001foreign delayed here excused here thank you Matt could you please review the fire exits yeah um exits are in the back of the LGI we're going to begin with open to the public is there any reason anyone signed up on the thank you so much we have some new faces here tonight so I just want to remind everyone that we have a four minute limit for public speaking and we're going to start with Tara Beardsley um sure hi um my name is Justine Mellon and I hosted one of the students from the gambling Exchange program I don't really have anything super complex prepared but I wanted to talk about how the exchange program affected me it gave me a lifelong friendship with someone that I definitely wouldn't have had that opportunity to without this program
002and she's basically me and Jeremy like she's like my exact twin and I'm so thankful that I got to meet her through this program and I know that I was the same for a lot of people in the program and um it like allowed me not only to get closer with the people from Germany but the hosts here because I hung out with people that I have never hung out with before and now I still talk to so that's fun and I think the exchange program is very beneficial because not only does it allow us to create bonds with different countries but it also provides opportunities for people that maybe couldn't travel because of expenses to go to a different country and get a new experience and that's pretty much all I have to say
003thank you for your time thank you very much I know thanks Josephine I'm Tara Beardsley we also hosted a family um for Germany I'm greeting my daughters because she could not make it tonight so I just highlighted some points because she wrote two pages so I just I'm gonna go over some of it and she's gonna submit the thing so my daughter's Taryn Beardsley and we hosted so I'm gonna do to begin with many or most kids especially within the USA have had very little awareness of how life is like in other parts of the world sure you could Google it but they would only get they would only get answers to specific questions and there are a lot of differences in other in countries compared to America that you wouldn't even think to ask
004about sorry even as a kid that you wouldn't even think to ask about even if a kid has traveled there for vacation or something sort of that isn't related to the family experience that Taurus does a student Exchange program on the other hand not only introduces you to a new language a new culture and new people but you have the people to guide you through it who you who you have met before in a way that truly immerses you into the daily life life especially with the opportunity to go to their school which I can speak on because when the student came to our house she kind of pushed Taryn way out of her comfort zone and and we when they were talking they were so amazed how different their school was our school was
005our house was you know differences it was it was really cool to listen to and so I talked to families because we still talk to the families to this day so that's something else um let me jump up new adventures it will give you new adventures teach you to adjust and to change new environments it can and will make you more open-minded and introduce you to people and new social systems and then I'm going to just jump off it is also General generally provided an opportunity for some kids to travel out of the country for the very first time who may not have already may not have otherwise had the chance to do so and then she has a lot more in here but I'm not going to put that so that that's what Taryn
006says and then I pretty much backpacked on that one because it has opened her in the school to do things she's actually just like Josephine said she's made friends and talks to people now that she she wouldn't talk to people so that's really cool I'm I know this four minutes so I don't know if I have enough time but they asked me to read a letter so is that okay I mean you can read up to four minutes okay so tell me when to stop I I don't have highlights and you're welcome to submit it to the board if you can't finish it okay I think she did um this letter is from whom thank you so Miss Roland is saying I am writing to express my support for the German American student Exchange program
007between the students from Germany German Munich area of Germany and from Greek and New York I firmly believe that this program brings immense cultural education and personal benefits to the students involved Fosters stronger ties between our communities as a resident of the diverse city of Beacon we have a unique opportunity to advance enhance this diversity promote Global understanding by welcoming overseas students into our community last fall we welcome Felix son a german-born Chinese teenager who shared the same birthday with my son into her home Felix and his classmates made sure we understood the academic concept of gymnasium their High School indicates a very high level of achievement for German students and that was fantastic peer support for my own son when they made sure he understood for example why he must stay in advance math
008the German students were much further ahead in mathematical skills than their American counterparts we made sure Felix tried every fast food restaurant American food and Korean food which is apparently hard to find in Germany and heard a lot about his family and Tara sorry that's time but we did receive these thank you very much I think that was submitted to yes [Applause] hi um I'm Willa and I'm one of also many who had the ability to host an exchange student um I'm not kidding when I say those two weeks that they were here were probably one of the most fun weeks like two weeks I've ever had which sounds like a lot but it's true and that doesn't just speak for me but that speaks for many students of BHS not only for the people
009that hosted but also for fellow classmates in upperclassmen I still share memories with like people that didn't host and many who still are in contact with the other people that have come and they all wish to see them again and to wish to see that program continue in VHS this program becoming an annual thing would be amazing because it can start a chain of Memories for many and continue the experiences I had and that many other had and I think that's really cool and similar to what Josephine said my exchange student is going to be my lifelong friend at this point because we have so much in common and I would love to continue on making memories with her thank you [Applause] Dennis you're you can pass no I didn't think so good evening board
010members and parents of their children and their children as well uh my name is Dennis pavlock I've been chairing an event here in the city of Beacon for the last 13 years and it's reading the Declaration of Independence and we're in our 13th year of doing it we even read this document during covet the committee wanted to continue the tradition so we read this during covert nobody was in the audience but we read this document during covet I am here tonight to invite the entire Board of Education and new members that just got elected Eric and whoever I don't know on there I don't know this lady you're welcome to show up July 4th 11 o'clock at City Hall on Beacon we have a lot of entertaining we have Raffles this year we're we're we're
011in our 13th year but so we're going to pretend like it's our 10th year so Jody's Jody remember she was on city council at the time when we continue to do this and um so we have Facebook face painters coming to do some face paint first year we have Raffles going on we have uh other other little gimmicks and and so I want you to hopefully the students can come and bring a Entourage with his a showing of support and hopefully some of the board members can if not everybody can show up on July 4th 11 o'clock at City Hall and Beacon and my second concern that I have is I ride around a lot sometimes and I I went around every school uh this weekend and I looked at the backstops that we have
012and I was here a few years ago and nothing has changed regarding the one that forestalled down around the back by the basketball court it's got shrubs coming out of it and you know I'm not looking for a new backstop but I'm looking for you know take the take the limbs out of the way clean it up a little bit like you did the basketball court make a little bit more presentable and you know I'm just wondering I'm just wondering I would like an answer why that's been uh neglected over the years I would like to know I would like to have an answer on that why that was neglected over the years and every other every other school in this district has got a brand new backstop or what a case may be so
013I'd like an answer on that if not tonight when you see me next time I'd like an answer why that was neglected over the years thank you very much for your time thank you thank you thank you thanks for the invitation Stephen Mallon [Music] hello thank you so much for being here and receiving us I'm Stephen Mellon I am Josephine's father um I want to just uh support this uh project as much as I possibly can um from a personal childhood experience I still remember the German exchange student that I had when I was in fourth grade fifth grade and just the cultural experience of you know having someone that was felt from an absolutely different world has never left me and I did end up marrying an Austrian I don't know if that was
014related but um I was really really moved by the connection that was established on multiple Families my daughter was in tears when Paula was leaving I mean she did not want to let her go it was such a wonderful thing and I also saw a mom in absolute tears not wanting to watch their exchange student leave wonderful photographs so I just the energy that was created and the bridge that was established between these two communities because of the school because of the students because of the families on both sides I think is something that is really powerful and I want to see that continuation somehow for more than just the kids that were able to experience it in this past year because it was just an absolutely overwhelming experience and I'm shaking now remembering it
015so just thank you so much I hope this can continue for everyone because it was it's a magical experience thank you very much [Applause] um I apologize like is it bonu yeah my will be very short so my daughter will be sophomore next year and I I think this program is has no substitute for our family like you know if we don't have anything like that there won't be such a possibility to expose to such a Global Experience so that's all thank you [Applause] and Mira hi um I'm going to be a sophomore next year and I mean I really like to participate in this program and my experience with non-exchange programs but connecting with an old other culture is different specifically because I moved here to America when I was eight I was born
016in Turkey I was born in Turkey I was raised in Turkey I was born in North Carolina so I have it's on what it could mean for someone to connect with a culture that isn't its own and how it can expand your worldview so much and when I first came here Jan one of the first of course they were like third graders but one of the first things that struck me was how even though that everyone was so nice and great I was still uh sorry I was still like very new to them they were still they still had a very closed off world view so did I and coming here made me like more open and it I think it made people who met me at the time also more open because it was
017like a melding of culture it's not that much but it was still impactful to me especially so I think it would just be great for other people to experience like again not the same thing at all but it's a similar thing of meeting two different cultures and I just think it's really cool okay thank you thank you um I put my name down separately but we were going to do it together um uh I didn't have a lot of time to prepare so I didn't write anything but I think it's like a really cool experience what she was saying like so many people don't have the opportunity to go to another country aside from this or and especially in the US like we have a very like we're very close-minded and we're not open to
018a lot of other cultures and going to another country and meeting people from other countries can really like teach you a lot and open up your experiences in world view and I just think it's really cool experiences at experience and other schools also have like year-long versions of this and we don't have that so I think we can at least have the two-week version where we can like meet people who come here and go there for two weeks and I'll also be a sophomore next year and I hope to experience that and also I don't think it's just beneficial to the people who go on the who like get to go to Germany or the host families I think everybody benefits and getting to meet new people and it was like a fun experience and
019it was something that was like exciting I didn't even really know any of them but like it was exciting when they came in an exciting thing at school and I think also things that make school more exciting is something that should be that people should put more effort into because a lot of kids don't like want to always come to school and so yeah thank you and I'm sorry yeah okay thank you thank you Sarah Lynn hi I'm Sarah Lynn Jafar and I was also a host on for the exchange program um so I wanted to say this year students in Beacon were given the opportunity to be able to participate in a foreign exchange program from with students from Germany this is the first time that our school has ever done anything like this
020and now we are under the assumption that the program may not continue that being said I want to talk about some things that might actually be beneficial for our school and the students in our school with continuing this program so first off our school does have a lot of limitation to foreign cultural Expo to exposure on foreign cultures being able to continue this program would create a new branch in our school for academic Exchange it would also not only help our school's reputation and Outreach but would create many new opportunities for students in our school to study abroad and I know all of you know the most common reason people want to look to participate in this program such as traveling to a new place learning the language or putting something on your resume but
021there but we all do have our own perspectives on this and other things that have to do with this program now that we've actually been a part of it after hosting my exchange Pro partner I have made an amazing friend and like Josephine and um Willa said and probably like Annabelle thinks um we these are lifelong friends even though we've only really spent two weeks in person with them it was so hard letting these people go and just being able to stay in contact with them online it's not the same it also during Lena's time here you know it was the person I hosted um we shared so many cultural shocks that we just we really didn't know that the culture is in the two areas could be so different and it was really amazing
022to be able to learn that from another person and I know that I'm really not the only one in this program who felt that way I know most people in this program did feel this way and that's one of the reasons we really want to keep it going another one is that a lot of my friends in our grade and in younger grades that I know have not been able to leave the country um be able to travel and this not only gives them that opportunity but also it's not just tourism it's you're really immersing yourself in the culture instead of just seeing it from an outside perspective or going to school with these kids it's amazing it's not an experience that everyone's given and also as a person who I've always had it in
023my sights to maybe study abroad for college and things like that I never got the opportunity to learn how to adapt into a new culture my parents are immigrants but that's really the only sort of knowledge I have of how to immerse myself in a new culture being able to in in 10th Grade being able to just put yourself in a new culture and learn how to adapt with people and learn how to communicate with people from other cultures and just be one of them it's so amazing especially as someone who does plan on possibly going to college in a different country um so I already know a lot of people are doing this are interested in doing this this exchange next year um like samiha and Mira have said and like some parents have
024said and probably are going to get messages that are gonna say that too I've talked to a lot of people about it so being able to continue this program not only helps our school and its reputation but it really helps the future of students and newer Generations that's it thank you thank you [Applause] Julia hi my name is Juliette Harvey I also along my daughter hosted a family and that was a wonderful experience there were some letters I won't take the time to read it because I think they were submitted but Angelica from our sister School in Germany submitted a letter uh Claudia Diaz's family who hosted a student her daughter Sophia had a just a wonderful experience and I think she wrote a letter if it isn't submitted I'll make sure that gets submitted
025and the other letter I have is from Brandy Burr's family hosted and she submitted a letter a couple things that I just wanted to talk about was the students that came here as you heard they all are host families had such a great time but there was a lot of opportunity to reach out to more families in the district than just the host families because a lot of our kids had after school activities and we needed to find something for those kids to do after school when our kids were involved in the after school activities and it would be great if we can continue this and be able to have a partnership where this can be an Outreach to many many more students than just the host families because there could be sign ups and
026people could you know take an exchange student and the afternoon while some other family is busy with after school activities and there were really ways to reach out to pretty much the entire sophomore class the more momentum we get with the program so this isn't going to just affect the host families but it can really really affect the entire sophomore class if we're able to build on the momentum there are also ways for cost offsets for this trip that Kelly had set up so that like Sophia Diaz's family many of us volunteered at West Point concessions to help us offset the core offset the cost some families ended up paying very very little for this trip so that they worked and volunteered to make that happen also I think maybe the student Representatives had reported
027to you that the ninth graders did have a meeting with Corey early in the year and many of the ninth graders showed up so I'm just hoping that that feedback got back to you that they were very interested in this continuing so thank you so much for your time thank you [Applause] this is a little intimidating try being on this side this is fair enough the best I have a letter that Mike and I wrote our family hosted a student it was a pretty fantastic experience across the board and I was a little trepidatious about the whole thing to begin with I had a lot of questions I was enthusiastic but extremely trepidatious and I just wanted to lead with that because as a result I feel extremely invested in the program um we would
028like to express our strong support for the continuation of our schools International Exchange program for its second year despite facing many challenges during its inaugural inaugural year we firmly believe that this program holds immense value for our students and has the potential to provide them with unique opportunities for growth and development and a lot of fun while the participating families may not be aware of the intricacies of what it takes to run such a program ending the program at this stage in its development feels wasteful for the efforts already put in and the opportunities it will spawn in the future the benefits of an International Exchange program cannot be overstated through interactions with students from a different culture and background our students are exposed to New Perspectives ideas and ways of life this is not
029this not only helps to broaden their understanding of the world but also encourages them to become more open-minded empathetic independent and adoptive adaptable individuals furthermore an International Exchange program provides students with the opportunity to improve their language skills this will serve them well both academically and professionally in the future we understand again that the first year of a program may not have been without its challenges both logistical and Financial but we strongly believe that it would be a disservice to our students to cancel it after only one year instead we urge the Board of Education to continue to support the program and to work with program administrators and families to identify and address any issues that may have Arisen during the development in its first year thank you thank you the end of this list
030is there anyone else that would like to make a public comment s okay yeah why don't we let the student first Alana and then you can come hi um good evening my name is Gabrielle Cleo and I just wanted to come speak on this because I just find it really important that like students in America can have like a more like worldly view of things because you know generally a lot of kids do not get have you know are not able to leave the country they don't have that opportunity or privilege to see like the way other people live and with this Exchange program with the kids coming in from a place as far away as Germany it really can expose them to new like thoughts and beliefs and ideas instead of just relying on
031stereotypes they just see on TV or just going on Google and looking at images um and they like there are a lot of like oh Americans who come from German descent and who aren't able to go back and this can help also help them reconnect with their own culture while also sharing cultures and I just think it's like really important that people are exposed to like different ways of life instead of just thinking this is like the way they live it's just it and that everyone like should be like this and that there's many other different people out there and yeah thank you very much [Applause] hi I'm Alana Reynolds I didn't get to sign up but I'm a parent my daughter Willa already spoke um I just wanted to share a little anecdote about
032my dad my dad is one of 12 kids and growing up in Chicago they could not travel anywhere you could they could barely make it to church in one car so what my grandparents did because they had been both been in uh my grandfather was a bombardier in World War II and had been all over the world and my grandmother was a code breaker in Washington DC and like traveled all over and had been to Paris and everything like that they really wanted to expose their kids so what they did was bring exchange students they brought exchange students into their house almost every year and they have people from Chile people from Germany France they had a Norwegian woman they had a girl and I think I lose track of all of them but most
033of them are in touch with the family to this day many of them came to both the funerals from my grandparents like it was an incredibly important experience for these 12 kids who couldn't travel to have it come into their world and I want to Echo what Mira was saying and I think Juliet brought up and also the last person to speak that what I witnessed was how interesting it was for the students that weren't in the program at when the German students were at the school here and how exciting it was just like Mira said it was exciting it was something new it was like an injection of like you know how it is when you have new students uh that are just from like Fishkill you have somebody from Germany and you're like
034oh my god um and I really watched that I really saw it I saw like what a buzz there was and how interested everybody was in these exchange students and like Juliet was saying there was a lot of cross-pollination um because of the after school stuff but even when they went to the after school stuff they went to a soccer game you know one of the final games they went to you know they were really really into it and I just want to put that out there that it's not just the kids who participate directly in the program that benefit it's the whole school and outside of the school even in like the the younger siblings who get to talk about it and get to live with somebody um and I'm not sure how the
035program is going to be structured going forward but the original idea was that you could host a family and and not travel if you if for some reason you couldn't travel you could do just the hosting part and I'm not sure you know if it goes forward what the structure will actually be but that's really important for families who for whatever reason can't let their child go or don't want to let their child go abroad for for whatever reason that they could bring someone into their house when you know in a way that they feel comfortable um and so the last thing I'll say is that I know that I'm preaching to the choir here I know that everybody on this board agrees with probably what everybody has said so far and I think there's
036a lot of common ground and I think for whatever reason whatever the um the hurdles that have to be overcome I think we can all work together to do that there's just so much Goodwill so thanks [Applause] thank you hi um thank you all so much for everything that you're doing and for all of the amazing opportunities that you're helping create and maintain for our students I truly truly appreciate it um I want to add uh to what everybody has been saying this program I like Dina was very hesitant to do this I thought there's a million other things going on and this is a huge undertaking right now and you know it's not the right like I had a whole bunch of things in my head my daughter really wanted to do it and
037submitted the paperwork behind my back next thing I know I get paired with an exchange student okay we're doing this and as Steve so sweetly shared with everybody yes I was bawling like a baby when she left because I loved this girl um she was amazing my my 12 year old sixth grader who absolutely did not want another girl in the house was like in fact like no you're absolutely not doing this had a great time they connected so well they learned so much from each other they've been texting each other since she left we've been texting each other since she left it was just a tremendously wonderful thing for my family and like everybody else has said for the other children as well they they came to Beacon players events into the show that
038they did they came to other things that were all of the other friends of the kids that had exchange students hung out with them and they all got to know each other and I feel like it was a very enriching experience for everybody involved and and it was just so much better than I ever expected it to be and so I'm really hoping that this continues I'm really hoping that other kids have the opportunity um I don't know if it has to be Germany I don't know if it has to be the same but something like this is is just such a wonderful opportunity for these kids and and I would hate to see us go backwards on this and I also just want to add that Dennis's Fourth of July thing is always so
039much fun my kids want a huge jar of gumballs you guys should go to it thank you so much is there anyone else who would like to make hello my name is Kimberly um my daughter is Holly and we participated in the foreign exchange program and again just to add to that I think it has a huge um opportunity for the the biggest bang for your buck I look at it is a lot of the decisions that the district makes is all based on money right I mean you have to have the money to fund these programs and I look at it as this was four weeks of an experience for these kids they got two weeks here they'll get two weeks over there that's four weeks and I spent something very similar for a
040free for a three-day trip for the eighth graders so I think that just from a financial impact they get a four week experience for the price that typically another um opportunity you know maybe two or three days so I think financially it's a huge opportunity a big bang for your buck with regards to exposing these kids to an incredible opportunity and I know this year it was small but it has the potential every year to just get bigger and bigger because again being the first year I think our kids were the Risk Takers and the ones that committed and I think that once they saw what it was like there were tons of people that regretted not participating and losing out on that opportunity so I just feel like it's going to grow and grow
041every year and and I agree that it affected not only the individual kids that were in the program but they're friends I mean the friends groups of all these kids were exposed to this Exchange program and they all got to benefit and I can't even imagine how big of a potential it will be year after year and you can't deny the fact that we're in a great location I mean from a foreign country wanting to come here I mean we're close to New York City we've got you know diversity in our community it's just a great opportunity that we're providing these kids coming over to I mean who doesn't want to go to New York City it's probably one of the top destinations and we're close to providing that in in regards to the in
042the the atmosphere and just Beacon I think is a great Community to to offer so I just hope the board can considers you know keeping this program alive so future future kids can participate and have the same experiences thank you thank you [Applause] did you want to say something yeah sure um oh there was one more student I think Matt sorry hi I'm Julia I actually had the opportunity to go to Germany in September um I went with my family my dad is actually from there and came here 14 actually 15 years ago um I have a lot of family there and I got to experience what it would be like if I was living there since like I got to see my grandmother and all these people and I loved it so much and
043my dad actually has a lot of friends with kids my age and they get to speak they know English really well so I got to learn about what it's like to go to school there they don't have a typical high school it's more of like a trade school I would really like to experience or have other people experience to hear the stories about what it would be like to go to a trade school instead of a high school since they don't have experience like prom or football games or stuff like that it's very um cool to me or like interesting to learn about because I got to have tea with her and she was the best and I would really like to hear these stories and I feel like it's so beneficial for them to
044be able to see movies and stuff and actually be able to experience what it's like to come to an actual High School um because obviously it's not like a Disney movie like high school is not really that experienced but it's just very eye-opening and very um fascinating to hear what their um perception is about high school she was talking she was asking me all of these questions about how it would be like to be here and stuff like that and I just I thought it was so cool and I thought that I would uh share it I also have so many stories now just from that experience alone going there and being able to see all of the history and meet so many people I just feel like it would be a really good addition
045to kids to learn about it so that's awesome thank you thank you hi so um an exchange didn't stay to my house and do you mind just saying your name Anna she was your name oh my name sorry you know um so basically when she came she like had this whole different perception of America and she was literally amazed to see our school buses because I don't know they don't have that in Germany and and like when she came it was just like he didn't know anything about America because like her family doesn't really watch TV and um and so like I had to like show her I was like it was cool because like I got to like be our tour guide around Beacon and just show her everything about America because she was
046literally completely clueless and her accent was like crazy but like over time she really got better at her English and I feel like she because she texts me all the time still and it's cool because it's like having another best friend because like I was with her 24 7 for two weeks straight which like is a long time to be with someone so you get to talk a lot and I've never bought I've never gone like outside of America and the fact that I even got to go to like Europe is crazy and I did submit the papers behind my mom's back because I really really wanted to go and I don't that like I don't know as soon as I saw the opportunity I wanted to like just take it because like who knows
047if you're ever gonna get to like experience something like this again and I feel like everyone that has this chance should take it because it's really crazy and so we should open that to more people thank you so much [Applause] so um Matt if you have some comments one one question that maybe you can answer for me I'm not I don't think anyone on the board is quite clear on what the ask of the board is this has never been presented to the board formally um it was sort of self-funded through the PTA as far as I understand in a small donation from docuware um so I'm not totally clear on what we're being asked no I well unless you're leading the program I'd like our superintendent um first I just want to say thank
048you to everybody for being here tonight um our meetings have been sort of short and quiet for a while so it's good to have a lot of public comment I want to also say thank you um to the students especially this isn't um this isn't the easiest room to speak in so I appreciate you coming and stepping up to the microphone uh it's it's it's uh it's not the easiest thing in the world as our student advisors to the board can attest right you've gotten used to that over time uh so I want to just uh I'll take a minute or two to just um talk about a few things that were brought up and I'll answer your question uh so one of the things that we are um we've been really trying to um
049slowly kind of start to roll out and I think over the next few years uh our goal is that we see a lot more of this is uh but we're we've been sort of calling internally and we're going to be doing some publicizing about this at the end of this year of the summer and and early next year is creating some signature experiences for all of our students at different grades um so I think you know some of the students that spoke tonight uh you were very eloquent about um this being the Opera an opportunity to to go to another country um so one of the things that we are balancing on our end is uh we have many students who reach fairly far into their years in our district who have never been to
050New York City and have lived here their whole life we have many students that have never stepped foot on a college campus until pretty late into their years here in the district so these are things these are things that also concern us and that we want to try as a district to start addressing over time I'm a parent of a fifth grader we just uh you know we just had the sharp experience I was sort of pressed into duty very much at the last minute to be a evening chaperone so I really got to experience the whole thing and you know like everybody else knows it's it's uh it's amazing I take no credit for Sharp it's been around one of the chaperones had done it 35 years ago when he was in fifth grade
051you know so it's a it's a long-standing thing but one of the amazing things about it is the teachers really work hard teachers and everybody else work really hard to provide sort of entry points for all students most the students stay overnight some don't some get picked up at five some get picked up at three some get picked up at nine o'clock but there's a commitment to all the students participating we're trying to take something like that we're trying to find ways that like across the Elementary grades and into rombout and even the high school where it gets more challenging to provide some what we're you know what we're calling signature experiences so that every student has the opportunity to try to experience something so like the 11th grade this year instead of like the
052AP class visit the AP History Class visiting Ellis Island it was all the 11th graders had the opportunity to uh to visit lsound and Anne-Marie or Corey correct me if I'm wrong we I think with the district paid for that trip pay for most of it so uh so so that sort of gets me to the first thing is like the funding or cost or or whatever so the funding piece our commitment uh as a district is we're going to put our money in trying to fund either a large portion or all of these signature experiences at these grades and that's going to take up an enormous amount of resources to do we have disability with some of this Federal funding which you know only has a year or so left and at shelf life
053we're using some of that to get us started in this or to offset some of the costs but our goal over the next few years is to budget things so we can have like at the uh at the high school we can have kids visiting um college campuses for the first time New York City for the first time hopefully as we grow this it's not the first time at high school that people are visiting New York City that it's happening in the elementary school or at uh at the middle school but we want to create things that were either funding or offsetting the costs that allows access to all or most of our students so in terms of a funding thing the way we're looking at it and I think I think this is a
054fairly standard approach and we're looking at using District funds for for a field experience we have to either pay for everybody to go or we've got to offset the cost for everybody to go um there's there's uh exceptions to that uh we have three kids in track and field they're going to States like you know like we have kids in nisma who go to States like we have individual students who sometimes need districts uh support to travel that's obviously an exception to what I just said but beyond that our funds are going to be going to either pay the whole way like we do for Sharp or offset the costs that we do and someone brought up the Washington DC trip we're trying to find ways to offset it would be a really huge cost
055you know that we can't afford to for the district to pay for every eighth grader to go so we're trying to find ways to offset costs to partner with um you know local businesses and whatnot to provide scholarships Etc so the cost part District funds are going to go to field trips that impact all or most of the kids at certain grades um the um in terms of some other questions I've had about the program I I I didn't get to have like an international experience I may have shared this at a board meeting at some point so I'll be brief well it wasn't until college and I was essentially a scholarship student at college and so the financial aid scholarship package I had paid for me to go uh to go to Europe which
056was kind of incredible uh but that was my first experience and I agree with the kids speaking it's an incredible life-changing thing so we also see the need and when this came up and the interest in it like we need to start um offering opportunities for students to have international experiences um so uh so this year uh Karen decandia uh his uh tried to see student interest in the trip to Costa Rica by all accounts there's a really large student interest in that I totally get it's a different thing it's not an exchange it's it's visiting so I completely understand that uh it's a different sort of uh it's a different sort of program but but um basically some interest now we have a lot of students interested in that um so uh so with
057this uh I think in terms of if there's if there's thoughts out there that I'm trying to stand in the way of the program I think the only question I asked it was just a few days ago is should we wait until our students have actually gone um in a few weeks and had the experience to then start planning you know next steps that could just be the administrator in me that sort of like wants to see something happen and then build from that but that was just the only question I asked in terms of it uh continuing um I I personally you know will not stand in the way of this program moving forward at all I do think based on a couple of things that I'll address in a second that it will
058have to have like a a parent um organization component to it um just uh just for one um uh for one back to the cost thing like we're I explained the the field trips we are going to be funding but two um and I've I've talked with Kelly about this uh a lot over the last year um German isn't a language that we teach so I completely get what everybody's saying they had amazing experiences with the students um but one of the things uh Jody said was we're also sort of looking at this and we're trying to be open to are there other experiences for us Beyond just like a study tour like the Costa Rica trip are there other exchange programs that exist out there that would allow students to practice Spanish and or
059Italian and so we're trying to investigate those but we're not in a place to be able to offer that next year the Costa Rica thing is it but if we did have one of those exchanges and if we did have it with Spanish or Italian we wouldn't be funding students to go on that because it would just be a certain number of students going we're not funding students to go on the Costa Rica trip we're going to try to help some students get scholarships or fundraise for it but we're not funding students to go on the Costa Rica trip that's something that people are taking that cost on themselves so um I think just one of my other sort of thoughts about it is is some some very direct questions that have come to me
060about the program or when are we when are we going to start teaching German in the district um so uh so this obviously was a very Grassroots thing um and I really took my cap uh Kelly especially to you for putting so much time into making it happen um but it wasn't part of District planning in terms of offering another language offering languages and Staffing languages are probably one of the most difficult things school districts I want to say New York but it's probably Beyond New York face just in terms of finding qualified certified teachers to teach these languages um we have significant issues Staffing the two languages we teach right now uh one of the reasons why we do why we brought in Italian as a second language was it's more common for a
061teacher to um to be duly certified in Spanish and Italian because of the similarities in the languages and now we have two uh duly certified teachers so we feel confident to be able to grow that program but our plan has not been to also begin like a German language program which would include funding probably one or two more teachers beyond the teachers that we're funding for this I share all this simply because you know I part you know it's the not fun part of my job but I have to think about some of the complexities regarding some of these things um and so um so I or the district is not going to stand in the way of this continuing it's going to have to be run it's going to have to be run since
062we don't have a German program and a German teacher I see it as something that will continue to be run on a more volunteer basis I'm perfectly willing to assist I know Mr Dwyer can too it's something that we can't fund individual students to go to Germany using District funds but we will be using our funds the way I laid out and trying to increase experiences for all of our students it's also something that we do not have plans right now to create a German language program because of this experience I want to be clear about that I want to take this opportunity to be clear about that while everybody's here that said I really hear you loud and clear especially the students like you had an amazing experience with these kids coming and I
063think you're you know because you know the students who came and you have these good relationships I think excuse me you're going to have a good a good experience when you go in a few weeks so we're going to try to do things like Costa Rica too just in terms of offering it we also will try to see if there's exchange programs in either Spanish or Italian because it will reinforce languages that we teach but I don't see a reason we're not like stopping this I simply asked Kelly just the other day would we want to be starting year two and we haven't finished year one that was the only question I asked about that um so those are just my thoughts kind of off the top of my head I I got one of
064the emails like a few hours ago so I was able to pull some thoughts together but those are just some thoughts that we've kind of been working on or Opera again for the last year really imagine um do you mind just talking a little bit about how we created the second World Language what that process was just so that people understand the complications that you know we uh five years ago we wrote a grant uh and part of the grant was to start a fourth grade instrumental music program that's not while we're all here but that has moved beyond the grand funded stage and happens every year now the other part of the grant was to start a second world language we thought it would be cool to try to do Mandarin Chinese the grant
065got accepted we had you know an absolute uh near impossible task of trying to hire a teacher to do that we couldn't find a teacher so we and the grant money was only for a year we shifted the grant money over to to try to uh to get the Italian program going we had a teacher at the time that was duly certified Maria calaf I think I'm saying your name last name correctly but uh and now we have two teachers Julie certified uh we have another teacher at Rambo who's really Erica Hughes is really certified in Spanish and Italian um but that began with a grant it also began then with being able to staff it and and Staffing a language program is probably the most difficult thing we have two World Language openings right
066now one at the high school on a rombout and probably if you ask Mr Dreyer back there I'm not going to put him on the spot the thing he's sweating about the most as we head into the summer is is hiring that person uh Mr soltis is probably thinking the same thing for rombout it's probably one of the most difficult things to hire so I don't know if that answers what you're gonna I thought the the aspect of that was Mandarin was identified through a district-wide survey of stakeholders and that was the world it was out of World Language and most people had written in man right right it was sorry yeah and I think just the the fact that you know it it takes several years it's taken five years to staff it through
067for all the eligible students that it's not you know it's not something that we just I mean the year created this from an administrative this is not a comment on the teachers who are amazing from an administrative standpoint uh uh trying to do two languages has been a bit on life support for us for the last few years um just to be blunt uh we feel with the addition of two teachers who who are duly certified I think we feel like we can do it in a more robust way and do it sort of grade 7 through 12. um but it is extremely difficult and I I'm just sort of addressing things that have kind of come up to me because I've I've had different public forums where people will just ask me like when
068are we starting German and uh and that's not that's you know you know so I'm half German way back like I have family in Germany too like I'm not like against German or anything but like we don't have any plans uh to start the German language I know no one's asked for that here and I totally get that everyone is asking for this Exchange program to continue I'd I want to take the opportunity to be clear about that because I think it's I don't know if it's confused people or people just assume since this has happened that we're starting a German language program so I'm sorry for the long-winded speech I don't have a four minute limit I probably should um but like we are very very committed just go back to where I started
069we're very committed with creating these signature experiences again um and it is not to take away from the power of what you've all shared but again we've had we've had we have students who haven't um been into parts of New York City we have students who haven't been on college campuses we haven't had we have students who haven't been seen like a 21st century workplace environment we want to get our students seeing those we want to be able to fund that where it's no cost to them or low cost we want to take things like the DC trip that was brought up and we want to try to find ways to make that lower cost um it's too expensive for us to pay the whole way I know the folks at round about are toying
070with some different trip ideas too we want to try to keep those sustainable as well but you know that's kind of where we are with all of it the Costa Rica thing right now has I think around 50 people interested that number probably will decrease uh the Costa Rica thing in full transparency is a lot more expensive than the German thing like I completely get all that we weren't offering it to say like here's a replacement for it we were offering it partly because Karen's been wanting to do it for years covet sort of put a pause on it but we also knew just from the interest in the German thing that there's we're not tapping into something here in the district and so we want to do more of this as well and I'm
071sorry to pick on you Jody but like we we do really I don't know if they're there for us but we do want to see if there's exchange programs for um with Spanish-speaking countries be or or Italian just because that is a language that we teach and so that we may not be able to find that or pull it off but that's another thing we're looking into too um so sorry for the long-winded and board members may have comments of Their Own ask that you wait until board comments if that's okay and um the you know members of the public are welcome to wait to hear that if they want so with that said I'm going to move on to our Workshop um we have an instructional update tonight from cigario Center O'Neill about a
072pilot program math and I also do not have a four minute limit so let's get started all right good evening everyone thank you again for the opportunity to share tonight so tonight I just wanted to go over uh a kindergarten to second grade math resource that we're looking into acquiring um so as we know just to put a little context into why we kind of we're here tonight so we know that one of the effects of covet is that it really impacted our students academic proficiency but specifically in math and that's not a beacon thing it is a Country-Wide thing so one of the reasons why a lot of the research is saying that math was so deeply impacted is the fact that unlike literacy math is not something that's supported at home the way
073literacy is you know you read to your children when they go to bed even if you're a non-reader you do a lot of oral storytelling so that's something that's kind of ingrained in the family unit you're not really teaching algebra at the well maybe some people are but for most people what they're not doing algebra they're not doing that kind of problem solving so which is why one of the reasons why Mass which has to be explicitly taught has really been impacted so one of the things that I wanted to share as well is what the research has said is the most effective way to actually teach mathematics so there are nine components that research has said and this has come from the national councils of teachers of mathematics and one of the reasons why
074I wanted to tap into this research is because this is what they do this is this has been gathered by individuals from all over the country that teach explicitly math K-12 so one of the things that they talk about is demonstrating the acceptance of students Divergent ideas and what does that mean is that we that part of teaching mathematics is letting students explore letting students kind of come up with ideas as to how math works and a lot of times traditional math programs particularly ones that we were when we were younger so I'm going to age myself a little bit I remember having to memorize for rope the times tables with a little song but not really understanding that multiplication was kind of like a fast way to add I didn't understand really the relationship
075between multiplication and and fractions because and division because everything was memorization memorization memorization so of course when we get we got to more complex things I really couldn't put it together so when I saw problems that were presented in a way that was a little bit differently I really really struggled in being able to solve them and then we talk about in terms of research influence learned by posing uh challenging and interesting questions so one of the things in mathematics that they talk about in terms of good practices is allowing students to be able to actually ask questions and dissect problem solving so not just memorizing not just kind of going through the motions but really being able to ask questions why why are two plus two four like what is it that makes it
076what is the relationship being able to really decompose numbers and put them back together and then it talks about having a positive attitude about mathematics and students kind of having that can do attitude about math now as we know um traditionally we do see a lot of gender disparities in math and sciences so we see that people certain particular genders have been turned off by mathematics and then we see that in math and science we're lacking certain groups of people not just gender but also historically minoritized students have been dissuaded from mathematics not really given the access and the opportunity so we believe that mathematics is something that it's a right as well just like reading is a constitutional right understanding math is a constitutional right that everyone has a right to know math to
077enjoy math and to be able to understand math because we do need it in the world so then we go on to the next three students are actively engaged in doing math so this is going Beyond just doing a worksheet this is students actually working on mathematical problem solving not just coming up with the answer and handing it in so what good research is talking about is students really being engaged where they're using manipulatives where they're talking about problems and that leads to students solving challenging problems so making sure that there's still rigor within the mathematical prog problems and you do that by scaffolding so it doesn't mean that you give them an easier problem it means that you that you break it apart into smaller units so then they're able to handle that more
078con complex concept so you still have the rigor and the high expectations and then inter interdisciplinary connections and examples to teach mathematics so a good mathematical program is particularly in K2 incorporates stories so being able to still incorporate literacy being able to still connect it to science so we know that Math and Science are intimately connected and students being able to see that so they're not seeing math as this isolated thing that they only do during this one period in the day they're able to see math in everyday life and then students sharing their mathematical ideas and working in pairs in groups so while it is important that students get an opportunity to work independently is even more important than they work in groups before they ever get to that independent practice being able research
079has shown that when students are able to talk about it with friends and with peers in groups that they're able to internalize the concepts so this is going Beyond teaching arithmetic is about teaching conceptual knowledge and providing students opportunities to communicate mathematically so accountable talk in the same way that we T in Reading we give students opportunities to talk about what they're learning we have to give students opportunities to talk about what they're learning in math particularly when they're making errors being able to dissect okay this didn't go the way I thought it was going to go what exactly happened let's talk about that you know so then students understand what is it that they actually don't know and being able to pinpoint at that at the end of the day if I'm a student
080and I do two plus two and I say three and it's just circled and that's the that's the incorrect answer it doesn't tell me why I got it wrong you know so we want to be able to engage students in that and then of course the most important thing is using manipulatives which is really the first thing that we want to do when we're teaching students math so we want students to be able to go to the con start with the concrete and eventually end up in the abstract which is the algorithm which leads us to our current problem so right now we are using Eureka and one of the things that I've been hearing for the last two years particularly from my K2 teachers not really my three five teachers but my K2 teachers
081had talked about how one the lessons are really long what they suggest the time that they're suggesting the lessons should take which is around 50 minutes is actually taking 60 to 70 minutes which is not really developmentally appropriate for kindergarten through second grade then one of the things that we when we looked at the program is that there aren't enough opportunities for students to engage in that concrete learning before they get to the abstract so it kind of goes so quickly into the abstract that students are missing those entry points to really internalize the concepts again moving away from arithmetic and really going into those deep Concepts and then of course we want math to be relevant and in order for them to be relevant is that the lessons have to actually have that real
082life connection that engagement this is why it's important in life this is the why you're learning it I know unfortunately I struggled with math because I never understood the why I didn't understand geometry until I actually bought a house and I had to buy curtains and I had to buy uh do a by Carpeting and I realized gee I'm doing area I wish I would have known that I would have paid more attention so having students understand that and then of course kind of going back to the accountable talk and the reason I emphasized a lot of accountable talk is because remember K2 is is the years that where students are learning process and that is so important because when they are able to understand the process of learning and the process of the different
083subjects than when they get into the deep content the starts in third grade they have a solid foundation and what we're seeing is that a lot of our students are losing time in the process and part of that process if you think about even our students who are coming in who are linguistically different are students who need more who have learning preferences we're not giving them enough of those opportunities to understand them So speaking of process so this actually started prior to me which is why when I came in some teachers immediately started emailing me so my predecessors did have start having started conversations prior to covet around looking at math programs so um because there was so much feedback from teachers these last two years particularly K2 again not really three four but K2
084about ways that we can support our students because we don't want them to then when they get to the upper grades really really struggle we wanted to revisit that discussion so we met with content coordinators the content coordinators kind of shared again what I just shared with you what their concerns were with the program that they had um so we were able to kind of contact some some different companies to be able to send some materials some of the materials were sent digitally others came actually in boxes they were sent to the schools where every K2 teacher had an opportunity to look at it that was facilitated by the content coordinators because my thing was you're the ones doing the program I need you to look at it there were certain caveats though one of
085the thing was that we needed to really make sure that the materials were linked to the new standards they could not be based on common core it had to be linked to the new standards so we needed to also make sure that the materials that were coming in that we were going to use still had that same amount of rigor that was required in order for our students to understand and know the standards and we also wanted to make sure that it was developmentally appropriate so at the end what what the teachers were really excited about was ready math and I'm going to talk a little bit about that so the three programs that this year we really looked at was McGraw-Hill h-a-a-h-a-h math Eureka which is a program that we are currently using did
086send materials that they said had been retooled to be a little bit more age-appropriate in K2 so we wanted to look at it because we're already ordering Eureka program so we wanted to see how they kind of changed the program and then the ready math the teachers wanted to see the ready math because we use I ready we use the supplemental component of i-Ready so it's not our curriculum it's a supplemental component one of the things that they were noticing in the teacher toolbox was the toolbox reference of the ready math like workbooks to blah blah so some of them felt that with the program if students needed extra help it was an easy alignment because they already kind of had it was already talking to each other now programs that I was told have
087been looked at prior to me coming here was envisioned was looked at before covet gold math and investigations and it was something that they felt they did not like so the way that we did the comparison of the program um I did go on to Ed report and Ed reports is actually an independent um company that looks at all instructional programs in all different subjects so they're completely objective they're not selling anything and they kind of rate it and they rate it based on three criterias focus and coherence based on the standards the rigor mathematical practices and of course most importantly usability because if teachers aren't able to understand how to implement the program implementation is key the teacher can implement the program it's going to fail so when we looked at this particular program
088one of the things that we did like was that the focus and the coherence got the tops got a very good score the rigor was there so it was definitely aligned to the standards the usability was 836 out of 38 so there was possibilities there when we looked at Eureka Eureka again we do like the rigor of Eureka which is why three through five is staying with Eureka the rigor again was there but the usability kind of like we had talked about what we noticed was there weren't a lot of changes to what they claim they said they changed one of the biggest um things that teachers complained about they had to spend a lot of time really redoing lessons modifying lessons making even spaces that were developing developmentally appropriate for students to actually write
089their answers in because they wouldn't give them enough space and as we know in K2 our little ones are still you know learning how to grip pencil they're still learning how to write between inside the lines and this program kind of made it very difficult to do that so then when we looked at ready math uh one of the biggest thing was just like the other two programs you know same focus and coherence definitely the same rigor but it was the program they came in with the with the greatest usability so which is easy to implement and again there's also that caveat of we still have our contract with Eureka so we can always go back to Eureka and we still have Eureka Materials available in the district because there is an abundance so there's
090still we're still able to use both if we need to particularly for we if we have students that need extension activities those students that are really great at math and maybe don't need as much time as the other students we want to make sure that we're still challenging them so I wanted to show you what the what the structure of the Eureka math program is so if you look and kind of going back to what the research was saying what I had shared with you before so there are three parts we have the fluency practice the concept development and then the student debrief the fluency practice is what happens during this time is that teachers are doing review and they're sometimes doing drills and if you notice this is very teacher directed so 17 minutes
091which actually goes against research feature says that in K2 students should not be still for more than 10 minutes 10 to 15 minutes because their brains just can't absorb all of that so 17 minutes of this program is spent on doing a lot of fluency or doing practice or doing review or doing drills and then they spend 25 minutes in the concept development so this is where the teachers is introducing the New Concept for the day the teacher does the modeling the teacher does the guiding the teacher does the teaching again the students are spending a lot of C time during this time 25 minutes and then when they finally can be very very engaged and to have that accountable talk it's for eight minutes now what the feedback that I've been getting is is
092that a typical lesson is not is not 50 minutes it's taking 60 to 70 minutes and what that is doing is it is not allowing teachers to give students opportunities for centers and opportunities to really use those manipulatives so they're really able to understand the concrete to then go to the abstract so when we look at ready math the average lesson is about 45 minutes one of the biggest things that the teachers reported back was that the way the activities were laid out they believed that they were going to be able to incorporate centers into those lessons because they're not as long the way the problem talk about it is in this particular component they're doing review but they're also introducing the concept so so it's not spending the entire time with students at a
093c so it kind of follows the model of I do we do you do and then they have the Hands-On activity where they're practicing the New Concept that's been given to them and then 15 minutes of the problem solving connection is done working either in groups or working independently so if it's the first time that they're introducing a concept they're going to be working in groups so that they have support if there's the next day where they're reinforcing the concept it may be independent practice and then of course then they're going to review at the end so if you notice there is more time of student active engagement there is more accountable talk going on in this particular format so I wanted to kind of give you an example of this is actually a geometry
094lesson from unit 2 in kindergarten so our current program so in this is in this introductory lesson the teacher would be introducing to the students flat geograph geometrical shapes as well as challenging them with some solid shapes because you'll see there there's some there's a cone in there um now the ready math lesson is doing the same thing so the goal of these two lessons are the exact same thing but if you notice in the Eureka practice page there are 15 shapes that the students have to identified some of them are also shapes that we wouldn't really do or dive into till first grade on the math ready side the ready math side they're only showing them eight it's very clearly defined which are solid and which are flat shapes so in terms of again
095the spatial awareness of cato2 students this is a lot easier for them to be able to navigate the same thing is we kind of go back to Best Practices always wanting to make sure that lessons are relevant and connected to real life so if you look at um the Eureka page very the expectation for these both these activities are exactly the same they have to be able to take a geometric shape and kind of align it or identify with something in real life so if I look at the Circle and I look at the clock I'm like well that's something that I see in real life now keep in mind that these clocks these analog clocks our students are only seeing in the classroom they really don't have these at home anymore you know so
096they're not seeing them out in the real world and some of our more modern classrooms don't even have these clocks anymore that we have kind of like replicas for our students and then you see a flag and then you see this sign that I think it's like Slippery When Wet which is a very abstract road sign that I really don't think our our students are really paying attention to on the contrast you look at the the ready Mash sheet which is very very colorful is actually showing a scene in the real world where the students have to identify the shapes that they would see in the real world the Sun the windows um the shapes of the windows and the taxis you know it's a student uh carrying a box which is in a cube
097shape so those things that make it a little bit more relevant to our students and easier for them to remember yeah what um so it looks like you're going to the ready math what other districts use use it I don't know of any other districts that are that are using it in Dutchess County I know that in Orange County there's a couple of districts that are using it and they like it they've actually bought the whole program they like the fact that it was um an actual workbook they like the fact that you could actually go all the way up to eighth grade I don't think that's something that Beacon should do I don't agree with the whole Ka I think secondary is a little bit different um so I know part uh some schools
098in Newburgh because Newburgh they're not they don't have a unified some of the schools have used the K the K2 um and they like it again they like the fact that they're able to give supplemental support through i-Ready which is already there and they like the fact that the students are getting Center time so duberg uses it and who else do you know I uh that's the district that I spoke to so I haven't do you know the success rate of the program like how the students are performing after because it's given them the foundational skills and how they're doing in great in it through eight State tests afterwards well I know what the success rate is of using the i-Ready program with the prescription and their research has shown that students have improved now
099in terms of this particular program keeping in mind that we're doing this to kind of respond to the pandemic so there really isn't any research right now that's talking about how these programs are working post covet that's all stolen research development and that's going to take about three to five years to get good research from that because as we know when you're implementing a program it takes three to five years for you to see the results of the program so is this going to be your supplementary math program or is it going to be your base it's going to be it's gonna right now be a resource that we're going to be using they still have Eureka available what's going to be the teachers really want to use this because they feel that they're going
100to be able to better teach and Implement math using this program so your Curriculum maps are going to have both resources and it's going to be a teacher option as to which one they want to use or well the teachers are really committed to using this to see how now again the Eureka is available if there are students again we have some students that are very good in math some students that as we know need to be challenged and I think it's important that we have supplemental resources for them as well so that we keep them challenged and I think that a student who has who takes very quickly to these Concepts I think this they would be bored with and I think it's important that we keep that rigor up for them okay thank
101you that makes sense yeah um in terms of the transition then from second to third grade and going I guess back into the Eureka program do you see any issues with that no I actually looked at both because they're when you get to second grade it's very very rigorous there isn't the difference between the second grade really K2 and the actual Eureka is that they're giving the kids less and they're actually going deeper so this is going to give our students more of an opportunity to really really learn the concepts so when they go to third grade we don't have so many students who have gaps because as we know we have students who have learning preferences and when you have units that have 45 lessons and again do we go in and sometimes weed
102out some lessons because it's so long but then there's also then units that should be longer they only have 15 lessons you know so you know and then you have students who may be those 45 lessons or some of those lessons that we're weeding out they need them you know so I think this is given going to give us more opportunities to really differentiate which is what we really need to do in math you know that's why our AIS program are really looking at offering more intervention support in AIS math because our students are struggling you know and we we need to we can't keep doing the same thing and is this all um workbook based like pencil and paper so it's not a computer no no no actually the none of the program is
103it's all workbook like there's a workbook that goes with it there the teacher has a big teacher's guide there's uh actually story books that go along with it there's cards that the students can manipulate there's games that the students do there's manipul there's um games that the teachers have to have their manipulatives ready for the kids to do so setting up the centers is going to be easy because it tells them set up the center and it's going to help you and stuff like this no so the actual I already again that's supplemental so let's say a teacher is working with a group of students and they're still struggling that teacher could take the i-Ready digital part and assign it as a Google Classroom homework assignment and that could be their their supplemental support so
104they're not so this is not it's not computer-based at all the computer is to support or as a homework so there's no digital component to this no this is a regular this is a regular program the digital teacher toolbox that's all supplemental that's not a program I'm confused is this going to be a supplemental resource or is it the base program I go teachers are using it as more of a base and then if there are students who need more like the Eureka they have that available but they're using it more as a base because we need our teachers to be able to incorporate centers into their K2 math program any other questions well Eureka's been I think what preceded me um Eureka or Eureka is actually based on the modules that came out in
1052012 when Common Core came out right I was going to say so it's been a while because I know and I said created or are they it's not I'm sorry it's not a program you purchase right it came with yeah because um when the when Common Core came out this company engaged in New York they had all these modules up on the website the modules were really kind of like in draft form and then Eureka what they did was they took those modules and they really cleaned them up you know and made them into books because what was on engage in New York you had to print everything so it was all printing all printing or printing Eureka put everything and packaged it together so when you look at Eureka and you look at the
106modules that are still engaged in New York is the same thing so that's been around for 2012 so that's 12 years I don't know if if Beacon has been using it for 12 years I know my previous District we did have it from from the from the onset I feel like I remember yeah is there a cost for it yes give us an idea of how does that work textbook money yep is it like um kind of like a swap out or I guess like Friday Marie I guess I don't understand like what's this so there's a couple there's there's one question though about I I remember when the Common Core was rolled out because I think my daughter started school around that time so it was kind of like a traumatic year as I
107recall for all of us yeah I remember that um but I remember hearing that they you know that it wasn't developmentally appropriate that they're worth it Concepts that were you know two too many layers to not for like too abstract all that stuff but um I guess the other question I have is so that's existed that way for a while so presumably there's been time for teachers to adapt has to make it more developmentally appropriate so I don't know if they haven't been supported to do that or if there's been I don't know what the reason why that might not have changed or been adopted but is it that post covid you know and saying that the lessons are too long now was it already too long and developmentally inappropriate and now we have kids
108who are maybe academically immature because they've lost a couple of years and they they really really can't sit for that long so we have to kind of reconfigure everything is that sort of what's driving this well I will tell you I was around for common core as well as my first year as principal Good Times um and I remember the the consistent complaint I have always heard about this program in K2 is the developmental appropriateness of it even when they were revised so again um where I was working we didn't buy the Eureka package program we were still downloading from the because it was we're spending more money on paper but you know whatever but that was constantly the complaint about it and that's why I know the way that I worked with my teacher
109was we we kind of went through those modules and we really had a dissect and remove lessons and add lessons and do supplemental lessons so for example in second grade I think the unit on time is only 15 lessons so then when the students went into third grade it wasn't enough for them to actually know how to tell time so then we were actually creating lessons extra lessons to teach time to make up for the fact and we were moving things around so I remember spending a lot of work on these modules based on teacher feedback and how students were performing in math and when we were doing some of our things we were seeing um students doing better but then it took a lot of work it took a lot of work to do
110it um again I don't I can't speak to what was done here before but I know that as soon as I kind of walked in through the door K2 I've been like and I said okay we're not changing a whole math program without an actual process a committee you know kind of that I mean let's see what we can do with this and um and kind of go from there because we have to we have to address kind of what we're seeing so kovit just made it just made it worse you know and I think we have to go a little slower I think we have to go deeper I rather students not cover as many topics and be really proficient in the topics that we do cover because I think that's going to serve
111us better and it'll cost less anxiety It's been a pretty common theme with K1 and two teachers in the district for my time here too about wanting to look at another math program and Craig the cost I can send it to the board the the cost of materials are pretty low in the comparative sense with other companies and it comes to professional learning so they'll the teachers will get we'll go training you know to properly implement the program and support them and we do have our contract with BOCES so the person who's been working with us on other um in other areas she's going to be working with the teachers on the centers and how to incorporate centers into their lessons and how to do small group instructions so basically teaching math the way you
112would teach reading I just have another question also so with the it's more of a supplemental or even as a base would it be able to go in with common core for those higher grades because I disagree with a lot of the points from the beginning I'm a very why question seeker and I haven't seen a lot of that in math until my higher years so if they were able to incorporate that earlier maybe yeah if you if you saw the the example like the kids the students seeing the streets and this is why we learn shapes because we see them everywhere it's all aligned it's all aligned to the Next Generation standards that's the one thing that was one of the um the the requirements when we were kind of looking at programs we
113were like it has to be aligned because if not when they get to the upper grades they're going to be missing everything so if it wasn't a line we weren't even going to look at it are there capabilities of it to adapt to even Middle School grades within their curriculum or saying that because in Middle School it still continued to feel abstract and not grounded in yeah actual experience yeah like my sister just like that that's a whole other conversation yeah okay I didn't know if it would go with common core if it was its own thing starting at younger grades for now so well right now all of us the state of New York were all doing new standards so I know the teachers are working on ensuring that their units of study in
114all subject areas are aligned to the Next Generation standards and looking at making things more engaging so it's going to take some time but we do have to you know uh look at how we can improve our practices so you're talking about that why so the students understand why it's relevant because I'm with you I went through it and which is why I was a literacy person not a math person but it's no longer called Common Core though correct it's not common course it's next Generation yep it's I mean it's slightly off topic but that is something that if you have like if you can share the experience of what is different from higher level math and that you feel like it's answering the why and the what you'd like to see push down to
115a younger age if and you were saying something about your sister but that's what but that's what you're doing though right K2 yeah she's with the hopes of the pilot I mean that so you're teaching them the why now and then you're starting to now then at the Y so that as they grow it's always there it's never been there so now they're still confused and then yes there's some higher grades where maybe you go more into why but that's because that's what that that math does like geometry or whatever that stats whatever that is that's the base that's going to give you the why but like starring on that K one and two with the Y and all that it's you're you're you're you're you're giving them the added resources and things that they
116need so when they get to three four five whatever it's they know how to ask certain things or they can they can unders they can comprehend it a little better now because they learn the why part at K12 yep it's that it's building that you know when you're building the house if your basement if you're if you don't have that salad Foundation you can't build the house so we're trying to do that we're there where yes if I actually understand the concept and not be arithmetic then when I get to that harder thing I just know I already know I'm like well I'm doing algebra because I'm going to confront in life an X at some point where I'm not going to know what this is so I have to figure it out with a
117formula I I feel like I'm I apologize because I'm not being clear I I totally understand the value of this and I see where you're going with it I think what I was asking was just specifically that we have this we are we're building that pilot and that will capture these younger kids K2 but we have students who've gone through the middle school who have now started high school who might be there's a there's an opening here where they're not being served gotcha and so if there's a stop gap of like identifying some of the issues and giving kind of tips to some of the teachers who are who because there's going to be this missed piece like in between like these K2 kids are going to develop up through but right now we have
118kids third fourth fifth starting Sixth and I know a lot of studies around math and girls is that the Gap just becomes massive in middle school so that's where it like they fall off the cliff and you lose girls from the sort of steam program so if there's a way to start thinking about just ways to plug in some of these strategies like whether it's a professional development day or something about the that sort of why I think that you know especially because of kovid and these learning losses that we've had so that we don't lose kids while we're closing this good point I know in our last uh professional learning day we did have someone from BOCES work with the secondary math teachers on interventions in the upper grades so how to do them
119within the classroom because they did ask for it like they did say you know we have some students that are coming in and they're missing things and they're struggling and we're not sure what to do and I said all right I can't help you with that but I'll find someone who will you know so we do have someone who is actually a secondary person which is good that's what she does she does math at the secondary level and she spent a good two hours with them that's great you know I'm going to have follow-ups so the nice thing about bosses is if I can't do it I have someone there right I just wanted to add on that um my sister actually just um is gonna go into seventh grade and she was in sixth
120grade this year and um there are like I had to um there at times I'd find myself helping my sister out with um General algebra equations and such because there's still holes in um General mathematics that like aren't covered in elementary that come into the sixth grade math and that sixth grade environment is just like different like when you're doing percentages for example and you have percentages with variables it really there's a really big gap into under like understanding what's happening there like what is this decimal and um I think reinforcing how you look at these decimals and how you look at these things as like uh I guess as a I guess variable in itself for like real world examples really helps to like grasp the whole algebra concept because as you get into
121like further grades like really as you do SAT Math in itself there's so many Concepts which are developed in elementary and um some students end up struggling like with fractional um addition and multiplication that all is created as like a foundation in elementary which if it's not created as a foundation Elementary it's gonna suck to go through middle school and high school it's just real yeah I feel like for my daughter that Gap kind of opened up and that was and you know it especially like she has a learning disability so she already felt embarrassed to ask for help and felt dumb and you know she went from like in middle school then kind of folding on herself and feeling it was like things she should already know she didn't have a older brother like
122yourself just sort of lean on and it was only until we started seeing those gaps and there was just it's hard to say like oh here's here's where it started and here are the resources so and then it becomes harder and harder and harder to close this agreed talking to someone who cried through two Regents exams yeah in math so I totally understand yes sir I think one of the problems that's been touched upon here is that it is a foundational thing it's like bricks you can't build the fourth course of brick until you've laid the third and so on and if you get off the track you just get more and more off and then it's like bang somebody's like totally shutting down so where do we catch them in that process I mean
123this is a classroom thing it's it's about monitoring I mean if I flunk a test I know that I'm screwing up but I think what often happens is you know the teacher is confronted with a curriculum it says we're supposed to get from point A to point Z in the course of how many ever weeks we have left in this year and uh the people that get left behind get left behind and it gets worse and worse so I think a lot of our success is going to be how do we interrupt that that problem and catch it somewhere along the line and provide the extra help that's needed so maybe you know if you're lucky you've got a big Brotherhood I mean that that helps her maybe a parent that can get you to
124sit down and talk about it and knows enough about it to help you which is not always the case yep I didn't have a big problem a lot of people studied that in school and never used it in life that's why um we are um really looking at are reframing our AIS program in math you know so we have the two teachers that we are going to be adding for that way if a student is struggling at the elementary level they get the intervention you know so as the teacher is seeing oh I see that the student is struggling and hopefully because there's going to be more time for that small group instruction the teacher will catch it quickly so they can either do remediation themselves and if that doesn't work then we are going
125to have folks who are going to be able to pick the students up and kind of work on those really foundational skills I think so are there any plans for re-looking into the middle school curriculum because I feel like a lot of those whys are missing from middle school especially like when you're in elementary school you know they give you like the basic examples of like here's two M M's and then you take another two M M's and then that gives you four M M's you know or like a pie and then you're dividing it and like those are kind of real life situations but once you start to get to Algebra I feel like a lot of students are kind of scared to ask but why but why is this x here I think
126like in Middle School it becomes disassociated from your life and math it just becomes two separate topics and no one can actually relate how they're connected so that just creates a disparity among people who love the problem and to who just don't understand it and don't want to focus in on why you're doing what you're doing that's true well again that's one of the things that we are working with the teachers on so on those professional development days with a consultant from BOCES you know because we have to yeah so again I was one of those students I needed the why if I would have known the Y might have made a difference so any other questions thank you student advisors yeah yeah no I think great to have that student perspective good report thank
127you thank you so much thank you first you're going to have to start a tutoring program I'm like I'll be grabbing your number to the list of things you have going on you're super you already started a tutoring program though didn't you well at the high school yeah well so it's easy to expand than there that was your pilot and no yes you're gonna um so while we're giving you guys attention do you have any comments that you wanted any other comments you want to share with us how's it we haven't seen you it's been busy we haven't had a board meeting in a while final really just hit us yeah um you you threw most of it now other than closing out on the air I feel like we're all me and Ari especially
128just trying to appreciate all the opportunities that we were getting as seniors you know our Awards nights Sports closing out so we're really grateful for all of us congratulations to you guys I saw some pictures online yeah and I in case we don't get the chance I want to thank you for your participation this year it's been really great having you on the board and yeah learning from you I want to say thank you as well it's been an honor to like sit here amongst all of you I feel like I learned so much this year and to just be here with you is like a great opportunity so thank you for providing us the space to you know listen to our opinions and hear out what we have to say so thank you thank
129you second that now are the seniors are you going to be here later tonight what [Laughter] we're being recorded sorry I was just trying to get the evidence but we'll let it go okay well thank you very much um reviewing the agenda there are a couple of changes um we have added to business new business John Galloway's resignation that I'll talk about then um 12.15 letter O now reads a point restorative and responsive practices facilitator appoint the following staff at a stipend of 60 an hour according to the BTA contract effective July 31st 2023 through August 2nd 2023. um and number one is Michelle and only Michelle behemus the number one and only um 12.24 letter X home instructor coordinator removed John G meta and add Brian saltish and then 15.07 the PDF has been
130replaced with one that didn't have a typo okay well if I do this thank you Eunice for catching that you're welcome so can I have a motion to adjourn to Executive session to review the employment history of a particular individual and to receive legal advice from the district attorney and the board will return in about a half hour I have a question are we going to talk about negotiations at all no okay thank you I think this notice counsel is here um yeah thank you Elena second from Eunice any other commentary questions all in favor opposed I'm also in favor passes 7-0. yeah first step is thanks Mike superintendent's report um I'll be pretty brief tonight I I wanted to uh just briefly mention two things um one uh Meredith you announced uh at the
131beginning of the meeting about accepting John Galloway's resignation I just wanted to say uh thank you to him uh for me Craig I have one more meeting left uh to talk about you but uh it was such a pleasure to get to know John uh through the board uh he to have someone who just so recently went through the school district as a student all the connections he has in the community all the Insight um just of just a powerful person uh to get to know and um to learn from and so I just want to say I texted all this to John the other night uh but if he's watching I just want to say a huge thank you for his service to the board uh it's greatly appreciated and then secondly I mentioned
132uh way earlier in the meeting tonight uh just wanted to just take a minute to mention the absolute massive effort that goes into the sharp reservation trip for fifth graders um an image sticks in my mind I I mentioned I sort of got to press into uh chaperoning kind of at the last minute which I was I was happy about but um and uh so I was kind of walking uh my group of boys back to their cabin it was fairly late 10 or 10 30 and we were walking past the dining hall and you could see in the windows and it's like 10 15 10 30 and there are all of our teachers like organizing that space moving chairs moving tables at 10 30 at night like and and when they had been on
133all day with you know a bunch of 10 and 11 year olds and so not only the teachers but every single staff person that had a role nurses teaching assistants classroommates administrators and then all the chaperones just want to give a huge shout out to what an amazing experience it is for the students but also just the massive amount of effort that goes in I want to say thank you that's all I got I'm I am not going to put you on the spot summer but I do want to just welcome you to the board um thank you for taking the um the open seats so your um Eric shutter will be appointed at the reorg meeting in July summer Orson is here tonight and um we welcome you and if you have any comments
134you're welcome to make them don't say that there's nothing in this for you like a good name tag do we need to oh John so we need to deliver John's to you know oh yeah yeah just potatoes yeah I have almost all the letters um anyway welcome um Kristen do you have any workouts uh yeah I mean I'm a little sad that we lost the room for it um but I think um this is this this Germany thing is definitely kind of the first test of something that I've been seeing developing over um a while here in Beacon which is just that we um our community is it has become increasingly divided it's becoming extremely wealthy and we retain a core of students who are at um or below poverty and that is going to
135be so tricky to hem together and I think that I don't doubt and we we definitely want students to have great experiences and I don't doubt that you know we should foster opportunities for international experiences for um you know for reaching as far as we can in terms of learning and Excellence I just think one of our real tasks here is to create a common Community across a lot of different and you know when some of the kids mentioned that they hadn't spoken to some of their classmates to me that was you know that it took students from Germany coming in for them to have conversations with classmates that for me was kind of the bigger takeaway that we have a lot of work to do to create connection within this community and um and
136a lot of these things like what Matt has talked about in terms of signature experiences fun really great memories like sharp you know that my husband was a chaperone at sharp and my son came back early but my husband had to finish being a chaperone and he was driving back very tired from the last day and he got a um he got a ticket and uh he the cop was like he was like I'm sorry I'm coming back from sharp and that cop was like I did sharks whole conversation about it and so it is one of those things that's similar to calico ball like one of those things that kind of connects across years and creates this experience in the district and an identity and so um I think one of the things about
137this was no one is standing in the way of it happening if parents want to organize it and it wants to be something that's Grassroots and community-led I think that we're always will always expect that the administration will find ways to partner but I think that like this can't be a Wag the Dog thing like it can't be people with time and privilege and certain connections coming in and saying this is how they'd like something to be where we're not kind of we're a we're a district that serves children from preschool all the way through high school and and a very wide variety of people and so we need to figure out a way to meet a lot of needs at once and when you come in with ideas and something that would be nice
138it takes up a lot of time and resources and you know an hour of tonight where it would have been nice to be fresh and really looking at the you know math curriculum which will have a longer tail impact so no one's here to help deliver look at this tape but but it's just I think as far as our work together that's where I see the most important um responsibility that we have is to stay focused on that I agree thank you uh Eunice I'm not going to top that [Music] thank you Elena um I want to agree um Kristen um it is a fabulous idea right like it's it's amazing but you're right like the the gap or the wide range of families that we have here at Beacon and if more time could
139have been put into it as far as fundraising more education on how to fundraise how to raise money it was just seemed like it was just kind of like put together so quickly um and not everybody that could have benefited from it was able to because some people can't just come up with that money like that or have the time to go to West Point on Saturdays all day it's a fundraise um but if more time was put into it um buy a buy all the parents or however it is and like you said as a as a school district we'll support in any way we can in that regard but not that Financial win I'm I love that um that explained it as signature like Signature Events like that's just a great way to
140put it because my my child was extremely happy to go to Ellis Allen like and and where my freshman was highly upset that freshmen didn't get to go anywhere this year and I had to explain to her it's coming it's happening like we're we're making that a priority we're making that something where we have more things so that students can't sit here and say well I don't talk to other people in my class right like we don't want that to why we're trying to do these Signature Events and um I think that that's more important before we go in and jump to something like Germany and even and then and then we even said we'll look at other things like Italian or Spanish-speaking like we're so we're like we're so far in but yeah but
141yeah so like I think that I thank them for sharing the experience because it is an amazing experience and I enjoyed listening to it and and hearing all about it but I'm more excited right now just the signature events that we're going to be able to put on for our students here in the district that we can either offset some of the costs and parents and families will have to come out their pocket so much to pay for those things um so yeah thank you Anthony I like to wish John well um it was I had a pleasure sitting next to him so he's a good young man um for the Germany thing I don't know what they're asking the district for there's agencies out there where you can get foreign exchange students and you
142could partner with them and you can put your name in a ring and you could be part of that so like I don't know what they're asking for the district we have policies that allow students to attend if they're not District residents and stuff so if it's something policy wise that they want us to look at I'd be happy to look at but there's agencies that they could go to I don't really see it being a school issue that's that's more of an outside thing so um end of school year kids are feeling rambunctious I know they're getting ready for the um they had a Regents already and I know that the high schoolers are uh you know getting ready for the end of the year so it's really nice to see I know that
143the prom season was a success here just having a high school student um and they thoroughly enjoyed it so they're looking forward to the end of your activities and uh hopefully the nice weather continues thank you Craig yeah I'm sorry to see John Galloway uh leave the board I thought it was a good thing that he came on and I wish him well I was privileged to attend a science event in this room a couple weeks ago it was really amazing and I was just blown away including looking at some of the exhibits that were out in the hallway and thinking am I in a college or is this a high school because there was college level work that was being done in a lot of these projects and some of the presentations uh were
144quite impressive and some of the subject matter covered uh of various aspects of science more so than you normally see in the ordinary science fair I would say although this wasn't really a science fair it was more of a seminar a forum for presentation of I guess you'd call it lecture demonstration on your on your work um and uh felt that we'd made a very substantial step forward out of the blue so I wonder where that will go in the future on the exchange student program some very nice comments from from people who clearly demonstrate the benefits of it but I came into the meeting wondering as Mr White said what are we being asked here I'm not quite sure I I think it's about money you know and when if you want to ask
145for me for money go ahead and ask and I'll say yes no or whatever but if it's like you're kind of laying it between the lines then I get a little confused and wonder if I'm being made the object of a technique um which I don't like I like the program I like what they're doing I think it's done a lot of good I'm just not sure you know it's like where do we go from here and I would like to see a a written description of the details of how a program like this actually works and that it should address the very issue that we're going to address on our consent agenda which I assume is there because we presume that we all are in agreement with that policy relating to diversity equity and
146inclusion um and any kind of program that we do here it's uh if we do it for one we do it for all and that has to be carried through I mean not everybody will make the football team but they all can try out you know so and not everybody can afford to uh buy a new dress for the senior prom but nobody's denied the opportunity to go so these are tricky issues and I think Kristen addressed it very eloquently that we must face this as an issue going forward and how we balance the equities so that it comes out that we're still a public school district doing what a public school district needs to do which is to serve all comers so that would be my thoughts going forward thank you I have a
147few things I'll start with Germany just to you know I think Christian said it very well I I agree I'm not completely sure what we're being asked I'm glad that the program happened I was called by a desperate parent in the fall wondering if I would host a German exchange student because they didn't have enough people that were willing to participate even though they were trying to keep it with only sophomores and I have a junior so it sounds like it grew and and I know that it was a really positive experience for I do think for the whole school and I'm really grateful to the administrators that helped to facilitate it because I know that there was a lot of work that went in from District employees um and it's not something I want
148to block but I I do and I think International experiences are amazing um but I do think it would be great to pursue something with a language that we teach because I think that would it would really enrich The Experience even more for the students so that would be something I would really be happy to see um moving on um I want to thank the one board member that filled out their their board evaluation [Laughter] um but I want to thank her and um and I want to encourage everybody else to do the same it doesn't take very long I use it to um try to build whatever Retreat we do in the fall or in the winter um so I really appreciate your participation there I also attended the science Symposium it was the
149culmination of four years a program that we started four years ago and it was it was really amazing it was completely student organized student driven um and so so impressive and they would like to maybe have a student come and present to the board which I would love so look for that in the future yeah um I also this was a really long time ago but we haven't had board comments a long time I went to film fest which was super great and they had last year there was one high school submission this year they were 36 so that was a huge Improvement and I'm really grateful to the media teacher for encouraging maybe forcing his students to each make a little movie and I facilitated they're submitting yeah he encouraged them and facilitated them
150like the paperwork right which was great it was so great and then and they're all going to be up on their website I think at some point and I encourage everyone to look because there were some really fantastic ones um John Galloway I spoke to him on the phone he was very very positive about his board experience um and you know I think a little bit regretful that he had to end his term early but he is I don't want to name his age but he's much younger than I am and um I can't imagine being on the board when I was that age I I'm really impressed that he stuck it out as long as he did he's trying to you know figure out who he is as an adult and um so I'm
151I'm grateful to have gotten to know him better and I think it was I think it was a really rough beginning and ended up being a very positive experience for all of us so a lot of gratitude to John um and we will be having I think the only committee meeting that we're going to have before reorg is policy because we've got to look at the code of conduct and I think currently it's um penciled in for the 21st so floor is not here to confirm that um but whoever's on policy Eunice that you yeah yeah I think 21st yeah think about the 21st yeah was there another date that we said was it the week after 26. oh yeah that was the other date okay okay 26 let's say the 26th thank you that
152one doesn't we're away at a conference you want to do before though we don't have to do it before we go we just have to do it okay so policy policy we'll make it happen get a date um okay that's all from me so business we've already talked about um John Galloway's resignation I did want to take a second just to um talk about moving forward with his seat um I think we should hold this discussion until Eric shutter is sworn in and we have sort of what the current board will be we have three options when a seat opens before um the end of the term one is to leave the seed open until the next election the second is for us to appoint a member ourselves through an interview process and the third
153is exists but is never used to ask BOCES to appoint a member for us so um I just wanted you guys to know those are our options and when once we get Eric on board we can talk about what we want to do there um I brought this up before and I intend to bring it up again then perhaps we should think about shrinking the board and living for the year with an eight member board and then you know the process for that is to put it on the ballot so we can talk about that in the future for an eight-member board no no number seven live with an eight-member board I thought you were saying talk about an eight member board okay no I don't think any other number is a great idea no
154we would have an eight member board until the next election and in our discussion we can look at the size of boards in the area but I think like Poughkeepsie has like five yeah a seven member board is sort of the average and um most districts are size some do have nine but I think most have seven I actually have that data from Anthony saying way back when so I'll dig that up 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 and
155voted on 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 voted on separately 11.01 shocking 12.21 u12 u12 u12 12.21 u12 u12. okay any others okay can I have a motion to approve 11.01 through oh my gosh a long one 15.08 less 11.01 and 12.21 u12. so okay Molina is there a second second by Christian are there any comments or questions all in favor aye opposed I'm also in in favor passes seven to zero thanks for the donation two donations um and can I have a motion to approve 11.01 so moved Kristen can is there a second second by is that you yes comes or questions all in favor opposed pose I am in favor passes six
156to one I have a motion to approve 12.21 u12. I'll explain that to you later yeah um yeah is there a motion moved thank you Kristen is there second Elena comments or questions all in favor oh aye anyone in favor for uh you twelve yeah opposed uh are you abstaining I'm staying I'm in favor it passes six two zero um that's it you can have a motion to adjourn the meeting second by Eunice all in favor um I'm also in paper passes seven to zero thank you everyone have a great day