001may I have a motion to return the regular board meeting to public session miss Poulin second Dr Singh all in favor thank you motion carries unanimously I call the regular board meeting to order all board members are present except Dr Littman and Mrs leatherbarrow Miss Poulin would you please lead us in the pledge of allegiance to today [Music] thank you please be advised that in the event of a 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 that everyone turn their cell phones and other electronic devices to silent thank you and I would also like to recognize that in our audience this evening we have Mr David Lowry who is the executive director for
002the Erie County Association of school boards thank you for attending this evening welcome David thank you huh I would now like to call for a moment of silence for Miss Nicole Hallmark a teacher at Heim Elementary who passed away recently thank you also under section two is there a motion to approve the agenda as presented Miss blackinger second Mr beulin all in favor motion carried unanimously I would now like to turn the meeting over to Dr Brown Hall to talk about some board acknowledgments thank you very much president McCleary so tonight we continue our school Spotlight and tonight we're going to focus on Maple East Elementary School and their technology integration and sharing student experiences with parents during parent-teacher conferences we know the importance that technology plays in the world and our students are continuing
003to fine-tune their skills I now like to welcome up assistant principal extraordinaire Christy giardina and Technology coach Eileen Eileen I don't want to mess up your last name can you say Tire cough to share more about this initiative and I have to let you know during our visit to Maple East the other day Dr Bella and I got to meet Eileen and talk about this this is phenomenal work so I'm excited that the board the board and the community gets to see this also thank you so much I really appreciate all of you inviting us here um thank you to our amazing Communications Department who put this video together along with Eileen um at Maple East we're always looking for new exciting innovative ways for kids to Showcase themselves what they like to do their
004talents their skills really anything that they want to tell us and this was just a project that we were able to allow the parents to while they were waiting outside for their parent-teacher conference they were able to really see their own child in action in school which doesn't happen often enough so we were really excited to share that and we had parents in tears in the hallway seeing how great their kids were doing but the expert on this is Eileen so I'm going to turn it over to her to tell you a little bit more about how we got this going it's really not any different than what teachers are already doing oftentimes before parent-teacher conferences uh teachers will ask students to reflect on their learning what are they looking forward to what are they
005good at what do they need to improve at so they usually do that in a writing piece so we came up with an idea to have them actually do it through video so they like a private message to their parents and so while the parents are waiting for a parent-teacher conferences the pictures of their student their child is up on the wall with a QR code and everyone has a smartphone so often the smartphones and then they could hear that message right directly from their kids so I won't say much more because you'll see it in the video but the the best part is the willingness of our teachers it took some of them out of their comfort level to use this new technology and they all did it willingly and they were very supportive
006and it's gonna grow at Maple East in the future and thanks to Eileen they're asking what's next [Music] in preparation for peer teacher conferences teachers like to have their students do some sort of a self-reflective piece so when the parents are waiting for conferences oftentimes they're out in the hallway kind of waiting and now with this project that we have there's QR codes that the parents can simply open up their phone click on it and there is a video message from their child they can see their face hear their message they show that excitability they really felt like they were talking directly to their parents and able to brag about what they're learning about and how well they're doing in school and where their goals are and what they need to work on hi Mom
007and Dad I'm going to tell you all about Maple lease my favorite thing about third grade is my teacher Miss Fender one thing I'm really good at is I'm I'm really good at reading books it was a fantastic like little glimpse into her school day it's so much more special and so much more meaningful because I'm hearing it in her own words I'm hearing her own voice speak what she enjoys about her school day and what she values in her learning this is a great way for parents to get a visual of what their children Love and Enjoy in their school we love meeting with the parents during our conference opportunities the feedback was very positive and I have to thank our technology coach Eileen tarakov and our teachers for taking on this initiative and
008our students were very receptive to working on this as well so it was just a wonderful way to bring parent-teacher conferences into the 21st century hi Mom and Dad welcome to my parenting teacher conference one thing I'm really good at math because I know all my facts and you know that's true the kids love anything to do with technology so we are very fortunate in this District to have a good technology program and Technology coaches that are willing to work with us this is a great way for students to be able to reflect on themselves themselves it's a little more immersive they're learning a new program and they're taking that program and creating a project which they can be proud of at the end so going forward we're looking at maybe least to enhance this
009and broaden this taking little pieces of video from our music gym and in our steam program and now it really gives the parents a bird's eye view to see what does an elementary gym class look like what does the music class look like so this gives them a chance to kind of get a perspective of what is happening in schools my favorite part of third grade is Library because there are so many fun books bye I love you [Music] [Applause] so very much as a parent I know how hard it is to get information out of your kid about what happened in school so this was phenomenal thank you very much for sharing with us and thank you for um actually putting this into place I know the parents appreciated it also thanks thank you
010thank you very much I'll turn it back over to you president McCleary are there any board acknowledgments we are now moving on to public expression hi Colin Ms Poulin to review our public expression format observe our regular board meeting per policy 1510 the board allows for up to 30 minutes of public comment people are required to sign up in advance for public comment and for today no one has signed up for public comment so thank you for being here and that concludes our public covet expression thank you item number five may I have a motion to approve the consent agenda items six Personnel seven business and eight special needs and Student Activities motion Miss blackinger second Miss kasmere Bogner any discussion all in favor thank you carried unanimously I would like to thank the following
011retirees for their service to the district Jeffrey costecki teacher at Heim middle school for 33 years of service Deanna laduca teacher at Country Parkway for 33 years of service Maria Leone teacher at Transit middle school for 23 years of service Sharon vicchio wrote there I apologize Jaren vicchio there wrote there teacher at East High School for 28 years of service and Julie's brow teacher at South High School for 21 years of service thank you to all of those retirees [Applause] is there a motion to approve the minutes from the December 13th regular board meeting Dr Singh second Miss Poulin are there any corrections all in favor any abstentions oh that's me yes my abstain thank you motion carries six zero one under the president's report there are two topics from the committee of the whole
012last month Miss kazarak Bodner would you like to comment on the topic of the open meetings law yes uh thank you president McCleary as outlined last month a change in open meeting law now permits board members to participate in meetings remotely from a non-public location in extraordinary circumstances but in order to pursue this the board would need to hold a public hearing and then adopt a resolution that defines and authorizes extraordinary extraordinary circumstances video conferencing so I went through the details on what I'm happy to do that again if needed but I just I guess at this point want to move to discussion if anyone has any comments or how they're feeling about this currently that's what I was going to ask if you had I know we've talked about it but in terms of
013the next steps to follow and so forth well the next step right the next steps would be to outline a resolution and hold a public a public hearing and the resolution would need to Define what particular circumstances we were defining as extraordinary circumstances examples given would be disability illness caregiver responsibilities or anything else that would prohibit a board member from attending in person and then um we would also need to outline in that resolution whether it would be just for board meetings or also for meetings of any committees or subcommunities that were majority board member committees such as our um policy committee meetings thank you may ask a clarifying question so just to make sure because this is really just a courtesy so that board members will be able to participate because at the public
014location you still must have a quorum in order to still conduct the meeting correct correct okay yes anyone else have questions or comments so are you suggesting then that um someone who has looked through this and is willing to volunteer to help put together this resolution it could be brought back to us perhaps next month or if the board supports moving forward I would be happy to outline the resolution with Mrs Carey there is a you know the information that Mrs Kerry um sent to us through erie1 BOCES pretty much outlines what needs to be done so it's just a matter of following what is already outlined that that I didn't ask my question correctly I apologize that you feel comfortable in again re-reviewing what Miss Carey has already found for us and um bringing
015it forward do we need I guess I'm asking well I I mean I can make I can make a motion if you would like I didn't know if we wanted to have any discussion before that period of time I think we need the motion first okay so I move that a public hearing and resolution be added to the February 7th 2023 agenda authorizing the board and its committee or subcommittees to permit the use of extraordinary video conferencing when due to disability illness or other significant factors which precludes a board member from attending in person we have a second Dr Singh anyone want to make any other comments or ask her questions okay then all in favor thank you carried unanimously so I will leave it up to you and Mrs Carrie to move forward for
016February absolutely thank you and also under our discussion that a request was made um last month by Dr Littman to support the healthy School meals for all New York incentive there is a letter that is in our board docs that's the sample of what we could um send so would anyone like to discuss that or make a motion that we send to New York that we are requesting the healthy School meals for all I I just have a comment I know that um the New York State School Board Association of the New York the New York State teachers union um and several other advocacy groups we're all in Albany yesterday advocating for this initiative it was not part of the governor's State of the State that was released today so it does make sense in
017my view to move forward with sending the letter so are you making them I will make a motion I I don't have this one written down but I will uh make a motion to send the letter to our local legislators our state legis legislators and to the governor advocating for Universal School meals for and the funding needed to do that second for Mr viscalia any other discussion all in favor thank you very much we will uh move forward I'll get that letter all set up but thank you and the upcoming events are listed in board docs there is advocacy training and the legislative breakfast that will be held now on January 21st the community Forum will be held on March 28th after the budget work session at Casey middle in the library with an approximate
018start time for the Forum around 7 30. the board retreat is scheduled for April 13th from 6 to 9. at this moment we have a commitment from all board members to attend the next school building visit will be on January 23rd we have three board members attending Miss Casmir Bogner Miss Poulin and miss blackinger we are now looking at 10 B esmeric Bogner and Dr Singh will continue the review of the non-instructional business operations policy 5000 series on Friday January 20th at 2 30 p.m at District office which then moves us to the remaining policy series that are up for review would be logically the six thousand seven thousand and eight thousands um if we could take a moment to just discuss in terms of the review of the next three sets they are um
019some of the lengthier ones the um the uh 6000 Series has 44 policies under it the seven thousand has 85 policies under it and the instruction 8 000 has 31 policies under them and I would say as a general statement under the at least the seven in the eight thousands that probably at least 75 percent of them are from like 2009 so there's probably a thought that some will need to be reviewed although we regularly do hear from updates from BOCES and some items I believe next month we already are having some that are going to be coming up for first reading but anyway does anyone have any thoughts or discussions in terms of how we should proceed in terms of when we do then ones next do we go with the six thousands um
020or the seven thousands or the eight thousands and I'm open to comments questions well just it seems to me we've been going in order so it makes sense to continue to go on order and I think I'm hoping that we will finish up with the five thousands at this upcoming meeting so I think we'll be ready to move on to the 6 000 sometime soon um the 6000s are um basically Human Resources uh items and feel that we can go forward with the six thousands next okay then once we can certainly talk about dates and so forth later but are there any individuals who are interested in volunteering for the six thousands it's black interior anybody else Bogner the hurricane book too oh I'm sorry I missed it thank you very much yeah anyone else
021all right and then we will talk about the seven thousands and the eight thousands after the six thousands thank you [Music] under the Erie County Association of school boards all of the upcoming events and meetings are listed in board Docs the upcoming events and meetings or anything connected with the New York State School boards Association are also listed in board Docs does anyone have anything to report related either to ecasb or nisba Ms Poulin we will have a delegate meeting this month and at delegate meeting we do have a round table where the every the delegate has the opportunity to showcase something from their District so if there's something specific that you would like me to Showcase please let me know otherwise I will use my own initiative on that and and I'm sorry when
022is that meeting it's [Music] um it's in January in January coming up soon 26th thank you anyone else questions or comments all right thank you we are now on to item number 11 which I will turn it over to Dr Brown hall for his community update thank you very much president McQueary so our community update we have a lot of information there's a lot of information I will say in all of our board meetings wouldn't you agree a lot of great information we share with the community and it's a great resource to go back either um on YouTube or inboard docs to see all the great information if anyone ever has questions but in this week's this month's Community update we're going to start with our district rebranding so I want to thank everyone that
023actually submitted feedback to the contact at Williamsville K12 email regarding the revised Mission and belief statements please remember that feedback closes tonight and we receive more than 20 emails from stakeholders so the subcommittee the district rebranding Mission and belief statement subcommittee will meet again on Monday January 30th and we're going to review all of that feedback to see how or if we need to revise yet again the mission and belief statements from the information that we received and then we will will present the final version of the mission and belief statements to the board of education at the February 7th meeting we also have our local subcommittee meeting the local subcommittee is a subcommittee of the communications committee and they've continued to make progress and will have logos to present to the board of education
024and community at the February 7th meeting so there's been incredible teamwork collaboration thoughtfulness throughout this process from parents students staff members there's been a lot of work involved in that so the committee met twice in December and will meet twice in January to finalize the details and outside of those meetings there's been a lot of emails back and forth with just different designs so I want to thank Nick filipowski's leadership on that and we'll have for the board and the community logos to present to you at the February 7th meeting diversity equity and inclusion so our final district-wide Dei meeting for the committee will take place on January 24th at that time we will review the plan that will be submitted to the board of education on February 7th very similar to the mission and
025belief statements that Dei plan will have a 30-day comment period for Community feedback that we may include in the final Dei plan hmm and if anyone has any questions while I'm going through this just let me know our speaker series um that has been rescheduled has now been rescheduled yet again and we will be holding it on Thursday January 19th from 6 to 7 30 p.m at high middle school and this is the speaker series that focuses on restorative educational practices so we're looking very forward to that our director of professional learning for the district Miss Linda ruay will be the leader in that discussion and presentation throughout the rest of the year we will have additional speaker series we will have our February speaker series focused on diversity equity and inclusion our March speaker
026series will uh be kids escaping drugs coming in to do two presentations back to back a face-to-face vaping presentation so that parents are aware of vaping in the harms and the Dark Side of social media so kids escaping drugs will be coming in to do those presentations I will be reaching out to the sepsa co-presidents to figure out what part of the speaker series we will have specific to our special education um resources in the district and we will have that in either April or May so our speaker series will continue for the remainder of this school year culminating in our final presentation in either April or May after school buses so beginning the week of January 30th January 31st is a Tuesday to be specific after school buses will be available for middle and
027high school students on Tuesdays and Thursdays if they remain after school so students are able to remain after school and receive extra help or participate in extracurricular activities and they will receive Transportation home however school we will send a letter out and schools will also be messaging this students must register for that after school bus transportation by 12 o'clock noon in their school so that we can get the bus routes done for that day but this Begins the week of January 30th January 31st to be specific that is the last Tuesday of the month around yes all of the students sign up they'll sign up in their school they'll be a sign up sheet oh it won't be digital no it'll be a sign up sheet in the school and the schools will get that
028information to the transportation department senior memory walk I'm very um excited because we do have administrators uh building principles at the Elementary and high school level who are working on this committee so the senior memory walk is when we have our senior high school students return to their elementary school and they parade through the building so they can actually uh see teachers that taught them when they were elementary students in the buildings and it's also very inspirational for the elementary kids to see you know what they will be doing in eight years to come so the memory walk will take place on Thursday June 15th seniors will walk through the halls of their elementary schools and we have our memory walk committee that is working to finalize the plans and details and what that will
029look like in our schools they wear them they wear their cat their um gowns yes their graduation attire they absolutely do parent involvement so you remember last month and on the weekly update the district was seeking parents to join the following committees Wellness nutrition and fitness the technology committee the district-wide school safety team so I'm pleased to say we've had a lot of interest we've received nearly a hundred inquiries of parents wanting to serve on one of the Committees so we're very excited about that um so due to the amount of inquiries we will be holding a lottery to select parents for each committee so we're working on the details of that so we make sure we have because I know there's a meeting coming up if I'm not mistaking in talking with assistant superintendent
030matersky on February 15th so we're going to make sure we have the lottery taking place and parents notified of what committees they're on so that we are able to schedule our meetings and invite the parents to those committee meetings foreign on the district-wide School Safety Committee Wellness nutrition and fitness are there students on the technology committee assistant superintendent matersky uh not at this point not at this point last but not least we all want to give a big thank you and show our appreciation to assistance superintendent Dr John McKenna this is Dr McKenna's last board meeting he is going to be a full-time professor at Niagara University we are very happy for him very proud of him and we want to give our sincere thank you to Dr McKenna who was our superintendent during some
031of the toughest times during colbit so thank you for all your hard work and everything you've done for the district [Applause] foreign I'd just like to say thank you and thank everyone it's been an honor and a privilege to to work with you Dr Brown Hall and everyone in our district and all I can say thank you for your amazing support the outstanding job you do with all of our kids uh it has been a true pleasure to work with everybody here and I wish everybody all the best and um let's stay in touch and keep doing this keep working together absolutely we can keep on there's a lot of work to do for kids here so for sure but from the bottom of my heart thank you all for all your support I appreciate
032it thank you thank you very much John thank you Dr McCleary I'll turn it back over to you we'll add you know sure that Niagara University will be very well served um may I have a motion to approve and authorize the review of the 2022-2023 special education program as presented in agenda item 11b Miss Poulin second miss blackinger any discussion [Music] all in favor carried unanimously thank you and I turn it back to you Dr Brown hall for the 2022-2023 district goals progress report thank you very much president McCleary so I want to share with the board in the community when when I was talking earlier about our board docs and our board meetings and so much information being in here it is the absolute truth this document is really full of information and that
033goes to the updates on the district goals progress report so as you know we adopted the strategic planning goals as our district goals so the areas are communication Wellness Community and sustainability teaching learning and Leadership diversity equity and inclusion so I I cannot sit up here and go through each and every page there are 12 pages and it's very very full but I do want to give you one example under Wellness Community and sustainability in that area is led by our the superintendent Mr scanzuzo the goal activity well the goal is the district will integrate programs and educate staff students and the community on critical factors that impact personal and Community wellness and the sustainability of our environment so we have a goal activity there and then under progress school activities and efforts include the
034following staff are being trained in suicide prevention at each building support staff were training Suicide Prevention in October the suicide prevention Coalition of Erie County did the training some pork staff administrators and teachers are being trained in trauma-informed practices and that's in a partnership with the institute for trauma and trauma-informed Care Spectrum Health and Human Services is partnering with the district to have a licensed clinician provide school time counseling services to students who are currently receiving Counseling Services with Spectrum so that's just one area one goal activity under the goal under the area of Wellness Community and sustainability and I I shared that with you to show you how full of information this document is so I can't go through each area because it's a 12-page document there's a lot but I encourage board members
035I know you already have because you've asked questions about it but our community also if you want to know how we're doing with each of our strategic goal areas I encourage you to review this document because there's so much information here that you have at your fingertips thank you any questions or comments from the board um we are on 11 D is there a motion to take from the table policy numbers 3520 65 71 71 51. 1510 51 10 51 30 51 50 52 30 55 15 and 56.72 for a second reading and adoption motion Dr Singh second Miss Poland all in favor carried unanimously is there a motion for the second reading and adaption of policy numbers 3520 65 71 71 51 1510 51 10 51 30 51 50 52 30 55 15 and
03656.72 as presented Miss bleckinger second Mr viscalia any discussion all in favor thank you carried unanimously and I will now turn it back to Dr Brown Hall or you and Mr matersky to talk about the budget development presentation well it's January and it's that time of year where Mr materski gets up and he does his thing so I'll turn it over to our Chief Financial Officer our assistant superintendent of Finance Mr tomaterski thank you Dr brownhau uh it is that time of year it's hard to believe it's already January uh at this time I'm going to go over our initial budget presentation information as in past years I'm providing you with our first uh presentation with the estimates that we have put together uh for the 2324 budget and as you can see I always
037put together a forecast looking ahead to the next year 24.25 so there are some differences in what you're seeing this year than in the past and that's because some of the numbers are much larger so I want to spend some time to go over really the details on why these numbers are where they are and what we can project for the future years so to start with the salary increase you see is four million five hundred thousand fifty five dollars that is based on actual Staffing as of today and it's are projected with the salary contract increases that we have in our in our agreed agreements uh for the next school year so that number and you're going to hear me talk a little bit later on it does not include any retirements so that
038number will be going down once we factor retirements into the next item there is Social Security and that's the amount we play as an employer that again is based upon the actual um salaries that we pay out every year and we look at the prior year expenses where we finished up we look at what's trending in this year and that's requiring the 475 thousand dollar increase just going to go back you see I have a column there that says whether it's mandated con contractual inflation or program and some of these items may have more than one so again employee salaries is a contracted expense as well as being mandatory uh and FICA is a mandatory expense we need to pay the IRS uh next is the health insurance line and this is one of the
039areas that we have actually not experienced an increase like this in the past but there's a reason for it and that is our our district is self-insured which means we pay actual expenses so when we look back to the 21-22 year we had significant increases that we investigated with our consultant and it really was just a function of the people's medical needs those payments are high we then looked forward to this year we looked at where those expenses are trending unfortunately they're trending in the same direction so it requires us to make a significant increase in the next year and then you're going to see I'll explain a little bit how that increase goes down in the future so that increases is in there and in addition to that we have to factor in what
040the consultant increases in a medical area is which is really trending between 6 and 10 percent so that four million one hundred forty five thousand three hundred forty two dollars is what we need uh to fund actual expenses in our self-insurance plans the next item is our New York State retirement system payments these are mandated for the actual salaries that we pay for our members major increase there is really due to those systems increasing the rates on the Employee Retirement System it went from 11.06 to 13.10 percent for next year uh the teacher retirement system has increased from nine point eight zero percent to ten point two nine percent that's factor in on actual salaries and again some of those payments such as TRS we don't even get to send a check they take it
041out of our state aid so as a result those are mandated expenses that we have to apply in our budget our BOCES budget um we have 525 000 that's a little bit higher than normal we're about 350 normally but we have to factor in inflation um we do our BOCES budget at the end of January we have our service contract meetings we look at what the student needs are and then we get the actual erie1 BOCES final expenses for those services and we will be able to adjust that um in February whether it goes up down or stays the same bus transportation another area I've spoke spoken about this in our long-range plan that was presented in December we are going to be transitioning we have one more year left on our contract with our
042current um contractor student transportation America we've experienced higher fuel cost we've experienced higher contractual expenses um there's if you know going into the future if Fleet replacement even though we're not buying the fleet at this point that figures into a higher cost so that's why that is a 1.5 million dollar increase and uh and then a new item uh cyber security uh cyber security is something we take seriously here um you've heard presentations that have been presented by Dr Balin and Mr scansuzu and myself in the past and we've we have addressed it and we are addressing it but there's a need for us to do more there we have some pilot programs we're working with yuriwan BOCES this year we have a consultant on on another program we need to expand that in the
043future to protect our Technical Systems our our instructional technology it may be more software it may be uh items that are dealing with equipment or it could be backup information such as cloud storage all of that has to be done uh and we're going to be reviewing that and that's what the 250 000 will be addressing and finally utilities again that's an area that we're all seeing increases both here at the district and personally as I mentioned again last month in the long range plan natural gas is projected to be up 25 percent and electricity is up 10 percent uh per the government indexes so all of that results in a 12 million 145 397 dollar increase um and a 224 million 673 483 budget before I go to the next pieces of here the
044summary aspects I want to spend a bit of time just going down that um next year column um you can see the salaries remain the same so for the time being that's based on current information but that's likely to go down once we understand what the retirement numbers would be so that's going to be a good factor for the next year Social Security is a similar thing that's likely to go down health insurance that's the one I wanted to really Center on you see that's down substantially because we're thinking that the increase we're making this year is a one-time increase it's going to reset us to where we need to be and then future years should not have that same issue so that's an important item I wanted to present and again Retirement Systems those
045rate increases occurred uh for next year we've been received it I'm going to assume that that's going to steady out at the end of this year all economic forecasts are showing that the end of 23 the Federal Reserve Bank will start to reduce possibly even the interest rates by basis points so all of that should factor into possibly steady rates or minimal increases there but we will not know of course until next year and then both BOCES that's a similar increase we'll factor that in when we know actual services in that January meeting and bus transportation is still going to be a rather large increase we don't have anything else in the other capacities but the key point there is that increases down almost 4 million dollars from what we're looking at this year so
046just to summarize you can see here again the increase the the total amount but the key factor here is really that we have not factored in retirements and that's something that we will be doing at the February meeting as well as we'll have information on what our state aid projections are and um the other Revenue estimates which brings us to really a more detailed summary on what we're looking at for the next year which is our next month which is to update the program continuation expenses and those retirements provide a state aid projection provide you all with what our tax cap number will be and again two percent is the maximum a CPI increase per the cap that hasn't changed uh and 7.1 percent was the inflation number CPI rate for last year so there's
047a significant difference there between what we're allowed to do and what the inflation rate was and we'll do other Revenue estimates and we'll put it all together and share with you what our revenue and our expenses are and whether we have a shortfall uh and what it is and how we will address it so that will be all for the February meeting thank you very much Mr machersky are there any questions for Mr Missouri uh turn it back over to you Dr McCleary [Music] budget transfer of funds as presented in agenda item 12 B Miss Poulin second Dr Singh any discussion all in favor thank you motion carries unanimously item 13. if you have any liaison reports please send them to Mrs Carey the list of assignments and meeting dates are in board Docs does
048anyone need coverage for any meeting Miss bleckinger I'm sorry so January 18th okay does anyone know that was quick we appreciate that thank you Dr thank you anyone else all right thank you does anyone have anything else to report under liaison assignments we have no legislative matters to discuss so under item 15 I turn it back over to Dr Brown Hall and Dr balen for the student achievement outcomes presentation thank you very much Dr McCleary um a lot of presentations tonight but a lot of great information and I'll say it again um our presentations are done so that there's information that may be uh duplicative or repetitive from other presentations we've done but that's so that individuals don't have to go back to uh former presentations trying to search for information and I say that
049because this presentation we are about to give is 31 uh pages long it is it has 31 slides to it but a lot of the information we won't spend a lot of time on because it is information that the board in the community has seen before but we want to make sure it's all in one spot so I'll turn it over to uh assistant superintendent of curriculum assessment and instruction our own Chief academic officer Dr Marie Balin thank you very much Dr Brown Hong good evening Board of Education that was a perfect introduction to today's presentation there are quite a few slides we will not talk through all of them but they are certainly great references if anyone were to look back and certainly if anyone has any questions please as always reach out to
050us here at the district office or at the school level we're happy to answer or provide any information as a follow-up as well but I wish to thank Dr Brown Hall he and I are actually going to co-present so you will notice as we make our way through the the slides we will both be speaking at different points to various items that are included the information reflected was a result of the work of many individuals we have many colleagues here in our office of instruction who hope to compile the information but I would also like to acknowledge and thank our building principals some of the information you see when we talk about our programs and some of the programmatic aspects of the presentation came directly from the building so it's essential that that we're when
051we're reflecting things of this nature that all efforts are acknowledged and included and I wish to thank Dr Brown hall because he was also instrumental in helping to bring about a lot of what you're going to see here this evening so I'd like to just set the stage for what's to come in the presentation and certainly again is some reference points we do have some data available some data you will notice we have notes that have been provided on certain sides we are still awaiting publication of um so the final information particularly from the New York State Department of Education we will update that as we receive it I would also like to say and include that we've accounted for and included a lot of descriptive information because I think that's been one item I
052know that has been mentioned several times here at the board table but also by our parents and our community it's been a helpful resource that we are explaining a lot of the tools that we use the terminology what we mean when we say certain things so as much as we certainly point to qualitative information and quantitative sometimes times the terminology might not be universally known or understood so we want to take some time to make sure that we are reflecting there are quite a few slides in particular to talk extensively about a lot of the assessment tools and the types of assessment and that's by Design so tonight you'll hear a little bit about our guiding principles our local sources and structures of information we do have our state information included three through eight as
053well as some high school information we talk a little bit about computer-based testing which we will continue to hear more about as as time goes on we also wanted to include some information for our community on our Advanced opportunities for students and then lastly we also wanted to include some of our enhancements which we've actually presented on in Prior meetings on things we've added to our program over the last few years as a result certainly of the pandemic some of which is funded by grant money so we do want to include that and share with you some of that information as well so just to get started the first couple of slides go through some of our guiding principles and in this respect these are really the tenants that serve to provide a guide for
054us as far as how we're approaching assessment so this really I think sets the stage for understanding um really our position on the purposes that assessment serves and not only articulating um you know certainly as we go on the types of assessment it's critical to say up front what are we doing what the information that we have and certainly as I mentioned there's quantitative information but a lot of what we look at Under the Umbrella of assessment also includes quite a bit of anecdotal and qualitative information so it's essential that all of this really serves to provide great feedback and diagnostic information to advance student progress student learning and student understanding and as we saw earlier from the presentation from Maple Leafs for students to be able to reflect on their own learning and absolutely
055what they bring to the table in terms of their interests and and things that they are delving into of their own choosing so that's very important as we go forward so we also wanted to share with you that you may notice and especially looking at a lot of the bulletins and Publications that come the board's way or even things that are published you know for the community and the paper and things of that nature at the state level the state is also delving into the larger question of how do students learn and how do we measure that student's successes absolutely right so it is not through a one uh you know one faceted approach if you will it's through a multi-level approach and I've read something just this week in our nizoba highlights I always
056look forward to receiving the clips those are a great snapshot of things that are being discussed and talked about but there you also see that the state is exploring conversations we know currently there are multiple Pathways for students to achieve things especially when they get to high school multiple Pathways if you will there are endorsements that are available from a diploma perspective this also is delving now into the assessment perspective how do we know that student learning has taken place and it may be uh in a future landscape this is really the heart of the conversation that there are more than just tests and exams that show their learnings absolutely and the last point on this slide where we talk about multiple points of data including ungraded measures in our effort to continually support students
057uh Dr Betty Rosa said it best that every test we give is an assessment but not every assessment needs to be a test and it's important that we remember that too when we start talking about the multiple points of data thank you and so with that being said no one assessment or metric is used in isolation right so we want to keep that in mind as we move forward so we continue to be committed to having this be a constant so for our world in the world of learning and the world of reflection what we're aiming to do with everything we get as we're observing students as we're providing them with testing because testing does have a place other types of information we get it's all for the purpose of planning so that we continue
058to advance what we're doing on behalf of kids that's really the important behind all of this so we remain committed to that um we wanted to just remind you this is a carryover as Dr Brown Hall said from a prior uh presentation that we also provided to the board uh you know I believe it was our last presentation on this very same topic the model of teaching and learning that we have committed to is predicated on Gathering as much information as we could and being as responsive as possible this is a cycle it is not a one-time event um and with that being said it is something that is recursive in nature so again this is a system of Assessments a system of reflection that we are committed to each and every day so it's
059not a you know seasonal event it's not a summative event solely there's a lot that goes into it that's an ongoing formative piece on behalf of students really first and foremost with that being said assessment relies really on the teachers who are Central to this Gathering and examining data on students strengths any areas of emphasis continuing to monitor student progress and personalizing student learning to the greatest extent possible you all know as well and just a side note this is not something we'll go into extensively we provided four slides with different types of assessment tools if you will the description of the tools and whether they serve more informal formal or both purposes so those are listed on the next four slides we also added and kept in the appendix one of the former slides
060we included during our last presentation on our response to intervention which is really at the heart of how we look at the data and the cycles and the structures that are used at the building level so we're not spending time on that to look back at that if someone were to look at the presentation they will notice that these slides are in here for someone certainly to look back at and from an RTI perspective just to know that that is also included in the appendix appendix rather that is with and accompanies the presentation absolutely so we'll kind of keep moving along here let me just take a moment here so that brings us to some state level information that we want to share with you and we did include here too you'll notice you have
061a 2022 slide and then we also included one that says 2021 and the reason for that is because as we were certainly looking at and a lot of our presentations traditionally have not only looked at the current year we look back and we try to connect back right to what it looked like before you know where are we going we spent a lot of time last year at our presentation talking about essentially the landscape how different how altered it was because of our circumstances uh that we were all facing due to the pandemic we know and we see you know the summary here we left it here because with that being said a lot of what we knew um has as historical a lot of the structures with which we became familiar over the years
062really were great greatly impacted by what we saw over the course of the last few years so really what is happening now is a bit of a rebuilding process is happening again a lot of what you see when you talk about State assessments is not only getting back I will say on track with some predictability in terms of the assessments themselves being given you know during covid we had lots of structures where we had students in remote learning full-time we had some students done coming in and and a mix of both at times tests were paused across the board we actually have a slide later on even with the Regents exams a lot of pausing happened and coming out of that it's really an establishment a re-establishment of what these systems look like they they
063are not exactly the same as they were before so I would just caution as we go through human Nature's tendency to try and connect with what we knew before and while a lot of it's familiar there really is a rebuilding happening also based on the scene so in talking with our CIO uh Judy Dean she's our individual who helps us read report back to the state and analyze a lot of these things is behind the scenes when you go back to all the reporting and all the data looking at accountability systems everything is really being restructured and Revisited so you will hear more from me in future presentations about how that you know impacts all of us but I want to qualify what we're about to say because it is not what we've always known
064there are some marked differences that we want to make sure that we bring to your attention so while we won't go through all of this we left the 2021 site in here so you can go back with 2022 what we did is we did include the information for you that we currently have at our disposal so a lot of this is very big picture as you see we do have grade level information as well the state did include a few quotes that we also included in the presentation which is more of a cautionary component to again not draw exact comparisons to what we've had before so we want to make sure that that's known as well so we just want to make sure that you know as we receive more information you'll notice the subgroup
065information is not yet visible here because we really want to make sure that we rely upon and take what is being published from the state as a finalized version of that we we don't have any of that right now other than what we've given you so once we get it we will include it here make an update so that our public and our community also have it too and these are the parts these are the participation percentages for ELA and math grades three to eight and then the next slide shows the assessment levels grades three to eight for 2022 and we have the asterisks at the bottom to really show for grade eight students who are in advanced courses they don't take the grade eight New York state three to eight assessment so I know
066you all know that but we want to make sure we had all that information on this one slide so that when parents and community members see and they see you know lower levels they understand why we also want to make sure we share and and all of you are aware of this and have heard this in Prior presentations and go to the site yourself but on the nyscd dot uh data site you can actually go and as information becomes available there's actually quite a wealth of information and also archived information so you can go back a number of years but when you go on you're also able to see per grade level a lot of this information broken down so while we put it into a chart it's structured in many different ways on the
067site ultimately and I think what will start to happen again is we will get more robust information is more is released but you are able to see some grade level data participation does become a question because as you know it continues to be a parental right to have parents uh state for their children that they will not participate in the three through eight assessment so we do want to make sure we share with all of you where our our levels are so to speak in terms of the participation component as well so this is one of the notes we made as far as the subgroup information and you know more to come on that so we did want to take a moment and just let you know with regard to computer-based testing it's really that
068last bullet that we wanted to make sure our public also was aware of is the state has planned a I'll call it a mandatory transition because it's been Invitational um so three through eight testing is by Design going to start with grades for uh excuse me five and eight next year and incrementally over the next few years uh with 2026 being the the end goal so to speak in the spring is to have three three assessments be online you may already be aware actually that our New York State alternative assessment our Nissa assessment is currently um digital that transitioned several years ago there is also a plan for nicest lot which is provided to our English language Learners to be provided digitally that pilot was supposed to start and get off the ground this year
069that has been length in terms of that plan and that will not happen as planned this year it's not that it's off the table it's just not happening according to the timeline but we will want to continue to put this out there because we know that um you know it's there is a different format when you're taking a test on a computer although it's still under this New York State umbrella success with that kind of modality is very different than taking a pencil and paper assessment um it used to be and we're kind of delving into this a little bit more is there used to be actually a separate way of how those get scored and the type of scoring that's done is certainly different but um you know part of what is a learning
070curve for all involved is taking that sort of a test in that modality so we want to be able to provide professional learning for our students our teachers and our families so that we know what the commitment looks like we certainly would not expect anyone to just sit down for a test of this nature and feel like they were comfortable there are for example in math some tools that one has to become familiar with how you show your work what you're pressing from a teacher's point of view you know how you submit it what happens if there's an issue during the assessment so we are really delving into this Dr Brown Hall and I've been yeah with Prince there's a lot of pre-work to do and so that's why you know we are very fortunate
071that the State education department is giving us a timeline you know beginning in the spring of 2024 and we have until the spring of 2026 to make sure that is done so we begin with our professional development for our teachers and then we ease our students into the test absolutely so we've been very conversational say at this point in talking with BOCES we've talked with other colleagues Dr Brown Hollis helped us set up some opportunities to talk with fellow superintendents in other districts we've made contacts across our professional channel so we're going to continue to look at this but this is really our year of revealing learning delving into embracing and then being ready to really look at that administer duration for next year we're very fortunate too that in January there is actually a
072Statewide Administration opportunity where students will get to preview before they actually get to the real test so there's a lot coming we'll continue to update you and our community on on those fronts as well so moving on to Regents exams just a couple of reminders and also some information for our community and yourselves you are all aware that we've had not only exemptions when it's come came to Regents exams several were canceled so that's a note at the bottom there that is a carryover that we wanted to just remind everyone there were several administrations where Regents exams did not happen and then in June of 2021 all were canceled except for the ones at the bottom designated by the asterisks which as a reminder were Algebra 1 earth science English and living environment but in
073this case those were optional for students and families and as per required testing and exemptions that were dictated in the New York State guide and so long and short of it not everyone took them so we had actually more not take them than take them so why I say that is because again we are all familiar with Regents we've talked about Regents results again the regions have been around a very long time um going back many many many years um but what's to come what has already come and what we're still in in the process of our Regents exam appeal so the conditions for those are on the screen so Dr Brown Hall I don't know if you wanted to make anything and we we reviewed this with the board um months ago however it
074is worth reviewing again if a student receives a score of 50 to 64 in the Regency exam but they have a passing course average they can actually file an appeal to get credit and so that's what we review those thoroughly the schools submit them Dr Bill and reviews them I sign off on them and so we make sure that our students are having that necessary passing course average and they've scored between a 50 and a 64 so that they qualify for this appeal if necessary we wanted to make sure everyone knew and was aware of also while an appeal has been put in if a student says or a parent says before the student graduates I'd like to still have my child take acts exam they can still do that so it's not sad that
075installed where they cannot but they are eligible for the appeal get it through the channels that Dr Brown Hall mentioned there is a process we established it works extremely well there's paperwork there's process at the school level everything is filed but a student may take the exam if the parent or student wish to if they meet this criteria they're still eligible for the appeal as well so what we can't do though is mandate that they take it at this point if they're eligible that that appeal stands so you will hear more of that because as you can see by the dates that are listed in their first bullet that process actually goes through at this time August 2023 okay so we still have a few administrations left so and the next two slides what we
076did is there was a lot of data initially we had this on one chart it was a lot so we just split it out into two uh two charts for you these are all of our current Regents exams how many students were enrolled in the courses uh the number of and percentage of the students tested we included the not only the passing rates but in parentheses the Mastery rates as well which indicated 85 or higher on the test and we also included the New York State percentage all of this is also available on the data site so actually if anyone went onto the site today they can go into any of these sections look at the exam results you can actually hover over there are also bar graphs so there's a lot of information there
077that is also forthcoming so any outcome data exemption information is also on the state side I wanted to make sure I mentioned that as well and if anyone is also looking for any nicest slot or Nissa information that is also ultimately going to be reflected when everything's in its final form on the state site so very very comprehensive we also included for you just summary summary slide of passing and Mastery rates here you'll also notice the cancellations in there we just wanted to give a little bit of historical information there as well the next two slides are the graduation rate slides and unfortunately that information is not yet available so we anticipate that information will be available February 2022 so we will update these slides and repost this document on board docs and send the
078board members copies also when we get that information February 2023 I'm sorry sorry yep we will yep February 2023 no wrong you're here yeah we'll we'll make sure we fix that so the next two slides actually go hand in hand and uh the reason I say that is we've typically reported to you advanced placement information but as we were reflecting on this there's a couple of things we want to draw to your attention first and really uh very excitedly we were presented with an opportunity by the College Board um to be part of a new pilot for a course that uh I'm very excited about I spoke with Dr Brown Hall upon receiving this news and it is AP African American studies and it is in will be in our course catalog so we look
079forward to that we have a description where we've worked on um it's actually in the development phase which is a really neat opportunity for us to get in I'll call it more on the ground floor our teachers are going to have the ability not just to follow an already established course but really to give their input and craft part of the core so I think this is going to be really a unique offering we do need 20 students to run it so I will say well we're offering it in the catalog there are no guarantees until the students sign up so we'll also let you know that but it will be offered in the catalog at all three buildings and we will give you more information on where we actually land when the sign ups
080for the student courses happen which you know is a spring process so that'll be coming in the next several months but that that is very exciting information for us here at the district level the reason I mentioned the next slide is because we actually have an addition to AP courses which you can see there that we offer many and this new one is just an additional opportunity which we're again very very thrilled about we offer over 60 at this point six over 60 opportunities for our students to become involved with courses that are college level type courses you may know and have heard of we have college opportunities there through Syracuse University are super courses that's Syracuse University project Advance students actually get a direct transcript from Syracuse it is a Syracuse transcript it is
081a Syracuse course so we have other opportunities that are through ECC we they're extensive we're so so very fortunate that over the course early of the last decade we started with a handful and now we have an abundance of varied opportunities across all disciplinaries discipline areas we just recently landed on another one and I think Jamie Pittman our new director for the Arts AP music theory will also be dual credit so any of those if anyone ever wonders well how do we know which ones they are what you know what are they they're all marked in our course catalog so when you go through the catalog we have actually special symbols and designations that tell our parents and our community which ones they are and it is a very extensive impressive collection of courses so
082and like I said across discipline so our intent every year is to continue to seek an array of opportunities for our students so why we spend a lot of time and we showed on AP and talking about that and there's so much to be proud of there we also have a lot of other opportunities I just want to make sure we all remind ourselves of just how much there is and we're always looking for new Partnerships so that's always a question we ask ourselves and you'll note that we also make those updates when we do our goals our strategic plan goals our district goals will also reflect that so moving on in the last option is grant funding absolutely so this is very important because as the board knows we have to have the discussion
083around internally and then bring to the board around what will continue after September 2023 because that's when our entrepreneur Esser funding um they they run out right so we don't get to use it after that time so we want it to be very Mindful and share with the board and the community what we have used those monies for I know last year uh Dr Balin Mr Skin did a presentation on specifically how we were using the grant money to fund opportunities in the district we wanted to provide a full list to let you know that these are the areas that were funded and these are the areas we have to look at to see if we can continue them with our budget for the 23-24 school year and what that will look like so that's
084what we're in the process of doing now so I I know in one of the emails a board member asked what that process looks like and we'll talk about that on the slide after next but I wanted to list these here so everyone knows exactly what we're looking at when we're developing the budget and what we have to either find ways to keep in or figure out how they may have to fade out the next slide is our upk funding a universal Pre-K now this is a grant and I know during the governor's uh State of the State today she did talk about expanding this opportunity but we want to make sure we all know that sometimes we're not able to use all of the grant money only because we can't have the number of
085students allocated in our programs right whether it be in District or with our CBO with our community-based organizations so we're always looking for additional cbo's to partner with so we can have more students enrolled in Universal Pre-K and many organizations come to our informational meetings but Universal Pre-K is much different than daycare and a lot of organizations or programs when they come to our meeting they realize that and they need time to ramp up to really give a thorough upk experience for our students because we're preparing them for a full day to be part of our kindergarten programs for next year so it's a program that we we've invested in because we know that students who get a great upk program come very well prepared for our kindergarten programming and they're off to a good
086in their educational experience so we want to share that information also because board members have asked for that upk information last but not least Dr Bellin can talk about how we're reviewing on the feedback that we're getting for our grant funded expenditures and whether we're going to include them in the budget for 23.24. thank you those are big questions aren't they about the budget certainly so we do want to say first and foremost that feedback has been established ongoing so again what we didn't want to do is get to the end of the program and say Hey how do you think things went do you think this is something we should continue we actually positioned ourselves when we first started talking about potential opportunities to have a structure where at our monthly principles meetings for
087example we're talking about it we also have a Google doc I collect information on an ongoing basis saying give me your highlights how many students are you serving how are students engaging for example in our steam program you had presentations we had presentations here about steam what are kids doing how are they engaging with the content what level of planning are the teachers doing so there's a lot that I want to assure you happen under the feedback umbrella we also established as Mr matureski mentioned at our prior meeting the use of the ARP email which we want to make sure if questions come up from the community we've also put that out there in the event that any of our community members have information we also did have to submit to the New York State
088education department and I would like to thank Mr materski and my colleague Mr scanzuzo also because there was a lot of information that had to be sent as part of our planning how will you measure student progress how will you take attendance how will you know what you're looking at so a lot of it had to be established up front and it really forced us to really think thoughtfully about not just the implementation but you know all of these things up front and again not to be in a position where you're trying to do it after everything's put into place so we just listed for you some of the school level data points and items that we included when we responded to the state um and I'm very proud to say and I would like
089to thank our building principals and also our teachers they have not only embraced this because we all co-created a lot of these items are really talked about what they should include there was such an ownership and a cultivation right from that school level I'm extremely proud of what our colleagues have done and to see the smiles on the students faces when we have done our visits and buildings with engagement of our staff and and our students and in hearing some of the comments I just wanted to share a couple of them with you like for Steam for example these are some of the direct quotes it has been a game changer this brings the subject matter to life this is authentic meaningful engagement planned learning experience the depth of the experiences with meeting the new
090science standards the thinking that's needed in College and Career we've been in the classrooms we've seen it so with learning lab it's very much the same thing we visited I'll just name Casey as an example but you know we have it at all of our middle schools and high schools presently the students themselves they gave their teacher index cards about what it meant to them how did it help them engage not just with their learning but some of the skills necessary to establish good study habits or how do you organize your materials and make sure that you have everything you need and you're ready for your learning so what really even beyond what I would say the content to really a lot more so with that being said the budget piece is a huge piece
091we really do have to go through the budget process and look at everything as a whole foreign with that and conclude the presentation that that is the conclusion of the presentation so thank you very much Dr Bellin uh board members if you have any questions let us know and we do have um an addendum and the PowerPoint just some of the slides that were from previous presentations that are also beneficial to keep attached to this presentation so thank you very much are there any questions before I turn it back over to president McClary all right it was a lot of information so I appreciate you uh for for allowing us to give this presentation at this time thank you Dr Bellman yes thank you Dr Bailey thank you we're on item 16. may have a
092motion to approve the tenure recommendation as presented Miss Poulin second Mr beulin any discussion all in favor carried unanimously thank you we have no matters to discuss under District facilities and support services and now I'm going to turn it back over to Dr Brown Hall and Mr matersky to discuss the proposed repair Reserve projects Absolutely I'll turn it over to assistant superintendent matersky for this piece prop prior to going I mean before we go into the public hearing please go ahead thank you Dr brownhill again we do this on an annual basis last year was the first year we moved this up from March to January and that has helped us get the contracts out and bid after approval and move everything up so that we're ready to go in the summer this year we're
093looking at completing work related at North High School we've got some masonry repair to do on the loading dock the wall by the kitchen loading dock that's going to be done we're going to be doing masonry repair at the greenhouses at KC middle and at high Middle School we have a elevator panel replacement over at South High School that we'll be doing and internal painting which will be done not by our own people because of the largeness of the job um district office uh you've heard this now this is the fourth and final year anyone who's gone through it is is probably happy to hear that but we're doing the final carpet replacement this coming summer and that will be actually in the human resource area um lastly we've got a couple small items in
094there we've got Dodge Elementary we're doing some stair repair that's some concrete work and that that we're going to do in just one small section of the building and we always do some preventive parking lot sealing the cracks and that work and then in addition to that we include the architectural expense for they're putting together the bids to the specifications and then the oversight which is projected to be twenty seven thousand dollars so that's our our project work for this year the maximum amount we're proposing is nine hundred fifty thousand dollars and our repair Reserve as of now which was set at June 30 of last year is uh five million five hundred eight thousand six hundred sixty dollars so we do have the dollars in our Reserve to handle these expenses any questions or
095comments from the board we will now have our public hearing for the proposed repair Reserve projects only anyone wishing to address the board regarding the proposals may go to the podium and sign in at this time oh thank you Item B may I have a motion to resolve to adapt and approve the repair Reserve funding as presented Dr Singh second Miss blackinger any discussion all in favor opposed thank you abstentions motion carried unanimously we have no matters to discuss under our special needs and Student Activities we are now up to our committee of the whole does anyone have any items to discuss under Committee of the whole in terms of Correspondence does anyone want to um report on any correspondence received our next regular board meeting is February 7th and may I now have a
096motion to adjourn into executive session to discuss employment matters relating to particular persons and the superintendent's mid-year evaluation Ms Poulin second Mr viscalia all in favor motion carries unanimously congratulations [Music]