewish people who want to observe the new year um I guess I would have brought this

125up down the road when um when yum kipur which is scheduled off falls on on the weekend of Shabbat that in lie of that that we would substitute R but that's a different discussion it it is and what I would request Dr Litman because we don't um substitute holidays or exchange holidays you know because then anyone in the community could say well Asian Lunar New Year falls on a Saturday this year can I do this what I would recommend is once the calendar is presented I know assistant superintendent skanz will be working on the calendar once it is presented to the board at the February 12th meeting I believe it is I would then um make a motion because John Cort is not fall recess this coming year I would make a motion then to

126have that considered yeah any other comments discussion all in favor as presented as presented all in favor as presented for recommendation two to be be clear okay one okay the motion passes 7 to2 abstaining sorry I'm abstaining 702 um moving on to policy updates we have a motion to take from the table policy numbers 1510 5661 6410 and 1511 for second reading and adoption is black iner Mr Mano is motion all in favor motion carries unanimously may have a motion for second reading and adoption for these policies M Mrs kasar Bogner and second Dr Litman any discussion all in favor motion carries unanimously uh please note the policy update in number 1510 regarding second public expression will go to effect at the January 9th board meeting Committee of the whole are there any matters to

127discuss under Committee of the whole none okay uh number 16 and 17 there are no matters to discuss under District facilities and support services or legislative matters our next board meeting is on January 9th before I adj the meeting I just want to wish uh everyone Merry Christmas Happy New Year happy Quanza happy birthday to Mark happy Hanukkah and safe travels to Dr Litman happy Hanukkah happy Hanukah Hanah and may have a motion to adjourn the regular board meeting Mr Mulan miss blinger all in favor motion car [Music] unanimously nine o'clock