001everyone may have a motion to return the regular board meeting to public session [Music] Wagner any discussion all in favor motion carries unanimously I call the regular board meeting to order an all board members are present Mr Bullen could you lead us in the early in the pledge of allegiance to the flag thank you pledge allegations to the flag of the United States of America yeah [Music] please be advised that in the 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 you turn your cell phones and other electronic devices to silent thank you are there any board recognitions I think you know the school get got after a wonderful start and we've
002heard about lots of good things I want to recognize all of those maintenance people and custodians and laborers that worked so hard over the summer to make our buildings the beautiful show places that they are when the students came back so absolutely there are two two rarely recognized and they are much appreciated absolutely great recognition Jewish students teachers and community at the end of this week is Rosh Hashanah the head of the year so we wish everybody was trying to Tovar good happy healthy New Year thank you great recognition anybody else public expression I call on Miss blackinger to review our public expression format welcome to all that have come to observe this regular board meeting for policy 1510 the board allows for up to 30 minutes of public comment a time when we invite
003members of our school Community to share ideas opinions concerns with us we are here to listen carefully and 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 our meeting because we want to maintain mutual respect and stability 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 allotted three minutes for
004comments 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 one I have is Rachel Bruce foreign my name is Rachel Bruce and I have two daughters in the Williamsville School District my youngest daughter entered kindergarten this year my kindergartner was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and incurable disease when she was four years old my family and I were living out of state when this life-altering diagnosis happened we eventually made the decision to move back to Western New York and specifically wanted to move back to the Williamsville School District it takes a lot of work to manage type 1 diabetes it is important to
005have a trusted partnership with our Administration teachers and nurses ahead of school I learned that the School nurses are being instructed not to follow continuous glucose monitor data after connecting with other mothers in our district we created a petition to help support our requests for the policy to be changed immediately myself and over 800 people agree that allowing the nurses to remotely follow our children's continuous glucose monitors is an essential part of their care you each have a copy of the petition in front of you I wanted to highlight some of the comments under the reasons for signing section after signing someone wrote the importance of allowing remote monitoring of continuous glucose monitors cgms for children with type 1 diabetes in our district cannot be overstated these devices as recommended by the American Diabetes Association
006are not just essential tools they are lifelines for our children by enabling CGM monitoring in our schools we are safeguarding the lives of our youngest community members with the potential to prevent dangerous blood sugar fluctuations which can lead to life-threatening situations remote CGM monitoring offers peace of mind to parents who entrust their child's well-being to our schools moreover it ensures that students can fully engage in their education free from the cognitive disruptions caused by uncontrolled blood sugar levels this petition embodies our commitment to support the health safety and academic success of all of our children aligning with Ada recommendations and showcasing our Collective dedication to fostering an inclusive and caring community lastly one more comment mind-blowing that this is already not a thing it is for the majority of other districts in Western New York
007why not Williamsville this should not be something a parent has to worry about for back to school in closing our children want to come to school and learn and have fun just like everyone else remote CGM monitoring is not a liability it is an edu it is an additional tool to help assist the nurses to ensure their day is as seamless as possible as she manages all the health concerns of the other children at school thank you for your time thank you Rachel next Brittany jesser hi thank you for having us um I have a five-year-old daughter in the district with type 1 diabetes I just wanted to further relay information about why this is so important to us and another benefit of allowing the nurses this crucial data is peace of mind for the
008parents which Rachel did touch on but most parents are able to drop their children off at school go to work run errands and then pick them up six hours later without any other thoughts as type 1 parents in this District that is not the case for us because we know that our nurses do not have access to this data we have to be constantly monitoring communicating making calls sending messages and emails and playing quarterback to relay what our kids need how and when it does not seem fair or appropriate that one of the best districts in this area is so heavily reliant on parents outside of the school to provide the proper Health Care necessary to keep these kids safe during the school day I would also like to point out the massive massive amount
009of time it takes for teachers and nurses to orchestrate this type of multi-point and complex communication throughout the day it places unrealistic expectations and responsibilities on teachers they have to pay attention to every beep and alarm from all the devices they have to make metal medical decisions in response and respond to every message sent from parents in a certain amount of time because every minute can be critical for these kits and this is all on top of their already stressful duties in the classroom so allowing nurses to follow would alleviate some of the burden on teachers and allow the nurses to spend more time in their office tending to all the other students in the school not running back and forth between classrooms so in this way all of the students in the school are
010directly impacted by the current policy so as our group of type mom type type 1 parents um we put together this list of local districts where they do allow people the nurses to follow so I'm just going to list them Buffalo Public East Aurora Churchville chili Clarence Hamburg Royalton kartland Depew Maryville Wheatland Chili Fairport Seneca Falls Starpoint Greece Hilton Caledonia Mumford Frontier Newfane Lancaster Rush Henrietta Geneseo Victor Niagara Wheatfield Wilson Grand Island Lockport Kenmore Tonawanda Holland Webster Salamanca Penfield Cheektowaga Sloan Honeoye Falls Marion Orchard Park Palmyra Macedon and Spencer Fort Spencerport so 36 local districts have determined that allowing nurses to follow is the best standard of care for these students with type 1 diabetes they were able to overcome restrictions and legalities to be able to provide the safest environment for the kids so
011we question why is it so difficult for the Williamsville District to do the same and put the kids first thank you so much thanks Brittany next to Angela lifton [Music] I would like to provide additional perspective regarding allocation of resources for students with disabilities such as type 1 diabetes as it is in other districts I recently moved to Williamsville from another Local District Williamsville schools have the reputation for being the best I have faced severe disappointment and the lack of resources provided to students in the short time I have been here some examples the previous District I was in provided two full-time nurses in an elementary building with approximately 375 students two of which had type 1 diabetes the Williamsville Elementary building has more students at approximately 560 at least two students with type 1
012diabetes and only one full-time nurse my previous School District provided a district issued iPad for each type 1 student in the nurse's office and allow the nurses to remotely follow the students continuous glucose monitors none of this is happening in the current building as previously mentioned the previous District had one assigned lunch monitor her Elementary School class allowing for increased adult supervision in the cafeteria this is especially important for children with food allergies and type 1 diabetes this school does not have anywhere near the staff to provide that Williams filled current standards of care for students with type 1 diabetes are low the bar needs to be raised the lack of resources allocated poses a safety risk for students and a liability for the district we know as taxpayers that the resources are there they
013just need to be allocated properly so that all children can be safe at school and have an equal chance at the great education we know our district can provide okay thank you Michael Jasper please [Music] I'm just gonna pull this up a bit so everybody can hear me so I didn't prepare remarks because I've been living this situation the past three years I know it by heart my daughter Jane became a diabetic at three years old and we have fought with this this district for resources the entire time I hate to use the word fought but it's the most accurate word to use there were no resources available at a Pre-K when we were sending our type 1 diabetic daughter there no answers no no responses we had to fight to get resources put there
014so that we had somebody to keep an eye on our daughter for her safety to make sure that she was in a Range a health healthy range to learn and to not have long-term damage that was a fight my wife ended up getting hired to do that the next year because you guys will not follow these numbers we had a one-on-one Aid last year my wife sat home all day texting interacting directing every single person there how to do this then we come into our 504 meeting this year and we're told that we don't need a Nate anymore I say why what has changed who has decided the standard of care for our daughter from the past two years has now fallen off we were told that it wasn't economical I don't understand how a
015child and their health care decisions are made by lawyers and by liability insurance decisions there can't be a doctor that's been involved with this because if there has been this wouldn't be the situation that we're in the list that my wife went through was very long I would imagine everybody was a little bit thinking hey maybe we could just tidy this up but that's 36 school districts that are doing it better than Williamsville and Williamsville is supposed to be the best that's why we moved here we're from Rochester I demand better from this organization and I would think that anybody who had a child in our situation would expect the same that's all that we ask thank you for your time thank you Michael and then I have Ona Strang that concludes our public expression
016um thank you missinger moving on to item five presidents report the next event we have is a community Forum which is on September 30th between 9 and 11 at East High School and that's followed by the after school condition sorry conversations with the staff with the board of education on November 1st and [Music] we had a retreat on August 17th in which the entire boat took part does any board member want to talk about it any comments I just want to thank miss Lynn Carey and Dr Brown Hall and staff for organizing it it was a better for me and we have we have a School visits coming up on October 6th the November 3rd both Fridays and then more information is on board Docs and moving on to item 5B board goals and implementation
017plans they are in board docs and for anyone to review would anyone like to add anything to the implementation plans [Music] it's not that I want to add anything specific but I just wanted to look at a topic that's related to our communication goal and specifically implementation plan number four which is key community members informed through Boe written correspondence and by following Boe stakeholder communication guidelines and it's also related to our board government's implementation plan number two which is ensure shared understanding of superintendent and board goals responsibilities and board operating procedures so per our stakeholder communication guidelines when we receive District related email we forward it to all other board members and our superintendent and then our president responds on behalf of the board however I'm unclear about our protocol when both the board and
018superintendent receive an email especially when most fall under the superintendent's responsibility of day-to-day operations or administrative concern as opposed to our responsibility which is primarily board policy and oversight so I just wanted to get some clarity about what our protocol will be as we get these emails that are coming to both the board and the superintendent absolutely okay great if an email comes to the board and to the superintendent historically I have answered that email um unless the board president request from me that I provide them information so that they can answer it or sometimes it's been a dual answer right so I I usually take the um initiative and answer the email because I usually have more information than the board president but then all board members are copied on that email so you
019can see a response has been sent and if the board president so accuses to put an exclamation point by what I've said they can do that with a separate email wonderful thank you I I guess then when we look at our implementation plan um you know one of the measures is that the board president will respond to all uh communication received or something to that effect I don't have the it right in front of me correspondence yeah yeah so we may want to modify that in some way um so that it's an accurate representation of what's going to happen if indeed the superintendent will be responding to those emails that come to both the board and the superintendent but I don't know if anyone has other thoughts about that I mean you mean if some
020things related to the operations of the school district I think it's appropriate if you don't want to responds to it right absolutely I don't disagree with that I just think that we should make sure that our our goals and our measures match up to that to what we're actually doing that's all that I'm saying if that's the case but I want to be careful with that statement because there's nothing that doesn't follow not the operations of the school district you know so everything will fall under that I think again the the delineation that we're looking for is that if something is sent separately and specifically to the board of education then the board president will answer if something is sent um both to the superintendent and the board then the superintendent will answer on behalf
021of the district I mean they've been I think there have been cases sometimes where the Board needs information from you oh absolutely go ahead and deploy absolutely and I I've graciously given that information it's just so that I have an under standing on Dr Singh and making sure that you're clear since you are our board president and you're the one that's going to be responsible for this that if we receive just just the board or an individual board member receives and then we forward it on to the rest of the board that you as a spokesperson for the board will acknowledge that email and it's only in the circumstance when an email comes to both the board and the superintendent that the superintendent may choose to take the lead I mean I think by my
022opinion the boat President should acknowledge all emails and even though the superintendent might respond to it okay okay so we so if that's the case if the um the agreement is that you will acknowledge all the board emails regardless of who they are sent to then we can leave the goal as written and the measures as written yeah I just wanted to agree with that but you know anything that is sent to both the board and the superintendent there needs to be some response from the board president because again uh you don't want people in the community to think well I sent a note to the board and we didn't get a response so as long at least it's the superintendent writes that I'm sending this on behalf of the district and the board I
023think that Clarity would be helpful because again we never want the community same fit hell I send a note to the board and we didn't get a response so unless there's unless there's a point where the the board president still wants to acknowledge receipt of it just to say that the board has received it yes yes some acknowledgment from the board president yes thank you so Dr Singh what is your understanding he's going to be busier than he would like and change the wording yeah okay the writing might start as it is okay so the intention is to respond to all emails that come to the board yes okay thank you okay uh moving on to 5c uh policy review for the 7000 committee will be held on October 25th there are 87 policies regarding
024students on this and uh I think Mrs cosmarak Bogner Dr Spicer and Dr Littman will be attending those and moving on to 5D Erie County Association of school boards they have uh events coming up one is the state aid with Rick Thames it's on October 12th and would any board member like to attend the presentation okay what date is that okay I will say that I attended that last year and I found it very um very insightful particularly for new board members to really grab an understanding of how state aid is figured and what are some of the challenges are I'm going to be moving that day though so not going to be a good day for me to attend I mean I attended last year with Maureen and I I think at the end
025of the presentation he broke it down to how it will affect your school district yes so it was pretty this one okay um the other event coming up is the Albany update by David little on November 2nd would anyone be interested in that [Music] um I can do that okay and we have the ecasp legislative dinner on November 16th would anyone be interested in attending Miss blackinger anybody else Miss Poland Dr lekman and we have one more event the ecasb speed boarding event on November 30th is anyone interested in have we seen the topics for that yet I haven't actually look at that again I mean I think we have some time for that it's November 30th we did have an event uh back to school event organized by AC ASB earlier and uh Miss
026Poland and Miss beckinger attended the event with me and that I thought that was a pretty interesting presentation on school branding on during that dinner uh moving on to five he he we have the nespa events there's uh there's mass shooting in schools lessons from tragedy and opportunities for prevention and response on September 19th so it's a free webinar right free presentation and uh right now I'm attending that with Mrs kasmarak Bogner and miss blackinger is anyone else interested in signing up uh we have the annual convention coming up on October 26th right now at the Mr Doolin Miss kasmirak Bogner Miss Poulin Dr Littman Dr Spicer and I have registered his does anyone else want to register Miss beckinger that was good [Music] we have more information about other related events in the Bulldogs
027if anyone wants to look at it moving on we have a PTA PDS school meetings and I think we had three PTA pdss school meetings yesterday does any board member what is have any comments on those meetings I'll make a quick comment just I was at Mill yesterday and the first meetings are always my favorite because they're so well attended and there's so many people coming and um there was a question on adding Zoom or some other Google meeting to to their meetings and I think that's a good standard for a lot of our schools to do because I think it can include a lot more parents that can't make the meeting so something for the various schools to consider I always use country Parkway is our model because I always talk about you guys
028a great PTA website for your school and also have the ability for parents and and teachers to join in online so it's much appreciated um thank you we had three emails Communications from the community one was regarding programming at Maple West the other was about transportation for modified football and the third was the behavior elements in the classroom from Maple East moving on to item six it's the superintendent's report Dr Brown say it over to you thank you very much president saying I appreciate that um Nick if you can put the community update up I will get through the community update and then we'll have our curriculum update uh from our Ela team we are principals here we have our director of ela we have Dr Marie Balon after the community update we'll jump right
029into that so the community update as usual the first one of the year is a bit long so I will get started back to school we had a great back to school we truly did I was able to visit every school those first two days our leadership team our cabinet members they uh had their liaison assignment for their schools that they visited that entire week so we have great happenings at Transit country Parkway um and Williamsville East we had representation on all news media Outlets that day we began the day um at 5 20 a.m at South High School we had a live shot at 5 30 a live shot at six o'clock a live shot another live shot at six o'clock a live shot at 6 30. we had Keith Boardman was interviewed by
030Channel 7 on the left uh principal principal Keith Boardman excuse me principal Chris McDuffie was interviewed by a spectrum news principal Keith Wing was interviewed by Spectrum news I was interviewed by Channel 2 and then we had our student Congress leaders from South High School they were interviewed by Channel 4 on the bottom so we had a great media presence on that first day of school and I um was very very pleased to see all of The Smiling Faces entering school that day I was also very pleased to see all of the transportation buses that were zooming through our district getting kicks to school on time picking them up on time also so I want to give a huge shout out to our transportation department our director of Transportation Andreina Goldsmith and our dispatchers June
031butino and Carolyn castanova so they did an outstanding job under the direction of our assistant superintendent of finance and Management Services Mr Tom matersky and we continue to have a very strong partnership with sta all of those elements put together to give us a great start with our transportation so I just want to give a round of applause to those individuals hmm so we've spoken about this on the first weekly update and the welcome back to school about our covid-19 health information and there's been a change so families and staff will still be notified through wits if they're exposed to covid-19 the district was notified by erie1 BOCES and the governor's office on September 5th that they would be providing test kicks to districts for the 23-24 school year you may remember at the end
032of last year they informed us that we received our last shipment that we were not be getting any new test kicks but they have reverse course and on September 5th informed us that we will be receiving them however we have not received any test kicks yet and the text kicks are available over the counter at drugstores and grocery stores if you choose to have them and your pediatricians and doctor's office however if a staff member or student has positive for covid-19 please report this to the building nurse and the director or supervisor if you're a staff member and if you test positive for covid-19 the CDC still recommends isolation for five days following symptom onset date once we get the new covid-19 test kicks from the governor's office we will develop how we will store
033those at the school buildings and who will have access to them employment opportunities so we still have some vacancies in our district and the vacancies are listed here we are posting continuously we will also be posting um in media Outlets because we're still looking to hire several positions chemistry teacher EML teachers English as new language a French teacher technology teacher we have several teacher Aid openings we have several food service worker openings we have several clerical openings senior clerk typists clerk typists and part-time clerk typists we have cleaners and custodian openings so if you know of anyone you know of any relatives friends family members that would like to have one of these positions please encourage them to apply and especially for our food service positions our teacher eight positions we can be very flexible
034with those um days that you are willing and able to work so if that's the case please apply through our website and the winning Rick link would you like to add anything uh executive director floriano yep yeah I think you covered it all I think so okay great thank you yes sir are the teaching positions all full-time no they are not they they are not all full-time positions just our special education advisory committee our next meeting will be October 4th at 4 pm and the goal that day is to review the priorities we have set so we do have recommendations from our special education review during that meeting we will outline them all and then review the priorities in what way we're going to prioritize them then we will establish committees based on the recommendations
035so every member of the seat committee will be able to join a separate individual committee to begin the work on some of those recommendations Communications and many of you have already known this but we're gonna just go over this again District in building newsletters will be shared on a bi-weekly basis the district newsletter will be shared the first and third week of each month on Mondays the building newsletters will be shared the second and fourth weeks of each month high school on Wednesday middle school on Thursday elementary school on Friday so we are also meeting with erie1 BOCES and final site so that they are the ones spinal site the company will be developing our new District website I want to thank Nick filipowski Dave Morales our principals our directors and supervisors for all the
036work they've done to prepare a smooth transition from our current website to the website that will be developed by final site and that we anticipate and hope will be something that we'll be able to launch second semester artificial intelligence there's been a lot of talk about Ai and as we begin the school year we do have a um position on artificial intelligence in the district because it's something that we're still investigating we're still looking into providing training for our teachers and staff on AI but I wanted to make sure we had our AI statement here because we have shared it with the media and I know you all can read but I will highlight some aspects of this AI statement so the use of cat GPT specifically is continuously being evaluated as an educational tool
037in the districts teachers do have access to this artificial intelligence service however there is limited access for students while they are present in school there are guardrails in place to preserve academic Integrity within the learning environment so the way we think about this is if students need help any type of assistance they would receive from artificial intelligence that's what we want to make sure they're reaching out to their teachers for right we want to make sure students and teachers have those interactions in school and that's why we want to make sure it's happening on a daily basis now students go home and they need assistance or they have questions and they access AI from home that's something we cannot stop however we do want teachers and students to develop the relationship in school where students
038know they can go to their teachers first but we also want to caution students from using artificial intelligence and an improper inappropriate manner where they're not thinking for themselves and developing their own identity and their own work so that's why this is a tricky subject that we're still examining right so artificial intelligence meeting academic Integrity AI meeting AI we're still working on this I want to thank board member Poulin who went to the um New York state nisbah conference in Albany and when she brought back there was an artificial intelligence draft document that has five phases of artificial intelligence and I would agree that our district is in Phase One we're at the educating phase right next we'll move to the partnering phase in the positioning phase developing and standardizing what artificial intelligence looks like
039in our district but we're still at Phase One at this point in time Athletics please be sure to check athletic schedules for game dates times and locations the link will be in this community update so any parent or Community member that needs access to it can clink can click on it excuse me next I do want to thank last year we had the discussion here at the board table and we developed an ad hoc Athletics committee I know board member biscalia brought the concerns to the table the board voted on re making sure that that athletic committee looked at our procedures when it relates to drug and alcohol policies for our Athletics or our students who play in any sport and there have been some changes so we've highlighted the changes on this page and
040the next page specifically any violation of paragraphs numbered one or two in the policy so you actually need to see the policy for that but we will result in immediate suspension from the team for a period of four weeks however these are the changes student athletes who accept responsibility for their actions described in paragraphs one and two may take advantage of the district restorative options within two school days of the infraction the student and family will receive information regarding restorative components and have the opportunity to make an informed decision if the student and or family opt in to the restorative component and if it is agreed that the student accepts appropriate responsibility for their actions the district's restorative conference process will be held and the plan developed to allow for a reduction of the disciplinary
041action so a lot of individuals on the committee felt that this was important right and we all do because we are making sure that the restorative process is something that becomes second nature in our district so I want to thank board member biscalia for sitting on that team our directors our director of Athletics Chris musica our assistant superintendent Dr Marie Balin and I know that Dr Linda through way who is our director of professional learning did a lot of the facilitation of this along with our high school principals our High School athletic director slash assistant principals students and parents I want to thank you for all of your work on this do you want to add anything board member Scalia no I mean it was a good committee I think was Dr err's uh Mr
042scanzuzzo who's on the committee listen I'm so sorry about changes I'm sorry no it was good it was a lot of communication the kids were the students were involved that was the most important thing absolutely absolutely all a part of as we stress elevating student voice calendar and observances so this year we will continue to recognize months of importance the example Hispanic Heritage Month and individuals of significance I want to thank Karen Greco our director of social studies and libraries and Mallory McManus ESL teacher Bernadette pasig librarian I believe Bernadette is at North now and Samantha Farley a social studies teacher in the district for making sure that we acknowledge all of our months of importance and our individuals of significance the diversity equity and inclusion calendar subcommittee will be meeting on September 22nd 26
043at 3 P.M so I want to thank board member beulin pointed out last time that we really needed to move that meeting so it's been moved to September 26th at 3 o'clock P.M and we are still awaiting additional guidance regarding cultural and religious observances from the state for the 24-25 school year however last Friday Governor holko did sign that um the Asian Lunar New Year will be a school holiday in all of New York State schools and so um I believe the way it falls on the calendar it will not affect the 23-24 school year but it will indeed be an additional day off in the 24-25 school year correct me if I'm wrong is that is that not a moving Target every year just like it's a moving Target every year or yeah absolutely
044that's why this in in uh 2024 it falls on a Saturday and so not like a Federal holiday we don't need to then give that Friday off however in 2025 it does fall on a Wednesday we are still awaiting um guidance from the governor's office on her desk are also Eid and Diwali to be signed as um school holidays and that is the end of the community update thank you very much I will now ask uh Dr Balin and her um Ela curriculum update team to please come up and give us our Ela curriculum update thank you so much Dr Brown Hall good evening of Education thank you for having us here this evening while we are the ones presenting tonight the accolades really must be given to our teachers and our principals two of
045our principals are here with us tonight we have Dr Bill Bowen from Maple East and Mr Andrew Bowen from country Parkway so we thank them for being here tonight as well as all of our parents and our students you will hear a lot tonight about engagement and enjoyment all of this is not possible if it is not for all of the efforts of all of the stakeholders that I just mentioned and certainly our director of ela and reading who's also here this evening Mrs Christy Carroll and our district coaches for literacy one of whom is with us here tonight Dr Melissa Johnson so I'm very pleased that our team is here to share with you we're very excited to be able to convey this information this evening so without further delay I'll have this after
046Mrs Carroll step up to the podium so we can get started thank you thank you all right good evening Dr Brown Hall and members of the Board of Education thank you so much for having us this evening um we were we were all excited my colleagues and myself to share some updates about our English language arts program uh K-12 in the district all right so first and foremost what I want to share with you is that our program is comprehensive it's important that's a really important piece of it our vision and mission is to teach all of our Learners we want to successfully teach them by differentiating instruction and providing effective supports for for all of our students um we want to see all of our students become lifelong readers and lifelong writers that's a
047really important component in all of this we teach them the skills and strategies they need to do that and we provide them with choices in the classroom and ultimately we place them at the center of their instruction s I'm going to turn it over for the next slide for my colleagues Dr Bowen Mr Bowen and Dr Johnson thank you Mrs Carroll so what in development of our Ela plan for the district lots of communication has taken place over the course of the last year and initially the communication started with just our administrative group Mrs Carroll Mrs Johnson Dr Balin our district principals and then eventually we started to solicit feedback from our teachers through faculty meetings grade level meetings team meetings not only at Maple East but at all of the buildings throughout the district
048and in addition to the in building communication Mrs Carroll Mrs Johnson had that cross-building communication as well so multiple times throughout the year last year they got teachers together from the six elementary schools from the four middle schools and the three high schools for that cross-building and cross-district conversations thanks good evening and then the principals got involved so this was a wonderfully collaborative process spearheaded by Mrs Carroll with support from Dr Johnson and oversight by Dr balen so what did this look like Elementary principles meant monthly and we reviewed our current practices with a critical eye on Improvement We examined each component of literacy learning and what that looked like in each of our buildings each month we would come together to analyze data and discuss feedback and soon uh finalized plan slowly but surely
049uh came together and we have full support from all six of our elementary buildings good evening um so part of our process is we collaborated with multiple stakeholders and um Mrs Carroll myself our team we worked with leadership within special education we worked with leadership within Esau to ensure we had diverse texts to support our plan we also made sure that we were being Equitable and and meeting the needs of all Learners particularly our special education students and Beyond we also took some time to review and research practices and Frameworks through a variety of lenses that involved reading professional texts attending different workshops and seminars making sure that we had a full scope and understanding of what we were implementing and lastly we engaged in some local and National benchmarking so we spoke with other
050professionals we spoke with other researchers on a national level but we also took some time to visit other local districts speak with other professionals within the area to gain more knowledge and ensure that we were on the right path thank you so kind of talking about the methodology behind the plan um really a big piece behind this was thinking about vertical and horizontal alignment we talked a lot about rowing in the same direction that we can be better for our students if we are all working together collaboratively we're stronger if we're all going in the same direction so how do you best do that that's really building lots of opportunities for teachers to collaborate for them to work together for them to engage with one another so that's really a big important piece that we've
051put in place um over this past year ultimately the entire methodology behind the plan is to have highly engaging student-centered classrooms where all students are included and supported that's what all of this is about that's why we were all working together we all came together tonight the same way we've been doing you heard it over and over and really that was the goal so these next couple of slides that you'll see or we'll stop here just for a second but the next three slides are just samples of visuals we provided teachers with visuals and lots of linked documents so that there's lots of communication and then easy access to all the things they need to be able to do all of these things we just talked about so this is just a sampling of what
052our key through four teachers might have one piece of it if you go to the next slide this is like a sampling from our middle school documents just something again one piece of the digital documents that are linked out for them and then the last one is representation of our high school just again a visual to kind of give you a better idea of our offerings for high schools so that is I'm going to turn it over to Dr Balin and thanks again for having us this evening thank you so much we wanted to show just a few snapshots of the visual representations the way this was so important is that we wanted one aspect to really show besides a narrative description of what it is that we were expecting and talking about is what
053does it all look like when we're trying to depict it from a visual standpoint and I can't tell you how much positive feedback has been received to have a summary sheet like that really showing our programmatic overview in that comprehensive fashion I would also say just yesterday the Board of Regents in their meeting and this is all posted publicly and publicly available has a very extensive PowerPoint that they presented on literacy and literacy practices and what the state is supporting and reinforcing and really a vision for literacy if you look through the slides it really identically matches our philosophy and approach here in Williamsville so I'm very proud of all of the work that has been going on you will hear more and we're hoping to share and as you're visiting the school C more
054importantly Visions in the classroom of this continuing to come to life we've had the great opportunity to be able to share a lot of it with you along the way various programmatic components I also want to make sure that one of the responses that we did provide to the board's question around how we're also aligning and supporting Dei I would like to just take a moment to close with that because that is really a Mainstay of all of this work so while we are certainly focused upon standards and focused upon best practices instructionally and curricularly we are certainly also supporting our strategic plan and the tenants of Dei so I wanted to share with all of our public that extensive efforts have been made at the program level to ensure that support for diverse resources
055and perspectives promoting student voice and connections and increasing engagement as part of the learning process as well as inclusion in the curriculum is being addressed on many from first and foremost through literature certainly curricularly and Via our instructional practices so we've talked about the cultural framework that New York state has shared with us those tenants are very well being represented in this work one of the main areas that we focused upon during the opening days and this was certainly the case at every school in our district in in some way shape or form was an emphasis that was placed on Dei professional learning for staff also included recent professional learning with Dr Javon Hunter Dr Hunter was part of our panel for the district the last school year he was with all of our every
056one of our Secondary High School specifically English and special education teachers looking at culturally relevant teaching in the English classroom so we're again very very proud of that work in addition this fall we are offering after school professional development via our catalog again thanks to you all for supporting our endeavors there uh that will support reflection identity inclusivity and again focus on this crs-e framework in addition throughout last year in continuing this summer I wanted to share with you that Dr Hunter worked extensively with Ela but also all curricular areas we met as a group multiple times with Dr Hunter and then also individually myself Mrs ruway and Dr hunter in each subject area director to plan for the curriculum work that took place this summer and our professional learning so again that was very
057structured and purposeful on our part in addition to further support student progress and achievement all of our high schools this year are implementing targeted focused literacy support for students delivered by the reading specialist so again there's lots to come this is just a preview of what we've already put into place much will be evolving along the lines of aligning with further efforts for the Dei plan one of the things we're looking at doing and Dr Brown Hall is aware of this is partnering with Miss ruay Dr Brown Hall himself and Dr Hunter to offer a student-led conference Fair where they will showcase their learning specifically aligned to Dei so we're really excited about that so we wanted to really close out our presentation on that note and just share with you again our thanks for
058having us here tonight thank you to everyone who is involved in developing this wonderful plan and thank you to the board and the superintendent for everything you do to support our students and our families each and every day so with that we'll close and take any questions that you may have thank you Dr Bell that's powerful absolutely powerful thank you very much Dr let me you have a question that thank the team and all of the people I list all your names and thank you but you know thank you to all of you but and all this is wonderful I looked at it thought about it but you know the next step again is measurements of progress and assessment you made a note that you were looking at that so where are you in that
059on I mean that's the next step of course but yes so what what we have it's a great question and actually one that we expected to speak to a bit as well so with that we um and going back to some of the prior information we shared it's important that measurement takes place in a lot of different forms um there's certainly diagnostic formative and summative assessment as well as qualitative and quantitative not just numbers but having observation and things of that nature we actually have an assessment calendar that was developed as part of this endeavor several years ago so that is what we've been working on and when I say we it's really everyone you see with me tonight along with our building principles teacher committees Etc and looking at how we are gathering information
060how we are using the information most importantly to meet the needs of students and have that responsiveness piece in place so really to answer your question is making sure we have a strong assessment component in an assessment calendar which includes a multitude of of data sources so that is really how we plan for not just the initial instruction but also the intervention and whatever other support or strategies need to be implemented on behalf of students thank you thank you Dr Littman and to Dr Littman's point when we do the board of physics and schools it's important that we have those conversations with the administrators in the building because they see it every day how it creates a love of learning for the students also when they see themselves in the curriculum and all the work
061that's being done in ela so I want to again thank Dr Bell and Christy Carroll Andrew Bowen Bill Bowen and Melissa Johnson for all the work that you put into this and for your presentation are there any other questions board members uh in terms of the reading or I see reading workshops and writing workshops so like Elementary and Middle School levels that based off of uh Lucy Calkins right background or we have used um various materials the units of study are the commercial product be behind a lot of the workshop but remember Workshop is really just authentic engagement in actual authentic reading arise so we do continue to use the workshop model it's important that students are able to get that mini lesson and again I go back to the components we've previously previously shared
062with the board the mini lesson time for student engagement time for the teacher to conference with the student time for the student to get feedback on their writing time for the teacher to give feedback on the reading so all of those are still that's one part but it is still part of the model yes so if you're still using that in terms of those Workshops the teachers are still have a component based on learning phonics at the younger as well right that's absolutely correct yeah one concern there's been studies that I think she changed in 2022 but you know I think at a young age it's important to make sure we're working on Phonics as well we absolutely are so all of the pillars if you will of reading instruction and high quality best practice
063does speak to multiple um components one of which is phonics phonemic awareness vocabulary comprehension all of those are part of our comprehensive program yes thank you no it's an excellent question thank you absolutely thank you very much team we appreciate it thank you very much [Applause] next is 6C District facilities and support services Capital project update and I'll turn that over to our Chief Financial Officer Mr Thomas thank you Dr Brown Hall and I certainly would like to say okay I'm sorry I have the class size you okay I'm sorry am I messing up okay okay no problem no problem um preliminary Elementary class size report is inboard.com we'll be right back to you I promise all right just a little commercial break so the preliminary class Elementary class size report is in board docs
064and that's as of last week so that's how we're looking right now and um it is color coded so you can see very clearly what classes are below the uh range that the district has established which classes are in the range and which class may be slightly over the range so that is in board docs for um all of our parents community members and board members to see any questions yes vice president yeah I I just thought it was wonderful to see that the vast majority of classes were below or within the range and the only one that stands out there is the I believe Dodge second grade so I was wondering what if anything was going to be done to address that absolutely and that was um because as you know we we get
065enrollments over the summer in our schools too and Dodge is an open and Rogue school so it's something we may have to consider in the future stopping the open enrollment at certain grade level so we don't have that happen however I know that um the Dodge Administration has looked into hiring possible additional support to keep our ratios down in those second grade classrooms because that's what you see the 0.4 over the 24 class range right thank you so much I know it was only slightly over but it's wonderful to know that there are things that will be put in place thank you thank you vice president you know we discussed at previous meetings at Maple I believe okay will be crowded and we're going to be adding adding uh the trailer the mobile classrooms there
066we go thank you traveling uh yeah so and I'm looking at the range the ranges are reasonable and if you look at the lower end kindergarten first grade um so I didn't know if we needed to [Music] revisit that or I mean I know there's value in adding the mobile classrooms uh but I'm just looking at the numbers you say gee does the data align with the decisions we had to date and I said well it doesn't really match up how I would think it could right and that's why again going back to the school of physics when you see how tight some of our schools are and what what has to take place in the hallways or and you know and and um learning spaces that we had to convert we actually had to
067add classrooms at Maple West this year just to be within this range and you'll look at some of these numbers and you'll notice some of the numbers are at the close to where we we don't want to be too close because more students will be added you know and so that's why the mobile classrooms are so important that we still get them on site for Maple West because we don't see enrollment declining there for you know for for a while for the foreseeable future I should say yeah seven seven and seven and eight dates size kindergarten classes are yeah very yeah those would just keep moving up yeah yes I get it there one more time well I'm sorry um my question was has there been decisions made about what classes are actually going to
068go in to mobile classrooms or have that is that still in the planning stages that's still in the planning stages absolutely so uh principal Smith at Maple West has been working with uh assistant superintendent Balin looking at their schedules their flow of classrooms when students go to their Encore courses all of that is being example examined so that we know what will go into the mobile classrooms once they are installed something tells me we will hear about that again at this table oh absolutely absolutely why not and and luckily the board being the board member you'll have advanced knowledge of it before it comes to the board table from the public oh no no I know what you meant but I'm saying but luckily so you won't operate on fragile knowledge you'll know ahead of
069time now we're going to shoot over to our Chief Financial Officer Mr Tom matersky for the district facilities and support services thank you thanks Dr brownhau um very briefly as you all know we did a lot of capital Project work this summer um again the last phase of our security uh project that involved adding vestibules uh at many of our schools Maple West uh Heim Middle High Elementary Transit Middle East High School was finished and North High School so all of those buildings uh for the most part they're all operational with those entrances at the first day of school we have some work continuing to go on at Transit middle that is still going to go on probably through the first week of October where we have the entire outside finished but it doesn't prevent
070anything from occurring normally inside the building aside from that I would like to Echo what was Poland had said earlier that after the project work we had great commitment from our Architects Wendell Troutman and our construction manager campus construction to get things done but more specifically um you know I also want to thank Dr Keith langlatz our director of facilities absolutely done a tremendous job throughout the entire summer and not just during the summer so you all know it's projects take on a whole thing all of their own and all the custodial stuff as well they have to come in even though we get cleaning as part of the project expenses the reality is it's not the cleaning that we anticipate or want they all came through and did a great job and just want
071to also thank all of them for their work thank you very much Mr matersky any questions on Mr matersky before we go to the last item so sorry I'm sorry go ahead you did mention Maple s is done uh Maple West is uh usable but it's still not um the outside still has to have the facade in there yes a timeline for that they they should be done in the end of September the the way that is working is um the the panels that go on it's a metal panel system that will likely have to be measured and then once it's measured after the um what I would call the superstructure is put in place that's when the measurement happens the superstructure has been measured already for like Heim Elementary as well as mapo West
072um so now it's it's fabrication and then installation so probably a couple weeks before that is put down thanks yes Miss black teacher um concerning the air conditioning project I see here in November we'll have the bid results I had some questions yesterday at a PTA meeting from teachers that were very warm in the building wondering like an estimated time frame timeline of when construction will start realistically you know I know you wanted to start in elementary schools when air conditioning will be working in elementary schools yes and so I can give you a very brief timeline we're looking likely to hopefully get project approval from the New York State education department this month we're in the very final stages of submission where we have submitted and then they come back to us and they
073say hey we not we want this information that's all been done so once that happens we will put the bids out and bid awards are likely to happen in um I'm going to say December and so then our planning process goes in that will allow the first construction to happen in 2024 for the first set of buildings three buildings each summer the reality though is that because it's an air conditioning project the whole commencement or or a commissioning process which is required will likely take another six to eight months so they're really not going to see air conditioning um the beginning of the 24-25 school year in September 24. um I would be hesitant to say that's a that's a reality it's probably going to be more for those first buildings the spring of 2025
074and then it's going to be similarly for the last three buildings which you'll probably be going into 26 for when their whole systems are operational so it's going to be on this basis where pretending which buildings are first and which are second but it is a process um when we get closer into it we can explain the details it's it's quite involved yeah well even those estimates are helpful to set expectations thank you muffle set thank you um so the last item is the district goals implementation plans and those are inboard docs and when you read them you say these sound familiar and they should because they are actually the goal activities from our strategic plan as you know our strategic plan goes until the year 2027 so the goal activities will remain the same
075we will have a compendium in both January and June to show how we are reaching those goal activities and the overarching goals in the Strategic plan goal areas any questions all right I will turn it back over to president Singh thank you very much thank you uh moving on now and agenda items eight through twelve the minutes Personnel business and finance Student Activities instructions and curriculum may I have a motion to approve the agenda items 8 through 12 as presented Dr littmann Miss Poland any discussion president thank you um I just wanted to thank the textbook selection teams for their thoughtful choices I could see from the review that they spent a lot of time in consideration in determining which textbooks to choose but I also was wondering a little bit more about the New
076World Language collaboration with Niagara University if we could get a little more information about that thank you so much thanks uh first of all for the compliment for our teams they have worked really thoughtfully and uh looking at a variety of materials I'd like to thank uh as far as the new Step Niagara University partnership Dan mirtha our director for the area was very involved as we're teachers primarily in the world languages of French and Spanish so in those regards they are working directly with a new professors who teach those courses in the language at the University level so what will be afforded to students much like you've heard in the past with other opportunities we have had with that dual enrollment kind of arrangement students will have the opportunity through their respective high schools
077to be able to sign up for not only the class at their school but also be afforded an opportunity through Niagara to receive credit if they meet the criteria for doing so so we're very excited about that and those two Partnerships are new for us as of this year so are they in place for this year okay thank you thank you any other comments all in favor motion carries unanimously at this time I would like to thank the following retirees for their service to the district Trisha DeSantis School administrator for 19 years of service Donna Lauer at labor at East High School for 32 years of service and Amy Nicolia clerk typist at North for 11 years of service thank you very much [Applause] under item 13 policy updates may I have a motion to
078take from the table policy numbers 5661 8330 5680 5684 and 56.95 Mr Manor second one is blackinger uh all in the trailer discussion sorry discussion I would like to request that the amendment the amendment excuse me does the motion be amended to remove policy 5661 to continue to leave that on the table until such time as a meeting can be held to look at that policy to include mental health in our wellness policy um but is not there now having attended both the um Summit on youth mental health with Governor hokel as well as the leadership event in July I think that's something that's really important to Global Wellness um and would like would like us to address that in that policy you want to re-table it in a second I mean do you have
079a second for them uh Mr pascalia I seconded and you have wrote on it as a bandage head back on the table policy five six six so the policy number five six six one we're going to place back on the table yes both okay yes so the motionless itself seconded so just we vote on it right yes okay table 5661 right we have a motion to table policy 5661 for are you dead but okay I meant it policy sorry okay um sorry all of us are working right I think you just wanna you wanna emotionally motion the table now you want to to vote on tabling okay I'm sorry I may ask a point of clarification because I believe when Miss Poulin asked that it remained tabled the amended motion would have been just the
080amended motion is for numbers 83 30 56 80 56 84 and 56.95 to be removed from the table that would have already left policy 5661 tabled you see what I'm saying it's not a separate it's not a separate motion it's just an amendment to the to the motion to to leave 56 1 on the table that's what I thought I mean so all of us are going to vote on amended motion to stay on the table the amended the amended motion removed well the amendment you see what I'm saying so miss Poulin just asked that 5661 remain tabled so the amended motion is really just a motion to take from the table policy numbers 8330 everything but 56 61. so then you just ask for approval on the amended motion because then 5661 is no
081longer is no longer removed from the table either way either way it's correct but right I was trying to make it they call for a vote as amended yes okay I'm sorry yeah so may I have a vote for the motion for sorry the policy number 5661 has amended all in favor no that's not that's not what you're doing so may I have so you're asking for a vote for the amended motion to take from the table policies 8330 56 80 5684 and 56.95 should leave 5661 automatically on the table on the table so we wrote on other policies correct yeah okay I'll pay with the amended motion I think it's the call yep um may I have a all in favor all in favor of motions amended motions amended motions for to take from
082the table pick from the table 56 83 30 83 30 56 56 80 56 84 and 59 95 yeah all in favor opposed um is there a motion for a second reading and Adoption of policy updates 5661 nope not 5661. sorry numbers 56 80 56 84 56 95 as presented Miss blackinger in Miss Poland any discussion all in favor motion carries unanimously a committee of the whole are there any matters to discussion to discuss on the committee of the whole I have one thank you um as as we discussed or I brought up during our Port Retreat which was outstanding as it was a great opportunity to do a deep dive into some of the Departments and then some of the board functions and and how our agenda is structured I brought up uh um
083the idea of having an additional public expression at the end of the meeting and I will send around a draft of what some of my thoughts were but briefly it is a a set aside a maximum of 10 minutes after the uh board a meeting it would be two minutes per speaker you you could not have spoken at the first public expression no need to sign up but I feel if somebody you know wants to come in the middle of the meeting and something piques their interest they would have an opportunity to dress the board so I will put together my thoughts and send out a draft and and get the board input and if it's their will we could you know change the way um you know some of our our policy and make
084this I think a little give the public another uh way on top of the dozens they already have to contact us but to come here and uh you know something again picks their interest to to have their say thank you thank you any other comments there are no legislative matters to discuss may have a motion to Urgent to execute a second executive session to discuss employment matters relating to particular persons and current litigation Mr Manor and Miss Poland all in favor motion carries unanimously [Music] not bad right thank you