Board of Education Business Meeting - August 18, 2025

001Please stand for the pledge of >> allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> Uh Teresa, can you read the ground rules? Good evening. In the event the fire alarm system should activate, you will hear warning sirens and see flashing lights. Please exit the auditorium via any of the marked exits and proceed out out and away from the building. Please do not enter your vehicles and try to leave the property as you may impede the arrival of fire apparatus. Smoking and the use of vaping products are strictly prohibited on all school property in New York State. When it's time for public comment and questions, speakers will be limited to three minutes

002with no sharing of minutes. I will warn you when you have 30 seconds remaining and ask you to conclude when I tell you your time is up. Discussion of particular students or staff members is prohibited under privacy laws. Such matters should be addressed individually to the appropriate administrator. >> Thank you. Um at this time um we are the board is um going to make um a statement. Over recent months there have been questions and well-intended concerns brought to the attention of members of the board of education regarding the absence of trustee Mark Negron from our board meetings as well as many of the district events that Mr. Negron traditionally attended in past school years. Mr. Negron has been addressing personal health issues that have kept him from being as fully involved as he would otherwise

003have been. Out of respect for Mr. Nigron's significant contributions to the board since being elected eight years ago, including his study stewardship as board president during the post-pandemic years and helping the district passed the milestone bond referendum in 2024. The board has decided to keep Mr. Negron's seat open and secure for his return. On behalf of the board of education and the entire Patrick Mford school family, we hope this summer has been one joy, time with family, friends, and opportunity recharge in preparation for the new school year ahead. We are looking forward to once again opening our doors to our returning students on Tuesday, September 2nd. Um in that terms too um our technology committee will um have trustee Salazar and trustee Kger who is absent due to a family obligation and our order committee

004will we will now have um trustee Smith. So, next we're going to move on to our public hearing. The board of education will conduct a public hearing on proposed changes to the district code of conduct. Those in attendance will be afforded the opportunity to make statements both in favor and opposition to the changes as well as offer opinions. After the public hearing, the board of education may consider resolution to approve and revise the code of conduct. So, seeing that there's none, um, we're going to move on to the approval of the code of conduct. Be it resolved that the board of education hereby temporarily suspends the requirement of having a first reading of policy revision, including but not limited to the requirements contained in policy 9310. and further the resolve that the board of education

005hereby adopts the patchog meford school co district code of conduct as provided. So can I have a motion? >> Motion >> second. >> All in favor? >> I. >> So it passes. Okay. Moving on the public hearing regarding revisions to the district-wide school safety plan. The board of education will conduct a public hearing in order to update the community on recommended changes to the district-wide school safety plan. After a presentation, members of the board of education and those in attendance be afforded the opportunity to ask questions and make comments regarding the plan. Then revised the plan was was posted beginning on July 8th, 2025 for a 30-day public comment period. The board of education may consider a resolution to approve the district-wide safety plan at tonight's meeting. Business meaning director of security John Ahern and

006assistant to the superintendent of Kos Vanilla will make a presentation regarding enhanced security measures and protocols that are being implemented to protect our students and secure their safety as part of the public hearing presentation. Good evening all. Thank you for having me. So, this is the time of year where we are required to review the safety plan, the district-wide safety plan, conduct a public hearing, and adopt uh the plan. Sorry. Okay. So, I guess everybody's viewing the slides from their computers. Okay. So, this is our district-wide safety committee. Um, we have actually expanded the committee this year to include additional representatives. um from the middle schools and the um elementary schools. So we have we have Miss Lori Kennedy, she's the chief emergency officer, um interim superintendent, we have representation from the board, Miss Jennings,

007myself, uh Miss Simmonelloo, who is the assistant to the superintendent. A new addition to the team is Dr. Kelly from Tmont Elementary, uh Dr. H. Hotchburg, Dr. Louisa is also a new um addition from Saxton. Mr. Tups, he's uh he he came on last year. Mr. Ritter, uh Miss Chavez, she's an additional parent that we added to the team this year. So, we have rep uh three parent representatives. Uh we have Miss Baren, Miss Moran, and we have a bus driver, which was a new requirement to have a bus driver on our safety committee. Um, and we're also working with law enforcement, working with the precinct, the fifth precinct to add uh a member of the fifth precinct to the team. So, we met with them recently and they will be attending our first safety

008meeting and then we're going to uh decide who's going to be an actual member of the team. So, just some duties of this chief emergency officer. The superintendent or superintendent's designate would serve as the CEO as required by education law. Key responsibilities are coordinate communication between school staff, law enforcement officers, and first responders, lead the efforts of the district-wide safety team in the completion and yearly update of the district-wide safety plan. Assist in selection of security technology and the development of procedures for the use of such technology. Coordinate the appropriate safety, security, and emergency training for district and school staff. Ensure drills are conducted in a traumainformed, developmentally, and age appropriate manner that does not include props, actors, simulations, or other tactics intended to mimic a school shooting or other act of violence. And that's

009a new requirement from 2024. And also ensure the completion and yearly update of the building level emergency response plans by the designated date by the dates designated by the commissioner. So just some responsibilities of the team. Uh we will d we draft and continually update the plan. We cover all school districts uh and address crisis intervention, emergency response and management and remote instruction planning during emergency closures. Ensure alignment with building level emergency response plans and coordinate content across district schools. Establish policies, procedures for responding to threats, including self harm or suicide, acts of violence by anyone on school grounds and ensures consistency in zero tolerance framework where required. Develop security related procedures like building access, visitor control, panic alarm systems, security technology, and coordination with school safety personnel. Oversees training for district and building staff

010on safety and emergency procedures, including staff awareness of the district safety's team's role functions. Coordinate and review emergency drills and tabletop exercises, evaluating their effectiveness and updating protocols as needed. Reviews the district-wide plan and advises on building plans annually with recommendations to leadership and then submission to the state. So the district-wide plan requirements are well the plan is designed to prevent and minimize effects of violent incidents declared disasters including pandemics and other emergencies. Response policies and procedures are in are required in the plan. Handling direct implied threats including suicide by students, staff or visitors. Responding to acts of violence. Prevention and intervention strategies. partnerships with law enforcement and adequately trained security staff. Behavioral threat assessment teams, which the district now implemented, non-violent conflict resolution, peer mediation, youth court extended day safety programs, training and drill

011policies, annual multi-hazard training for staff and students with role definitions, and trauma informed drills. And these are just a couple additional requirements that are required to be in the plan. Emergency planning for remote instruction. So there's actually a plan for providing remote instruction during emergencies or school closures and the public hearing at least 30 days public comment required before board adoption. Once the plan is adopted, it will be sent to the state um through the monitoring portal and the URL will be on the website. So, just some quick amendments. These are amendments from last year. I just wanted to kind of as a reminder, trauma informed drill requirements. So, no surprises during drills. We're announcing drills. We're letting parents know that we're conducting drills. We're bringing law enforcement. They're also participating. Prohibited elements. Again, props,

012actors, simulations, or tactics intended to mimic a school shooting. We're not doing that. Enhanced parental notification. So, we're letting parents know within one week of a drill. In that notification, we also uh let the parents know uh which what type of drill we are we're having. Lockdown drills are announced. So, we're announcing in the building during a lockdown, we're actually stating that it's a drill. We're not just saying that the building is in lockdown. We're informing all staff and all students that it's actually a drill. And we're actually conducting drills on different days of the week, different times of the day, during lunch period, during gym period, and during recess. This is the one new amendment for this year that's required in the uh district plan and the building plans. So all schools, districts, and

013BOSEIS statewide must use the same required terms and definitions in their emergency response plans and include training for students and staff on these terms. So why the change on the terms? Concerns about inconsistent terminology across across districts, similarity between terms lockdown and lockout, which I've seen a lot of confusion in my years. Universal terminology will benefit students, staff, parents, and first responders. And standardization improves emergency response coordination. So these are our emergency terms. This is a emergency response card that is distributed to all staff in the district. As you can see, uh those are the terms. Shelter in place, hold in place, evacuate, and the brand new terminology for lockout is now secure lockout. And then we have lockdown. So, that's the district-wide safety plan. Um, I'm just going to go over a couple of

014slides on some new uh technology and security upgrades that we've made in the last uh year or so. We just we're implementing a new um visitor management system. This year we moved away for from scholarship and we moved to raptor which is an iPad which will be in the vestibial and visitors will come into the build enter the building through the main entrance and they'll actually input their information and scan their identification. So this system will do a background check for sex offenders. um if if a sex offender um comes up in the in the database, administrators in that particular building, including myself, will be alerted. So, some of our emergency response, we've installed push button lockdown door uh door locks in the classrooms, which allows uh students and teachers and staff to lock down

015a classroom very quickly. Um, it's by a push of a button. Uh, no longer do they need keys to fumble around with. Uh, it's a push button and it and it locks the building right locks the classroom right away. We've deployed weapons detection detection systems. Um, we started that uh last year at sporting events and some uh nighttime events. we've implemented into the high school at the end of the past school year and this September we will be implementing at the second the middle schools and the high school at the beginning of the school year. So, the district has installed new PA systems in all school buildings. Um, which is great for communication. Um, and they can also a new phone system where they can the teachers are able to call 911 uh from the

016classroom phone and make a P announcements from the classroom. So, the lockown system can be activated very quickly by staff. uh there are systems in place throughout the building where that can happen. Um so we we talk about that at our faculty meetings and our building safety meetings with the staff surveillance system. We're always looking to upgrade uh the we've uh implemented numerous new cameras throughout the district. We're approximately around 850 cameras districtwide and we're monitoring those cameras from the high school. Um, in addition, we've added monitors for the security guards at each building to monitor the the cameras. And just recently, we're adding a cell phone to each building that will be able to uh be utilized, connect to the Wi-Fi in the building. If there's an emergency and Wi-Fi is down, there's a

017new system where this phone will be able to connect to. It's called First Net Phones. and vape detectors. I think vape detectors have worked very well. Uh we have about 63 detectors total in in in the high school and the three middle schools. So the these detectors will detect uh vaping, THC, smoking and it will send out alerts to uh building administrators. Regular training. Let's take a sip of water. Mic. Thank you. Training and drills. So, regular safety and security training for staff and students. Frequent drills. As I talked about, law enforcement actively participates in drills. I actually provide them with the drill schedule, keep them updated, and I and I communicate with them uh before we have a drill. So, they participate. and we've been collaborating re really well with the fifth precinct and

018the sixth precinct. Um, Miss Kennedy and myself just recently had a a meeting with the fifth precinct commanding officer that went very well and we talked about communicating and collaborating um during the school year and the summer and annual training. The guards get annual training. We'll be having that this week uh on Thursday here at the high school. They'll go through deescalation training, CPR training, AED training, and I'll be we'll be training them on the the new visitor management system as well. And I think that's all I have. So, questions. I I did want to um Mr. Sorry, is my mic working? Come on. Okay. There is a a new law that we will be working on this year um that will be part of our district safety plan effective January 2026. The Dasha law

019that we'll be working on that is a requirement that just got approved which is requiring cardiac emergency response plan. So with the AED so uh Mr. Ahern and I and Nicole have already started having conversations. So that will have to be part of our plan as of uh January 20th, 2026. So we'll be working on that this year with our committee. >> Any questions from the audience? >> Thank you, sir. >> Thank you. So, um, be it resolved that the board of education hereby approves the revised district-wide safety plan for the 20252 school year and authorize the district administration to submit to to the New York State Education Department. So, can I have a motion? >> I'll make a motion. >> I'll second. All in favor? I. >> Motion carries. Next, we're going to move

020on to the extreme heat condition days. Um, and that's and Mr. Maisie. >> Good evening. My apologies for having my back too uh this evening, but I'm just going to give share some some brief information on a new law that was put into place last December by the state. Um it really is designed for the protection of students and safe students and staff in our buildings when the temperatures get to be very warm. We're going to share with you uh just an overview of that uh what that law is, what our action plan is as we enter the uh this year. So, a quick overview. Um, the new legislation required the school districts develop a plan to mitigate extreme heat in the classrooms and support services spaces. Uh, and it's effective this September 1st. So,

021when the law first came out, there was a lot of uh information flowing through the office of uh plant facilities for the state. But they finally came to the point where they need to understand what we have to do is wear practable practical because they understand that we can't just introduce air conditioning. So we have to find what measures we can take to be able to address this. Uh the definition of extreme heat condition is days that when these spaces reach 82 degrees or greater. The district is required to develop policy for the actions that will be taken. Um and plan to remove students and staff from these spaces when temperatures exceed 88 degrees. Uh the actions also must be added to our district's policies and procedures for emergency response situations including our building level

022emergency plans. So we the board already took action. Um we've gotten the information that we need. The plan was adopted. I'm sorry. The policy was adopted. It's policy number 3529. This is just a snippet of it, but it is available on our website already and put into place. And it does contain all the caveats of the law as shared with us. Now, these slides are the actions that we're going to take uh that we put together. I've been meeting with Miss Kennedy, my director of plant facilities, Mr. Paul Nunan to put together an action plan to address uh the steps that we're going to take. Uh and we're going to really start prior to the temperatures getting to these thresholds of 82 and 88 degrees that they are mentioning. We're really going to start when

023we see temperatures reaching uh 80 degrees because we want to be as proactive as possible. And really what that's going to mean is to start with information gathering. So, our staff will initiate temperature monitoring and recording of the data. That's going to help us to find out where the spaces are that could be problematic as we enter these these uh extreme heat days. Uh we'll record that information, like I said, and be able to keep track of those locations. But we're going to do so by using these handheld temperature monitoring devices. Our staff has been outfitted with these. And they're going to do it in a shaded location 3 feet above the floor near the center of the room. And that is per the law. That's where we got that information from. Does not speak

024to the frequency of this, but our staff is going to look to do this on a periodic basis. And by corelling this data, we're going to be able to identify, like I said, spaces that might be on upper floors of buildings. That's what we think. Obviously, that's going to be an a source of extreme heat. Sources uh rooms that face or have increased exposure to the sun, obviously those facing south. uh and periodic checks going to be made throughout the day to keep track of the um these temperatures. But certainly once we get to 82 degrees, this needs to be a collaborative effort amongst everyone. Um the law stipulates that there are heat relief uh related steps that we need to take, some of which are highlighted here, such as turning off overhead lights, pulling

025down window shades, closing blinds, turning on fans if available. And certainly what we don't have we don't have an unlimited number of fans but we're going to make them available where we can and we're going to look to do that in more less common spaces where we can acrue a larger number of students at one time. Um also opening classroom doors and windows to increase circulation where applicable turning off unused electronics that produce heat and certainly providing our students and staff with frequent water breaks. Uh we will also we added something there to investigate outside areas where shade may exist where outside learning might take place in a in a cooler environment. Now we get to the 88 degree mark. Now this is where the the law really kicks in because at this point now

026we need to do uh more uh cognizant measures that include things as uh rotating staff and students in and out of these spaces. Um, we have air conditioning in certain rooms. That that question does come up frequently and they are in spaces that are prescribed by a student's individual uh education plan or is prescribed by a 504, which is a health plan for a student or staff member, but other than that, we don't have them. And it maybe is in 20% of our buildings. Our HVAC program is coming along as part of the bond, but it's not here in time certainly for the for this law. But our plan is to rotate rotate students and staff to other areas in the building. These could be spaces that have air conditioning such as our libraries or

027auditoriums. And as I mentioned, we would outfit other spaces such as our cafeterias and our gymnasiums with the large commercial fans that we do have. That'll help increase the air circulation and help to lower the temperatures. But if the heat is deemed to be too excessive um and we're not able to control us, the district can initiate early closing closing protocols to send students and staff home much in the way we did we could do for say a snow day. Now, some additional things that we're doing. Um, we're going to make sure that we are constantly communicating with parents and guardians to notify them when we see weather forecasts that are approaching these high temperatures that give us these concerns, to remind them to have students dress appropriately with light colored clothing, to bring water

028bottles to school. Uh, we're going to send out daily temperature expectations to our staff to remind them of the actions they should be taking. For instance, one of the things that staff can do when we work collaboratively is to make sure that they upon leaving at the end of the day when students are gone, draw their shades. If they do that in every building, just prohibiting the sunlight from coming into a classroom will really benefit the entire building. Um, when we receive these forecasts, like I said, we will share out that information uh in advance of the next day. We'll send out daily temperature expectations to staff to remind them. And all of this information how has been recently added to the new uh parent resource page that we've created uh with the back to

029school information. All this is contained there so student uh parents have instant access to the things that have been put in place. And one of the last things that we're doing is Miss Kennedy has already crafted a message that's going to be sent out to the entire community on August 28th via Parent Square to remind them of the things that we're talking about this evening because like I said, this all happened very quickly. I mentioned the law just went into effect last December with a quick turnaround time by the state. Um, and everyone is trying to do the same thing to make sure that they fall within compliance. We certainly are, but certainly we realize what that means for parents who are trying to get their kids in back to school and all the things

030that are required there. So, does anyone have any questions for me about this? >> I don't have any questions. I want to thank you for this. Um, I did want to uh ask for one uh clarification that when we anticipate that the temperature is going to be too high, potentially too high, and that the and that an emergency go home might happen, the district will be communicating that well in advance. >> Yep, absolutely. Did you want to speak to that? >> Yes, and and the letter does speak to that. You know, certainly as Mr. Maisy say we we can kind of have an idea of upcoming days. Um often the weatherman is always right. So that's always good news. So we did have to close last year for some time. Um I hope that's not

031the case. But if the weather does get too difficult for us to sustain bringing students in early dismissal or a closure would be something that we would have to consider. Can I just ask can you just clarify well is it possible for some schools to stay open if they're not experiencing the high temperatures and you know like could one elementary school have to close? Is that possible or does the whole district have to close? >> Yeah, we just we discussed this as well and I think this something if we implement it would be districtwide. I think >> it is difficult with one um building closing. Many times our uh students are going home. Um sometimes parents have students in two different buildings based on the um services they may be receiving or we may have

032a middle school student that needs to get home to watch their younger siblings. So the consistency of closing does assist families. I think it would be important for me to note to the community that if I have a inkling that I may be closing, it's at least giving parents 24-hour notice that this may be happening tomorrow. So, have a plan. So, you know, giving them I think that's one thing that we've heard from the community, finding out the day before and then even that morning if I do have to call it, they've already had a plan in place. I think that's the most important thing for our community. >> Thank you. >> Anyone else? >> All right. Thank you very much. >> We're going to move on to our um next presentation which is a

033Savas update from Mr. Henley and Mrs. M. Good evening everybody. Hope everybody's summer is going well. Um before I begin, I do want to give uh my best to Mark. If you could uh just send him my best. He's a good he's a good man. I've worked closely with him a lot since I've been here. So uh I send him my best wishes and thoughts and prayers. Um so thank you all for coming tonight um regarding the Sabbath presentation. I'm very excited to show you this video. John, I might need that water coming up soon. Uh, I'm very excited to show you this video and to discuss with you. Uh, all right. Maybe. Um, thank you. Discuss with you the progress that we've made so far, the decisions um that we've made as a team

034this summer. Brian coming through. Thank you. Uh, the decisions and updates that we've made um this summer um and the upcoming continued professional development we'll do with our uh staff as well. So, um, we will start with the video, but before, um, we do that, I do want to thank, uh, Miss Danielle Steinberg, who's our community liaison, who was really critical. Thank you for being here tonight, Danielle. And she was a really critical part of, uh, coordinating the efforts throughout the three buildings. Um, she was a really integral part with working with myself, with working with u my fellow directors, working with um, the students and Mr. Bernetti at the high school and the uh video club because creating this video which is really a professionally done video if you haven't seen it yet um

035you know I think you'll enjoy it and so Danielle was a critical part of that and also we have Miss Jamie Mela over here Oregon teacher who is uh in the teacher work in the video with another her co-teer miss um um Miss Bonitia Verdie from Oregon as well and um they do a really dynamic dynamic job of um really off the cuff kind of being interviewed. Uh the teachers you'll you'll see in this video is that you'll see four different middle school classrooms and the teachers and students working together within SAVIS. And uh you know, one of the really impressive the two impressive parts of the video to me are the teachers and the students because the teachers when they're being interviewed, I I don't know if they knew that the interviewing was part

036of the deal. uh they knew that there'd be questions asked, but uh they were sat down and asked uh you know questions and gave their uh you know honest answers right there on the spot. So uh that was really impressive and just seeing the kids working together and collaborating is always special. But uh they really did a wonderful job with this too. And again for them they knew the c the crew was coming. So it was sort of exciting for them to see the high school kids um that were the film crew and they really were a film crew all day long. They were from 8 in the morning till 3:00 p.m. filming at three different schools and four different classrooms. And uh so all the kids were very excited to see the high school

037kids come in and it felt like a a real production. Um I tried to stay out of the way as the cameras were uh rotating around the classroom, but uh I don't know if I was always successful. So um before I go any further, unless there are any questions or I think we'll get right into the video. Okay. Ignore the first 30 seconds. Hi, my name is Matthew Hanley and I am the director of secondary humanities at Patrick Bford School District. In this video, you'll have an opportunity to get a glimpse into our classrooms and watch our students and teachers engage in the SAVIS ELA curriculum. Before we begin the video, I just want to take this opportunity to thank Mr. Presetti and the high school film club for their outstanding work on this professional

038production. So without any further ado, let's watch our students and teachers engage in the Savis ELA curriculum. [Music] >> Hi, I'm Venicia Birdie. I teach seventh and eighth grade English at Oregon Middle School. >> I'm Jamie Mllo. I'm the ENL teacher for grade 6 to 8 at Oregon Middle School and our lesson today is with our eighth grade ENL integrated English class. Um we're currently teaching uh one of the texts from unit 2 of SAVIS and we're working on specifically Ellie Bisel's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech. Since there's a lot of challenging vocab, um the students also received a resource that had a glossery which they're engaging with throughout the lesson. Something that we wanted to do because this was a higher Lexile level text and it did have a lot of challenging vocab. Um

039we made sure to preview everything and give students access to glossery definitions that they can refer to as we read. Um, every student is responsible for speaking one of the questions, answering all of the questions. They get a chance to use a protocol called Ripple, which is where they do their thinking first. Then they have an opportunity to check in with others and feel more confident about their answer. And then we use equity sticks to have them share a lot of the class and have a discussion about it. Um, it was very important to us for this text to kind of put a lot of stuff in context. So, we took Savis's analysis questions and skill questions, which for this one was rhetorical devices, and we integrated them in context throughout the speech so that

040students are getting those kind of real time um skill skills and and connection building. So some of the benefits that we've seen with the Salvis program have been in particularly with the tier 2 and tier three vocab words. So there's a lot more exposure within these texts to those types of words which are really great for ELS and nonL students. Yeah. Something that we do enjoy about it is there is so much exposure to higher level um texts in general, higher level vocab. And so it does kind of it it's a productive struggle. students are really getting resources to be able to reach grade level rather than us trying to uh lower the curriculum and that's really helping to kind of build their confidence and their uh endurance with reading and writing. Yeah. So, they're

041learning to overcome these challenges where normally they would not be very comfortable with that and it's teaching them to become better readers. A big part of this lesson and why we're having them stop and practice their public speaking is number one it ties into uh the fact that this is a speech that we're analyzing. Um and the second thing is that we're working on our other two components of our standards in ELA. So we have the reading, we have the writing, but now we're also doing speaking and listening. And this is going to kind of help build up those skills and that confidence around those skills before we get into a Socratic seminar which we're going to be doing around next week. >> Hi, my name is Morgan Trava. I teach sixth grade ELA at

042Saxon Middle School. And my name is Miranda Rosa. I am Morgan's co-teer. I teach special education at Saxon Middle School. So today we're going to be working with our students. Um we read um A Wrinkle in Time. Um it was broken up into two parts with SAVIS. Um and the students were um dissecting the text, annotating um inferencing um and doing a lot of just um the sixth grade skills that they need to know for um the state assessment. As we were finishing our the text, we we knew at the end of this unit, we had to compare and contrast. So we decided to compare the text to a movie. Um the students were given um specific um movie sections where they had to watch uh as a class we watched part of the movie

043in the beginning for maybe 10 minutes to start and then the students had to compare what they saw in the movie to the text. Um they were given a graphic organizer to do each section. Um and they were discussing these um similarities and differences with um their reading groups. They were expected to provide text evidence which we will be talking about today. Um we are going to be doing the next section of comparing and contrasting um in with the organizer and we are going to be doing group work again today where they have to give similarities and differences um for that that section that we did yesterday. They are going to be expected to give evidence today from the text on how they know that that um there is a similarity or a difference. They're

044also going to be given this graphic organizer in preparation for their compare and contrast essay. And in this graphic organizer, it gives them a lot of sentence starters um so that they can find that text evidence and know how to form a sentence using it based on the story element that they're in in their groups. Yeah, they're going to be um comparing specific elements today. There are characters that they are going to be um comparing um the plot of the movie and the text as well as the setting because as we know as we see a movie, it is very different from the text. Um producers of a of a of a movie like to change things up. Our students have noticed that already that sometimes things are different um in the in the movie

045as well as changing the way that the that um little details and the plot has changed. Um characters look different. So they are noticing and already comparing and contrasting that as they continue they're going to notice more things today. >> We've noticed that it sparked great conversations in our classroom comparing the movie to the book. Mhm. >> Um the kids are really interested and engaged in seeing what they visualized when they read the book and how that came to life in a movie or how it didn't come to life. >> And they're Yeah, they're having great conversations about it. >> Yeah. They're even going back in and um which we want them to do, dive into the text, but they're they're dissecting and they're noticing little details that um maybe some of their other classmates

046have not noticed, which is helpful when they're working in groups for them to be able to hear what their their classmates have have noticed and then share that with them. And then it's building on skills and maybe some weaknesses that other students have. It's becoming more of a strength for them. We've noticed a lot of positive things with with the program for Sav um as well as um being able to make it creative. Today the the lesson is is our um you know our little twist on it. So it's nice because yes it is Sav is has so much to offer um and so many um you know resources that we are able to use but we are a also able to bring in our um our own into it and make it more of

047um our way of teaching it. So, it's been a really positive experience for us. >> Agreed. >> My name is Emily Cororic. I'm a seventh and eighth grade ELA teacher at Saxon Middle School. Today, you guys are with my eighth grade integrated ENL class. We started off with a do now about the characterization of one of the characters in the Diary of Anne Frank. We just finished up act one last week and today we're doing a group project about character analysis. You're doing retreat. >> So I just have to write that down. >> No, like no sentence. >> Not yet. Not here. Margo while we're here. >> What did we pick for stage directions? >> What was our quote for stage? Some positive insights about SAVIS include the students enjoy the themes embedded in the

048curriculum. This theme in particular that we're focusing on is resilience and they really enjoy reading stories and understanding characters that are overcoming struggles. It's something that's really relevant in their lives right now and they really are engaged with the texts. Hi, my name is Jessica Bleski. I am a seventh grade English teacher from South Ocean Middle School. You are going to see my seventh grade English students working in small groups to engage in small group debates. This is occurring after we completed our unit 3 summitive assessment that assessed the question, can people really change? Students will come to the debate with evidence prepared, their claims stated, and a defense to go against anyone who has any questions about what they have to explain to their peers. Some scaffolds that you will see in the lesson

049are heterogeneous grouping. There are also sentence stems to help any of our L's who struggle to find what words to begin with. also graphic organizers to help our students physically see their work laid out in front of them in a different way as well as a checklist so that way they know which points to include in the different parts of their debate. Some positives of SAVIS that I've seen so far are being able to put my own spin on things. This debate was not put into our curriculum, but I thought it would be a great opportunity for students to collaborate with one another while utilizing the critical thinking skills that they have been building. Through this curriculum that we have been adapting to over the last few months, students have really gotten exposure to expanding

050their critical thinking skills and engaging with texts that they wouldn't have normally read. I've even had a few students compliment the curriculum and say that they really enjoyed being exposed to science journalism, human interest stories such as the Mimi Choy article that we just read as well as different poems. Utilizing this curriculum has really helped build our students confidence as well as preparation for any state exams that they might be taking, whether it's the seventh grade state test or the regent exams that they will be taking once they go to the high school. This curriculum uses selection tests that have strategic phrasing to expose our students to the testing questions that they will be experiencing once they move on from middle school and go to the high school where they will be taking regions exams,

051the SAT and the ACT. So, this curriculum is a great way to prepare them for that. >> And that's a wrap for our SAVIS video production. I hope you all enjoyed our students and teachers in action and we are looking forward to our next steps within this curriculum. Thank you and have a good evening. >> We're going to be submitting that to the Sundance Film Festival. >> I think we got a good shot. Um so again, you know, I mean the teachers are really phenomenal in this and uh and the kids too. And um you know it's funny to see some of the kids like I think Lori I happened to notice you laughing at one point where a kid was really emphatically just slapping that posted note on and that makes me laugh every

052time you know but uh and on a personal note it's also nice to see some of uh it's always nice to see my Barton students as they're getting uh you know older and sixth and seventh grade. So um I think I have a presentation here. Are we going to do that tonight or are we just going to do the video? All right. Are we able to pull that up? >> What do you want me to just do it off top? >> WhatsApp. >> Yeah. Can we pull the presentation? >> Can we pull up the presentation or should >> I don't know. Am I Am I doing that? >> I don't have a computer. text doesn't have it. >> Show it. >> Yeah. >> Making me sweat. >> All right. Let me find the front here.

053Okay. >> So, we'll go to I guess it'll be the >> see the credits here. Again, I do want to thank everybody for their participation. Uh I do have a special thanks page for the to the board of education and to Mrs. Kennedy and Mrs. Marone for their continued support throughout this uh endeavor. um particularly in in in in Michelle's uh prior capacity as the ENL director, we worked really closely on um you know, working with our teachers to build scaffolds for this program. And um you know, so one of the things that I think is really important, it's something that I kind of picked up early on is that uh you know, we adopted this curriculum and uh but but now we are really deep into the adaption and that's I think very important.

054you know, you can get any program you want, but ultimately it has to fit the PAT Med kids. And so, um, we we've worked very diligently, um, to do that. And a piece of that process is also the student voice. So, back in, uh, March or April, we surveyed our students in all three middle schools. And, um, so I've shared with you in the presentation those results. And um one of the things that you'll see consistently pretty much no matter what the question what question you look at is that um the gray of the pie is neutral. And um so I kind of liken that to your I Ready where you have the red, the blues, red, blues, the red, the greens, and the yellows. And um you know, we want to make sure in

055I Ready, right, we're moving our kids toward the green, toward proficiency, toward mastery. And when I look at the savist um you know the the results from the kids I'm not satisfied as a director at that. When I see a lot of neutral you know I'm thinking okay well either kids don't have an opinion kids aren't engaged enough or um there's something else maybe that's not really moving them toward um a a uh more positive perspective. So I see a lot of positive in the survey, but I also see and I think the teachers agree with me a lot of opportunity for growth and I think also um Mrs. Kennedy and Mrs. Veron, you know, we've had extensive conversations regarding this and uh really that's our goal is now is the the adoption and to,

056you know, really make sure that our kids are connecting with the literature because I was an English teacher for 12 years. And um for me, I I took it uh I don't want to say personally, but I took pride in knowing my kids were engaged with what I was teaching, you know, and if they weren't, that was always, you know, on me. And so I take the same kind of pride as a director. I want to make sure that our kids are really engaged with what it is we're presenting to them. And if there's opportunity for growth and correction, then then that's what we're going to do. And I'm so proud of the Oh, there it is. Uh I'm so proud of the uh work that our teachers have been doing really starting last year

057and throughout the summer to continue to adapt the program. So, can I Yes. Cool. Okay. We have the presentation. So if you take a look uh going back to the student surveys, it says or look in your presentation in front of you, the whole group peer group and independent lessons are helping me grow as an English student. So again, these were questions answered directly by the students. 44% said agree. I want that number to be higher. You know, I want the kids to really feel that these lessons are helping them to grow as an English student. And also there's those conversations that happen, those reflective conversations that our teachers have with kids as well. Um, you know, I want the the to continue to check in with the kids and they will and they have

058been, but to do it in this context of understanding um that what we present to them are helping them to grow as students. Um, the program contains frequent opportunities for me to practice my reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills. uh agree is 49%, neutral is 40, uh disagree is 11. When I look at this question, I know every day the teachers are engaging in reading, writing, speaking and listening skills. So in a question like that sometimes, you know, I I I I do want to, you know, have conversations with kids maybe and we make sure that kids understand really what neutral means in that sense. Like, you know, is it that they sort of don't feel one way or another or do they not have an opinion? Um, so you know, some when we look

059at the next survey too, we'll also look back with the teachers and say, you know, maybe we we maybe we could look at some of the phrasing of the questioning too to sort of get um a more direct response from some of our kids. Um, I feel challenged when completing the English assignments. 31% say agree, 48% neutral, 21% disagree. Um, I think we can all agree the text is challenging, but you know, as a teacher that you also have to meet the kids where the kids are and you have to make sure you're scaffolding and breaking things down for kids so that if kids don't feel engaged, then they're not going to equate that with challenge. So, you know, there's always that balance, too. So, that's something we're also working uh toward. There are various

060student resources to help me understand text including online resources, the realized digital platform of videos, student workbooks. Agree. It's 47%. Again, you see that neutral. So, you know, one of the things we're part of our professional development this year is going to be let's start unpacking more of those online resources for the kids because now that teachers are getting more comfortable with the program, we'll be able to unpack more because SAVIS does give a lot in terms of um various digital resources on their platform. I think um you know sort of off the cuff, but I know just from conversations with kids and teachers, I feel like sometimes Savis doesn't look as fancy as some of the apps that kids engage with. You know, it feels a little stuffy from a kid's perspective and you

061know, so I think that that or automatically, you know, is something that maybe, you know, a part of that feeling of not being necessarily um engaged with the resources, but definitely this year we're going to look to make sure we're putting those electronic resources on the forefront. Um I'm learning question five. I'm learning multiple strategies to improve my reading, writing, and listening. 53% agree. We'll go through a couple of these a little quicker and you can ask questions, of course. The assessment questions are aligned to the material taught in class. 50% agree, 42 neutral, eight disagree. Student survey results, lessons are thorough and engaging. Um, and again, this was something that we talked a lot about as a department and working on engagement. Um so the glow so what you'll see in the next four

062slides you'll see two slides. Now we surveyed all of the seventh and eighth grade students. So this is a um what we look to do is to pick our top six and the glows and grows that we saw that were the the most repetitive because there were a lot of uh responses that were repetitive. So this is these are actual student responses that are anonymous. But so the glows I like how my perspective ELA program lets us work in groups. I enjoy this program and it helps me to grow as a student. It influences me to want to learn more about reading and writing, encourages me to want to learn more about the program itself. SAVIS is very helpful for me and I have seen improvements since September. I enjoy ELA because we're often working

063in groups. It helps me to learn new things and how people feel about a story. I also enjoy it because of what we do with my perspectives. SAVIS has challenged me and it has paid off. The lessons are enjoyable enjoyable, but the Savis website and selection tests need improvement. Not the content, but the functionality needs improvement. I love the tier 2 vocabulary there. Uh I like the program because it has some good science fiction stories. Love it. That's uh that's more like what I would say. These some of these kids, they're communicating way higher than I did when I was in seventh or eighth grade. Uh so said the humanities director. So the grows uh the my perspective VA's program is a great program but there are some glitches often a program does not load

064correctly or it lags it and does not let you do your assignment. So that's our tech support uh right there. Uh I think the ELA program we use is not very entertaining but the program demonstrates a lots of reading and writing but it is all very boring. I think if we changed it up a little bit all the students would be a lot more excited to come to ELA every day. It's good for people who only speak Spanish. I'm sorry. It is good for people who only speak Spanish is kind Oh, I get it is good, but for people who only speak Spanish is kind of hard. >> Um, yes. And that's a really really important feedback, you know, and that's something that we picked up on when I started this job the end of

065August. By early September, we were having these conversations. though. Uh, my feedback is to make the website more exciting and interesting because right now it's a little boring. Um, I don't like Savis that much. For me, it's harder to read and type on the computer. >> I prefer the My Perspectives workbook because it's just easier for me to do work in that book than on the computer. I personally feel like My Perspectives ELA program is helpful to some students and it helps them to learn and grow. I also feel like it could use some improvements because many kids find it boring. So may maybe if there were fun things added to the lessons, it would help kids learn better. Um I agree with that. Um so >> sorry. I think I went >> Oh no.

066>> There's no back. >> Okay. >> We'll do it this way. Sorry. >> Okay. So um as I said we looked at this feedback as a department um back in the spring and so we use this feedback and um discussion with uh principles discussions with uh my fellow directors and uh teachers to sort of figure out and strategize as to what we are going to work on uh for the summer and also of course uh conversations with uh Mrs. Kennedy as well. So, um, we really, I mean, we had about 15 teachers, including special education and ENL teachers who all worked together, um, tirelessly. And when I say that, I mean, it was I, and this might sound like hyperbole, but I don't feel like a minute was lost. I felt like the teachers felt

067it was really important to do this work. I I had that sense um, the entire time. And, um, so I was really proud of our staff for um, how much they put their hearts into this. And so just to highlight some of the summer curriculum work we did in SAVIS um that says focused on enhancing student engagement. You know we saw that word boring several times and listen I was an English teacher. Sometimes ELA can be boring to some kids. That is a reality but if we can make improvements we should and we will uh provide meaningful learning experiences by customizing selection tests. So what that means is real quick in a nutshell a selection test is a fancy word for quiz right? So um we looked at enhancing the uh in two ways. One

068is we took some of the selection test. Now this might not sound engaging to kids but cognitively it it should be. We took um question stems from the New York State assessments going back over the past several years and we went through every single selection test and we added questions based upon the content within those selection tests that were reflective of those stems because we felt that the product that we had so far didn't do that enough. So we made that a priority as a department. Um it it coupled with that is that we added stand added standardsbased authentic performance based assessments to the curriculum and removed several selection tests. So the first thing we did actually chronologically was we went through every single selection test grade seven grade eight and we decided looking at

069the standards doing a standards crosswalk what selection tests do we keep? What selection tests can we remove? But before we remove it, let's make sure we know what standards were hit. And then what we did was we replaced it with a performance-based assessment. That might be um something along the lines of a presentation um along the it may be a mini project that they do in the class. Um, for example, one of the really cool things that was a performance-based assessment last April is that every single uh middle school did a project about uh some something about accessibility and how accessible things were either in the building to students who have um either physical um or cognitive needs and that was based upon uh text within the curriculum. So that was something created by the

070teachers which was authentic. kids were outside in the hallways or they were doing various uh station work and that was something that was not within Savas but that was created by the teachers. So my task to the teachers was I want this is your opportunity now to do a little bit of the oldfashioned type of let's go back and let's you create some of the assessments but to do that um we needed to remove some of the selection tests while still maintaining the standard. So we within each unit we went through and we added performance-based assessment um because we thought that would just be more engaging to kids. We aligned the PLE curriculum. PL PLE is our um support class for our students who struggle in reading. We aligned that with the SAVIS material. Uh

071prior to that it was more aligned with um I Ready and it's still aligned and the diagnostic is still aligned with I Ready. However, um what we're doing is we are lining up uh unit by unit in seventh and eighth grade. Um for example, if let's say um in a certain week a teacher might be discussing theme, then the retach materials that we're utilizing within PLE, we'll touch upon what that teacher is doing uh in theme during in the core class. So essentially we align uh the core class with the PLE so there'll be more continuity because the PLA teacher and the core teacher are not always the same person. So we tried to make those connections through the through the uh curriculum itself. We integrated in seventh grade the novel the K. We began

072that work in the spring and we continued to work on that in seventh grade in the summer. Um and in eighth grade, uh during the summer, we spent a little more time because we had the time to do it on incorporating the novel The Outsiders into the scope and sequence. So when you look at the various texts that the kids are engaging in, um you're looking at poetry, you're looking at short stories, you're looking atformational text, you're looking at novellas, and we're also um while SAVIS doesn't directly have the um novel embedded within the workbook itself, again, that's where the adaption phase came in. And that's what uh we did to ensure that the novel is in both grades because we heard that from teachers, from students and from uh parents as well. Um and

073then ENL teacher scaffolded materials and text to better accommodate our multilingual learners. Um that was you very very important. That was something that we talked about throughout the year and I'm really glad that we had the time uh to do that and we'll continue to do that. But we made sure we we were intentional about it. special education teachers. It's the same thing. Scaffolded materials and text to better accommodate our learners who have IEP goals. We amended assessments to reflect the question stems I touched on ear earlier on New York State ELA exams. Uh our next steps is we will continue our in-house professional development and our professional development with SAVIS representatives. One of the shifts in our professional development model this year will be um rather than pulling the teachers out of the classroom

074to meet for three or four hours at a time um we're actually going to push in and provide uh feedback. So whether that's myself um our instructional coach Geraldine Ray and also representatives from Savis as well. So, we'll be pushing in and so I believe and uh the teachers also believe that uh that will be something that's a little more authentic, keeps uh teachers in the classrooms and then what we'll be able to do is we'll be able to internally work out time for them to work to um rather than be pulled out for three hours or so, they can be pulled out maybe for a period to get feedback on that push in from myself, the Savage representative, and um any other uh directors or or teachers who may be involved with that. So,

075those are some of our next steps coming up this this year. So, I'm very excited. Uh I think the teachers have done just a tremendous job with um with this program and uh I thank everybody for your time and if anybody has any questions, let me know. >> Uh yes, please. >> Yes. >> Um I was wondering if there's any large scale data surveys taken for teachers uh on the roll out and effectiveness of this. Um, I was wondering if we had any type of that data. >> Um, not yet. Not surveys >> because I mean I did have a concern and a lot of the stuff you stated and I do appreciate the reflective nature of what you're taking this. >> Um, you know, you're looking into it and you're very honest about, you

076know, the kids perception of this, but I do have reservations of this based on the fact that, you know, we look at the kids almost 70 three almost threequarters of them, you know, say that's not engaging, which is a major issue. You know, that's my major concern. My daughter went through it this year and as a kid that loves reading and writing, >> you know, English became one of her least favorite classes because of the program. >> Sure. >> Yeah. >> Understood. >> I have a question. >> Yes. >> Uh we talked about you talked about using the key and uh I don't the books. Are they the outsiders? Are they reading the whole novel at any point during the year? >> Yeah. The K and the and the outside. >> Yeah. Oh, and can

077you explain to me, I might have missed the words. What is PLE? >> Uh, personalized learning of English. Correct. Is that right? Yeah. Uh, so yes. So, it is a smaller class that um so based upon I ready diagnostic store scores, teacher recommendations and uh combined with recommendations from myself uh students are placed in PLE uh to get support. It's put into their class for support for uh literacy uh comprehension skills, reading skills. Thank you. And I'd like to u u reflect what Trusty Salazar said um with the with the the number of kids who were I mean I understand I appreciate where you're going with the with the looking at how to improve all of this. Um but I also acknowledge that we're looking at middle school kids. So me is a valid answer

078often. >> Yes. >> So I but I appreciate you're trying to push that number up. >> Thank Yeah. I I agree and but I thank you for that. Appreciate it. I just I have a question about um one of the grows where um the students said I prefer the my perspectives workbook because it's just easier for me to do work in the book than on the computer. Do they have to do both? Can they do either or? >> Sometimes it depends on the activity. Okay. >> So, for example, the selection tests are online uh because that's connected to the uh the data that comes out of that. Um, however, there's a lot of work such as annotation tends to be more within the workbook. Um, and then also there's sort of the middle ground of

079like a graphic organizer that's neither online or a workbook. So, um, even if you looked at some of the videos like there are opportunities, but um, yeah, sometimes I think if you're going throughout the day and you have multiple classes where you're on the computer, I think, you know, you catch a kid on a certain day, they might feel the fatigue of that. For sure. >> Yeah. Okay. And then I'm I grateful that novels are back in because I that was definitely something that I I know I asked about last year. I would love to see in eighth grade two novels. >> Yeah. I mean I that's just my you know I just I remember the days back years ago when my kids were in school and I want to say they did about three

080novels. I know they didn't have this program, but I think there's just something to be said for >> longevity and and attention, like trying to stretch out our our students, our children's attention. Um and and just again you know coming from a former English teacher I mean that was a standard formula was probably you know a short story unit four novels play you know so like you know so now when you look at that's why I you know intentionally mentioned the different types of genres that they're reading now through this but that was the formula yeah absolutely >> thank you >> I also want to point out I think it's >> yeah independent reading it's not just about reading the novel in the class but getting kids to love to read independently uh outside of

081their classroom. So, that's something we're really working on that you don't have to be reading a novel just because we're reading it in English class. You know, we want kids to to love reading and pick something that they enjoy. So, we we have increased our visits to the library. Each class goes in there. They're we're on a schedule now to encourage kids to start taking out those books. But I think some of I I think some of it comes from in the classroom when they're reading aloud with their teacher and the interaction and the conversations like we're in a you know we're just in a different place with ELA and reading and and sometimes I could see it it you know it could seem regimented and I mean the the videos were great and thank

082you for doing that because it's so great to see the interaction and the explanation of what's what's going on. Yeah. and seeing them really engaged and you could tell they like working in groups and and that's you know collaborative work is so important. Um but you know like um Mr. Celzar said it's >> you know some of them feel like it's boring and you know so it's it's just finding that middle ground where we can engage them again to love reading and learning and you know it's I it's not an easy job. I'm not. >> Yeah, >> I can't promise it, but I would love that that the survey to be 100% love English. That, you know, I'd love that. But, uh, >> yeah, that's what we're that's what we're aiming for. I don't know

083if we'll get there, but that's what we're going to aim for. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. >> I was just going to add one of the things I noticed in the videos was that the teachers, now I don't know, maybe there are other teachers, but teachers that had positive feedback were putting their own spin on their lessons. So I feel like that you know sometimes when you get a curriculum that is very prescribed it it can be either difficult for for teachers to feel like they can do that. So I think that's really important making sure that teachers are not just feeling like they have to get through the entire curriculum but they're able to use their you know professional experience to make it more engaging because >> um it can be very easy to

084just sort of be going through a workbook. And I think that's where a lot of the feedback that it's boring comes in. So as teachers get more comfortable, I hope they're encouraged to continue, you know, doing what what they do best and knowing, you know, I loved the the debate um and how that wasn't part of the lesson. I think that's really important and and critical. And I also wanted to just ask for the classes with PLE because I'm kind of new to this and I don't have kids at that age but when they are in those classes are they doing eye ready or are they now or are they practicing you know other skills that based on the SAVIS work >> or is it I ready if they're in that class? So we're making

085a shift uh more toward Savis now to in order to align it to uh so quick answer it's going to be hybrid but we are intentionally adding the SAV to especially there's a tools called the retach tools that uh we're utilizing and and teachers will utilize next year so that it's more aligned with the core class because PLLE teachers are not the same as the core teacher most of the time if not all the time. So one of the things that we thought might be beneficial to students to start to make that alignment. So we still will be using I ready. They'll still be taking the diagnostic but we are going to be also you uh incorporating SAVIS in there as well. >> Okay. I think Mr. Hanley that's only in eighth grade because we

086have the double block in. I just want to make sure everyone um is clear. So that is only in eighth grade and it's um students who receive AIS. So that's what we call personalized learning is AIS services. But we moved to a double block in sixth grade. Always had a double block. Seventh grade has a double block this year for the first time. So in eighth grade we still have the PLR or PLE for the students who need some additional support because we do not have the double block for everyone. >> Okay. I think the benefit of not using I Ready in that block is um we will better be able to see if students are making progress on I Ready. It will be we can attribute that to the curriculum whereas when they're just

087practicing I Ready, they might just be getting better at I Ready. So I think that that is a good shift. We'll be able to see if kids are if those skills are translating as they take their diagnostic at the end of the year if they're making improvement. Um, so I think that's a good idea. >> And uh, just to touch on your other point real quick too, that what you said is a real thing. The teachers feeling in the beginning that they could not add the usual flare and the usual personalities to it. I mean, I don't want to throw you on the spot, but that was a thing in the beginning, right? Was I think teachers were concerned following the pacing guide, following making sure. And so, you know, I I do believe that

088and I've seen um that be alleviated a lot. You know, especially in the spring, I felt like as we got into the groove, I think there was more of a sigh of relief for that. And um you know, it's really important. We have a lot of really talented teachers with great personalities. And uh there's no way a curriculum is going to replace any of that. So, you know, I do think we've moved past that. I don't want to speak for everybody, but I do think we've moved past that and teachers have seem to use this. This is a tool, right, to teach our students the literacy skills and that they need that are transferable skills for life, right? So, I want our teachers to feel, I think we all do, that they're masters of this

089tool, not that they're beholden to it. You know, I think that's two different things. >> Thank you. >> Welcome. Anything else? Thank you. Okay, next we're going to move on to our exeicio student member, um, Charlie Lake. >> Good evening everyone. I'm Charlotte Lake. I'm the student board member. Um, tonight my presentation is going to be a little bit about what was going on during the summer within our district, as well as stuff to look for in this upcoming school year. Okay. Okay. First, I want to take a look at some of our summer athletic programs. Listed here is just a handful of them, but as you can see, we have boys volleyball, camp, weight room, open training, wrestling, softball, cheerleading, baseball, etc. Um, and as you can see, we cater to many grades to

090boost maximum participation within our community. And in correlation to this, I have some pictures that I received from our athletic director, Mr. KCO. You can see the basketball, the wrestlers, softball clinic, the youth camp on the bottom left, and some of our cheerleaders. Um, moving on, I wanted to talk about some of the orientations. So, first we have our freshman orientation here at the high school. That's going to be August 26th at 8:30 a.m. Um there freshmen will just get a little bit of a feel for our building and they'll also be receiving their yonder pouches which I'll talk about shortly. Um next we have our sixth grade orientation which is August 28th at 1:00 p.m. um taking place at the respective schools. And then lastly we have the kindergarten orientation also August 28th at

09110:00 a.m. once again at the respective elementary schools. to follow. I'm going to be taking a bit of a deep dive into student government. Um, just because that's something I pride myself in. Um, here I have listed the the officers for our 2025 2026 school year. Um, as you can see, class of 29 is to be determined, which our expected election day is November 10th to kind of give the students a little room to grow and see if this is something that they'd be interested in. Um but as listed there is the president, vice president, secretary, treasurer and historian. Um also going back to the student government portion, I just wanted to talk a little bit about expanding it. So the school district is hoping to bring student government down to our middle schools as

092well as fifth grade within the elementary schools. Um we think that it would be a really good opportunity to provide collaborative work between younger and older students as well as just giving the younger students a voice and a boost of confidence. Um to continue on that as well um there is class senators which is being implemented by um this year's go adviser Mrs. Sullivan. It is where there's an active GEO member as well as an active attendee to the class meetings where they'll go and they will relay ideas and information between the two groups overall fostering a good sense of communication between the two. Next, I wanted to move on to Raider Bowl, which is a favorite of mine. Um, this is going to be my fourth and final year, so I'm very excited. This

093year, it's going to be Thursday, September 18th. I think that's something that a lot of students look forward to and it's a great sense of school spirit. To continue with that, I wanted to talk a little bit about homecoming set since it is so early this year. It's going to be October 4th on a Saturday. Um the time for the parade skit and the game itself is not set yet. However, it um I'm just however it'll be in that order. Um, and this year our themes are very exciting. We have our overall theme, which is Disney Channel original movies. The seniors received High School Musical, the juniors receiving Team Beach Movie, and the sophomores receiving Halloween Town. Once again, class of 2029 is to be determined. Um, and then lastly, I just wanted to go

094back about the Yonder Pouches a little bit. I think it's going to be a a difficult adjustment. However, I believe that if we go into it with a good mindset that we'll be able to manage both as staff and students. Um, and yeah, I'm looking forward to this school year. So, thank you for your time. [Applause] >> Thank you. We're going to move on to public comments that are only on the reports or the agenda items that you have seen. You're limited to three minutes per person to total no more than 60 minutes with no sharing of minutes. You can go up to the podium and just say your name. Hi, my name is Gina. Um, this is my first time attending a meeting, so I hope I'm asking this question in the right place.

095I'm a parent at Bay Elementary, and I heard that they're cutting library for kindergarten and first grade. Is that true? Well, we we'll answer that one toward the end because this one this right now for public comment is only on the presentations that we saw. Oh, and then you'll have another chance after. Okay. >> Okay. >> So, just keep your keep your question then and come back after support. Every everybody has a first meeting and everybody learns that. Can I just can I ask some Well, can I ask something? Um the the summer programs that um that were just shown, I've gotten a lot of feedback from parents saying they hope that next summer they can expand it to more grade levels and more sports. I know my kids went and had they had great

096experiences at football and basketball and so um I'd love to see that expanded to more grade levels. All right. So, we'll move on to approve the consent agenda. So, can I have a motion to accept the consent agenda? >> Motion. >> I'll second it. >> All in favor? I I Okay. There were no items removed from the consent agenda and no items arising out of exact session. Umformational items. There's some policies um up to be circulated for the first reading and it'll be included on the September 15th meeting and then we'll move on to um superintendent and assistant superintendent reports. this year. I'm going to turn it over to the assistant soups just to give a brief uh check-in with the community and then I will loop back when they're done. So, Mr. Maisy is

097going to talk a little bit about his departments, Miss Marone, and then Dr. Con. >> Good evening again. And so just uh the most exciting thing that's happening in the uh business office and operational areas that oversee uh are the capital improvements that we're doing uh primarily to uh Bay Elementary and to with the bond project. And I'm happy to report that we've got the approvals now in place. Uh great work is taking place at Bay. The fence is up. Uh the walls are going up for the temporary egress uh and uh for the building preparation and excavation work is beginning shortly. So we are making great strides with regard to that project. Uh the bay I'm sorry the bond projects uh if you may remember there were three installments. There was the athletic field

098uh and sound system upgrades to the gymnasiums. So there was the theatrical piece and then as I mentioned earlier there is the HVAC piece which is introducing the climate control to all of our buildings. The athletic field is well underway. I'm sure if anyone saw the large piles of gravel and asphalt materials in the parking lot, but the field is already down. Uh we're making preparations now for walkways. Uh then followed by lighting and then we'll begin in on the uh bleacher work, but we hope to have the field done. Uh it was forecast to be done by November. We might slightly be slightly ahead of schedule. So it's very exciting that we're doing that. The gym work's already begun as well. the theatrical piece. Um we've realigned our bid to clarify some of the

099expectations that the vendors had. So that bid is being uh uh gathered on August 28th. So by the time we get to the September meeting, I'll have more updates on that. But that work will commence throughout the year in the high school and the secondary schools. And we'll work in and around any kind of productions, musicals, concerts, things of that nature. And then the HVAC piece is also very exciting because we got the bay piece approved already and now um we also got Eagles just recently. So we're looking now to bid those together for the economies of scale to get better pricing on our um unit materials that we need and also obviously the labor uh tree might not be far behind in South we're expecting almost any day. So we're going to try and

100take advantage of that put that out there to the community. So once again by September, October, we'll have some more information, but those are moving along uh nicely as well. So uh like I said, a lot happening. We're going to continue to update the capital improvements uh web page that is easily located on our website, top right corner. All right. So first off, uh superintendent conference day is right around the corner. Uh this year we'll be having Dr. Chen Buford who's the vice president of learning design and equity for IDA Corporation. Uh she'll be coming in on day one of superintendent's conference day to speak um with our staff about uh leveraging the power of AI um to advance equitable learning. She holds a doctorate in instructional systems and she uh enjoyed her career as

101a math educator. So we look forward to having her next week. Um she will be leading the keynote and doing breakout sessions for our secondary staff. Uh, in addition to that, this summer we had quite a bit of curriculum writing projects going on, a total of 43. Um, there's a lot here to talk about, but I'll try to make it brief. Um, Art and Music really took their um, curriculum and uploaded it into our new Atlas software so that it is housed in one location so all staff um, can access it. Um, similar to what Mr. Hanley was talking about earlier, the humanities for one through six department um worked with the Savas curriculum to really streamline assessments, adjust the scope and sequence to meet the needs of our students. In conjunction with that, the

102dual language department also worked on the SAVIS um uh curriculum really to bring in that aspect to make sure our English language learners and our dual language students were getting um uh what the most out of the curriculum and meeting the needs of them as well. Uh, one of our mandatory things for our ENL department is our bilingual information nights. We really looked at that last year and they're continuing to look at it this year. Um, really focusing on making it more um, community oriented and hosting it at locations where our community feels comfortable. Um, so that is something we'll continue to do. Raider Academy did a lot of curriculum work this summer. um they created a transformative SEAL program um designed specifically for our alter alternative high school students which focuses on building inner

103strength, self-awareness and life navigation skills. They also worked on some parent workshops that they'll be presenting each month. So for example September they have creating effective morning routines, October understanding uh school avoidance, November communication strategies for anxious teens. Um and it goes on all the way through June. every month is something different um that they have available for our um students and families. The special special education department worked on a variety of uh curriculum uh assignments this year. This summer they worked on the ACS um apartment scope and sequence. So they built on the curriculum project from last summer. Uh the elementary AC's teachers organized lessons and created a a scope and sequence so that students are learning new skills as they progress in the program. They also worked on an SEAL curriculum for the

104ease program that's housed at Medford. Um it's for use with the ease classes. Um they have it the social worker will teach weekly SEAL lessons and the classroom teacher will follow up with a mini lesson each day. They worked on a progress monitoring toolkit. Uh special education staff including teachers from elementary, middle, and high school uh have been collaborating on the development of a progress monitoring toolkit. The toolkit includes step-by-step guidance documents, video demonstrations, and additional resources. This will be aiming to help our supports teachers and PPS staff as they begin implementing progress monitoring. Lastly, the special education department also worked on an executive functioning tool project. Um, a team of staff uh developed this to address key areas such as organization, planning, working memory, task initiation, and so on. So, a lot that came

105out of our special education department as well for our 7th through 12 STEM department. They worked on some new course curriculum um such as introduction to college mathematics, a geometry update, earth and space science which is new for us this year along with um biology which will be new for us as well. Uh I missed this part but I'll go back a little bit. The sixth grade uh STEM will be um implementing a the math uh ready math program this year. They will also be piloting a new um science curriculum through SAVIS as well. Um and then Mr. Hanley spoke a little bit about the 7th through 12 humanities, but um just a little bit about social studies. For middle school, they developed a literacy companion to help deepen students understanding of content. Um, and

106for high school social studies, they're implementing a new elective called Rock and Soul of America, which links the US history with music and social movements from the 1950s to present. So, a lot of curriculum work that happened this summer. Um, I didn't do it justice, but uh, if you'd like, I can share this as well, but they really did wonderful work here. Um, and I'm I'm happy that we'll be able to start the school year with some great some great work. >> Good evening, everybody. So, always the big story in HR over the summer is hiring. So, we're going to start there. So, we have currently hired six administrators. We're still um looking for one additional admin administrator at our high school. We hired 63 teachers. Uh currently, we hired four TAs. We still have

107to hire a couple of more. Two nurses, 15 clerical, six full-time operational, 16 part-time members, and five security guards. If you were keeping track on your abacus, you know that that uh equates to 117 positions this summer and we are still hiring. Yes. So, that's the big story. Uh also want to let you know that uh next week we have our new higher orientation on Monday and Tuesday. We're looking forward to meeting our new cohort which is up to approximately 60 new teachers and teaching assistants. Um also what we've been working on diligently over the summer is contract negotiations. Uh labor relations is so important to us. We want to make sure that all of our employee groups have up-to-date uh contracts. Pleased to say that our board approved one tonight for our full-time operational

108unit. And we have one uh final uh uh unit left that we're negotiating with that we are in the final stages of and hope to have that done very soon. And then finally, at the request of the board, uh we will be inviting all those who recently acquired tenure to the September board meeting to be recognized. Those letters are going out uh shortly. All right. So, obviously, we haven't been doing much this summer. It's been very quiet here in PAMED, but um thank you to all the assistant superintendent. They do an outstanding job and I just want to really uh Mr. Ahern, thank you very much for all your leadership. Um Mr. Ahern and I are constantly in communication. Um so I really appreciate all your support. So with that being said, I'm going to

109fill in some of what the assistant soups haven't highlighted or our exeicio has not highlighted. So a lot has happened. I really want to give a hats off to our future star camp. This was the first year we did Future Star. Just to give you an idea, we had over 200 Pat campers uh join that. And when I was speaking to um Future Stars, that was a savings. Our our community had a coupon code for them to get a discount if they came and our community saved $123,000 this year because they were entitled to that coupon code. So that's a great thing to hear that they're taking advantage of the camps. Uh we had an average of 3.37 weeks per patmed students. So they weren't just going for one week, they were going for multiple

110weeks and we had a total of 900 I'm sorry 703 total camper weeks. So you could see that they were signing up for multiple weeks. So out of the 208 they they went for over 700. So when speaking to them, they said that Oregon was one of the best startup camps that they've had so far. So we look to expand that next year. Um our music and art department did a lot this summer. Um hats off to Mr. Brinkman with our summer third annual community concert. I was sad we were in Albany so we did not get to uh see that but it was a success. If you didn't see it was on News 12. So congratulations to all our alumni, faculty, students, family, community members who participated. There were over 200 members that participated

111in band, chorus, and orchestra. So hats off to them as always. They did an outstanding job. We also had an art and music summer program this summer. We had um almost 500 students in grades three through eight. They got to participate in general music, instrument lessons, ensemble rehearsals, and participate in art activities. So again, very busy summer. And we had 55 of our students participate in the marching band camp this summer. So again, our camps were very active. Um, we also are having our admin retreat or all of our administrators will be meeting with myself and the entire cabinet this Friday for a full day retreat to really prepare for the following week where we have our new teacher orientation and our teachers do return on August 27th to start our new school year. So,

112lots taking place over the next few days. Just a reminder to our community, there have been a lot of communications and I know there's a lot of information coming to the community over the next few weeks, but it is important that you read all of those parent square messages. A lot of information about back to school. Uh I've sent a few letters and some more are coming regarding our cell phone policy, the new heat policy Mr. Maisie spoke about and also the use of the metal detectors at our secondary buildings. I would also like to um inform the board and our community there's been a lot of information out there about grants and and cuts to grants. We we have secured all of our title one, title two, title three. We're just missing our immigrant

113funds at this point and title four. So, we are in very good shape for our grants this year. I'm happy to report. So, we should be submitting that within the next few weeks. And again, just uh really thank you for everyone's support over the transition over the last few weeks. It's been an incredible experience and I look forward to the start of a new school year. Thank you everyone for those. Um so next we're going to move on to board discussion topics. I know one is deciding who I think we have to decide who the voting delegate would be and the locations. Yes. Locations of meetings. I mean I don't mind being the voting delegate. Okay, I guess. Okay. And then we want to discuss where we're going to have board of meeting board of

114ed meetings locations if we wanted to switch locations, keep locations. So I I just to share I suggested maybe because I know we've been tossing around, do we switch? Is it going to be confusing to the community? What maybe if we do want to touch in a couple different places, we go to the three middle schools and then have the when we want if we wanted to showcase the elementary schools, have the feeder schools go to the middle school to showcase their stuff. So for in Oregon, Eagle and Tmont can come to Oregon that month and showcase >> for the three. Yeah, >> it's up to us. Yeah, I mean we could if it's the three middle schools, we could do depending on how many elementary schools are in feed into the middle schools, we

115could do two in a row and then go to the next part or we can go through the one, two, three, one, two, three. >> Yep. >> Yeah. >> Figure it out later. And then you know it causes a little confusion. I like the idea of moving the buildings as long as the principles are on board. Um and um but it is important I think that we be able to notify the community it's at this building now >> far ahead and if there's a way to I don't know Mrs. Kennedy if this is a way to do this but like put it put it on the billboards in front of the buildings board of education meeting this day at that location. >> Yeah, definitely. And we also can send it out um via parent square

116just to notify the community ahead of time where the m uh meeting is going to be, but we can put it on the electronic um boards. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Personalized text messages. >> Yeah. Some of us with with attention issues are going to need like actual reminders. >> Would you like me to send you a parent square too? >> Yes. Parent square. >> So do you got what do what are your thoughts? like do you want to do the try this year the three middle schools and see how that goes and then >> I go that down there. >> Yeah, that's good for me as long as you know it gets busy. I you know I am the typical parent that will forget I almost forgot to come here. So, um, yeah, I

117think parent square is it goes to everyone's phone. That's helpful to get it on there. >> So, we could look at this. you know, we have the meeting dates for the and this is just for the business meetings, not the um budget meetings and all that that we'll keep at Saxton, but it's it's our business meetings, >> but we could before our September 15th meeting assign schools and you could talk to the principles and and we can have that all squared away. >> Yeah. So, it'll be set. Fantastic. >> Thank you. Next, we're going to move on to public comments. >> I'm sorry. Hold on. Sorry. I just also wanted to add that previously, we've always started the business meeting at 7:30. This year, we're starting them at 7. So, it is a half hour

118earlier that we're going to be starting the business meeting. Sorry. Now we'll move on to public comments. This is where you can come up and ask a question. Same question as before. Um, yes. I don't I don't know if it's true or what, but I heard that Bay Elementary is cutting library class only for kindergarten and first grade, which I'm like, that has to be wrong cuz that's like the fundamental where kids start to learn to read. So, I just wanted information about that. Okay. Hi. Um so uh library is not mandatory by New York State. So some buildings are um with our our librarians we're we have to man we have to provide services for two through five. So K1 is does not have to require mandatory services for for library. With that said,

119the teachers are still able to bring the students to the library um at any given time that the library is available to them with the same aspects of what a librarian would do. They can take out books, they can read books with them. So, it is still available to them. It will not be a a class that they have. Um that's mandatory if that answers your question. So, will the t like is it in their schedule kind of like, okay, it's Tuesday, let's go to the library, let's take out a book, or is that just like up to the teachers like if they want to do it because I'll answer that. Yeah. So, I mean, great question. So, as Miss Marone, we we did make a shift in K1. So, um some of the information

120you have is accurate. There is a change in library services. They will go every other week. It's a rotation. So in kindergarten and first grade, they'll get physical education three days a week. They will go to art and they will go to music. Physical education is the one elective at the elementary level that is mandatory and they have to have so many minutes per week. The other electives are not mandatory but are also very very important at our elementary schools but we have more flexibility on the duration of them. So all students in K1 will have physical education three days a week. That was the shift. So they're not going to library every week. They're going every other week. And that allowed us with staffing to put in physical education three days a week. So

121during that time that they go to the library, they will go with their classroom teacher, but a librarian will be in the library every other week when the teach when the teacher goes with their class. I just feel like everyone was talking how important reading is and library and a whole presentation about like having books available and like I have countless studies, articles, things that could make it that say K through 2 grade is like the most crucial times to get people into it. There's even articles that say like by second grade is kind of they formed an attitude about reading. Especially we're a title one school. Most people don't have access to a variety and diversity of books. Like yes, we have a library, but like can people just go there whenever they want

122or get a ride there or anything? I just feel like it's not fair to the kids. >> So, um, thanks for sharing that. Just in in K1, just so you know, we do have a 90inute literacy block in the classroom and very rich classroom libraries where there's a lot of books that students can bring home even from their classroom libraries. So, not only can they take books from our library media in each of our buildings, but their classroom teachers, we've invested a lot of resources within the classroom where kids can take home their baggies with their books as well. So, it is a balance. I I hear what you're saying, but please know that um the librarians um are still in each building. The library is still open and kids will still rotate in with

123the library and media specialists every other week. But it was important for us to move into compliance with physical education because that is a state mandate. And due to some of our budgetary constraints, we weren't able to have everything all the time, every day, every week. So, we did have to make some difficult decisions. >> So, I feel like there's no changing this decision that it's already done and said and parents, but this year in the in the dark about our staffing was made already. >> Is it all schools or is it just B? >> No, no, it's all elementary schools throughout the whole all throughout the entire school district. Definitely not just Bay K1 throughout the entire district. >> Okay. I just wish parents were kind of privy to this. >> No, no, not

124not just absolutely saying like 114 people were hired and like we got all these grants and the budgets are passing but we can't do library for the kids and but I guess >> no thank you. Thank you for coming and sharing that. Anybody else? >> Hi, good evening. Um, I just have a quick question. So, we had a busing issue with my son who goes to the high school. My daughter is not there yet. Um, the previous superintendent sent us a letter saying that we could appeal it to the board. We have no idea how to do this. Mark Seott, sorry about that. >> So, if we wanted to appeal it if we wanted to appeal a decision to the board, how how do we go about doing that? >> You're looking to appeal a

125transportation. >> Yeah. So, like my son walks a half an hour to school with his, you know, backpack, sports gear, all that stuff. Meanwhile, there's a bus stop four minutes behind the house and the bus passes the house every day. It look, it's like half full and it just seems kind of silly that he's, you know, we're walking all this distance when he could just walk the opposite way down the block and get on the bus. >> I I think you you sent me an email, correct? >> Yes. Yes, that was his mom. >> Okay. So, thank you. And I know uh Mr. Maisie was going to be responding. You had a few questions that you wanted answered. So, >> I just mostly want to know why he just can't walk and get on the

126bus that's passing the house anyway. That's really all. >> Yeah. And we've spoken last year about this, your wife and I. Um, our transportation philosophy is is embedded in in a board policy. And within that policy, there are stipulations for mileage uh limitations that would would stipulate who receives transportation and who does not. Uh we don't dictate who needs to be a walker. We just say who is eligible for actually for transportation. >> So the mileage limitation is determined by uh having a fixed point measuring point at each school and that's the main entrance driveway and we measure to the household. Unfortunately, that line is going to fall somewhere for everyone based on each school. So, your point about seeing a bus close by half empty, I totally understand. I get that. But we can't

127just add people because then if we move the line for one family, what's to say why we would move it for another and another and another and then then you see where the problem becomes. It goes from a mile and a half to 1.7 1.8. So, I I understand your frustration. I trust me, I do. Um, and I wish I could help everybody in that regard to do it, but um the board asks me to enforce the policy and that's what we have to do. And we'll check it out to make sure, like I said, that the information is accurate because I believe your wife and I gone through that. We wanted to make sure that the uh the routing software that we use um gives us a number, but we go and we do

128a physical uh mileage check. uh my director of transportation does that himself personally to make sure that like I said the number is accurate. So while I can understand like I said your frustration um the policy doesn't speak to saying that well then you must make your child a walker. Um other arrangements just need to be made because we can't uh extend that transportation. >> I know we've been making other arrangements for the year now but then next year I'm going to have another high school student in there. Then I have two kids I'm making arrangements for and stuff. So I was just wanted to ask the question because you know like I said four minute walk versus a half an hour walk is like a big deal especially in the winter with no sidewalks

129and dark and all that kind of thought. >> Yeah. All right. Um All right. I just wanted to get clarification. If you guys check it again, you know, that'd be helpful. But all right. We'll see where it goes. >> Sure. >> Thank you very much. to leave it. Could you let him know what the procedure is to appeal any decision to the board? >> Yes. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Okay, moving on to board comments. >> Trusty Kubot, >> um, sorry. Um, I just wanted to say as I was listening to the um, presentation about the upgrades for security, as someone who works in a school, um, I am very very impressed with the upgrades that the district has made and I hope that it gives parents um, some level of calmness as they send

130their kids to school in a year where there are some different changes with cell phone policies. But I have to say I'm uh I I wish that I had the same security measures, you know, where I go to work each day. Um and so I think there's always improvements that can be made, but I was very impressed by some of the upgrades that we've made. Um and I just wish everyone a a great school year. [Music] >> Uh yeah, I'd also like to thank the uh the presenters that were out tonight. they created a uh great um presentations and they're very informative and I do appreciate it. Uh I'm also looking forward to a smooth school opening. I want to thank all those that have prepared the buildings for the school opening um buildings and

131grounds and custodial. Thank you so much. You guys do an awesome job of what you do. Um, and I also want to thank uh the cabinet and the superintendent for intern superintendent for doing all the hard work that they've done this summer and all the, you know, um, I guess work they've helped their teachers get through and building and growing and stuff. So, good luck to you with your opening and uh, thank you guys. >> Uh, ditto. Um, I understand I thank you for all of the presentations, uh, for the work that put put into the presentation and the work that had to happen beforehand. Um, I really appreciate all of it. Thank you very much and, uh, have a good year. Uh, wishing everyone a great start of the school year and I just

132wanted to say thank you to the community members that came out. It's always great to hear from you regardless what it is. We, you know, we really do appreciate hearing and know, you know, you're our connection to knowing really what's going on and a lot of times we hear things on social media and it's really appreciative for you to take the time to come here and speak to us. So, thank you for sharing. >> Yeah. Once again, thank you to M. Jharn, Mr. Maisy, Mr. Hanley, and um Charlotte for your presentations. It's very informative and keeping um us all involved what's going on. So, I just want to say to everyone, enjoy the rest of your summer and we look forward to welcome everyone back on um September 3rd. >> So, >> second. >> Oh,

133sorry. The second. Sorry. I I start the third. Sorry. Wrong wrong. Wrong school. Um could I have a motion to join the meeting? >> Motion. Oh, >> Hi. Good night everyone. Thank you for coming.