001make up for it um better welcome to the November 20th 2023 regular meeting of the Board of Education of the beacon City School District please stand for the pledge plg flag United slide down slide down Vicky roll call [Music] please here here here here here here here here thank you can you review the fire exits please um exits are in the back of the LGI thank you open to the public is there anyone here that would like to make a public statement see none we have um two workshops tonight first we have a presentation from our foundation for Beacon schools about their most recent um good work they've done should you should we have um them over yeah I mean that's where your slides are if you want to go through slides all right good
002evening thank you so much for having us just uh wanted to stop by and provide a few updates um for those who I haven't met yet um my name's Anna Sullivan this is kit Burke Smith and we're both board members um on the foundation for Beacon schools um we do try to come twice a year just to kind of let you know what we've been doing and and um what's coming down the Pik so um we offer currently offer two rounds of educator grants and at our November board meeting last week um the board voted on 16 uh applications um which is first of all a milestone for the foundation because this Foundation has been around for three years and we've been slowly kind of connecting with our Educators and it was very exciting to
003see a large um pool this uh this cycle uh we just wanted to let you know about some of the awards um you can see on screen that we had uh six grants um that were uh awarded um at the high school um from a range of curriculum areas from Science music um project kayak um and English as a new language um the students uh in that group are going to be visiting um the Museum of Natural History so we were really excited to support um some of these new opportunities um we've got a balance of projects that funding are funding equipment that can be reused um year onye versus kind of one-time trips um and things that benefit students this year um we had some applications um from our romal middle school art teaches
004um and Italian language teacher um so y very very happy to see some rout um applications in this um in this pool um and then finally we had a range of Elementary School Grants um serving most all of the schools in the district uh some applications were for projects that would touch all of the elementary schools um such as the uh mindfulness um Seal program submitted by Miss Mara um and um some support for the MetLife Stadium visits that are for um all fifth graders in the district um and then there were some school specific or building specific projects um such as the outdoor sensory project itself South um and the blue path service dogs visit um and Mr Carpenter's class classet Sergeant so a really nice range um again of of disciplin students served
005um and a lot of really exciting new things going on so very very happy to um be supporting those and just a quick update the total funding um for this cycle um was 14,000 and change um we also awarded a $4,000 Grant earlier on this fall but I think you all are already aware of that uh but that brings our um giving as of today um just to around 40,000 so we're definitely getting there and um very grateful to the district to all of the Educators um who are providing these amazing learning experiences um and yeah just want to thank you all and introduce you to K bricksmith hello do I need to talking to the microphone no you can see okay cool I'm just going to do this then um and this moves when
006you lean on it so I'm not doing that either first of all I hadn't actually seen this graph before I really love it that makes that's just it brings me a lot of joy to see all the funding that's happened and the growth in that so I want to talk a little bit more about this last Grant cycle and the near future for the foundation so we've been doing a good job we've seen Improvement in getting the word out to teachers and Educators and staff this is the first grant cycle where we have funded all six schools in The District in the same cycle there's some subjects like enl and art that had not applied for Grants before so it's the first time we've been able to support that as well so you know Anna
007said it was a milestone Grant season for us and I just wanted to give you a couple more points on that we also received 26 Grant applications which two years ago in the cycle we received four so that's great we but we funded 16 so we had requests for over $30,000 and we funded approximately 14,000 so going into the future we're going to be shifting our focus a bit to try to raise more money so we're going into a period with the foundation where we're having some leadership changes Anna will still be on the board but she's no longer going to be the chair and we have a few different positions that are open and we're voting next month on that um and we're also going to be trying to strategically raise more money so
008we can give out more grants and that's really all I had to say so thank you guys so much for sporting school yes I have a question am I allow I haven't been to a meeting in a long time so I'm sorry I'm allowed to answer questions yes okay yeah go for it um amazing um but I was just thinking you from where you started with the few number of applications obviously where you are with the total number of applications and how many you were able to grant for the teachers that are um submited in their proposals for these is there any kind of like requirement because you're like you said you're going to start to need to raise more money so there there any kind of requirements or something that says that um like
009how you going to get how are you going to work towards raising more money is it something you could put in the application that says have you ra like something that can a give and take in a sense so that you so like ask asking the teachers to help us with or do they help like I'm just curious I don't know yeah that's a great question um we don't ask the teachers to help and funding it we do ask a couple things of them we try to keep the Grant application as simple and straightforward as possible because we're not trying to give them more work right so we do ask if it could have been funded by the ker or the PTO or the PTA or the ptso so we're trying to not you know
010step on anyone else's toes or fund things that could have been funded a different way we're really trying to dovetail with what already exists for the schools are you looking to get any like educators are there any Educators currently involved within the foundation on the board or whatever to just kind of because obviously the word is getting out right but we don't want to run out of money so right so educator specifically within the bcsd right like are they are they on the board are they do they have any kind of role within the foundation or no we have Advisory board members that represent that aspect of the community so um and we're always open to talking with anybody and getting any help and support we can from people when you when you ask if
011these these ideas can be funded in through different Avenues do you sense do you get a sense that there's an understanding of what is should be funded by the coer should be funded on the building level should be funded by the PTO that's a good question um I think probably varies a bit depending on the applicants we do information sessions as well and we're also available via email with anybody so an and I both have worked with people that are working on putting together the applications so we can help them answer those questions more accurately I think in general those are some of the questions we found since we started what's the difference between the foundation and the ptas for example yeah I'm just wondering if that's like an a thing I mean we you
012know um Anna and I over the last few years have developed a little bit of a shorthand around like there's there's some grants that come in that are just really clearly the district should be funding them those tend to be just like equipment or yeah you know something where it's like someone just needs whatever that thing is to uh do this teaching and so it's like some somehow just didn't get to us through the budget process or um or didn't get approved or whatever but it makes sense RIS to fund it so there's those like there's ones that uh we may take over the funding for you know after they funded for a year or two um and then there's ones that they just kind of have to make a decision on that it just
013might not maybe the grant needs to get a little stronger right tighter or something like that is just asking about that so that if there's something on the district side that because we this is something we've noticed over time like what like an understanding of what should be asked like many of us had been on pto's and know the requests you get for that and so it's more about creating some efficiency so that before they like submit a Grant application that they understand what's available to them and if there's like some sort of information session that would be possible with the foundation and pto's and the principal at each school so that they can understand like this is how the funding works and yeah and then my part my part two to this question is
014do you have a sense of why the applications have grown and how other how teachers are learning about the the foundation also great questions um and there's one thing I wanted to throw in back for that last one is we do try to focus specifically on projects and applications that are uh Innovative so we're not trying to fund things that already have been funded we're trying to help people start new things and try out new ideas okay so we we have a tendency to that's where our we're looking it's more of like an incubator exactly yeah okay um in regards to how and why the word has gotten out yeah they if they mentioned like how they've heard about it yeah we should we've been working on that so it's like the more time that
015goes by the more people are going to hear about it sure um so we're in contact with all of the principles we go to information sessions we talk I mean I literally email all my kids teachers and go hey just so you know this is coming up yeah um and they all talk so once a grant happens and it's successful they talk to each other we share that on our social media in our newsletter we just had our Gala recently were six people six teachers that had received Awards uh in the past from a award that got Awards because they did grants in the past so we're trying to share the information not just before the Grant application but to say look at what they've been doing and then that I think you know there's
016a Tipping Point of information so I think we're getting there okay I was going to ask about that the advertisement part of it like I've seen you on Facebook and and I I've heard about the gala but your newsletter does that go out to all the families within the district as well our email list goes to anybody that wants to be on it okay so um I'm just trying to think of ways to make sure that you guys continue to get money yeah we also the opening day for staff um the F like when all the teachers and uh other folks are together the foundation gives a little speech and talks to everybody about especially about the grant process and I was just wonder to fames know about it like all the families know all
017of what you're doing I think that's actually in some ways more because I do think the teachers have grown more aware of it through the you know the welcome back Teachers Day and um through honoring teachers for their work but um I think that Matt you have mentioned a few times in your superintend attendance report about the foundation and I think that that just needs to I need to highlight it more I just feel like this is amazing stuff that you're doing and I think families family members caregivers need to see all of that your foundation is doing to show like the collaboration within the community as well yeah um and then hopefully in return that helps also continue to build the fund rais in the funds because you're doing such amazing things and not
018everyone they might know I don't want the district get all the credit like I feel like there should be some credit that says that teachers are but even still like that's to raise more funds so more teachers are able to to get their grants approved and and to know that it's Innovative stuff right it's not just your traditional some of your traditional stuff but more outside the box creativity I just feel like it's amazing and I feel like everyone should know about it well thank you and yeah that is basically you just summed up our Focus for 2024 that's what we're going to be looking at more for this next calendar year well it I think it's really exciting and I'm so grateful and I want to thank you again for the um $4,000 grant
019for CH for students taking the DCC courses because that I think that's been really huge and acknowledging a a very big gap that was created when they started charging tuition um and just in general I think you know I've always said that the uh the health of the district can be measured by you know whether or not there's a foundation supporting it and things like that and so it's just amazing that you guys are what you've done in a really short period of time and um thank you thank you any other questions thank you so much all right thank you so much have a good Thanksgiving you too Happy Thanksgiving and next we are going oh you are here um we're gonna hear from sario rindo O'Neal our assistant superintendent of curriculum and student services
020about our district comprehensive Improvement plan I also have that there okay I'm I'm just going to do the P the slide deck that's what they call it now I'm going to be real brief okay um so every year well until we're no longer monitored I guess uh we still have one School Sergeant that's still considered monitor so they do uh a plan a school-based plan and then the district has to do an overall plan so I'm here to share it tonight so first I just want to talk about the process so as always the district plan does involve a huge process in terms of we work in collaboration with Sergeant Katy Bor did a very nice job and making sure that at at Sergeant they were kind of doing this around um throughout the school
021year having their data meetings analyzing data looking at long and short-term planning they had school-based committee meetings as well as they handed out an in school Equity survey that they needed to do for their plan and then they did some goal setting so then we identified three priorities that are actually in line with the district strategic plan as well as ways to support not just uh Sergeant but also the other schools in our district so the first one we commit to creating a welcoming School environment where every child feels safe respected represented supported and has a true sense of belonging we are committed to designing meaningful learning experiences to ensure that every student is engag in work that is collaborative relevant and personalized and then our final commitment is we commit to ongoing professional development
022and intentional conversation amongst the staff around diversity Equity access and inclusion so our first priority so actions for priority number one so one of the things that we are doing is that we are engaging uh staff members in professional learning opportunities that support not just social uh social emotional learning and diversity equity and inclusion but also looking at responsive practices so that's something that the district has committed to um not necessarily all responsive classroom but looking also responsive practices uh we are also looking to provide all classrooms continue to provide them with C culturally authentic classroom libraries Mentor texts and guided reading books part of um providing this is also providing uh professional development so that teachers understand the difference between a text and a culturally authentic text and then one of the things that
023is being done this year is that Sergeant is actually piloting a program called the positivity project so because there are a school that's being monitor they're trying out this new program that was actually uh designed and created by two former West Point Cadets and the program is evidence-based they do uh morning meetings kind of like responsive classroom so I support lot the respons classroom techniques that are already being done and they uh Center everything around four different uh character traits so every week There's a character trait that is being introduced so I actually got to go today when they and they launched it today uh they were introducing kindness so that's the character tra kind of for the week um this this teachers introduce it in the classroom it's about 15 minute lesson so it
024doesn't take a lot of time away from classroom instruction and since they have already embedded into their schedule that they have those morning meetings it fits in perfectly with their schedule then our priority number two our plan of action is to support inquiry based in uh curriculum mapping align with New York State Standards uh again that's work that we've been doing throughout these past three years and now that we are fully implementing the Next Generation standards we're trying to make sure that all of our Unice studies are aligned uh support uh support evidence-based strategies that promote literacy across all content area so one of the things that we have really Rec committed to was making sure that our students are getting evidence-based instruction in reading so really supporting the science of reading which is not
025a New Concept it's something just a body of work that's been around for 60 years so making sure that when teachers are sitting down with students and doing actual literacy lessons that they're using research-based strategies evidence-based strategies so we're not focusing on programs we're focusing on teaching and learning uh the other thing that we've been doing is we have been working we have two tulas uh that are now we went from one Tulsa to two that are really supporting our teachers in our new uh RTI mtss model focusing a lot on tier one and tier 2 interventions and what those are is is basically tier one interventions are strategies that a teacher uses for all students against evidence-based strategies across all content areas to support our students and then anything that's tier two is when
026the teacher notices that a student needs some more support working in small groups and giving them the support within the classroom our goal is an inclusive environment where students are not being outsourced outside the classroom but getting supports within the classroom and then should their student need more support then we have an IST model which is student uh support team we're moving away from that deficit language of respon to intervention into an instructional uh support team that talks about the child and how we can support the child still within the classroom and giving teachers more strategies that they can use within the classroom and that goes in line with the strategy groups which again supports the science of learning so we are not we don't do guided reading per se we still do comprehension because
027that's necessary Neary but we do strategy groups that actually support comprehension as well as the coding and then priority number three which is all around our professional learning so these are just some of the uh samples of some of the professional learning opportunity topics that we just did in our last professional learning day so our teachers um were able to take courses where they were talking about supporting enl students across all classroom setting inclusive practices culturally responsive practices and pedagogy restorative practices through indigenous storytelling examining implicit bias uh creating trauma sensitive spaces as well as support supporting neurodiverse students so that's something that's going to be ongoing particularly this year that our professional learning uh days have been broken up a little bit differently so we had the full day and now we have some
028half days that are going to be coming up so we're planning on continuing again always with that l of equity embedded into everything that we do um as well as making sure that we are are aligning ourselves with the expectations of the state question any questions thanks for such a I was reading the support material it's very thorough and thank you so much for all the hard work we have a we have a good team and one thing I I do want to say about our professional learning day um I think we should all be really PR that our professional learning day was all facilitated by our own staff you know so there were teachers that were facilitating and that's something that we should be really really proud of that we did not have to
029go to the outside to do any of the professional learning it was all done inh house with the experts that we have right here in the beacon City School District so that's something that we should be very proud of yeah definitely thank you so much and just um as you may know uh sagi's been part of the Blue Ribbon Commission um so uh at a future board meeting probably the next month or two we were just going to have her do an overview of that work and kind to kind of give it like a personal update beyond what we've been reading about um Welcome to our school board advisers are does anybody have any comments that they would like to share or Qui share really quick of course oh harsh you've got a presentation we
030not read into this har All right so along with the hi my name's harsh by the way har gr um I am part of the NHS and along with the NHS we did a great um project today we kind of like finished out today but it's been going on for a couple weeks it's called um project dream and in this um project we kind of don't donate a lot of cans that are um we that are donated by the community and we um donate to specific food shelters and uh other organizations with the help of another sorority um Alpac Kappa so right there on the left you can see our biggest sponsor this year that came in last minute was H folks home servicing which donated around like 500 items super last minute this morning
031but um it was amazing and um we got a lot of donations we were there for like a couple hours sorting everything putting them in the boxes is and um yeah it was really successful um here's um Sophia and I we went we had to go out and buy items because people donated money as well so we had to go out to um local grocery stores and purchase items so I'm sure everyone's wondering well how many items did we raise and that is a collective graph of the items um The Freshman with a amazing total of 39 uh really raised the the bar um but yeah we see the sophomore juniors raising hundreds and um we had a the BSU which is a uh Club in the high school which is very active and they
032started um to do the competition by themselves and um they raised 171 item which is amazing um and then clearly the giant bar in the middle um the seniors yeah a lot of them can drive so it makes it easier for them to get stuff so yeah 1,369 um that's insane uh all in all we raised nearly 2,000 we got nearly 2,000 items for donation and items I mean like you know like the you get like a big box of like macaroni and cheese that's able to be like individually wrapped and separated into like 50 different ones that's something like that so through that type of um sorting we were able to get this many items for eight different pantries in um the Hudson Valley region so yeah that's so awesome amazing thank you for
033sharing that thank you guys do you know how many years that that's been happening oh very long uh like well over a decade there's like another slideshow with a b a bunch of pictures from like previous years but um I think that one has it from 2016 so I know we've been doing it for at least like 2016 but it's been going on forever oh that's great that's how awesome thank you for sharing that was the class of 2024 dominant all four years har good question honestly I think so I know they won last I know they won last year again cuz everyone like drives last minute and they'll buy stuff and then come back right before the deadline so yeah we won an ice cream social oh that's great motivated that's what it takes
034ice cream still motivates me also well thank you very much that's great to see yeah thank you Rachel Alejandra Sarah do you guys have anything you want to I think that that covers what deon's been working towards yeah that's what the seniors have been thinking about yeah well that's very worthy project so thank you thanks so much okay well it is the Thanksgiving meeting so I'm going to move on to our agenda um does anyone need a an executive session around the consent agenda um and there are no changes to the agenda um superintendent's report just have a few things I want to highlight tonight um first is we're having this meeting in the midst of uh parent care parent caregiver teacher conference night and you know so we have two half days today and
035tomorrow and I just want to give a huge thank you to teachers for putting so much time into meeting with uh as many families as they possibly can um I know as a roundout parent this year I we got a few few emails from teachers saying we have a few open slots like you know please sign up so that was cool to see uh teachers doing that and just a huge thank you to all the time they put in um to to meet with us it means a lot um we have our December music performances for all of our schools starting in a couple of weeks I emailed out those stes they'll be up on the website as well we'll put them out on social media but um the first week kicks off with the
036high school and roundout I think December 5th and December 7th um so just want to highlight those they're great performances to see and you see just literally so many of our students uh involved and it's a great opportunity and then Row's drama club has their production on December 8th and 9th uh so I want to highlight that as well and then lastly uh I wanted Heather to come down this is where I'm putting you on the spot um we uh we saw a huge need uh in the community really in the region for for uh more special education services for pre- students uh so Heather um and her team spent a lot of time putting together uh a prek special education class I want Heather just to provide a brief update on where we are
037with that thank you um so yeah so there's an application called a 4410 application that the uh State needs to approve to authorize a school district to run a special education classroom for preschool students so here in Beacon we have a 611 which is in idea six students one teacher and one teaching assistant but it's an integrated class meaning there's six students without disabilities in the same class so it's a classroom of 12 and the teacher is dual certified special education and general education the application is massive um it's a huge arduous process to get through um because they need your floor plans and they need to know your square footage of each room in the building and which build building is the most appropriate to have it um and you have to have site
038visits where the state comes and visits you um and we the application went through um after many many revisions um because a lot of it is I needed guidance I didn't have a model to look at um so we I was just really doing this because I believed that as Beacon we should be serving all of our students and this was an opportunity we had um so we received our letter of approval I think the day before school started which I was sweating um so it came through they've already done site visit so they've come here already one time the classroom is at Sergeant Elementary School um and the the really neat thing so we are now going to be entering into a contract with Duchess County for reimbursement for the program at the rate
039set the state determines the amount of money you put in a proposal they come back with a rate set you contract with the county and the county reimburses you at that rate um right now the county is providing the related services to the classroom so all the speech OT PT is all provided by the county so County providers in all of the other classrooms as well um and so they're also serving this specialized classroom it's very exciting the students are going to Art and music and PE with our other Littles um which is really exciting and other school districts are now calling us to say what did you do because the state has had um indicated that they would provide us guidance in how to do this um for a whole year they've said you
040know we're going to provide you with like training and videos and everything on how to do this and we didn't receive that they keep telling us it's coming um but you know we have a sense of urgency here in that we need to support our children and it's very exciting for Beacon it's um I hope you get a chance to visit it um the other school districts are calling to see you know how do we do this um so I'm really excited about it and I'm thankful thank you for the opportunity yeah yeah I just want to emphasize um that uh how this is really helping to fill a huge need in the community a b we're the only District in Duchess County and probably one of the only districts in the region doing this
041along with uh is all the um gened prek classes we offer we probably offer more in that area than any other district and dues too um but it just to a family uh to a family of a four-year-old um experiencing um difficulties uh learning difficulties this class is like a gift you know and and it or just something that comes right at the right time and so it's how's it Sergent and uh it's just been a just a really nice addition and we probably don't do enough to um you know to blast out some of these successes that we have so uh we're going to try to do a better job of that but this is really unique and it Heather's understating the amount of work that they put in to do this because State
042applications usually scare most people away from doing anything thing and uh which is something that should change by the way but um but anyway I just wanted to take a second to highlight it because it's it's really powerful and Heather these would be students that would typically be bused elsewhere yeah so that's the other positive is they'd be on Long bus rides potentially there there aren't as many programs as we would hope there would be for students I would say we are definitely at a struggling point in preschool like it we are really struggling to find providers um and it's provided by the county so that you know it's it's really out of our control in that in that way but they are traveling on buses long distances at times and maybe in partial day
043programs because that's what we could find in the moment to help a child so the fact that we can provide this at an equitable rate to our general education who are in our preschool is just remarkable for those I think it's on a human level that is that age is when kids would typically be diagnosed so you have families who are dealing with that diagnos is and kind of rearrange how it rearranges their whole life and future as a family then finding a program then putting that preschooler on a bus for a long stretch yeah they're so tender at that age I mean the vulnerability is is you know not to be underestimated so thank you so much yeah of course maybe this is a um maybe you would like to present at nisba about
044I'd be happy to do that I understand that application well it sounds like something that you know that districts aren't doing and and it might really be useful for people to hear about it it's true I'll put in an application okay fre time I'll do that see where it's gonna be first okay yes find out where it's GNA be oh it is when everyone wants to go to on a train all right thank you I have one other quick announcement to the board uh we are working on putting together typically every year I do some sort of uh student uh advisory meetings um where I'll meet with groups of students at every grade from 12th all the way to 5th um so the principles put the groups together they put together kind of just a
045really big mix of kids you know with lots of different interests uh and usually we talk about ways to improve the district things to think about for the budget this year I know many of you are very busy during the day um and that's the only time we can do this but I'd like to invite board members to these so we're working on the schedule it's going to take place kind of stretches out over the next 3 months really December January into February a little bit so once I get the schedule set I'll put that out uh to board members to join and if it's even just like if you can just make one or two or whatever we'd love to make those available for you because they are just incredible learning experiences because you
046really get to hear what our students are thinking about you know everything so um so look for that I'll be putting that together we'll have the schedule ready the week or two after Thanksgiving super and that's all I have thank you thanks for thinking of that um okay board comments um Samra you have any um I'll just say it's been great to hear all the wonderful things that the students are doing the foundation is doing um Heather amazing congratulations all around that's all thank you Kristen uh so I attended the foundation for beIN School of Gala and um the it was it it was incredible to see these teachers who had been one of some of the early adopters in applying for Grants and um taking sort of a leap of faith on you know
047what this might mean for their classroom and and that sort of like desire to innovate and to seek out resources and um to to see them you know highlighted and celebrated was uh was a really heartening experience and I look forward to all future events um and I'm so excited to hear about this um well I I will say saggy with the DP that was when I first started getting involved in school the schools we were a Target school and I remember reading other districts DPS to try to understand what was involved and um I developed a pretty serious appreciation for how much work goes into that so thank you for all your hard work and uh yes Heather thank you so much for something that will be like you know very life-altering for a
048lot of families here so thank you for that hard work and getting through that application and um and thanks to the student NHS for all the work they did so it's the Gratitude comments and thank you to the facilities Department which last already but they were they went through like a very um lengthy process in identifying the bids for the capital project and uh reorganizing uh our schedule and how that that will work going forward it was a huge effort and um I'm really grateful to them as well so thank you thank you thank you thank you um Unice more thank you um I just wanted to say thank you to Mrs Silverman Mrs Sanderson Miss Conor and their class um for the lovely notes they gave um me for a board Appreciation Week um
049and I just want to mention that the next policy meeting is on for December 4th at 6 the next District Wellness meeting is December 14th um at 4 and that is all I have thank you thank you and the next facilities meeting is also December 4th just okay that's right seven mention that Elina so I had a thought I don't know if this is the place for it but my kids came to me with this thought about cuz today and tomorrow we're doing parent teacher conference or now how did you say parent family caregiver I like that got to get used to that um but we only do it in the in the I'm going to say fall cuz I work in high we only do it in the first quarter the first second quarter
050is there a reason why we don't do it in the third or fourth quarter and I only ask because they change over to different classes in the third and fourth quarter if they're changing their electives or whatever and if a student's struggling say when they had the parent teaching conference this quarter or the end of first quarter and they're struggling and I know there'll be some type of followup we we assume that the teacher will reach out or inform the student but I'm curious to why we never do one in the other half of the school year as a catchup to as not a catchup or or a checking to see how students are finishing up and finishing strong I think it's something I don't know why if it was been talked about before I
051don't know if there's any rule regulations policies or anything like that I just think it'd be a great idea to do some type of parent teacher caregiver conference in the second half of the school year especially after the pandemic with everything the all the learning curves and just different things that are coming through um our attendance rate there's so much that it's happening because of Co I just feel like it'd be a great idea to start doing parent teacher conferences or something in the second half of the school year to make sure that we stay on track with our students and that they're passing and if they need the extra help um there's so many people I see when I'm reading social media who's asking for a tutor for this or help with that and
052so I just and I know that we we would say a teacher most likely will call that student or call that parent and but sometimes I get lost in in Translation but if there's a day like like we have today and tomorrow it's dedicated for these conferences virtually and in person I think would be a benefit to our district um and and in our students um so I don't know how far that goes that's just kind of comment or thought that I had that my girls what my my daughters asked me today like why isn't there one in the second half and I said I don't know um well it's a little bit based on their contract isn't it it's a little bit we've explored it in the past um I think prior to me
053being here they there were some times that they did it and they were really uh poorly attended for whatever reason um but I you know we can always bring ideas back up so I think we just will especially like the kids in new classes and stuff like that makes sense and then thank you for all the presentations today especially for the foundation like you need to push that out there you need to let people know cuz it's amazing I think they might recruit you L listen I'm just saying it's amazing all the work that the teachers are doing um with but with the help of your foundation like I just that's just amazing and and I don't know if people really realize that impact that it has on our students um it's cuz it's those
054trips it's those things that students really remember and make them want to wake up in the morning come to school the following day because they have something going on that's not the normal we're watching a movie in the classroom or we're going you know especially with your art programs like you said you didn't really have art or was it Art and Science or art and enl enl like yeah like that's amazing like but so thank you and your whole board and everyone who's donated to your to the foundation um but yeah thank you Eric yeah I just wanted to mention that I attended the curriculum committee meeting a month ago or back in um uh was October 25th um they discussed pretty much the setup for their um superintendent conference day which took place a
055couple weeks ago uh saggy did a good job this it's secondary and then the elementary um well run um seem to have a really good plan um so I appreciated that they have another meeting next uh Wednesday where they'll probably talk about how the day actually did go from you know their perspective which which will be good to hear as well so I appreciated that um I did happen to be I don't know why I'm watching this but I was watching the Blue Ribbon commission um with the new uh standards graduation standards and it was very nice to see saggy sitting three seats down on camera pretty much the whole meeting represented us very nicely so that was very nice to see um the uh we do have an I believe an audit committee meeting
056coming up the 18th I believe um is that right that is what I have on my C okay that's what I had too so I just wanted to verify that uh and the last thing I just wanted to mention this that the um last week the high school ba varsity basketball team had a kickoff dinner was their first time they ever did it um it was the varsity players a lot of community members and honestly there were like 12 or 13 teachers that were there from the high school it was really cool uh it was nice to see it was at St Roco it was very well attended they had a guest speaker it was just nice to see a combination of the community uh the team the team was all there dressed in polos
057they they looked sharp the four four of the basketball players talked about the season um like uh and it wasn't just about winning it was just one was and they all had different little things that they talked about one about family one about Community one about what it was like to be a sophomore now I'm a senior so it was kind of really a nice evening it was the first time that they had done it and hopefully it continues it was just a really really positive night um not just for the basketball team but I thought for uh the school and um for the community itself so awesome thank you Anthony just want to say Happy Thanksgiving and enjoy the time with your family thank you Flora hi so uh November 16th The Duchess County
058School boards Association advocacy committee had its first meeting um and we talked about about U basically the goals of this organization so essentially this is a group of all Duchess County School boards and we are representatives from that group who have come together to work specifically on advocacy issues so last year the first project that we did involved putting together resolutions for the New York State Schoolboard Association and we focused on um preschool supports for um special education students and thank you to Heather for being such an incredible resource during that process you were you were such the expert in our corner and it was super helpful um so we developed some resolutions and they were passed um by a huge margin um throughout the by Representatives throughout the state and now they will become
059um advocacy points for the New York State Schoolboard Association when they advocate in the state in in alany so that's uh that's a great step forward and now we want to expand on the work of the committee and so we got together we talked about what the mission of the committee is what we want to do Beyond um developing resolutions so we talked about uh bringing experts identifying topics that we feel are issues that are affecting all the districts um in Duchess County uh bringing in experts to talk about those issues put together language and talking points to enable people to write letters speak to their legislators but also speak to Regulatory Agencies and then partner with organizations like the lower Hudson education Coalition nisba net ptas Etc just to make sure that we're coordinating
060efforts and not duplicating them and ultimately this all comes down to talking to legislators talking to people in charge making uh everyone aware of and speaking in a United voice about the issues that are impacting dues County and very often those are issues that are impacting districts around the state so we um we started to put together an initial list of topics um but I would encourage everybody on the board if there are advocacy issues that you feel are really important that we should be focusing on this year please um bring them up now or email me because we're having our first working group um the first Thursday of December we're going to break in this is like the Duchess County Schoolboard association's regular meeting but this time we're having it in person and we're
061focusing entirely on advocacy so we're going to break into groups we're going to start delegating topics and tasks so that means different disc districts will be focused on um writing specific resolutions for nisba we'll be focused on bringing in experts and helping coordinate efforts around those specific issues we're going to create a calendar and sort of work backward from you know when are the resolutions due when is budget season when do we need to talk to our to our legislators and sort of make everything work with that timeline since we're not having a prow committee meeting uh in December I would encourage our PRL committee members maybe to attend um but I will send information around about that meeting so there will be more details uh to come but that's all from me and can
062you do you have that list that we started um I do I do actually you could I mean if you can send it around if you have it um accessible it's not very long though that's a great yeah I'll just share that uh Google doc and everybody just add to it thank you yep um I also just wanted to express my gratitude for the great presentations and um all the hard work and I really feel like there's so many things to be um thankful for about what's going on in the district so it's a week of gratitude and I'm really feeling it um I also wanted to mention I did speak with um Dan Pedro about the condom availability program he in terms of the liability issue that was brought up he said that you
063know the way that the list is written in terms of the material you have to put together for it it's really pretty fail safe and that any policy that we wrote would be reviewed um you know to make sure that there were there were no liability issues there so um I guess uh I can put this on the agenda for the next meeting if we want to have discussion about it or if there's General consensus to just kick it to the policy committee it's up to you guys how how do we feel do we want to should I just bring it for discussion or i' say can go to the committee yeah I mean with that is there consensus okay I'm not hearing any Nays so I'm going to take that as consensus um okay
064okay um and Dan was going to look for some sample policies that we we could work from for that um I also wanted to mention that Vicki and I have been in touch about the um meet making meetings with the um law firms and we're going to work on that for the January meetings right now I have two scheduled for January 22nd I haven't heard back from the third one okay and so that would be at starting at 6 I hope that's not an inconvenience for you okay and everyone else can hopefully make that so for January 22nd um we're doing all three no on the 22 and other get I figur we do half hour for each so we'll do two on one meeting and one on another so we we are doing all
065three we are okay got it yeah all right we start yeah but not the I didn't understand the question I thought we were only doing two of them yeah we're gonna do all three so we start that meeting at six yes will that and will that work for you no I okay great um yeah that's all I have so um we don't have any new or old business tonight so moving on to the consent agenda the use of the consent agenda permits the Board of Education to make more effective use of its time by adopting a single motion to cover those relatively routine matters which are included any member of the board who wishes to discuss individually a particular piece of business on the consent agenda May so indicate and that item will be considered
066and voted separately thus preserving the right of all board members to be heard on any issue are there any items that any board members would like to have F 12.04 12.04 corre any the others uh 13.05 E6 okay can I have a motion to approve 12.01 through 16.08 um less 12.04 and 13.05 E6 second U motion by Alina second by Flora comments or questions all in favor opposed I'm also in favor passes 8 to Zer with lots of gratitude for the donations um can I have a motion to approve 12.04 so moved second Unice second by Kristen uh comments or questions all in favor I oppos oos uh I am also in FA I'm in favor passes 7 to1 uh can I have a motion for 13.05 E6 still move second Alena second by Flor
067comments or questions all in favor I opposed abstain abstain um so passes 7 to zero thank you can I have a motion to adjourn the meeting second uh Flora second by Elina in favor hi yeah that passes 8 to zero