001Good evening and welcome to Co City School District Board of Education meeting tonight, March 19th. Meeting is going to be called to order at 6:03 p.m. Emergency exits that you assign me here and the one that you came in, we would meet out front. Can you please stand for the pledge of allegiance? I certif here. Mrs. Snider here. Mrs. Gendron here. Mrs. Paradis here. Mr. Dross here. And Mrs. Geller I am here. Like to welcome you all. At this time, I'll turn it over to Superintendent O'Shea for our district. Thank you and welcome everyone. Doesn't the pleasure sound so much better when you have a group of students saying music by ears? I'm going to have principal Laura Tarlo introduce Mr. Next Thursday, we are very excited to have our opening night of our annual
002high school musical. And this year, we are having a Disney performance of the sevens the musical. So, I'd like to introduce Mr. gone in our travel team is going to perform a little something little teaser teaser trailer. Well, hi everyone. Hi. Welcome. Thank you. We're always excited to see you. We're very excited to be here this year. We um you know with the last couple of years we we routinely talk with with the kids about both in drama club with in my theater class as well about kind of the importance of theater of all scopes whether it's uh theater with a focus on like the meaning of the story and then theater with a focus on entertainment and you know how that can kind of appeal to different crowds. And so uh this year we
003wanted to do a show that was a little bit more universally appeal uh appealing to all community members of all ages. and we're very very excited um to be presenting Descendants this year. It is a show we've had in our sights for a little while and we've kind of been looking forward to doing uh I think it took a little bit of winning over at the beginning of the year, but I think they're officially on our side that this was a good idea. Um, so for those of you who don't know Descendants, um, Descendants is the entire story, as kind of the title suggests, of the descendants of four of the major villains of the kind of the Disney universe. We have Curtilda, Maleficent, Jafar, and Kella Deville. There are four children. It's in a
004world where kind of the those marked as evil have been sent to an entire separate place called the aisle of the lost, separate from the good place, the uh the royal kingdom, Orodon. Um, so we're the first number I'm going to have them do for you is uh is the opening number of the show actually and this is our first glimpse into the aisle of the lost and meeting um what uh the script refers to as the evils who reverse reverse this way and then so like fill this way with yeah um and we're specifically presenting our four uh uh evils who are the main uh four evil villainist children, right? [Music] Wicked. They say I'm trouble. They say I'm bad. They say I'm evil. That makes me glad. But dirt is nowhere. Down to
005the bone. Your worst nightmare. Can't save me. So, I got some mischief in my blood. Can you believe me? I never got no love. Saying I'm a waffle. You probably should. I feel so awful. Misunderstood. [Applause] [Music] to the core to the more theore. [Music] I'm ain't got your back. Are we friends? What's up with that? So I'm so You're welcome. The test asked for your work yet. You ain't nothing to That's okay. Um, so Jordan is a classic Disney redemption arc where the uh the the soontobe king of Orodon, Ben, the son of the beast, um, invite has this brilliant plan in his um, you know, ascending to the throne of inviting some of the evils from the aisle of the law to Orodon in order to prove that good can be done even
006to evils. Um, and though they have a plan to, you know, cause ha havoc when they arrive in the loyal kingdom. Um, you know, I don't want to spoil too much of it. For those of you who've not seen the movie between one and a million times, depending on how old potential children they or family members may be, um, this is uh, it's, you know, we we see this uh, this change and this mischief and this magic. Um, we're going to jump ahead a little bit to a moment where a spell has been cast, a love spell has been cast on Ben, the uh the prince, and he is declaring his love to Mal, the uh the daughter of the prince. My heart's all flutter. My brains turn to butter. My forehead is bathed in
007sweat. How you feeling, bro? My knees are quiver. I shake and I shiver. My stomach's a bit upset. I try, but I find that I can't clear my mind. She's all that I'm thinking of. I confess I'm a mess. I'm completely obsessed. [Music] Give me an M. Give me an A. Give me an L. What's that spell? Did I mention that I'm in love? Did I love you? I's dream of you every day. And then I sh That's okay. That's okay. I'm at the school rock my world like it's never been rocked. And now I'm living just for her. And I will never stop. I never thought that it could happen to a guy like me. Well, now look at what you've done. You got me down on my [Music] knees. I never knew that
008it could be like this. The love you is. My love is R I D I C U L O U S. It's just my kingdom with just one kiss. One kiss, huh? Fine. Chad's my boyfriend now and I'm going to share with him so I don't need your pity Jason. Cool. Cool. I know it's me. Don't want to go another minute without your heart just in it. I don't know. Cuz my love for you is ridiculous. I never knew. My love for you is ridiculous. My love is R I T I C U O S. And I will give my king. Come on. [Music] All right. So, we are very excited. It's been a really, really, really fun process. We are still um in the midst of getting everything ready. I know a couple of
009us are on our way back right after this to continue painting and getting the sets ready and things and it's we're very very excited for for everything they've been doing. It's it is bound to be an incredible show that I truly think anybody of any age will love. Um we have shows this upcoming uh this next week on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday the 27th through 30th. Um, if you have any younger uh family members or friends, um, we're doing a special an event we haven't done before. On Sunday, just prior to our 2 o'clock show at 11:30 in the high school cafeteria, we're doing a like a hot pancake French toastic breakfast for any kids want to come and like meet the cast, be served by the cast members and meet all of the
010characters that they that they've seen in the movies before. So, we're very excited. Um, it's been something that we've been working on for a really long time and I think you guys have caught on and are enjoying it. All right. Like to say thank you very much. It takes a lot of courage for you guys to get up here and you know this is not the stage but you know we appreciate smaller venue. No, but thank you so much. I'm excited. I can't wait to see it. I think your English teachers are going to be proud. You can all spell. So that's and we will of course have um have complimentary tickets available for all of you at the door with your names. if you want to give us a name, we'll have those credits
011for you so that you can come in and see the show that you have. Let me build a chaotic program to this point and continue to put up with our shenanigans. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Great job. Great job. Thank you, Steve, for all the time that you put in and your assistant directors and Miss Scott. I saw them here somewhere. Um, we know how much work it takes. So, thank and like I said truly thank you for letting me do what I do because I know it gets tough. I appreciate you all. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. At at this point in time, I'm going to call up another muno. Now, you have to follow that. Um, do you have the same moves? My old So, uh, our athletic director,
012Jeff Hunu, is here to give a a brief athletic update and then I know we have some questions that Sure. Good evening everybody. I just wanted to start first with the bowling team, our girls bowling team. They won this um class B uh division 2 sorry just class B uh sectional championship back in like midFebruary just before vacation uh which then allowed them to go on to the state championships which were just this past Sunday. Uh they finished seventh in the state out of 10 uh schools in division 2. Uh they bowled above their average uh by about 180 spins. So that was good for them. Uh they're very young. Um and it was kind of a surprise sort of in a way for them to be there this year. Um we thought it might
013be a couple, you know, a couple years, but uh they have some some young bowlers on there. Uh Alexis Yondo made the uh composite team, which is basically an all-star team. The top bowlers uh at sectionals then go on and represent our section against all the other sections the day the couple days prior to the to the actual state championships. Um and our section won it. Section two won it and Alexis was part of that team. Aubrey Peterson finished seventh in high series for the state on the on the state championships and Alexis Yondo finished 11th in the high series. So they had a they had a great great Sunday out there. Um our unified bowling team had a great season as well. Um a lot of fun. Um they en enjoyed themselves and it's
014it's fun to watch just like unified basketball coming up. Uh the teamwork and the you know the camaraderie between the the partners and the and their uh teammates is is pretty good. uh winter scholar athletes uh was just posted too. We had uh boys indoor track, boys bowling, cheerleading, girls basketball, and girls bowling were all uh scholar athlete teams. That means 75% of their um their roster was average together to be 90 or above. And then every sport can have any student above 90 themselves is an individual scholar athlete and they get a pin. We posted all of that stuff as well um in the last day or so. uh indoor track. Yas Yasin Osmani was a sectional champion at the indoor track sectionals uh for division three. He won the 600. So um those
015are some of the highlights from the winter and I know we're moving on to spring. This week started spring sports at the high school and as as you could imagine today was a great day for them to be outside. Uh our coaching staffs are pretty much solidified. our our baseball program. That was the one coach we were looking for, a modified baseball coach, and we were able to find somebody um last week, and he's diligently working on his credentials so he can start next week. Um other than that, every every position has been filled for the uh spring, which is really good. Um track, outdoor track, this is the first time we've had a full staff in quite some time now. uh because there's two head coaches and two assistants. We're we always it was
016always difficult to find that one extra assistant coach. Um they're in a triyout stage most of them. Um some of the sports take, you know, will take on everybody pretty much. Um but there the numbers are are pretty good. JV and varsity baseball have 31 kids between the two JV and varsity. We lump them together and the coaches obviously pick the teams based on uh ability. Modified has 24 signed up. softball, JBM girls varsity have 26 between them and modified has 27 signed up and modified baseball and softball start on Monday. Uh girls lacrosse has 12. Uh we're looking to add a few more uh girls to that team. I I I made a post today uh if any girls were interested try to recruit for the for that team a little bit. Outdoor track
017numbers are exploding. Boys are at 52 and girls are at 36. between the two programs almost near 90 kids um which will require us to have two buses to every meet. That's uh that's a good thing. Esports has 12 uh members of their their team right now. And then unified basketball, we just actually had uh information from Unified this morning uh that that they can start practice April 7th. So, we'll be posting signups for that as well. I think that's all I have to mute the report and you have any questions? So before questions, we kind of I I know that there were some questions about the readiness of the softball field. So I thought Stacy Jeeoff if you can stay here. Stacy has a bit of a update on that and then you can
018add to it and then and then if there's other questions. Yeah. So uh the infield was turned over to us uh late last week. Uh there is a punch list of items that need to be uh worked on. Uh so internally we'll have a walk through this week of the field to see what items uh we need to get ready for the first game which is April 3rd. Um the improvements that are scheduled for the outfield aren't scheduled until the summer. So there's not going to be any change in the outfield but that is scheduled again for after the season in the summer. So that drainage and grading. Yes. that includes the sand master uh which is the slats and the infield the sand for the infield. Uh there is an issue with the dugouts.
019So uh it's a design issue. So the workaround uh is going to be the roof the roofs are going to be removed and the athletes will have access to the dugouts without a roof uh during the season and then they're going to replace the concrete pad and then redesign the roof structure um after the season. So during again during season no roof they'll have access and then they're going to uh start from scratch. It was a design flaw with the roof of the dugouts. We have tents that could provide coverage for a short period for the season. I I don't think it's necessary. The heat doesn't really get ever get up to a temperature during during the softball season as opposed to the summer time where girls play travel. Um and then obviously if it's
020raining, it's where they're probably playing anyway. Yeah. Uh the boys don't have a roof on their dugouts. uh right right now the the old system. So um I've talked to the coach and I think we we're okay with that. Good. Thank you. Any questions for Jeff? So looking through the I don't remember if it was basically the RFP for the capital project. I saw that the batting cage only has a single lane. So, I guess my question would be, is there a reason we're not trying to get two lanes out of that considering it's shared among six teams and we don't have backup fields for baseball or softball? So, I know there was a number of days last year that teams didn't practice because there was a game that went until dark. Yep. Um, yes.
021So, we we didn't add anything. We didn't have a batting. We obviously don't have an outdoor batting game. One's better than nothing at this point. And if we get one, it will forever be one. It's, you know, this is our sort of one shot. Yeah. Uh yeah, when when asking just adding it was an addition to the to the project. So just asking for one was was what what I what I asked for. Um so that that wasn't that we didn't want like if you want if you want another one I know four references that we cost out one versus two because you you're getting the majority of the work. There's not a lot of extra as far as materials go because you're sharing half the structure. Yes. personally that done this before. I'd rather
022at least see what the difference is and then obviously I get we'll have to prioritize but we never ask we're never getting right. So we can have that conversation at a at an O meeting. Um do all um six potentially utilize that at the same time or mod modified is separate than JV and yeah so yeah so your modified teams can't should can practice with your JV and varsity teams together. So basically though, you could one team could be using the cage while the other team's using the field. Yeah, that's what we currently do with the indoor one. When we're inside because of weather, uh the softball team will be in a new gym baseball and they they do different work than then switch and stuff like that. So especially that's for me having baseball
023and softball at the same time plus obviously having games with other teams trying to warm up like cages are the most versatile thing to have at any field. Sure. So we can bring that up at Oh, Stacy, I think you mentioned earlier the cost of the page. Uh we had uh the bid I'm sorry, I always have bad news. Uh we had the bid openings today and the cost uh of the cages is 150,000. I'm going to start myself a new business. Absolutely. But we will we will bring in as well taken. We'll we'll have that conversation. And you know, we're still in the the middle of looking at overall costs and how things are working out. So, and baseball fields are ready to go. The baseball field, it's they practiced on it today. Um,
024it was dragging done today and it was sufficient for practice today. But today was really the first day they could get out and the crew could get out there and work on it because of the the frost. Okay. And all that, but they they were able to drag it today. I walked the softball field today. Softball team practiced on a softball field. I haven't talked to the coach since they had practiced, but when I drove by, they were out there. Okay. Field is done. Pretty much was coming off the dugout, but everything else is done. The Yeah, the the infield is is It was really nice. Yeah, they have uh the construction barriers around the the dugouts right now while they're doing some work and taking the wood down. Okay, as mentioned, there's a few
025punch windows that they that they want to take a look at and we may see some things as we're out there. It looks nice though. Yeah. Yeah, it it came up. Anything else? Pleasure to see you. Uh we appreciate the numbers that you've presented to us. I think Yeah, that's great. We had such success this last season and looking forward to, you know, lots of students participating this season. One thing that can engage kids and so happy that we could offer what we can. Yeah. Uh so next up are the secondary budget presentations. Um as you know, uh I was just going to ask if you can shift. Okay. just support. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Um so, uh as you know, needs assessment took place uh recently at the secondary level. Um
026they were with principles, teacher leaders, and other content area teachers after departmentwide discussion and then principles presented their priorities to the budget committee. So, first up this evening to present on the high school needs assessment, uh, principal Laura Taha. Jeff promised me to address the jafar to draw up business. I would be devil magically. I'm sorry. I take your word for it. No. Okay. So, uh, good evening. Thanks for letting me share some information with you tonight. Uh, started with the rejected enrollment just so we can get an idea of what we're looking at. Um, we have fluctuated the last couple years between like that 575 and 625 sort of number depending on transitions in, transitions out. Um, what we're seeing now is the smaller classes that 11th and 12th grade classes kind of graduating
027and moving out each year and the bigger classes coming up. So where we might have hovered around like 550 in the past, we're steady right around that 600 number um from time to time. That also breaks down to high needs in terms of our ENL population or students with disabilities population and this doesn't capture some of the other needs like 504 plans and things like that. Um so just to try to break it down and share with you, we stay right around that 20% students with disabilities and we see a growing number of our our ENL population. So, um, you'll see a little bit of that reflected in the needs assessment. Our club numbers, uh, not as not as high as we'd like to see with sports. You know, we have really high numbers with
028sports. We have some clubs that are doing really great things. These numbers reflect, um, what they're calling membership that attend regularly. So, club meetings are open to kids all the time. You can drop into any club you want at any point. So, we asked them to quantify members that are coming each week that they see every other week whenever they're holding their meetings. Um, a couple of these clubs are low and I think we need to kind of look at are are they um not in demand for a particular reason? Are there other clubs that we could bring to the high school and swap out that, you know, would be more exciting and meaningful. Um, those are things for us to look at. They're all important. They all have a place in the in the
029school. we're just not seeing the participation numbers in some of them that we would like to see. Um, so I think that that's something that Miss Brat and I will be talking about and discussing uh with Miss O'Shea and how we can how we can bring that up. But we've had a huge influx of numbers in National Honor Society. We had a great ski club season this year. Our community service club, I think, is the most robust we've we've had in in the time I've been there. They're all over the city. They're in all the pictures. They're doing all sorts of good work. So there's a lot of positives coming out in this drama club. We saw it has huge numbers of over 50 kids. Um so there's there's some positive takeaways and there's some
030we need to look at and say do we need to modify? What do we need to do to tweak these? Uh I met with all of the teacher leaders as we do each year with Peggy and with Dr. Tim and the team and we really looked at what the departments are most proud of. So, these are just some excerpts from their these are from their words in their meetings and I took them out and kind of highlighted. So, um I believe you have this in front of you. I don't need to to read through all these, but there's a lot of things to celebrate, a lot of things we've done, continued work with our our college partnerships. Uh adding a new Sienna math class. We haven't worked with Sienna, so it's exciting to bring another
031college on board. um for a small high school and limited scheduling options, we were able to meet 97% of students wish lists when they were making their schedule. So, we're really proud of that. Uh so, kids are getting what they want. Um and some ideas for the future on how we can work with the middle school with some vertical alignment to maybe even offer uh more options and flexibilities as we explore the New York State pathways options in the coming years. As well, we brought on our freshman seminar course. We had a science teacher accepted to the master teacher program this year which is a a wonderful thing and we're very excited for her. Alicia Thomasino um we were able to retain French which we weren't sure for a period of time due to the
032lack of world language teachers in that area but we brought on a virtual French program through the help of Boseis and it's worked wonderful. Tara Tasani comes in about once a month u meets with the students and has done some really great things with them from crepe making to surprising them and coming in and doing events. So, um, that's going very well and we're happy with that. ELA scores are in a good place. They look to be right around that pre- pandemic, which we're looking to maintain. Um, and we're also, uh, going to be offering the ELA regions to, um, grade 10 moving forward and and offering that in a younger grade level so that we're giving more opportunities for kids to take the examinations and not waiting until junior year. And then some other
033things coming down the pike that we're looking at that we can do like that as well to be creative. So, there's some other highlights in there. Um, in terms of needs on the next slide, we are fully staffed at the high school and thank you and everything we've asked for. I did that the other day. Okay. So, um, and everything we've asked for is filled. So, that's a wonderful thing. So, there's not really staffing needs on here. It's more programmatic continuation and asks for things now that we have settled with staffing. How do we refine and improve on the things that we're already doing? So, paramount school safety, how do we make it even better? How do we make it more robust? So, we want to look at how do we upgrade the technology a
034little bit for our security office? Um, how do we make that a little bit more modern, improve communications, improve the safety of the overall um entrance to the high school when you get there? So, we're going to be meeting with uh I have a meeting next Friday building and grounds to start that conversation proactively. I did share with you at our last meeting or two meetings ago, I believe, about Yonder, our visit to Troy schools, um reaching out to other area administrators and what they're doing. so securely e hall pass with the iPad so that everything's paperless and we could track better uh kids in class and making sure that they're not taking advantage of the pass system. Um so that's something we're looking for and then an lead officer stipen for our safety team.
035Um somebody that's going to take the reigns with scheduling that can be a single point person. We have an amazing team but to streamline communication and make sure it's effective. It'd be nice to have a a lead point person that could also touch base with law enforcement locally and and stay in touch with administration when there's when they're seeking uh programmatic development. The big ask is an off-site alternative program. Um we believe we've come up with a framework that would work very well. Um but certainly it to do it right, we need appropriate staffing and we need a location that's offsite. um and it can't detract from the staffing um at the high school in terms of you you know we don't want to take one from the other to to start an off-site program.
036So um something to consider to look at. I know we have rough numbers and and rough framework of what that would look like. Um so if that's possible to get off the ground, we would really love to do that. And we have some great ideas for how to embed uh career readiness and uh design with local corporations into that alternative program so that you're not simply sitting in an alternative space, but you're alternatively learning content and preparing yourself for a career. So that's really the goal and to do that in the younger years. This would ultimately be designed for freshman and sophomores uh so that they could come out of this program be ready for CTE or another pathway in their upper years of high school. So that's the that's the design thought right now.
037Uh certainly flexible and open to suggestions. Um certainly can share more about that if you like. Uh ENL iPads as we see the population of ENL students growing we want to make sure that we have proper translation opportunities for those students and that they can be successful in class along with updated books software any PD needed by content area. And the Nissas the change with the science standards it is going to come with investigations now. Um, so this fall we'll be back to calling it an allergy and it's going to be uh earth and space systems. So we have to make sure that we have the materials ready uh for what to order. And I'm I'm told by our science experts in the building that it's a pretty lengthy list of things that you need
038to make these investigations happen. This of course will be in tandem with our capital project where we are knocking and gutting down the entire science way. So that's going to be wonderful. Um but we have a plan. We always have a plan and it's going to be fine. It's going to be smooth. So, we need to account for for those uh for those fees and those costs that we're going to incur in order to roll that out properly. And uh that's all I have. I think just to update since the last time we we spoke, we continue our conversations with Ben Williams of the Connect Center. Um but just last week, um uh Tim, Ben, myself, um and CSR did the connect center. Um and Greg uh contacted state ed just to get information um
039so that we would we would be ready and I can provide that to you in in the near future too. So we are still working working along those ways but some some very uh strong ideas between um the Laura Tim and Ben at the dream big. These are our dream big meetings and Ben has built in connections already with National Grid and big corporations, local musicians, culinary artists. Um, and how you can mix those in with traditional coursework to offer really robust delivery of instruction that's different and hopefully very engaging and gets our our most atrisisk kids to come to school and and learn and aspire to a career or two that they're interested in. So, um, hopefully it can work. Any questions for Laura? So, do you have a timeline for when you will
040get further information? I mean, I I guess, you know, making a decision on the budget is is coming quickly and if some of these pieces are going to be included in it. Um, I think it's important for us to know what that looks like as far as like how many kids, what kind of staffing we're looking at, different implications budgetarily. Um, so in the full we have that. So in the full model it's approximately 248 248,000 but then looking at you know there are potential other models but that is how many staff two that was two and a half FT plus supplies plus a campus safety. So that is so we we we have that and that'll be part of the budget discussions next time but we have it down to that level. Okay. And
041we were talking about the the yonder pouches and we were talking that in framework more of uh potentially looking to purchase those sooner and not necessarily in next year's budget. I just want to make sure that we're still thinking down that pathway where we're talking about purchasing here, prepping and communicating and then transitioning fully um you know with the intent that would be ideal and and also have a very structured strategic I know Peggy's sick of hearing me say this roll out of communication with our community resources our fire chief because right I think our number one thing myself as a parent or any other parent's going to say, "Am is my kids safe? How do I get a hold of them? I have a plan for how to get a hold of everybody and
042yes, it's safe because when you're jamming up the 911 line with 700 cell phone calls, that is unsafe." But but we need people that are doing that work, not me, to come and help us communicate that to families and to ensure that we have a plan in place for everybody to communicate with their children safely. So I think the sooner we can do that and I would also argue if we can do the iPad p any of the many iPad purchases this year with the budget and defer to Stacy on this for for securely. So just so you know for the uh well for the ENL iPads we can do that this year through through a grant. Um I asked Laura to contact the vendor to get the lead time for purchasing and so you
043have that. Yeah. Looks like we could definitely if we had the decision in May, did the presentations, looked at how it impacts our code of conduct in May, a little earlier than than normal that we he said the lead time would just be a few weeks. Yeah, we could store them over the summer strategically come up with our plan and you know, we'd certainly have a model from Troy, but how does that work at Co and sort of replicate that and tweak it um and have a strategic rollout plan I think would be really important. I think my priority between both of those discussions is making sure that we don't get stalled and and that we just keep progressing forward because we don't want to get to a point where we've done all this work,
044right? You know, don't have anything to show for it. It's exactly like I guess you know we can just be here to keep keep moving forward. I know that you guys have done a lot of work and and we greatly appreciate that and if there's anything we already know next year's budget is looking pretty right. So if there are areas of efficiencies I'd like to you know I'm sure everybody would like to take advantage of those um if possible but we know that the communication piece is going to be something that we really need to be cons you know about and deliberate about. So, and since we last spoke together about Yandere, uh, there was another press conference with the governor about the phone free bell-to bell. Um, and I don't know what the monetary
045reimbursement of that looks like, but there might be information on that as well. But in talking and and looking and working with Stacy, we do believe we can do that this year. Also, we've had some preliminary conversations um at the middle school level in terms of you know making this a you know 6 to 12 initiative but also having middle school take a team to visit a middle school that has this in operation um because there might be some slight slight differences. So those discussions have started as well. Yeah, I feel very strongly that we roll this out at the same time. Yes, I agree. Yeah, agreed. I mean, it is a transition time for kids anyway. A lot of kids don't get cell phones to learn middle school. I think we've seen, you know,
046what happens and and having that presentation and some of the positives that have come out of it um from different districts and other hearing from other parents and the kids that it's not an impact, I feel like it makes most sense and you know, get the biggest bang for our buck if if we do. We've also spent a lot of money as a district on Chromebooks. Yeah. So, I think we'll see an organic uh approach to kids bringing their Chromebooks charged to school a little bit more and if they especially if they can't access their their phone device during the day. So, that's just an added benefit I believe. So, I know that you know you've done a lot of research on and I appreciate everything that you have done with it and I know
047that you know the school district has. Have you thought about having a parent board or members of the community that can be participating in the roll out of getting the education out to the other parents that can speak to them on, you know, like I mean, I know you're a parent. I'm a parent, but sometimes they don't view us as a parent. They just view us as we're telling their children what to do. And so having another parent that was actually part of Troy's roll out was they had parents in the roll out and the board meetings and speak. We also have our BLT. We have uh Jenny Hutailing on our BLT that you know is on board and happy to speak about it too if we needed and we had a BLT meeting earlier
048today where we updated everybody and said you know this could be something that the building leadership team this was a goal right when we presented in the beginning of the year. This was a goal and we're excited that we have now moved forward toward that. I think and believe me like having your BLT board and stuff like that but I really think having someone who isn't norm not normally but always engaged on it like really getting out there to the parents that don't feel comfortable sometimes you know participating in things and making it a grassroots effort to really get them in on it with their children. I think they also brought parents from a district this was something that they share with us where a school had already instated and brought it parents to say,
049"I know it was scary and I know it was exactly it ended up having all these benefits and you know, we're happy to answer any questions having been through this ourselves a year ago." So, that's another thing we could possibly Absolutely. The more parent involvement that you can get for this roll out, the better your roll out is going to be. Yeah. Agreed. Yep. So, can I just ask the the securely held pass system that's obviously just a software package? Yes. Okay. Yep. Is that is that something that we can get through Boseies? Like yes, they offer it so it will be able. Yes. Yep. And um Miss Brat met with them on a couple occasions. It's a very affordable software package. The hidden quest would be in the in the iPads. And then we
050have I think plenty of Chromebooks if we need to set up some kiosk stations for kids to sign in and out of classes and things of that too that we could use for that. And every teacher has a has a Chromebook as well in their in their room. Oh, we have a tenative roll out schedule any type yet as far as the vouchers go. They would that securely and any of these things we've really talked about would be rolled out for the fall. No, no, but I'm talking about when are we buying them, when are we holding meetings, when are we going to communicate out because I don't think we should wait until late summer to communicate. our our plan is actually to also move the code of conduct uh you know hearing and all
051of that they really do tie you know they tie together some other to to do that at the meeting in May. Um we talked about our our first board meeting in May and then um you know from there working through the roll out in the in the end of May and early June when everyone is still here. and a lot of good examples on how to involve others and the point about very as I'm choking sorry more detailed timeline that's part of the discussion right now um and then just one quick question like you hit on it but I'd like you to look at the threshold for clubs continuing because I just went back through my notes from last year and it was the same clubs with low numbers Yep. Did the same thing and
052then we were in the same place all know if we're going to keep putting the same amount of money into like to see the Sure. I mean one club I think we did discontinue was environmental science based on environmental cooking drawing and painting but we have done the other missing. We have eliminated a few clubs over the past few years, but the idea of really reframing within input some of the clubs as well. Yep. Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Um, so next I'd like to call up CO Middle School principal Mark Peterson. So, as you know, Mark had not joined us yet during the needs assessment or the budget committee meetings. Um, so we did take the information from the meetings, shared it with Mark, shared it on the slides. Um, Stacy, Tim,
053and I were at all those meetings. So, if there, you know, if there are questions that, um, you know, Mark can't answer, then then we'll we'll help chime in. They're happy to make it a collaborative effort. Teamwork. Team work. Coming up here prepared to tell Alliance I work all year. As you can see, our numbers are relatively stable. Um, we're going down a little next year, but that's partly because we're offloading some of our students, more of our students onto Laura that we're receiving from the elementary school. Um, but you can see it's relatively in the same line. Um, roughly about 20 something students difference next year. Um, one of the biggest differences um that you'll notice up here as well, our DNL population. Um we currently have um four in the sixth grade. Next
054year we're getting eight. Um but it's balancing out because we're losing um 12. We're picking up eight. So um so it's we're really stable next year in terms of our population. So um our clubs I listened to the concerns of the board um Mr. Jack's concern and that was one of my concerns too when I looked at the numbers here. Um, for a school the size of the middle school, I would have liked to see the numbers higher. I would have also liked to see more clubs, but there's that's a like a catch 22. The question is, if we have more clubs, would we have more students involved? Um and if we did have more students in town would um diminish the number of students in each of these clubs. My thought is that maybe
055probably we take a look at historical figures and see which which clubs are they have been underpop populated so far and maybe see if we can find some more vibrant clubs. Maybe those clubs may actually attract more students, but we do need to have more students involved in after school activities. Every afternoon I see everyone just leaving the school in droves and with buildings that empty except for after school detention. I prefer if we have students in clubs and activities rather than in detention. So the numbers are out there. Um I do I would like to see them high and see a wider variety. Um as for the needs assessment um these came from the teachers and my predecessor um um the this year what we are proud of I should say but so we
056have a wag um we have some students come around they're going to go and they um some of our lowest functioning kids and they're learning these life skills and they come around they serve They make coffees and they serve coffees and cakes to the staff members. So they it's it's a very positive thing for them because they feel wanted and needed and you know they're doing a service for everyone. So we're very proud of that. Um, New York State Science Intermediate Investigations. As you might be aware, this year is the first year that the science is going to be coming to the sixth grade. Um, from through the fifth grade. Um, prior it was eight and four. Now it's in the fifth grade. And it also changed this. The format of the exam has also
057been changed. So our teachers went out and they got some training on the difference between um what it was then prior they used to have some labs which had to be done in the building. Now that seem to be a big that's changed a little. So they had to go out and get some training on that. So they're proud of that. Um the Ira program is up and running in the sixth grade. Um teachers are enjoying it. I go to classes almost every day and I see some students working on it. They they seem quite functional on ID and when they're on their Chromebooks and they're doing their thing. So they're they've been doing it quite well so far and they're very interested. Um some of our teachers I think this is over the summer.
058I spoke with Miss Penny this afternoon. They went on a training program to at Boseis cap region Boseis. Um they learned about um a project based learning um that they could bring back to the school and they I think there were about four of them and they came back implemented a project based learning in their classes and then they presented it back to OC's and basically got um a com basically got accolades for what they have done. So they are proud of it. The fact that they went, they did their stuff and they were able to go back and they were approved, but um they were proud of what the teachers were able to implement. Um transition back to school and schoolology. Well, I wasn't here. I don't know what it was before, but it's
059also for my first time using school and schoolology. Prior I did um e school and power school. So this is new for me. So I think it's also new for the teachers. So we're in the same boat. Um our departments right now says they are fully staffed and I pause when I say that because on the needs assessment it might say something slightly different. But depending on where we go next year um as we start looking at our scheduling um there's some things that we may want to change around. And so it might we might need to make some changes with staff. Um I should also say and although it says we're fully staffed, we are also at this point short of one teaching assistant which um I understand we have advertised for. We may
060have even interviewed for but the person has not yet come and told. So we're functioning but with a little more little massaging things could be different. And so you'll see that on the next slide with the needs assessment. Okay. So our needs there we go. instructional number one the math AIS teacher um the sixth grade team I met with them and their desires of changing um the the way the teams are designed at the same time part of the their idea is we have quite a few enrichment programs in the building and we want to make sure that they are more functional than how they currently are working and maybe if we had an AIS math teacher, we could take those students out of the enrichments and have a qualified math teacher helping them. So
061the way it's being run now, um enrichment, it could be done differently, but bear in mind that you know the needs of the students are not entirely what what they're getting in the enrichments. So we would like to make it more effective. Um.3 our teacher um and we thought of um half point two one teaching pair of a technology teacher. So those are some of the needs and by the way I am I must add noticeably absent from their um instructional is a principal Please make sure to put that soon every day to see next year and every day I tell her no by the way. I know. And I decide I'm going to win this fight. So we just principle um school she's bad school safety um well we would like to increase our
062campus monitors um safety monitors by at least a.5. Now, one of the things I have noticed the last 18 days is the time our campus security start. And if we were to get a 0.5 person, we would have them there. We'll be able to stagger their their hours so that we could have someone there in the morning and especially in the afternoon when kids are coming and when they're leaving. Most times that's when things happen. We can survive more in the middle of the day if we had them staggered um for a couple hours here and a couple hours there, but we do need the more security around after school and before five would help us tremendously. Um Laura mentioned alternative program and I I think she probably from us but um But anyway, um
063we have a mutual feeling when it comes to this. I have noticed since in the last 18 days, we do have a lot of students, an inordinate number of students in the middle school who they're having a tough time being in the building, being in their classroom on a regular basis, and they're not getting the most out of the education system. the way we have it. Um I think if we were to have were to have an alternative program, we could utilize it and have a shared service where some of these students could be in that program. I have also noticed that we have had some students who have not been coming to the building for weeks, months. And some of these students for whatever the reason is maybe if they were in that alternative
064setting a smaller group setting maybe they would be feel more comfortable maybe it would more beneficial to them. So I hear more sentiment that we could do some pro something else for these students because we're losing some of them many of them out there who are just not being serviced as as they should. Um the the the Y of Initiative I spoke with Diana and I spoke with uh Miss Duff my vision is to I won't be here it's going to be on them. So Diana needs to be versed in this. Um I I would want the teachers to have the buy in. And so I spoke with Miss D. She's a building rep. um that Diana missed off and I think a safety personnel should be going to Dawn Middle School in um in
065Troy. Um Diana was going with the school and then a time a date and time when they're going to pay the school a visit and come up with the idea. I spoke to Laura and once Diana visits Troy, they're going to come back and they will share with Laura and her team because they the high school already went on their visit. So we had an extra go and hopefully very soon. So that's it for our needs and um just type in the principal there. be able to answer. Can I just ask the the the.3 and point 2? Are are those needs based on current enrollment or are they needs based on next year's enrollment for the art teacher and tech teacher? Well, they're based on current enrollment for both of those. Right now, we're as
066a matter of fact, right now we have someone who's teaching art who's not an art teacher. So, we're trying to fill that that vacancy. Yeah. So the art is is current and will need to continue the technology that's new for next year but on any given year at times you might have seen the point 2 in the in the budget um sometimes scheduling is able to be done without it sometimes um not it wasn't in there last year but because of the numbers um of of seventh graders moving to eighth and yeah in this year it ended up when we did because there's so many because we do have our full art teacher academic um no alter adapted. Thank you. Uh, and we needed to add uh we had to come up with another section
067that had to run concurren because again we just had so many seventh graders and our art classes are always pretty pretty packed. We got a lot of um we got a lot of core teachers back after the big layouts of the 2011ish year but we did not retain we did not get a lot of special teachers back. So again, that's what we're trying to um just make sure that our class sizes are are reasonable. The eighth grade um obviously for for next year, the tech, we had toyed with it this year, but we were able to make it happen without it. But again, with that cohort size for next year, um I don't see how we can be able to offer if we're going to current model that we're scheduling now. I don't know how
068to fit them all into um the size that Okay. So.3 we're currently using continuing on 2 is based on schedule. Yes. Okay. And what is the current campus safety monitor schedule look like? What's your what's your current um 8 to 3 right now? And and what do you have? We have two and a half. Two and a half. They come from from 8:00 to 3:00. 2 and a half. Okay. So the 0.5 will give us three and that will then give us the ability to stand by. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions? If I could just say one thing about the clubs and I addressed it with too. Um one of the things it's a great problem to have. We just had to kind of figure it out because as you saw because our musical
069in our drop have just exploded which is amazing and the kids love it. I know that when I was trying to get some numbers, protecting like how many tips like protect numbers were, you know, were up a lot. A lot of the clubs were up before the fall that the kids, you know, the kids get so involved musical productions that we're hoping to see them swing up against. I don't know if there's schedule our things differently, but again, as many I don't think there we don't have restrictions on when clubs have like that's not so busy with the so busy physical that a lot of times they they don't have time to to be in the clubs or even and Jen told us there's 52 kids just in baseball and softball, not to mention however
070many are in track. So if you're looking at your cohort sizes, you know, you can see for sure, like you said, you don't want to steal from one to get from another. Um, but it's capturing those kids who aren't currently involved. So maybe as part of our our whole discussion about clubs, both middle and high school, we can also talk about models. So for example, our intramural models, you know, there's three different sections of intramurals at different times of the of the year. We can have some of those discussions too looking at those time periods. So I think that would be great to have a 612 discussion things too that actually everyone knows including with career development and um you know like I said it's uh you know our one club that's a volunteer run
071club here you know to present it to you guys earlier. It's it's a very successful club. They meet every Monday. They're I think they're starting filming already. Is that the mixed media club and and again that was that was kiddriven. They wanted it you know it was their idea and we were able to make it happen. I don't know how much movement we have in having some of these clubs maybe shift volunteer tweak some things the kids input on what kind of clubs they're really interested in. So I think we're all pretty flexible to hear whatever options you come up with. I will say as a parent of a high schooler and a middle schooler, the visibility is almost non-existent. Um, so I would definitely say you can move more to make it known for
072parents. Okay? Because sometimes their kids just need a swift kick to uh do things that they need to add to their schedule. So we can add that to the discussion too on communication. So not my style. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Um, so before I uh turn this over to uh Stacy, um wanted to uh follow up on a few other things. Um so last time when CSR presented, there were questions regarding paving at the high school and attempting to capture more parking. We've had discussions with O and we've um reached out to ask uh CS Arch to come to the April 9th meeting because the with the expectation that the paving bids would then be on the second meeting in April. So, we want to make sure that before we're um
073bringing um you know that that uh bid to you that uh we have those discussions. So, just so you know. And then also at our next meeting, um that's when we'll be following up on the ENL um ENL uh potential of moving back to um home schools at the elementary level. An ENO parent focus group was held on March uh 6 and um there were 12 families who attended out of um 19 who you know had been invited for focus group all families whose home school will be lancing or van Skype. We had translators in Spanish, Ukrainian, Portuguese and Chinese. Um the discussions were were were favorable. um going to really provide you the information in advance of the next meeting and then go into some of the other areas as well. And then one
074other one other item staffing at our elementary meeting staffing was discussed. So um I will share that with you and then if you have any questions we can talk about that at the next meeting as well. Thank you. So, at this point in time, I'm going to turn it over to the fabulous Miss Matthews. I just have a few quick updates for you. Uh, so March is the second installment of tax collection. So, we sent out reminders and receipts uh in late February. Uh, so that's underway. We have uh two audits that we're uh participating in. The first is with our internal auditor um Michael Wolf who conducts the annual risk assessment. So uh he's currently he was here last week. He's working on 2324 that's due that survey is due at the end of
075April. Uh so you'll see that uh that report as soon as he issues it uh sometime in the next couple of weeks. And then we were selected uh cos are selected for the ERS audit um with KPMG. So we've uh submitted uh everything that they've asked for. They had a couple follow-up questions uh this week that I have to get back on. But um so those are the two audits that we're currently uh working on. Uh the free market health program. I brought this up a few months ago now at this point. Uh so this is a Kashik initiative with Highark Blue Cross Blue Shield or Highark um yeah Blue Cross Blue Shield. Um we did have an all employee meeting in early March on March 4th. We had one before school then after school.
076Um the uh premise of this program is uh for prescription drugs and it's really to focus on um medical necessity. So we already have a prior authorization. We have two tiers. It's adding a third tier. Uh the focus is is mainly GLP1s which is the weight loss drugs. Um so the GLP1s uh if somebody is already on a prescription they would be grandfathered into the program as long as their uh prescription is active uh when the when the rollover changes. They wouldn't have to go through the pre-authorization process. Um, Free Market Health would also add a competitive bidding for the mail order drugs. So, that would happen behind the scenes. And again, this these are drugs that are mailed to the person's home. Uh, so it would come from potentially a different pharmacy. Uh, but
077there wouldn't the u individual wouldn't notice anything except for that was coming from a different pharmacy. Um, so all the savings related because we're self-insured would be passed on to everybody that participates in the plan. Um, so I do have a cashic meeting tomorrow. We did have to do a survey where we are in the process. Um, in order to move forward, we would do MOAs with the units. So they've given us a standard MOA um that I've shared with PUG. So is this a mandatory commitment to stay within the cash model? Is this just initiatives that districts have to choose to be a part of or not be a part of? I know that you had brought this up at a another meeting. Um, and at that time it wasn't discussed that it was
078for only prescription medicine, right? Um but also at the time was a little concerning to me that we would have you know one person ultimately you know choosing the fate of someone's prescription drugs without it being necessarily the doctor. It's the insurance company saying no you can't have this. So um you know for people that are on trial you know prescriptions andor trial medications you know I I guess my questions are you know what is our level of commitment are are we required to do this and have there any been any discussion as to like where where that falls into place so it's currently it's not a requirement it's very clear that the districts that don't participate will have higher uh premiums. Um it's not a you're not going to have this medicine. It's a
079we already have pre-authorizations. We have two tiers. So, it's adding a third tier. And it's um not to not provide medication to people who need it. It's uh more of um identifying medical necessity um instead of what could be perceived as a like a cosmetic uh type drug. Um but someone from the insurance company is going to determine that. Uh I'm listen I'm not trying to put you on the spot, but you know, we should question things like this. I understand that the cost is going down, but is it the right thing to do for our people? I don't know. I've never heard of anybody on this program. I don't have any feedback. I'm asking the questions because I think they're valid questions. Like I said, I have some a family member who's on trial
080drugs who has been denied time and time again, regardless of, you know, what their physician says and and it's not necessarily, you know, what their insurance company says. So, I think it's important for us to have discussion as to whether or not we feel like this is, you know, the right thing to do just because it's the cheaper option. So, let's do we know anybody that's currently on this program? Is it new? Uh, it's new to Cashuk. Yeah. Okay. I mean, I would be interested in hearing from, you know, if there's other consortiums who have used this where, you know, there are some positives. I I mean, obviously, they're going to tell you the positives. Like, that's what their job is to tell you the positives. So, um, you know, all the costs are going
081down. We know that, you know, prescription coverage is through the roof. We understand that. We know that there's many different options out there that could be out there, but also we don't want to limit oursel to saying, you know, this third tier is is the yes or no to, you know, getting what you need. So, we can get you some additional information. So, for example, with with this type of model, you know, um numbers of staff that that might impact um what are some other districts that are doing that, etc. So, we can get more information to you and I I mean, if person here that you know, no, no, I mean obviously like information. Yeah. Exactly. and switching any insurance plan over for a large group of people, you have to, you know, you
082can't just do it based upon one person's needs or assessments or what the insurance company is telling you because like Margaret said, they're going to tell you, of course, this is the best thing, the cheapest. Um, I mean, we all know insurance premiums are going 20%, 30% up this year. And also to Margaret's point, Margaret, your medications are always going to be chosen by your insurance company regardless of whether your doctor says you need it or not. That's just the way that the the cookie crumbles now. And it's a horrible system, but that is exactly the system we live in. We definitely need to know people who have used this, what they have come to with it. We also need to get the demographics of the prescriptions that our current employees are on from the
083insurance company to know if that the demographics of those insurance of the prescriptions and all those things are going to be covered on the new plan. Um we can't just blindly go and say okay like this is a tier one, tier 2, tier three. You very much can ask our insurance carrier. they've shared all of that and that's what you need to do is to go into that. We're not we're not we're not switching plans either. I just want to be clear, right? But it's also that requires more time and effort on the employees part in order to get the medication that they may or may not ultimately be prescribed. Exactly. So I mean have you given the demographics of what we currently have for our employees and the prescription plan over to the new
084Uh, no it's high level. Um, I don't have what employee and what prescription. I high level never going to have that. But I mean like what the, you know, like what are your highest um prescriptions that are being utilized by your employees? Is that so going to be covered? Stacy has had a lot of discussions and a lot of, you know, information. We will get that information. Yeah. And I think that's all that Margaret and I are asking for. Like we got to see not to we've never brought anything to us that has been unresarched or you know unplanned for sure. Not saying that I but it is our job to ask questions. You know we are one of the largest employers if not the largest employer in the entire city and I think we
085have a responsibility to make sure that this is good for our people too. Good for our budget, good for our wallets but also good for our people. So I'm hearing number of employees types of prescriptions. Yeah. Anything else? I'm again I'm just curious. I don't know how a format like this works. I can tell you that, you know, time and time again, things are, you know, denied before they even get to the point where, you know, you're waiting for an appointment and now you have to get pre-authorization or you're waiting for, you know, certain things to happen and now you have to wait for for pre-authorization. What does that look like? What's the time frame look like? You know, what is their denial rate? What what who's who's already using this and and what does
086what is their experience? And it is now just the prescriptions. It's not the medical side of it. It's prescriptions. Yeah. Thank you. Um and then finally, uh transportation. Uh so I'm working on a transportation RFP. I'm working uh with Boseies on this process. It's about 72 pages of fun. Um we are looking at all of our contractual transportation. So it would be special programs in and out of district. It would be booy CTE, the McKenna Vento and foster uh students ELELLL and the summer age program. Um, so we're looking for efficiencies because the costs have really um spiked over the past couple of years for for this uh particular service. So time frame um is late April for this. Uh we'll evaluate the RFP once it comes in. Uh the goal would be to take
087action in May for this and then um it would be effective for the summer age program. So it' be effective for July and then uh the rest of the runs would be effective for first day of school in September. Stacy, you may not be able to answer this question, but I know we ran into some issues with some of our transportation providers not being able to get to games and activities and field trips um due to staffing issues on their end. Is there any protections in these contracts for things like that or is it just so sorry? So in this so that's a separate um that's a separate vendor that's not included in this RFP field trips and athletics. Okay. Um so in this uh particular RFP we're working on some uh monetary um penalties
088if you will. Yes. Uh yeah. So trying to work that out. Um that hasn't been standard historically for us. So that's kind of a new um a new look. Um but hopefully that would help. Yes, for sure. And we're asking also for um well, there's a lot in the 72 pages, but we're looking we're looking at having uh penalties, monetary penalties if they're not able to provide some of the services. Thank you, Lisa. Can I ask um so I heard of uh potentially a couple districts up north uh looking at who struggled with, you know, some of our Mckin bento where it's a singular rider going from, you know, one place to another looking at a format where they are reimbursing um families for transportation. Have have we looked into that or are is it
089allowable for us to do that? It is it is allowable. We've done it periodically with some of our special needs uh students. I can't recall recently anyways um when we've had a McKenna Vento student. Uh it is allowed. I don't know if it's restricted just to that, but I I kind of heard of a conversation and I was like that's interesting, but I didn't know if that was something we've explored. We've done it in the past for parent reimbursement if that's a question. However, a lot of times our McKenna Vento students don't have transportation. So, we we work with that, but we have we have done we have done it occasionally. We also there's also language in this RF. Again, it's not it's not done yet, but um there's also language asking uh them to
090focus on efficiencies and uh if there can be efficiencies to have um to present a plan. So if we're we'd be sharing um a bus with um school district that they contract with to have a plan for them and what that looks like. Um so it's it's very different than what we have had historically but hopefully um it'll be better. And what is that? Um that's not pressure. That's April right now. Right now, I have April 22nd as the due date. Okay. Um hoping that I can finish it this week and then get it advertised. Okay. I might need to push it out depending on a week or so, but that's the goal right now, April 22nd. And just to give you um a couple other RFPs that we're currently working on, um RFP for
091a new medical director. Um you know, Dr. literature has notified us that she won't be able to continue as medical director and then also an RFP for um our prek. Um we uh have a strong partnership with the Boys and Girls Club, but through a um state review. The recommendation is that every so often, you know, we do an RFP. So, we're working on revising our previous RFP. Last time we did that was uh for the 2019 2020 school year and so that will be as well. And then this is when I said finally I thought we were at this slide but we weren't. Um so as we've had some discussions that um you know uh beginning next school year uh there needs to be an exeicio uh high school you know school board member
092um and we've discussed how you know exciting that idea is love to get feedback from students um our policy committee meeting uh thank you to Mr. for signing on board to to that along with Mrs. Giller um is meeting uh next week. We wanted to bring this up um at this meeting um because because there are some options in terms of how to choose the school board member as the student and just wanted to review those options and just have a have a discussion tonight. So the policy itself has some pretty much fill in the blanks. Mhm. So when I was reviewing it for our policy committee meeting, I thought um you know we could just meet as a policy committee and then present and then you know get kind of a guide, but we
093really kind of need to at least make a decision based on um what options that we have for the selection process. And so there's different things, you know, it talks about what what the board the policy will talk about what uh the student board members role is, what information um they would be provided and have access to. Um you know whether we would have them be here for an entire meeting, if they would be here for just their update and then leave. Uh many districts do that. You can say that they can leave at a certain point um during the meeting. You can also appoint one um board member. We have to appoint at least one, but you can appoint an alternative. That way there's not a missing um you know, we're not missing someone.
094Um it does state in the policy, you know, three absences is considered vacant. So, we really have to kind of adjust the policy to work for us and work for what we think our kids are going to be able to do and the level of commitment that we're asking for. We know that our kids are involved in a lot of things and can't always expect that throughout the entire school year we would have necessarily the same person who is eligible. So, I wanted to be able to have this discussion for us to think about different things. Um I um think that all of these these are the oh the high schools. Okay. So these options here there was one more right that's that small city school district can't use and that would be an elected
095student. So like if a student were to campaign for themselves inside of the school district I think that's the only one that that that we can't use. So um student elected as student president um student elected by student government. So it would probably be student council would then elect a representative appointed by the high school principal appointed by the superintendent or appointed by vote of the the school board. So thought we would have discussion. Luckily Mrs. Charles here and might be able to give us an idea. It's hard conversation to have again like especially pinpointing. We know that people in um the student president for example has a lot of things to do already and and maybe that not might not be a good fit for our district. Um, so any conversations, thoughts anybody might
096have on, you know, how to guide this discussion or and then I can tell you also that Laura and I did have, you know, have a discussion in advance of the meeting, but we would like to do we know what districts are currently doing this, but um I can tell you well since Scott does it, they doing it for years and years. It is part of their student government. They have a representative from student government come. It's not always the same representative. Okay. Their policy has, you know, it's basically grandfathered in. It's just a member of the student um leadership team. Um so they have been doing it, they do it every single board meeting. The student essentially starts the meeting. Um you know, the the president does, you know, the roll call and then
097it's the student report and and then they leave for the remainder of the meeting. But we don't have to do that. So it it it's not mandatory until this new year, but there are other a number of other districts who who have done it as well. We've had discussions around around that. I can just start by um I think both Mrs. Tarlo and I would prefer not to nominate a student. Um and you know, I'm not sure how how the board feels. We we like the options of having it come from a student. I would agree. I would agree. I would want the student to want to be here or not. Yeah. Think having someone who wants to be here. Yeah. Exactly. I mean sometimes I don't know if you want to add something more
098opportunity for guardians exposure when they're high school students. First, I would love to see students in it more than just a completely on campus with the one in house to have a a governance experience, especially for students looking for going to school political science or areas like that that could provide a robust experience for them to help them with future commercials. And I I mean that's sort of where so more so the elected individual by student government where it didn't have to be the president. It certainly have to be the president. It might be a student who's in it who has different interests and maybe they're not about the same 10 of them, you know. So, this might be something that you're going to be excited about. Sure. And and what are your thoughts about
099a a primary uh board member or an alternate because that is also part of the policy. You have to actually identify if if you're having an alternate or not. I think and ultimately it's a great idea because a lot of kids have do have very busy schedules and we want to have a representative you know principal have assistance that they could be great to have some of the student I see any thoughts on the matter um I mean I definitely agree with the whole political science aspect of the child you know I don't I don't foresee somebody doing it just to say, "Hey, I'm going to go and spend my Wednesday night at a schoolboard meeting, you know, something like that." And and like you say, Laura, that's going to, you know, give them a
100feel of government and how things are and and volunteering your time because we all know the pay is, you know, substantial and um so, you know, like that's something that if that child is interested in doing that at a later date, the earlier they start doing it, the better that they start doing it. um pretty much the same as like having like a mock trial um club in the school which I don't know not to talk about adding new clubs but used to I mean a trial is you know or having you know like your student peers be the people who tell you what your punishments are for your in school suspension stuff like that. I just I'm a big proponent of it and I really do think that it's coming from someone who who
101wants to do this, wants to be here and it's not just to, you know, sit up here and Yeah. So I mean I think okay so we'll we'll have it elected by the high school student government and then we'll include al alternate in there um discussions about the amount of time because again that that is something we can say they could be dismissed early. Um it doesn't mean necessarily that they have to but it's an option. You have to put it in the policy if we're saying that we might dismiss them early. So there's a bigger plan in this where the superintendent actually has to come up with you know what exactly the work of the student is going to be in you know in cooperation with myself but there are pieces of it that
102we kind of have to identify and you know we know that first reading second reading adoption is going to take three meetings for us to get this through right we want to do the best we can to get the things in that are kind of high level and and then we'll get into the pieces of what the response responsibilities are what the details are as far as what information that student would get um decision making capabilities like those types of things. So is there a certain aspect of what they are responsible for telling us in their they have to pretty much identify what the role is. Okay. It is very clear about what they cannot have access to as what we have access to as board members. you know, some of our backup things, any
103kind of personnel issues, certainly any student discipline issues, they would be involved in more high level discussions. We're having a conversation about code of conduct. Would you like to contribute anything? But there is no decision-making. There is no extra vote. There's no um backup materials. It's more kind of a student perspective, I believe. You know, it's it but that would be determined, you know, probably also with Mrs. furlo involved in and formatted before but the problem is we have to have someone already elected and in place by July 1st. So we can um we can provide some samples of what other districts do. We can use that conversation around and then and then we'll and then go from there. I do think that if we're having a student become uh a meaningful member of anything
104that they would need to be here for the full meeting. knowing that executive session things like that would be off the t off the plate or off the table. Um but also knowing that there are we all have things come up. You're excused if you need to be excused and part of the reason for an ultimate. But I do feel strongly that them coming in to do a presentation is a little it's almost patronizing um to this. Yeah. Like oh you could be this and then but you can leave. Let them be part of the full experience. Thank you. I agree. Anybody else? So, I think we have enough to move forward at least um for our next policy committee. Thank you very much, guys. And then some upcoming events tomorrow night, CMS exhibition night.
105So, uh I know that reminders went out to elementary schools today, too. So, hopefully get some fifth graders and their parents. uh the descendants uh that we already talked about and then also I can't see but that's okay the ENL information night picnic um coming coming up. I do also just want to mention that I had the pleasure of seeing the the girls bowl in Syracuse this weekend and uh they did an amazing job and um I think as time went on I started really understanding bowling. for you. Well, thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, so we'll just move on with our agenda. Does the board have any items on tonight's agenda that they would like to discuss? Uh, I know our hands are mostly tied with the school calendar, but I have to
106say as a parent thing I possibly ever seen as far as how early it starts, how late it goes, and the extra days that I have to find care for around Christmas time. And then as a aside, the seven likely half days I think are concerning when we look at our attendance drop like a rock the elementary levels. I know my kids are normally below 50% in their classrooms. Is there any consideration at some point to still including that amount of PD but doing it as full days instead of half days? So we so so a few things. You're right. We're constrained by when the regents are offered and then going going backwards for the start. So there are a number of constraints. Um we could have one um you know this goes before a
107calendar committee. We have some discussions in the so going forward and we point taken going forward we could have a discussion. We can have one additional full day superintendence conference day. we use three um what so we could have one additional um day. I can tell you that this this year we had our secondary half days on parent conference days and then we had um an additional half day in March for elementary. Uh it made sense to have our half days both be um you know K12 for more flexibility. So, and then have elementary parent conferences only on those days. Um, we felt that October would be a really good time to touch base, you know, um, right, you know, month into the start of the school year, month and a half. Um, and elementary
108does not have, you know, PD PD time. Secondary did under the model. Um, so we can definitely consider that uh, going forward. Rick, can I just also can I I'm just going to ask as you know the opposite or whatever. What are your concerns about you're saying the early start the late ending and find for kids when you're doing it continuously finding random day here half day there is significantly more difficult. So, are you talking about the days off that are in there? Because you said the start of school starting so early, which it's starting on September. So, we end up starting earlier, right? And we always start after the the week after Labor Day. Conditions limit us to what Bosey's calendar is. They set their calendar to give them to us. So again, region's
109testing day, rating day is as I said, the majority of the state, right? I mean because I I mean Oh me that's good. You always put the week after Labor Day which this is the week after Labor Day. You're always get the pretty much the two weeks at Christmas and then like December 22nd, 23rd and January 2nd are going to be super fun for me. Believe me, you want to have a come back on Friday. You're not going to bring your school back on Friday. I was going to say I think the Bosey's calendar is just coming back that one day. Um, again having school in session but then having your kids not be able to go to their half-day program. What do we do with kids when they don't have half day program? Also,
110if we have any teachers who are boseies, i.e. virtual teacher or whatever, we would not have that teacher available if they were closed. Additionally, we've got 180 school days that we are required to have. 900 minutes at the elementary, 990 at the secondary. If we have a half day, it counts as an instructional day. and it does not count towards your minutes. So if you take all of those half days and give a full PD day, you're taking away from your 180 minutes, I can tell you we have 184 on the calendar because we have the same days counted out. superintendent. What I'm telling you is if you were to give full day superintendent or full day PD days, you would not meet your instructional hours. It's in minutes. You would not meet your days.
111made up for it. I disagree. You would not have you would not meet your days. Disagree with that point. I filled out the state spreadsheet yesterday. Okay. So, what I'm hearing though is for this year, this is fine. That's not me. I will approve it. But over objection, he is approving it. Okay. I just as I said at the elementary level the amount that occurs on half days is abysmal because there's you know kids in class and I see both sides of it but knowingly giving up basically seven instructional days a year makes me grind my feet. So I think we can also have discussions around how to focus additional support for the students that are there on the half days. any community discussions agenda items. Thank you. Question about growing population and just students
112that are coming from households where a parent may live in one town or city nearby and the other lives here. um now access to transportation. I don't know what monetarily it would work out to, but I I wanted to ask about the consideration for a more robust program with CDA. And I don't know if it's what it used to look like, if that's the right program or if it's a deal for a wrership card, for a student rate, you know, a school card for the post high school rider card for a discounted rate. And not just for recy families, but for the families that we spend a lot of time talking to that don't have access to transportation to live with a single parent on an island. We had a frigid winter and a lot
113of kids just chose not to come to school and you know we it's really hard to move our attendance through really really hard. So it's just you know and we maybe re talk with CDTA or reimagine that doesn't need to be the same thing it was before. you know, the data show that didn't really uh the data we had didn't really show that it did very much or improved um overall attendance, but I know that there's a lot of families challenged with not having any way to get to school. And so with the rising bus and triflifying busing now, is it a better plan to reopen and talk with CBD about how we can improve that for all students because we also have a lot of students trying to apply that become homeless or are
114struggling with with housing insecurity and we need to have a quick um I think planhood in place for a lot of those students. So if they had that CBTA ridership that would allow sort of instantaneous transportation for a lot of those families. So just food for thought as we struggle with transportation and struggle with money as most districts do. So I did have a a meeting with CDTA earlier in the year and it would be good to have a second meeting this time with some principles involved because you know your students and your writerships. We were um you know looking at is there any way the roots change roots have changed too over the years you know um and one of the conversations last conversations was working with Katrina to really look at our data
115coordinator to really look at you know the the pockets of homes and the roots and are there any um potential changes so that you know with the existing roots also I do know that um our Mckin evently and works with them on on ridership cards. Are there ways that we can, you know, advertise advertise that more to our to our families? I know that Harmony Hill also had some questions because in the past there was a route that dropped students off closer to Harmony Hill. So, we can reconvene with CDTA and continue those discussions. Yeah, I think I was just saying to leave the one stop that goes by, right? And that would be a huge help to bring back their kids there for them. Um and I don't know what the philosophy behind the
116moving that's because um I don't know if the strict example Mrs. Marcel, you just bought yourself a seat at the meeting, isn't it? Okay. So, any other discussion? Agenda related items? Can I get a motion that the board of education adopt the following resolutions of March 19th agenda 6 A through D and 7 A through W? I'll make a motion. I'll second it. Mr. Jackson. Yes. Yes. Mrs. Paradise. Yes. Mr. Gro, yes. And Mrs. Geller, yes. Comments from board of education members not related to the agenda. I just preemptively wanted to discuss. We just approved the calendar for the school year. Um, our summer meetings are going to be coming up pretty quickly. So, if you could reach out to Ashley and give out any dates that are absolutely not going to work for you,
117that would be great. So, at least we could try to formulate a plan so that we have an empty seat at the moment. Um, which could mean that we would have the potential of filling a seat in May. And so, we want to make sure that our dates are kind of getting to a point where we know what they're going to look like. also um want to put kind of on your schedule uh thoughts of having a summer workshop for us to discuss um our goals and potentially our data requests for this year so that we can actually get a template of when and what we're looking for, how often um and make sure that the entire board um is in agreement that that's what we need. So just thoughts for future meetings, but also
118to just start planning and and some of those reachout items. As I had mentioned to most of you, we are sending out calendar invites from Google. If you just click yes, no, that'll allow us to be able to know who's going to be at what events. Um the description in in the bottom will also tell you where to go and who to see when you get there. So there should be no confusion this year about any of those pieces. Any uh comments from the audience about anything that is not related to the agenda? Okay. Uh dates for future meetings, April 9th and April 23rd, right here at CO Middle School Library at 6 PM. Can I get a motion motion to enter into exact session at 7:46 p.m. to discuss matters leading to the appointment,
119employment, promotion to motion, discipline, suspension, dismissal, or removal of a particular person or corporation, and to discuss the superintendent's evaluation and to discuss negotiations with CSUS. I'll make a motion. I'll second. Mr. Jackson, yes. Mrs. Snider, yes. Mrs. Gendren, yes. Heritis, yes. Mr. Dro, yes. And Mrs. Geller, yes. We don't expect to come back. So, thank you all for coming.