Cold Spring Harbor BOE 10/21/25

001call this meeting order. May I have first? Bill, a second, Mark. All in favor? >> Um, you want to go to executive session? >> No. >> Okay. So, we're going to start with the pledge of allegiance. Pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> But we do have accordians visitors. So, um, before we start our discussion, if anyone would like to speak on any agenda or non-aggenda items, you're welcome to speak at the podium. Okay. Yes. Okay. All right. So, we have no takers. So, we're going to move on to our discussion part of the meeting. Starting with the budget guide. Let's >> go through the security gates first and then the

002restroom just come over. >> Okay. Okay. So, um I think I asked for this topic and um >> I just want Are we picking up on Mike Jeffrey? >> Yes, we are. You need to be a little bit closer. >> Thank you. >> I might sing the guitar. And here we go. >> Exactly. So, um I had asked for this item. Uh hopefully we don't need to spend too much time on it, but um I know um I' I've heard some comments about the gates. And so my what I'm curious about is is there any anything we can do in terms of either exploring with the architect or uh I know the mayor of Laurel Hollow might have had thoughts based on the westside gates, but um is there anything we could do to spruce

003them up to make them look a little more uh appealing from a an an aesthetics point of view? I know they're serving the the safety purpose is the number one goal. Um, so I was just curious and we don't have to solve it tonight, but I'd like to start that conversation. >> Sure. Um, the mayor reached out to me. I reached out to him again last week for him to provide. He's he thought he going to gather some suggestions from people in the area and he said he just didn't have enough time to do that yet and he's working on that. So, we can wait till Dan gets back to us on there. I I guess the question is, is it the gate and I think someone had mentioned the po or the pole that

004they're I guess anchored to is a question or both. Um, if there's any discussion you want to have on that. >> Yeah, I think it could be both. >> Okay. I'm I'm not u I'm not a town and country expert, so I don't know what they should look like or maybe they're fine the way they are, but um >> I don't see out the red, white, and blue. Did you see the pictures? >> Uh >> here. >> Yes, I did. >> I think bushes or something. think something that blends a little more. >> I think the black definitely blends more than the red, white, and blue. >> Yeah, black is what things are painted to just blend. I mean, even if you're going to put a fence, it would be black, so you can see

005through it. I I don't >> I don't get used to it. >> Yeah. I don't see a problem aesthetically. The red, white, and blue gates I see a problem with aesthetically. I think it looks >> maybe the holes. You can see like >> we did a demo what red, white, and blue looks like here. >> And I just folded all of my American flag sweaters. We know I love to put on the red, white, and blue, but that's not uh >> we do have we made these little um >> That's cute. >> They're cute. >> Yeah. >> So, of course, at Westside, it can't be the sea hug. It has to be the whale Dr. Barnes would have me on. >> So, we could order to make it look but it definitely has to be

006reflected. That's part of DT just as a safety thing. >> I guess if we can look if we want something shrub here to hide that a little bit we could. >> Seahawks reflected. >> Seahawks are reflective. >> Is it dangerous to cover up poles with bushes like or do you need to even put reflective things on the poles? >> There are the from the vendor there are no reflectors on the pole here. These are pretty deep in don't quote me exactly. This is about This is the closest street four to 5 ft. And the one over here, it may be hard. This is the um I'm sorry. This is the entrance. The exit is the one that's closer. This is the exit. There is a telephone pole here. If you hit that pole, you're hitting

007the telephone. There's no if two skip laurels. >> Just go. I think that's a plant. So >> that means yeah that might be fine. >> Yeah. So I I I don't think the board has to solve it. I just think we should see if somebody has a recommendation or knows better about these things. >> So like I said Dan said he's going to get back to me the mayor if he has any suggestions. But >> I can see here he also did mention the one that's further north. I have a picture of that here. We we have a gate I didn't put any on west side at the far end of west side. >> Before it was just a a wire across the gate was really that to prevent more people from using it. Dan's

008concern was that we were going to use it more often. I I texted them back. It's really more to prevent people from using it. They really could have judged with the trike lifted up the wire and got underneath and they were on the gate on the property. Now it is one of these gates. it's really preventing anyone from uh getting their quad or whatever onto the truck. It's more preventative. That's the way I I saw it. Uh but we could definitely look at getting a couple shrubs here on this side and the other side and and making it look a little nicer. Yeah, we should definitely have come up with ideas. And now that we have the architects on the facilities committee, um the upper turf has two nice pillars in front. They're not directly

009in front. They were probably put in after the brick pillars on either side but not attached to the right to the pole. They look a kind of nice entrance on the bottom picture. Um those little no >> those little seahawks look really good I think. Um but on the other side it's an orange triangle. But we do see >> we do. You know what? And I saw that the other day when it was open. >> Yeah. >> Like we had it when it was closed, but when the gates open, you see the other side. >> Yeah, I think we need to do I thought the same thing. >> We could double that up >> on the other side. That's not a problem for aesthetics. And Westside, uh, we will definitely go with that. >> I

010know. I I feel like when the one when these went up at the high school, I did like originally was like, look, like they kind of seem like an eyesore, but now you're just used to them. >> Like I It's just >> No, the gates. the gates themselves >> and even the traffic light. But like now I just it's there. It's not it's just >> I don't know question about the interior gate at west side when um this one's not by the room but it's by the school. Is that picture of this? Yes. So it doesn't look like it when it's closed now but when parents are coming in to drop off in the morning and pick up there's now a guard that needs to be stationed there to direct traffic because it's the way

011it's angled. I don't think it's a tight opening because of its location. You you could have two cars in there, but it's close with some of these large cars. So, is there a way that we could move it, keep the gate, but just move it so it's not at that angle? I >> I would have to see the opening is and I don't have the measurements on there. You could get two of the largest trucks through. It's definitely a little bit tighter if if if you look at this on an along the curb. This pole is in line with the curve. Sorry, we lose on the curve here 8 in. So the difference to here and this goes in with the line when they saw them of of the of the white line here. So

012that presumably is where most cars will end. So we lost a couple inches. There definitely enough space for two of the largest SUVs on the road I looked up to pass with about 3 ft of of give. I think what the issue is when you're coming in straight, you're coming out of here as a curve. So people are turning and they're being cautious. >> We've never had that before. So in these rooms, so now we have a person directing. >> I think part is they also see these here like they're a little bit more if someone hit that curbal >> they hit the curb. Who cares? >> But now if you hit that, you're going to be damaged to your car. And I've seen people with the curb before. We could look I think that's

013a bigger reconfiguration of this setup. Like we would either have to move this hole here. This is a swing that comes out which I don't think you're going to pick much here. It's more on this end which maybe we pick up a foot a foot you have a max but it's still going to be limited by how big this car is in there. If you have a big SUV and it comes in the actual you're not picking anything up but they're just going to limit that. If you have a little um bug or something you're going to pick up more space. We can look I do think it's a total reconfiguration and do over on this one. While we're on the gates, can I just bring up that the high school gates are closed all

014the time at night and it's I come to pick up like from like tomorrow night there'll be a cheer competition and the gates are closed. There's kids coming back from sports. It's dark and now they're walking through the parking lot to parents' cars. And I thought they were supposed to be open so that we could pull into the circle and pick them up. and they're never open. And I actually saw somebody I like hate to approach the guards, too, because I feel like it's overstepping for me to go. It's not just a parent asking a question, so I just leave it. But I saw somebody else go up to them and say something and they let one car in and so another car went over and they said no and they turned them away. So

015I I thought that the directive was when parents are coming to pick up from sports, particularly at night, that they should be open for student safety. I I thought they were going to be open until 9:00 p.m. Yeah. to 9 or or when the building is the last activity. I will speak with the security on that. >> The guards stay there last >> the guards close the gates. Yes. >> But do the guards stay until the last team comes home? >> Yes. >> And they're there. So like when the cheer bus came in last Wednesday there >> were the guards there? Yeah, they were there because a guard opened the gate and let somebody in and then he told somebody else no. And I'm sitting in a spot watching all this unfold feeling like >>

016it's really not my place to get up and tell the guards the gate should be open. That's overstepping. So I >> cars are parking and they're blocking where the buses are trying to get in. >> Right. Okay. >> And there's seventh graders on that team, too. There's little kids now running through a parking lot at night. So it's not great. >> Not a problem. That that's that's very easy to solve. So, I'm just going to take a look to see about the the west side bus loop. Uh some aesthetics, maybe picture something on some either brick or possibility of plantings and we'll see what if we can an adjustment on the other side of my side and then >> there's a little I like your little whale idea cuz I do think these seahawks make

017it look cuter and less the the big triangle I think is the ugliest part of the other gate. Not that we need to spend tons of time on how pretty these are. >> Do we have extra of those seahawks? >> No, I I don't remember if we bought four or eight. >> And they might be it might be useful to get a bunch. You know, in the future you may, you know, find other uses. >> You need four more there. And then on the back gauge back over here. Okay. >> Put them on the white pillars at the end of the driveway. If they reflect, I mean, they look better than the orange triangle. >> Okay. Okay. >> So, I guess when you're ready, Joe, the budget guidelines are next. >> Yep. >> Oh, wait.

018We were going to do we'll do budget lab. I'm sorry. >> It was for discussion. Is that something different or >> I think that really should be that's Joe's presentation. >> Okay. We'll we'll just include that in the presentation. >> We'll have Brian go first. >> So then we'll move to our presentations now. And Brian, thank you, will be first up with his board goals update for strategic hiring and development plan. Okay. So, the board had asked uh me to come up with a a plan um to address our hiring and the life cycle of our employees from the time they walk in the door until uh they leave hopefully as retirees. Um, so what I've come up with is uh what I'm terming as a strategic hiring and development plan. Um, I'm looking at

019this as a three-year proposal. Um, this is not something that I believe we can accomplish in just one year. Um, it's going to take, you know, several years to get um the the things we we want out of this. Um the purpose of this plan is to attract highly qualified candidates in a competitive labor market, particularly in specialized instructional and support areas. Um you know, when we post for jobs, um we'll have some jobs where we will literally get a thousand people applied and then other jobs where we may get eight people apply. So, we need to make sure that we are attracting the high highest qualified candidates in all of our positions, even the ones that are a little more difficult to attract. Um, we want to support all our staff throughout their career

020life cycle. Uh, we want to foster growth, engagement, and successful career transitions. Um, we also want to modernize our HR systems and strengthen um our staff support. Um you know our what I believe are our guiding beliefs are our people are our greatest asset. Uh modern efficient HR systems enhance every employees experience and strategic hiring and development ensure the highest quality instruction and support. Um what I would like to propose is uh creating um what what I'm calling a talent management committee um that will guide the work um in this hiring development plan. Um the makeup of the committee would be you know myself um my two assistants um building level representatives both in instructional and non-instructional capacities um members of our bargaining units and a board of ed representative uh or more depending on

021who's available. Um as this is a board goal um the framework of this committee is for us to look at the different areas of an employees life cycle. Um recruiting uh we want to make sure that we're attracting the highest quality candidates. Um hiring make sure that we are streamlining and standardizing the process as much as humanly possible. Um obviously there are some differences when you're hiring instructional versus civil service. um onboarding. Um you know, in my conversations, I had conversations with all the administrators when I started my position and um almost every one of them talked about we need to do a better job of onboarding when employees start, making sure they have everything that they need. They know their login, what things they should have access to. Uh so that's something that we

022need to work on. um training, you know, that would be in conjunction with Miss uh Libertini uh for our instructional staff and also making sure that our non-instructional staff is being trained and also offboarding, looking at why people leave. Um you know, hopefully, you know, like I said, hiring someone so that they're leaving because they're going to retire. Um so the responsibilities of this committee would be to rever review our current practices and policies, recommend uh improvements and modernization. Um I would create subcommittees for each of the five um life cycle elements and then monitor progress um on this goal. Uh, one of the things that I would like to bring to the district is modernizing our HR uh, operations. Um, you know, we are still a very paperbased hiring process. Um, I would like

023to see us be able to expand our HR um, applications. Um, have digital recruiting and applicant tracking. Um there's a lot of companies now that um are will link you into job boards which you know for instructional staff may not be as important but for our non-instructional staff you know expanding our reach would be uh something that we would be looking for. Um, it would allow us to modernize our onboarding so that it would go from one person to the next so that we would make sure that we weren't skipping steps and and and not offering the best uh onboarding experience to our new employees. Um, it could even go into professional growth and performance reviews. Uh, and it would provide us with data analytics for our hiring and uh ret retention trends. Um so

024the goal here would be to find a unified HR tool to improve the efficiency and accuracy and employee experience. So my uh three-year um plan would be year one uh to work on foundation and planning um form the talent management committee audit our hiring processes and pilot um on human resources module. Um, in year two, roll out the chosen platform districtwide. Uh, launch our digital hiring, recruiting, and onboarding modules. Um, in year three, optimize and continuous improvement. Use the analytics to understand why people why people come, why they stay. Uh, and then evaluate our mentoring, our exit, you know, exit data and our professional growth. Um, you know, I believe that this will streamline our HR operations. It will improve candidate and employee experience. Um, it will provide stronger retention and professional growth. And it

025will give us some data-driven staffing decisions. You know, ma maintaining the, you know, the district's excellence. So, I am open to any questions that anyone may have. >> Yes, Mr. Taylor. Um, one of the problems I think we've seen is um, when you get more on when you get like fewer candidates, takes a long time to come to the conclusion that maybe you don't have the right candidates. How would you propose with this committee to sort of identify that earlier? um >> and maybe employ other means like instead of just using all us you know >> well and that's one of the things you know when I was in my position in West Icelip we you know one of the companies that I would like to look at is a company called schoolfront um schoolfront

026has their own platform called recruit um and they are linked into job boards like Monster Indeed things like that so while you know unfortunately we I was just at like two HR meetings over the last week. Unfortunately, we are kind of beholden to OLAS just because in the state of New York, that is where teacher candidates go to look for jobs. So, we wouldn't abandon OLAS. We would just expand outside of OLAS to other platforms. Um, I think by streamlining the process and making it more digital, it would increase our ability to review resumeumés and identify qualified candidates and and then get those candidates in for interviews and then identify earlier on if we're going down the wrong track and we need to kind of uh refocus our attention. So, I think those are things

027that would allow us to kind of be a little quicker on our feet and making decisions and maybe changing direction earlier if need be. >> Yes. I thank you for a lot of thought went into this. Appreciate it. Um, couple questions. Where do I start? Oh, what was the actual wording of the goal that you addressed? >> Um, I don't have it in front of me yet. >> I don't have it either. Um, I I don't remember what what we were trying to accomplish. Remember anyway? It's on >> I believe the general term was to create a strategic and hiring retention plan to ensure that we're attracting the highest qualified candidates. to something to that effect. >> Absolutely. Yep. So, did describe to me the talent talent management committee what the composition you would look

028for um on that. You mentioned a bargaining rep like what who would that constitute here? um being >> well I I've I've done something similar in the past and the committee would like I said it would I would be the chair um my two assistants who are you know who are in the depths with me in involved in all the hiring process um we would have you know we would be looking for you know building level district level administrators um teachers from all four buildings um we would be looking at you know members of the custodial buildings and ground staff the clerical staff you know, food service workers if they're available. Um, you know, because to support a district, while teachers are the ones out front supporting our instruction, there's a lot of people behind

029the scenes that also support our students in different ways. And we want to make sure that we're hiring and attracting the best candidates in all of our areas. >> But you'd have a committee made up of how many people? I >> I mean, I haven't come up with a a number yet. I mean, it would probably be, you know, you figure if you have five, we're looking at five subcommittees, you want to have at least 15 people on the committee so that each subcommittee would have, you know, three three people participating on the subcommittees. >> And what would you ask them to do >> to review our processes? Like what what does our recruiting process look like? Can that be h how can we improve that? Um what do we do well? What do we

030need to improve on? um looking at our hiring process, you know, looking at the forms that we use when we you know, interview candidates, um looking at um you know, what does the process look like? You know, right now traditionally it's screening resumes, screening interview, committee interview, you know, and then depending on if it's a teacher or an admin position, a board of ed interview, is there a better way of doing it? Could we do it in a in a more efficient way? um onboarding, you know, like I said earlier, making sure that when we're hiring people, um they're going through the process, they're getting all of the information that they need to hit the ground running. Um we're letting them know like what programs they have access to, that they have passwords that they

031can access those things. >> I get all that. I just want to stop at the committee though. So, we're going to ask people that work here already how we can do a better job bringing in people. Is that the idea? because you're talking about existing Cold Spring Harbor employees, right? That will constitute the committees. >> Yeah. Looking at our processes and where, you know, where we can improve upon and and where what we do well and what we you know cuz >> based on Brian their experience with employee like would you have people then who are more like a department head and their experience with the employees who've come through the process? I I just to sort of piggyback on what Mark's saying here, it's unclear then how if you're selecting people, >> what is

032the purpose then? How do they know about the hiring process and how to improve upon it? If they aren't maybe a supervisor of department, >> when we when we run committees like when we hire teachers, there are teachers on the committee. So teachers have respon you know when the other day we hired maintenance mechan we you know we went through the interview process with the maintenance mechanic we had our head one of our head custodians we had one of our maintenance mechanics so all of our employees are involved in the hiring process throughout their career whether they're new employees being hired or sitting on committees and helping make decisions about new hires. So it wouldn't just be yes it would be administrators and department heads about how are we identifying candidates, how are we making

033sure we're are attracting the best candidates, but it would also be the employees that have gone through the process and how can we make the process better going forward. Yeah, I see the value of having people in the interview process, but I think we need to have a professional analysis done of how we go to market to try to hire people. Sioid's new super came, I think, from New Jersey at the board retreat. That superintendent when he was talking to us, his style was, I'm just going to go around find the best person in this job. I don't care where they are. I'm going to find that person. And that's how I mean we put we put out uh a posting and then we sit back and wait and and I asked that even in

034um before like that can't be the way that's that can't be the way the best way I I I would love to see us bring in experts to teach us how to do a better job acquiring talent and to ask people that don't aren't experts in that area. I'm concerned we might not have new ideas, new solutions. They're certainly great to vet a candidate because they do that, you know, they do the job or they do a job that's tangential and they it we do that now in the process. But I really think we have to we have to take a look at our our process and um and and think big and think broad and not be afraid to go outside the box. Um, and I'm just I I I would really hope we

035we we do something like that. I don't think asking internal people um that aren't experts in in recruitment and HR to change the paradigm is going to get us very far. That's just my opinion. >> My concern is that the job hiring process seems to take a really long time, which I think Mark touched on also. And I I think our hope or at least my hope when we talked about implementing a plan for hiring is that we'd put somebody like you, Brian, in place who knows what they're doing and that you'd say like I'm the quarterback for this position and here's what I need to get it done this year. So the three years for this I think is a little concerning to me. Um, and getting a committee together that would take a

036year to audit the process, I think, is not at the pace that we're looking to. And I don't want to speak for everyone on this, but it seems to me that that's going to slow down this process significantly of how we streamline and make more efficient the process to put a 15 person committee in place that takes a year to audit the HR process. that just that's concerning to me. But I think I think you you probably have you always have good ideas and are >> outspoken about it. So why not just tell us what your ideas are and go, I guess, is my point. Yeah. >> Just curious, Brian, is there a way um of reaching out to your colleagues in other districts and other areas to see what they do, what their process

037is, to compare it to ours. Is there a consulting firm that we can possibly have contact? >> You know, I'm a I'm a member of LASPA Long Island School personnel administrators um New York State school admin. So I I certainly can re reach out to them >> to see what you know. >> I have spoken to a lot of them in regards to the you know the platforms you know the about modernizing our HR which I I believe would increase our streamline our process so that it may not take as long. Um but I absolutely can reach out to my colleagues and find out um what they're doing. Is there, you know, any consultants that they've worked with in regards to, you know, um, human resources practices in schools? Um, you know, it is human

038resources in schools is is a lot different than human resources in the corporate world. It's just that's just the way, you know, and it doesn't mean we can't take from the corporate world, but just the laws that we're bound by in in schools is is just a little different. So, um, I have no problem reaching out and and finding out who they work with and what their processes are and and you know, I'm always willing to to take from the best and and and modify it to what meets the needs of culture. >> And we spend a a large amount of our time each year hiring aids, assistance, substitutes, concerns. I don't think we're going to be recruiting people from California on positions like that. >> I think we need to look at the salary.

039>> That would be a huge waste of money. >> That would be time. Exactly. No, we have to build an all-star management team. And I think I said Jericho's newer, >> right? Sorry. So, but the um you know, on boarding is so important. If somebody doesn't hit hit the ground running, they're lost. It's big productivity setback. It's demoralizing. modernizing HR to be less paperbased. Is there a program you have in mind like a a software program? >> Yes, there are three companies that are kind of the leaders in school-based human resources platforms. Uh one is schoolfront. Uh one is frontline which we use for other processes and uh the other is Oracle. Um I haven't reached out to those companies because I wanted to present this to the board first. I didn't want to presume

040anything. Um but as soon as you know we you give me the go-ahad I will reach out to those companies and begin the process of having them come in and provide uh you know presentations um about their platforms. I >> I would reach out to the super that spoke to us at the retreat too. Remember that story told about the football coach that was amazing >> and um he did that with other positions. I really think there's um that that kind of extra mile will get rewarded in a big way and if we have every exceptional high hire exponentially you know benefits this district. So it's worth spending the time up front even if we have to pay um to bring in it's it it pays dividends for for many years to come. So, this

041is great. Um, great start. Let's keep refining it. >> Absolutely. >> Can I Can we talk about streamlining the process? Are you trying to like weed out people early on? Um, >> um, I think it's just to make the process, it's not necessarily weeding people out. It's just to make the process a little more efficient. you know when when it is very paperbased and you're relying on you know um whether it's OLAS or any of those other platforms that are you know you have to take everything out of Olaf you have to put it in another then you have you know it just it takes time to do all of that if you can if you can get one of these platforms where all of that is self-contained it just makes the process move along

042quicker um and and I think that would allow us to identify candidates faster and more efficiently. >> So that's that's just a program, correct? >> The platform. Okay. So is a subcommittee necessary for that or >> if if that's not the direction the board would like to go, then I'm open to moving the process along at a faster pace if that is that is what you >> like. You're you're you're good. So just >> yeah, we trust you guys. You don't need to ask, right? >> I think you're trying to get you're doing a smart thing and trying to get buy in from Right. >> Just go. >> But just we want you to shape it up. >> And I will >> we trust you. >> You're a football coach. Let's go. Right. >> Take

043the ball. >> Thank you. up next on our goals >> and metrics. Okay. So, I just want to begin by uh thanking the board for setting these goals because it gave us an opportunity to really dig into the programs that we have, the the beliefs and foundations that really highlight what makes Cold Spring Harbor a very special place for our students. Um, and really what we value in in programming overall. So the first goal really uh addressed um improving our rankings in US News and World Report and I really wanted to take a look at where does the score itself in US News and World Report come from and then connect that to what we consider the mastery metrics right that we're going to talk about in terms of uh teaching to mastery because I

044really think these two goals go hand in hand. Um, so if we're um, starting at the 12:00 of the wheel uh, about how the 98.6 score that we earned in US News and World Reports ranks, I wanted to identify all of the components that go into the 98.6 score. Um, so college readiness is one of them at 30% and I'll describe what each of these contains and go into that in the next uh, in the next slide. I just wanted to give you what the components are. Um, state assessment proficiency is worth 20% in the overall score. Um, state assessment performance is 20% and um, we'll talk a lot about underserved student performance at 10% and why it is that that certainly can be a limiting factor for a place like Cold Spring Harbor. Um,

045and then the graduation rate of 10% in which we're a perfect score. So, we'll talk a little bit about that and how we can improve that. um and then the college curriculum breath which um requires a little extensive explanation. So if we're thinking about the college readiness index um you know our participation rate um it's really based on the total number of 12th grade students who took at least one AP by the time that they were a senior. All right. Then what it does is it puts it applies this score called a quality adjusted participation rate. based on the number of seniors that are earning an AP score of three or higher, right? And so that's really where the score comes from. It's two factors. It's one, what is the total number of uh 12th

046graders that are participating in APs by uh and it only looks at 12th grade, right? So at 12th grade, how many have participated in at least one AP? And then it also applies on top of that this quality adjusted participation rate, which is again the number of seniors scoring of three or higher. Okay, so that's one of the factors and we earned a 76% and I'll get back to that. So we're 33rd rate overall um for that score. In our state assessment um proficiency um we had a 98% value and we were 26. Um and really that goes based on our state assessments which remember are our reading, math and science scores. um in which um our we we stand with 100% 95 and 95 which really calculated our 98%. So that's worth again uh

04720%. And then we have our state assessment performance and again that compares the state assessment proficiency um to this US News predicted value um that they predict based on a community similar to ours which they classify as suburban. They don't really give you a large amount of data in terms of where they came up with the prediction, but they're predicting how they think that we should have scored on our seat assessment performance and then they give us a number as to whether or not we compare to that score based on our scores. Um, so it's not clear and I I dug into the data. They don't give an enormous amount. Um, but we were 289th overall in the nation. Remember, it's a national score. Okay, so now let's take a look at the underserved student

048performance and the percentage of this is really where we fall very short. Um, in fact, when you look at our results from the last publication and US News and World Report, um, we actually had NA for three of the categories that fit under underserved performance. In other words, our numbers are so low that it's not even applicable in terms of calculating our score. So when you think about 10% of our overall score in US News for Neural Report and remember that we earned that 98 right.6% 10% was was not even really fully factored in because we had NAS in that category. So that's going to come into the difference of like where we were compared to you know remember there's a 8/10 of right of a of a decimal between us and the number one

049right? So remember now 10% now is not really factored in for us. So that's important. Okay. Then we look at the graduation rate and as I said before we're at 100%. So we're sitting at number one. We can't get much better than that. Um and we're actually tied for 100% with three other schools. So um we're in good standing there. Um the college curriculum breath rank was really interesting. So we're number 25 and what it does is it takes the proportion of the 12th graders who took and passed their AP exams in multiple areas um for up to four. So it'll calculate if they had all the way up to four AP exams. It calculates that and it gives you a number. But what's interesting is then it gives this additional factor which says the

050more exams gives them a higher score. So if we had you know 10 seniors that only took one exam, they get less of a factor of a score than uh 10 seniors that took four, right? And then then it adds another layer which is for those that um that are p passing with a three or higher that's more value than those that just bar that those that scored higher than a three get more factor than those who just got a three. Right? So it's now it's putting all these layers. So it's it's difficult to say. And then last is, you know, our overall the end size of our senior class is relatively small, right? Compared to some classes in neighboring districts that we're trying to compare ourselves to. So that's really really important that we

051think about that, especially when you look at, you know, if you're a numbers person, right? And we're looking at that, you know, one senior out, you know, out of 10 or or 10 seniors out of a 100. it's really going to shift what our overall scores are in college curriculum breath and college uh readiness index most right so that's important for us to understand okay so um what does the number 33 mean in New York state right so there were 1,233 schools that were ranked in New York um and I I provided the link for the News World Report public schools rank list so you can all take a look at that especially for the public when this is uh published right of that top 25 school breakdown cuz we're really focusing on we really

052want to be up at the top, right? So that's that's what our goal is. We want to improve what our ranking is. So of that when I looked at the top 25 schools, 17 of those schools had specific admittance criteria. They were either considered charter or content specific schools. So we think about New York City schools, right? We know that many of those schools require specific grades or other things to put them into a uh content focused school, right? So the school of science or right the Bronx school of science those things are an example of where the students take a test they need to pass that test in order to get uh placed into that school. So they have specific criteria which then means right they're not dealing with a general public population like

053we are right an all admittance public education school we take everyone which means that we consider everyone in our senior class. Um so 17 of those schools had that right so that's important right of the top 25 right and nine public schools uh the number nine public school in New York right u scored a 99.4 so 0.8 eight difference, right? Um and not was number one in Nassau, right? So, we're looking, you know, we're not we're not far off, right? So, um Nassau and SUFFK, five schools were listed above Cold Spring Harbor. Um it was JCO, Garden City, Great Neck, Manhattan, and Wheatley. And what's really interesting, I'm going to bring you back to uh the last uh the last slide. What's really interesting is when we looked at college readiness, state assessment proficiency, and

054college curriculum and breath, uh the numbers in these three areas fluctuated dramatically uh for for each of these schools where some schools for example that were above us were actually that were above us in final ranking were actually below us in state assessment proficiency within in the 78% or the 82nd, but they were still overall ranked above us. So that's interesting, right? And some of them fell below us in the college curriculum breath, right? But then uh we scored higher in other areas and so it kind of so it's it's really you're seeing oscillations right and and it really is also going to depend on overall class size that that's going to be affected. So then when we look at um and you know so that that was the national and suffic breakdown of those

055five schools that were above us and then um of those schools in the top 25 18 of those schools were New York City public schools. uh 17 of those schools were the specific emittance, right? We had one New York City public school that was not um we had two schools that were located in Westchester and one located in upstate New York. So when we really think about where Closeman Carver is falling, right there, we we are right there, right? We're talking about really small tweaks in order to get us right to to the very very top. And you're also talking about some things that we just can't control, right? And that's really important for us to recognize. 10% of that overall factor is something that we just don't have control over right and that remember

056is uh when we look back it's that unders underserved student performance >> so the Jericho garden city great neckliness weekly what is their underserved uh number >> so it really it varies between districts and in fact what's interesting if you looked at niche I don't know if you watched the the niche niche.com just released theirs um so just got edged out I mean SAS just edged out Jericho right and when you looked at it it was actually a factor of who was more diverse so Jericho although it has large amount of of diversity it's not as diverse in terms of the breath of diversity so they they they lost some points there in terms of the total number of right categories within diversity that they filled which is always always interesting so um the percentage

057diversity I believe we can pull it up um that's why I put the link here so that we could look at it and it just hopefully it's easy for me to Yeah. So, let's take a look. >> I thought the category was underserved. >> Yes, because uh it can go it it's it includes diversity. It includes um students that are on um any type of lowincome uh categories. So, uh, so anyone that are free and reduced lunch, right? It's an ELLL population. So, there's there's a lot that goes into >> these bigger >> districts. Like, you might not think of it, but I think Manassid actually does have an underserved a significant number compared to like a Cold Spring Harbor. There is a population there. Um, yes. Yeah. So, um, and I'm sure that's true

058possibly in other I just happen to know cuz I used to I used to work right by Manasset. Um, Edgebond did well. >> That's my >> I know. Number 10. >> Did you see that? >> Yeah. But it's interesting. So, Kim, you're saying like really these like hair of a fraction of a point and we're up there with like Stson Bron Science, which is actually great to hear, >> right? and that we can't we can't obviously control the diversity factor which is a huge part of that niche. Um there's a lot of paytoplay with niche too which is like a conversation for another day. Not that we should but it there's schools who have a picture paying for more engagement. If you don't have a picture you're not paying for engagement. There's a lot that

059goes into those rankings. So, and niche I believe for the last 12 years there have been 15 people have submitted a comment and that's how part of the ranking >> right you have to ask people to put put rankings in and then your ranking goes up. There's a lot of engagement um >> involved in that too. So >> I just see the underserved and diverse different though >> well how you see it and how they categorize it it's in the same category. Yeah. So understand and then um if you go back to the last slide that bottom right box is that >> adjusted the on the yeah the bottom right is that adjusted it says for school district. >> Yeah. So that's what that's where it comes up with. Um a school district that has

060a similar makeup, right, of that type in New York State, you're given a specific p percentage for predicted performance for Hispanic and lowincome individuals. But when you have a substantially small lowincome and Hispanic set group, it's really difficult for us to take a look at whether or not we're living up to what it is they predicted us to be. Right? So, and I can't see those numbers and that's not, you know, it wasn't fully revealed in terms of where those numbers are coming from. So, again, I'm I'm telling you what they're publishing and we I know that under Jericho's I mean, under Coast Spring Harbor, we have NA for the three categories for underserved uh performance. >> And one of the things we do have to remember, this is three-year-old data, >> correct? on how

061these so two year this last year was our best AP rankings in eight or nine years. So two years from now you know in 2027 or we're going to we expect to have a nice jump coming up but that's how far the data is but then everything is going to change in New York state we're going to be happy to look at different metrics on what's going on. So it is an everm moving target and remember this is three-year-old data. >> It does predicated values for a school of this height in New York State given percentage of black, Hispanic and low-inccome. So >> and it said that we scored somewhat above expectations but I don't know what that score is like. You can't see what that score like what score did they assign us and

062then how how much like that's what they ranked us somewhat above expectations. What does what does that mean? what is somewhat above any educator that in the world right we want to know what I need something tangible I need a number give me a number and I'm happy to work with it but somewhat above is not you know it's not enough clear to me it's not clear to me either so I agree um and that's why I always and that's kind of why like I we can have this conversation which is what are we really leaning into right because we're leaning into this number here under US news and real reports but but it brings us to what is it that we believe right that's right for the students here at Coast Spring Harbor and

063our programming. So, that kind of brings me into the next uh part of the presentation. So, you know, we had so many rich discussions as as we started to begin to pivot to what is a portrait of a Cold Spring Harbor graduate and that is not a portrait of a New York State graduate. It's what we believe here. And I think that that we have a lot of latitude here with regard to the state portrait of a graduate and how we see programming and what we want to drive here. Um and we at the top right we see academics right at the at the very top that is that is very important to us. But also what we believe and based on some of the points of pride that I've heard from community members and

064and student participants we believe in the arts and music participation. We want student leadership opportunities as evidenced by Dylan joining us today, right? Uh we want active club participation as evidenced by the sheer number of clubs that we offer our students. Uh we want um athletic participation as evidenced by homecoming and all of the clubs and and uh athletes that were represented this past weekend. Um we believe in civic engagement. Um pieces of that are showing up in our programming for academics. uh when we think about the seal of civic readiness, authentic experiences is something that we discussed extensively in my very first uh participation of the board of education meeting and when we had this goals um retreat, you know, we talked about like what what do the experiences that we give our students

065and how do they transfer out into the world and career readiness. Um and then we really focus a lot on like what where are our students, where is their development and well-being. um we care about what we're what we're um presenting to them, how they're dealing with their stresses within the school. We're giving them right agency um to help them to navigate a lot of challenges um while taking on all of these things. So, if we think about Cold Spring Harbor graduates sitting in the center of this field, most of our graduates, right, touch face with every single one of these things, which is remarkable. And when you go to other places and you look at some of even the districts that we're looking to edge out in US News and World Report, those districts

066don't have all of these things in every one of their graduates. They often will focus on academics or they'll be very strong in leadership and civic readiness. But to say that we have all of the components and offerings for our graduates is a real point of pride and it speaks to what this community and what this school district offers to students and how well we we prepare them for moving forward. So, it brings us to talk about so that's absolutely a great goal and we should be proud of it and well-rounded students will be the best students when they go out into the world. Um, so when our students apply to college and they look at the ranking of Cold Spring Harbor, we might get ding there. Do we make the case to colleges that

067we're producing a a well-rounded students and that a Cold Spring Harbor ranking doesn't tell the full story. >> So, one of one of the things I will say is, you know, having a child that just applied to college, right, the school ranking isn't on that list. They they do look at they do look at the schools and their offerings. So they will look at whether or not a school offers higher level courses. So they will look at IB and AP and the student will will list all of the AB uh the IB and A um AP courses that they're involved in. They will also compare the student as to whether or not they took some of the highest level course offerings. But there's a whole section that asks the students what else that they contributed

068to a community because there the colleges are looking for people that build into the college culture and contribute to the campus culture and can give back to the community with which they're participating in. So I think that's really important. Okay. So um that brings us to teaching to mastery, right? Because that was also one of the factors that I that I was charged with taking a look at under you know curriculum instruction. And I think you know teaching to mastery and mastery learning they go hand in hand right because if we're teaching to mastery then students should be right embracing whatever it is that we're offering them in the classroom they should be learning they should be um gaining conceptual understanding of the standards and the concepts that we're trying to drive across multi uh

069multiple curricula as well as uh interdisciplinary connections. They should have a growth mindset when they leave right the four walls. They should be reflective in terms of what they've what they've presented and and ways where they can improve. Um they should be collaborative, right? And um and they should have all these opportunities through enrichment. Um and certainly uh we we should be continuously assessing them in terms of where they measure at at entry point at a grade level or in a course. Um and where they're finishing, right? Because we're monitoring progress and we believe in both mindset. So that brings us to the academic mastery metrics that we feel um we really should begin to marry ourselves to and present to the board on a routine basis as we begin to evaluate our overall programming.

070So if we start remember at the top I said uh one of the biggest factors that we pride ourselves in is our academics right. So if we look at academic progress monitoring we want to understand like what we currently are collecting markup and period failure rates we are currently collecting uh term GPA and course failure rates. So let me explain. Anything that is green is what we are currently doing. Anything that is red is what we'd like to implement moving forward. Um and you know we're looking at force failure rates. We want to examine and this is one of the areas that I really feel like need a deeper dive and look at um what is our MTSS and um for those uh and RTI engagement. Um so if you think about MTSS really essentially

071it's a um multi-tered uh structural support system. So, it's looking at what types of classroom supports at at level tier one are we putting in for our regular education students and how are they improving if we implement those uh tier one supports. How how many of our students are uh moving to the need for tier 2 or removing themselves from an NTS plan after we initiated specific supports in the classroom. Um and then how many um uh what RTI engagement stands for response to intervention. So in other words, what is the student overall response to the intervention and do we need to take a look at and this is one of the things that I see us really taking a deeper dive into is when we implement one single tier one uh support. Uh there

072has to be a prescribed time frame with which we implement it. There has to be a um metrics to measure whether or not the student is succeeding. And then we need to reconvene and identify whether or not there needs to be another um permutation or combination of supports that are applied for that student in a regular education setting before we move into any um higher level supports. So we want to start with least restrictive and that's like really really important. Okay. So that's the academic progress monitoring that we like to do. Um if we think about rig rigor and assessment tracking currently we're looking at the total percentage of students enrolled in honors and upper AP level. You can see why that kind of goes to um the US news and world report right uh

073category but we want to take a look at how what percentages of our students are enrolled in multiple honors and upper AP level. We want to see what that actual number is. Um and we should be looking at that in December of each year. And the reason why is because uh there's a there's an ad drop period and that like at December is the cutoff. Um, so after that cuto off, we want to see not not just who's registered, but who stays in our AP courses um after like seeing how how it works and and um and making their ad drop choices. And then we want to look at standards mastery. Um we're moving, you know, if we think about this is a long-term goal. Um in the lower elementary, we just implemented a standardsbased

074report card. Um we're moving towards a standardsbased report card in grades uh 2 through six. Um, but standardsbased mastery is now continuing. As we look at the new New York State Regent exams, uh, we're able to more closely correlate what those standards mastery levels will be. Um, so that's long-term, but we can start, uh, start with the ones that we we're pretty clear on at this point. Um, when we think about the regions and AP results, um, I talked earlier this year about us, you know, analyzing that using a gaps and wasa data report and analysis. You saw some of the gaps and wasa reports uh, last week when I presented um, the data meeting. We want to look at the region score um regionally and New York comparison. And I think that came up

075here like are we comparing ourselves to the right area or region um what you know we should be comparing ourselves to schools that run on parallel to the rigor that we offer and not necessarily all Suffach County schools. And I kind of talked about that. That's why we take a look at NASA and that's also why I I pull my colleagues to see where we actually stand against against them as well. And then of course um you saw last week you want to uh track cohort trends. So all those things are currently done. Um but it's really important for us to continue that work and then it's important us for once we once we look at this work and we present this to the board also taking a look at how is what is it

076that we do with this data right so how is it that we dig in with the teachers what do we do for vertical and um horizontal alignment um showing them where the incoming cohort was before when they left at the previous year to make sure that we stitch gap stitch together any of the gaps that exist. So >> how how do you measure RTI? >> So uh that's we actually could bring in a program. We have a couple software programs um where they actually record uh the interventions that have been put in place for each child uh the frequency and duration, collect the data in terms of the response to intervention and then you do a deep dive analysis in terms of whether or not the data was whether or not the intervention was successful.

077Um so we would bring in an RTI uh program. There's RTI direct. Uh there's a couple um front line actually has an RTI uh piece which we currently own. Um and then there's some other other programs that I can take a look at. >> How do you measure standards mastery? >> So, you know, standards mastery comes uh we can take a look at it from the terminal assessments. Each of the terminal assessment questions are um are linked to a specific standard. So, we could take a look at based on the question that the students um miss or or get correct, whether or not they've actually achieved mastery. And we could look at the percentage of the overall uh cohort that got specific questions uh correct and then align it to the standards to identify standards

078gaps. >> Okay. >> Um first of all, I like the way this is presented with the details about how it's all broken down specifically um with what where we lose points too because I feel like that I don't know. I personally feel like that was never explained to me. But I also appreciate um you striving to maintain the standards here in Gold Spring Harbor, especially because it seems like New York State is moving the other way, right? They're lowering the standards. Um, and I just wanted to say on record that in culturing harbor, this is to me is really important that we keep moving in this direction because at the last NISPA, New York State's um, boards association annual business meeting, they actually opposed the resolution um, that was put forward to keep um, you

079know, standards as high as possible. The DEI committee um, opposed it and had a lot to do with equity. So, I appreciate this and I know they like to call it a New York, you know, the state graduate, but here in culture and harbor, we're going to keep moving in that direction and I appreciate you doing this. Thank you. >> Okay. So, then we uh continue when we take a look at the PSAT and SAT and ACT benchmarks and attainment. You know, I think you know, all of this really is going to translate and I think Marky brought this up really to what does it mean for college, right? So, we want to see, you know, how our PSAT or SAT and ACT benchmarks are moving towards college acceptances. We want to see uh what

080those numbers look like overall. Um, we we have not uh currently presented to the board or in past presented to the board whether or not students are actually uh like getting the program fit that they're looking for. So, in other words, when they're applying to college, they're applying for specific programming like what is the percentage of our students that actually land where they where they really are aiming to land. And I think that's important. Um, and that also goes to metriculation, right? So, how many of them actually stay metriculated in the in the university or college that they that they are accepted to and and start out with. Um, and then we can also we currently tracking scholarship money, but I don't necessarily know if it's ever been provided to uh the board in terms

081of a report. So, that's pretty easy for us to to go ahead and provide. Any questions before I move on to the next set of metrics? Okay. Okay. So, you know, then, you know, we talked about that wheel and and the things that really make us most proud about our programming. And so, you know, if uh one of the things that we really value here is our overall participation rate in athletics. Um and we believe that it's important to um to to raise well well-rounded students that are able to um to manage and master their their performance on the athletic field equally as well as they are in the classroom. We also know that you know their athletic participation and access lends to college acceptances. So I think that that's also really important to us

082here. Um so we want to take a look at the percentage of students that are in a greater uh greater than two seasons or two or more seasons and that can be done at the end of the year. And then it's interesting we'd like to see what the percentage of um tryyouts students that actually try out for a sport versus students that end up in our rostered seats. And we have, you know, for some we have unlimited openings like track, right? And then in others, right, we have limited spaces and like what does that look like? Um, we'd like to take a look at dual enrollment, college credit and diploma distinctions. I think this is really important as we engage in this is our first year of the seal seal of civic readiness and biiteracy.

083Um, if you're a member on the wheel, we really value um civic engagement. So, I'm interested to continue to watch um what how many of our students apply for the seal um as we continue to advertise and identify the value of the seal as the state shifts to a single diploma and seals are going to be the item on the diploma that are distinction. Will we have an increase in students that then start going more for the seals uh pathways? Um we'd like to take a look at our total number of credits per year. We currently have it, but I don't necessarily know if we provided it to the board. And that really means how many credits are each of our students by grade level actually taking? In other words, courses. Are there breaks in

084in certain years? Like, do we have a lighter load at senior year? You know, is there room? Do we have a a heavier load in junior year? What do the actual credits actually translate to? Because that can also factor in our overall rankings when we think about how many are taking AP courses and what does that look like? So, I think that that's important. Uh but but what's new and and that we'd like to explore is work study and career placement as well as capstone projects. And um I've talked a little bit about um some workforce readiness programs, internships that uh you know again that goes to real world applications to and um and application of multiple discrete skills into one actual career which is really what we're trying to prepare our students for. And

085I do believe that this these opportunities will help our students uh to end up having a better grasp or understanding of where they want to head when they leave close harbor and go into um a major at a at a college, right? That those experiences will will help to shape that because students essentially don't know what they don't know, right? So if we don't give them uh experiences that connect all of the disciplines that they've learned discreetly across time, then they don't know how each of them may fold into a career opportunity. Um, we'd like to also look at student behaviors and this is one that I really um feel uh strongly about, right? So, what is the attendance rate? If we're talking about teaching to mastery, we could teach to mastery all day long,

086but if student attendance rate is poor, then that's not helpful, right? And if we look at you know what what is happening in years where um AP scores and you know for seniors and juniors really really important as we look at uh college transcripts we'd like to know what are the attendance rates are what are the cuts per marking period are any of our students receiving infractions and and lastly which is really a partnership with the community how much time is being spent on assessments right a lot of our assessments have turned digital uh we can actually see the total amount of time and minutes that students uh spend not just on the full assessment, but even on portions of the assessment. So, it's really interesting. We may have some students that are racing through

087an assessment. Some students that may be um running out of of time, and it's a stamina issue. Um, and that's also partnering with parents because when we're um, as we implement benchmark assessments across the K all the way through to 12, um, one of the things that we're encouraging parents to do is to help to make sure that their child is um, actively participating um, and really trying their very best on any type of assessment that we do. Um, especially those that are in our digital platforms, which a lot of our um, assessments now are shifting to. And that's really important for students uh to in order for them to uh gain stamina, they need to actively participate in these types of assessments over time. Um so we're going to start measuring and recording out

088what that looks like. So when we think about uh program quality and experience um you know the we want to make sure that we're tracking leadership roles. So we've already created a document uh where the leaders in district can identify when we have students in leadership roles. So Dylan is on that list, right? uh what that leadership role look like what those opportunities might be and we can report that out by marking period semester or end of year. Um, we'd like to look at student exit surveys and I think that's one thing that we've never really looked at, right? So, students evaluating what that experience was like in a course, in a program um in in in their application process for the seal of civic readiness. What did that feel like? What are things we

089could do better um to pro, you know, to maintain engagement over time um and to help them to u firmly grasp the curriculum. Um we'd also like to track the number of performances and publications and competitions. While we report out to that um regularly and board event meetings and highlight students, we don't really have a running document, right, of the total number of uh performances or publications or competitions that we've won and in what categories and what uh department they might be associated with. So I think that that would be that would also show the breath of our programming and the opportunities that we give to our students. Um and that goes along with awards and recognitions. We always print that out for our seniors, right? It's in the um you know the diploma in

090the graduation uh man you know the program. Uh so we have that but it would nice to it would be nice to look at what that looks like going into junior year and and you know and and even though their uh application for like the National Honor Society does require them to record that. We don't necessarily have a document where it actually compiles it. I think that that would be interesting to see and that would also be a way for us to identify are there things that we could get involved in that we're not. Are there neighboring districts that are giving opportunities to students that we see them winning awards and we're just not involved and we didn't know. So I think that's a good opportunity for us to kind of evaluate um what our

091reach is in terms of um uh competitions and experiences. Um and then you know what is our audience reach in terms of any of these performances and uh and competitions and you know who's in attendance like how many people were supporting our students because that's also important right the more support that they receive from our community and from our parent population and from our administrators uh the more likely that we're going to see more uh participate over time. Um and then let's take a look at what the community service hours look like. Where are our students involved in community service? They report it out individually in their applications, but we don't always necessarily track it and see where they are. And I think seeing where they are might help us to place them maybe in

092a wider breath of of opportunities. I think that that that could be valuable. Um, and then we want to look obviously because all this transcends into what happens after they leave here. So, we'd like to take a look at well, what are our co college athletic commitments looking like? Um, where are our music and fine arts clubs and scholarship placements happening? Um, and what does our alumni participation like look like? Can we get alumni back here? Can they serve as mentors? Can they act as networks, right, for students that are like in the process of going to college, wanting to get involved in clubs and other things in the college level? Um, and that that connection to a former Cold Spring hardware graduate, I think could be really, really valuable. >> Yes. Um, so first

093of all, I love the idea of student exit surveys. Um, I think we'd actually talked about them, I feel like, in a board meeting. um especially after like a new class, you know, if it's the first time a class is being run, I think it's helpful for, you know, other students to see or for the administration to see, you know, how the class went. Um so I I love that idea. I think it's great. Uh but so I'm questioning so as part of the mastery athletic participation and access is there a reason and maybe I missed it but is there a reason that you focused on athletic participation and access as opposed to um you know like arts or uh you know drama or music. >> Sure. So um I thought you know really I

094had you know the performances and publications and competitions was right below under program quality and experience. So that would fit under the arts and like and where they are. So I just separated because they were really separated in um the overall uh chart that I had here. So I kind of like I separated athletics and arts and music. So arts and music really is through what competitions they are. It would be NISMA and and things like that. So that would be count for there and then it would be for performances. So we would be tracking those as well >> and like how many kids tried out for the show or something and didn't make it. >> We can certainly add that. Absolutely. >> That just sounds so similar to trying out for team. >> Yeah.

095No, we could we could definitely do that. I was um actually on the same line. The student exit surveys I think are terrific. I was wondering if they would be done for every student moving up to a new year or is it seniors only, but then Lisa even mentioned even new classes. So, how granular are you going to get on those? I mean we we can certainly get granular where we where we administer an exit survey. We use one particular course like uh you know like uh or or subject area where they're they're all participating no matter what the grade level in an exit survey that evaluates courses and it would be a drop-own menu where they identify what courses that they were enrolled in and and then they they could um you know fill

096out the the ratings for that. That's that's easy enough to do. Um, you know, but I think that I the mandated courses are probably not what we would what we would rate, you know, just because those are New York State mandated, they end in regions, we have a sequence of them. There's not really a choice, right? In terms So, I think it's more when they start to branch off, right? They start to branch off into their choices for APs, their choices for electives, right? Their choices for a a SEAL pathway, those types of things. So it makes the probably the most sense for us to administer uh the the surveys to those types of courses where there may be choice to be in that course and what their experience is really >> like c like

097it would have been helpful for you know some of the capstone classes right um cuz you know they've only been going on for one or two years so you know yes the teacher the teacher says oh it was great you know it was a great class and I'm sure it was a great class you know but a lot of times the kids want to know you know just a little bit more >> I believe there was for the class For the research class, there was a survey that was administered by the by the by by the teacher. So there was a survey for that. >> The research class research. Yes. >> Is that made public or is that kept? >> I think it was just the the school. I was not here when that was

098administered, but I believe >> it wasn't made public. Teacher saw it. It reviewed with the teacher to find it. >> Okay. >> And those those would be anonymous so the students >> I want the students to feel safe and free to be able to to to answer it. So, you know, we could either uh relate it to the school ID and then redact that data and then intervene ID identify it. Either way, like I would want the students to be able to feel free uh to be able to answer because especially if we're surveying prior prior to the graduation, they may have that teacher again. So, I want them to feel comfortable being able to fill that out. >> Is there any way though that that can be used to help students decide whether or

099not they want to take that class? You know, like upcoming students? I mean we could certainly look at that. We we want to be careful because remember like you know our course and our overall student size is small right our class size is small so we don't want to shift students in one direction or another we I think a better way to identify whether or not a class is appropriate is to have students that are in the class describe what the class is like right to help you know what I mean so that that might be a better way if there's a curiosity for a class talk to a student that has already taken it you know >> but maybe as part of you know the survey if you could describe to an upcoming student

100those that language that would be I think super helpful you know for for a lot of us >> some of that is lagging students schedules are pretty much made before the year end is out >> so if you're going to wait till the end of the school year to do like typically in college you you do that at the end of the the course your schedule we're 99% done making the master schedule for the following year already right >> so we a year lagging and miss any information >> right so this year we wouldn't have that for the choices that are being made but we could do it at the end of this year so that next November people are starting to >> yeah we started to have a library of that could be helpful

101for for students >> and we actually just found out today tell you may not know this Kim we have 15 AP capstone awardees this year uh we just got the information this afternoon from the AP college board recognized by the next board meeting and it'll be in Friday night >> does that go on their college application >> they can absolutely yes and they're seniors >> okay >> so I don't know if they found out themselves with their college board application the college board site We're going to get a letter out to them tomorrow or the next day informing them, but we just found out this afternoon. >> So, and I'm sorry to harp on this. Um, so are those students who So, to do capstone, you have to do a AP seminar and you have

102to do AP research. >> Yes, >> both. >> But do a threeear higher on those both of those exams and a three or higher on four additional AP courses. Okay. So there are 27,650 students who were eligible in the United States and we are the home to 15 of them. >> That that is amazing. Um are those 15 students that were recognized ones that completed AP research in their junior year or are they currently taking they would have to have taken it already? >> They have to have taken it. So students that are doing AP capstone and taking AP research their senior year colleges won't know that they are >> they haven't taken the exam yet. >> Got it. >> There's no way to know. >> Okay. >> But it'll be on their >> on

103the it'll be on their transcript when they graduate. Yes. As under their awards and recognitions. You have an opportunity also to update you know like once they get to school then you you have to have a counselor at the school and then you can update wherever it is that you've earned APs and distinction so that's definitely wouldn't be a factor in terms of their acceptance >> but part of the function is you need to take that exam you have to do it as a senior >> okay >> I would imagine college could look to see you've made the criteria other than this one exam you've got four exams three or higher you did three on the first one and now you're taking the other >> and you're probably they can guesstimate you're going to be

104there but not 100% that you're you're on track to get it >> but you have to wait till you take the exam >> Michelle thank you having that number 27 right there >> thank you >> okay so then I'm going to hand the floor over to Janette thank you >> good evening board of education Mr. O um and the distinguished W harbor community. I am Janette Ali, director of counseling. Um I'm beyond excited to share highlights of what the counseling department has accomplished thus far as well as what we're looking forward to in the year ahead. Um although we are only uh eight weeks into the new school year, the counseling team um has been diligently implementing new strategies and initiatives designed to help all students become future ready. We are committed to meeting the

105board's um goals and tonight I will share how we are working as a team to ensure that we meet the following goal which is to strengthen the college application experience by implementing tools and strategies that promote earlier preparation, improve communication with students and families and provide clear progress tracking. In doing so, we strive to empower every student to confidently navigate their journey and reach their post-secary goals. So, the highlights of our work this year. So, we are focused on uh providing access, communication, visibility. Um so, for the first time, all juniors uh can now attend the college rep visits uh on campus. uh giving more students the opportunity to connect directly with admissions representatives. Um so you can find the full visit uh this college rep visit schedule on on our website which I'll I'll

106share more about our wonderful uh revamped website. Um today we had um it's been many many years since Princeton University has uh come in and um and had chat with our our students, our juniors and seniors and so they learned about holistic review and uh even Princeton would like to find out what what are our students passions. Um they know that our students are academically strong and they strive for excellence when it comes to um taking rigorous courses and challenges but they also want to know uh what their passions passions are beyond the the classroom beyond the academics. Um and so I will touch upon a little bit more about our programs that we will enhance uh the uh the student college and career readiness. So notifications as as you notice we have sent over

107I would say 40 uh different notifications through parent square um and student square and we encourage students to um you know uh get get on student square as well as read uh all notifications through our school counseling canvas uh pages. Um and so all of our parent square notifications are now linked to our revamped website. Um and so we want to again provide easy access to everyone, community members, families, students um through uh through the uh the website and just to be notified about all of the great opportunities that not only the department has to offer but the district has to offer as we are this is not just a school counseling or department of counseling goal but this is a district-wide initiative and a goal that we are all sharing together. Um, we will

108continue recording our evening presentations. We started that last year. We're so excited to um have our new YouTube channel that is dedicated to our counseling events. Um, and so if there's in the future um we're hoping to we're aiming to do tutorials on Naviance. I know that that's a very popular ask from the families that hey we want to learn more about Naviance and how we can support our students doing the scholarship uh search and college uh research and do the scatteragramgram and do a career interest inventory. We want to support our students um we want to support our parents supporting the students at home while completing these uh these wonderful um college and career readiness uh platforms and exercises. I I have a quick question about Navvian. I don't want to take you off

109and tell me if this is coming up later, but Nviance it looks like it's still not update updated. Is it right that the it says the test information is 2015 2016 and aviance when you look at the scatteragramgram it says this information is 20 >> it should recently updated it should be up to date with updated data as we are I am regularly uploading SAT and ACT >> that's what I I thought it was up to date so I'll show you later maybe offline just what it what I saw >> tonight cuz it made me a little nervous that we've been making all of these these like big life decisions off of data that then I thought, "Oh my gosh, does this really say?" >> So after >> 2015, 2016, >> after each administration, um

110we receive I receive um access to our scores, SAT, as well as ACT scores and PSAT scores as well. And those are uploaded immediately after um I receive them or have access. >> Okay. I probably read something wrong, so don't worry. I'll show it to you after. you can tell me what I read wrong. >> Thank you. Perfect. So, counselors are currently uh leading uh classroom lessons. So, the 12th graders received the classroom um uh presentation by the counselors with regards to the college application process. That was the um right after our September 15th college uh night. Um last week our ninth graders were visited by the counselors to learn more about the high school, the opportunities, extracurricular activities, uh honor societies. We want to make sure that our grade nine students are fully aware

111of the opportunities ahead of time so that they're not like come junior year like, "Oh, we didn't know that we had to complete 20 hours of community service per year in order to fulfill that National Honor Society uh criteria." And so we want to make sure that our students are getting the information early in in their uh career. Um Miss Pickerin is also meeting with students in the in the classroom as well as in groups to talk about um Navian. Um the eighth graders will learn more about the transcript which you know this year eighth graders are taking um for the first time high school level courses whether it is a world language um a math and algebra 1 uh or life science biology and what does that mean in June when they um you

112know they sit for the regions exams. So these enhancements make opportunities and information more accessible keep families informed and give students the tools they need to succeed. So streamlining the college process, we've taken steps to simplify and organize the application process for students. We want to make sure that we are demystifying the very intimidating, everchanging, ever evolving college admissions, college application process. And I am a parent of a sophomore uh undergraduate who you know just recently went through the whole college application process. And believe you me, despite the many degrees and 18 years of experience in school counseling, it just uh we cannot certainly predict what colleges will say at the end of the day and there the uh decision outcomes of of each student. And so we are just you know I am working.

113all working hard at picking our college rep visits uh rep's uh brains in terms of like what makes the perfect you know uh candidate to to to gain a seat at your university and so there's a a myriad of of responses and so once again we understand I understand as a parent and I also understand from a perspective of multiple uh learner abilities so I I understand that a student with an IEP or 504 with testing accommodations do have um various uh I guess pathways as well as there are extra services that perhaps families are not uh informed and so our job is to ensure that the counselors are pushing out that we are pushing out that information and my job is to ensure that our counselors are well informed and attend PD opportunities. Yes.

114Do you track um which schools that the counseling department has relationships with, either strong or no relationships? And do you have a plan for the ones where you don't have a strong or even any relationship to try to establish one? Cuz my perception was there are certain schools that we don't get admitted to and that the counseling department doesn't really have a deep relationship with. So this is my second year as I am um assessing the uh that very good point. I think that once the college representatives come in, I make a point of uh making a contact and I follow up with with the uh rep. But each individual meeting, we have a counselor also uh sitting in and asking questions and connecting and if it's two or three counselors that are definitely going

115in, they're going in and making those connections. I will talk about this soon, but I'm also connecting so that they can come back and other colleges uh college reps will come back as we want to do an in-house college fair. Um I think that the more connections we have the better. We also are committed to go and visit them. I think colleges do like when we demonstrate interest as as a team. Um and so we have uh counselors going to various universities. you have Plantable, Yukon, Yale, uh UMass. Um and again, we we understand that every student has their their list, their top top choices, and they may not be uh your typical Ivy League school, but can I just tell you that the class of 2025, 87.1% of students um are currently enrolled in

116a highly selective schools, which means acceptance rates of 30% or less. And so we want to continue establishing those relationshipships and those connections because we want to send you know to stu uh send our students to wherever they want to go. Um so I think that having the connection is quite important. Thank you for that feedback. I will definitely you know take note and make that a priority. Um we are in the process. You know we're definitely um being proactive on establishing uh new relationships with reps. The other thing that we need to pay attention and that we know as as counselors, director of counseling is that it's a high turnover position. So the college reps, we see John, you know, from from let's say Fairfield um is our rep and then next year we

117have, you know, Lucy is our new rep. And so it is hard but not impossible. And I will assure you that we will establish a stronger connection. I do have pre from my previous districts connections and good relationship. At the end of the day, we just want to make sure that um they see our amazing students and the kids will definitely take it from there. Um so definitely I I prioritize that and thank you so much. >> I have a couple of questions. So one is do you feel that you have enough in your budget to travel to all the schools considering that kids now from Colt Spring Harbor are really sorry Joe but are looking right here um are looking >> in other geographical areas like the the schools you mentioned that's sort of

118like that's my comfort zone as a parent but for my children it seems to be that they want to be south and I keep going what about the northeast you know but like, "Oh, no. We want to be >> like, but I can drive and bring you lunch." >> I was going to say that before you actually then we discussed increased visitation by our college uh counselors and our guidance counselors to do just that to visit the school that there's no substitution from going. I think went more virtual places, but I think it's worthwhile to to get people on the road. Certainly, I think that that's great and I'm glad to hear you guys are doing that. And then the other thing I was going to say just to Bill's point and I mean I've

119just am a high school and middle school admissions person. Um, but what I do in my office and what we've really done strategically this year is looked at all the schools who we want to build better sending school relationships with and we have like the list and then our team we split it up and we hit all of them and we're either visiting like I'm going tomorrow to visit a school lunch like we're going to see all these people and then having them reciprocally come to us and we're tracking it. So, fall, spring, and then the following year. And we're going to keep it tracking. So, also cuz hopefully there won't be turnover in my office, but I always say if we win like the Powerball, um then whoever comes in after us can see

120what those relationships were also. But also, conversely, then when the new person comes in at Fairfield, you could say, "Oh, Lucy, we used to have such a great relationship with so- and so, and she may know, you know, they all everyone knows each other." >> Something genetic. >> She may know him. I'm sorry. I apologize. Something Janette did this year was revamp the she mentioned that council will be in each of the meetings and revamp the form that they used to fill out. So in case you saw college X but it's your student asking about it, you have that same information to help share about what's going on in that college. Uh and it's kind of universal was a really nice revamp to get that information shared amongst all the counselors. >> Yeah, it's great.

121And then when you talk about surveying students, maybe it is worth surveying students even in the end of their junior year to say what schools have you seen and what's high on your list cuz I know you and I had an email exchange and think you got that going. But that you know a college rep who's popular with a number of kids was going to be on Long Island but wasn't coming here and you got them to come back and come here which is amazing. But um to get ahead of that, just the the top 10 schools that come up in that survey might be helpful just to to approach them and say, "You're really popular with our kids this year." Thank you for the feedback. During our uh the junior college planning meetings in

122the springtime, um the counselors do sit uh down with uh the student and the parents to discuss their final or almost final uh college list. So, we can always um during that time send out a survey, a follow-up survey in terms of what are your top, you know, choices of of schools that you would like to connect and maybe even at the younger grade levels, perhaps 10th grade. Um, >> yeah, cuz people would fill that out, especially if you said it so we can do outreach to the admissions reps from these schools, right, to try to get them on campus. I think that you'd get a pretty high return on those surveys. going back to the budget and do we have enough money to send you know um um our counselors to college visits etc.

123It's funny you mentioned cuz Joe and I are meeting on Monday to discuss our our budget and I was just going to ask probably. >> So this is a preliminary. >> So that that's definitely in the works. So thank you for that. >> Sure. Know that seems like a important investment. >> I I think it's excellent to build relationships and there's no better way to do it in person. I just wanted to ask you Mr. retailers or anything in their agreements and scope of work that prohibits or prevents them or they don't have to go travel. >> Nothing that prohibits it. Um, you know, I think we would work with the the counselors to, you know, Oh, sorry. Uh, no, there's nothing in their agreements that would prohibit them from traveling. I think we would

124work with the counselors to, you know, ensure that, you know, we're not sending the same counselors across the country or down south every year. You know, kind of do it on a rotational basis so that it's fair for for them and their and their families. >> And is that considered accepted practice for counselors to ask them to go travel and there's not going to >> Every school district I've ever worked in, counselors have always traveled to colleges to create relationships with um with reps. Excellent. And I would say our council was used to do that much more than co really changed everything. But as speaker I would say we really need to go back because I agree that inerson relationship is better than any other way to go about it. >> So we're we're we're

125building we're getting there. Um we had a council that uh went through last summer went to High Point. So we're just again I think that sitting down communicating and also gathering information in terms of like what are the what which schools should we go and and and visit and and just divide and conquer and just visit and come back and gather the information come back and share out and share it with you guys. >> Right. I I think we're converging on like a bigger point here. Right. So if we talked all tonight about uh our rankings and the portrait of a CSH student and right so part of this all culminates with what is the message we want to give to the schools right because they look whether it's a student or a school they

126get overwhelmed with more applications than they can possibly ever really comprehend and so it's really important that last piece where we have solid consistent talking points for lack of a better word where we talk about the great aspects of the school and we get them excited to to think about us like just like we're excited to think about them >> and we're very optimistic and definitely we're working really hard to get to get get that and to meet that goal >> and Bill you're right on it's our students are performing academically I think Kim and we've been and has been saying and everyone is those other things that really help separate us okay you all you have that 3.9 GPA you've done this but the club the activity, all these other experiences is what's going

127to separate that little tip you over to get into >> right when you look at Navian everybody's got a 3.9, you know, like so it takes the things to make the message >> those little differences >> and so if I may I think it's, you know, it doesn't matter at this point, you know, in terms of my talking points, but if I may, last year we brought in two college representatives to discuss the essay, right, and essay writing. And that is um as our rep from Princeton said that is the student's voice. That is their their chance, their opportunity to speak directly to the admissions uh reader, you know, the reader. And so letters of recommendation are are based on others talking about the student, but the essay is actually that student's voice. And that's

128the the opportunity to share the I guess the uh other nonacademic the other you know whether it is a video of that student playing the cello or um you know uh attaching a YouTube video about their experience working with um individuals with disabilities or at a nursing home. So what what makes them um uh set sets them apart is actually what is viewed as as as a as a great asset because colleges do know that our students are strong in the academics and opportunities but they just want to hear more about um the other aspects of of them as as human beings. So, and we are definitely coaching them and guiding them along and informing parents about the importance of that as well. >> So, one more one more comment. Um, I I know we're

129tracking like community involvement and and things like that, volunteerism. The message is, oh, you need volunteer hours. But I think it would be great if the counseling department can sort of find opportunities to connect students to those types of things and get that message out really early because by the time you're a junior, it's really a little bit too late to build that resume. So, >> yeah, I think you have an opportunity. >> That's a great point. Last week, uh, the counselors mentioned, uh, the importance of extracurricular activities and volunteering. Um, and that's why we also link the volunteer opportunities, summer opportunities, as well as activities and clubs handbook to our website, but also to share that in again in the classroom, individual meetings. Um, and just spread the word so that again and then

130repeat repeat and repeat. >> I I I don't think Janette's um really highlighting the work she's done on the on the website. She's really condensed all the information for students to go as a one-stop shop on the guidance website. all the opportunities for volunteers over the summer experiences really making it simple the seals that they can earn with the criteria. So exactly what you said though you could start in eighth grade or seventh grade start building that up because 11th grade is too late. She made it very simple for them to get there and the counselors have been showing the students in there and I think next week Wednesday is a 10th grade presentation. >> There's one I there's one every week. >> It will be it's coming up. There's one every week. it seems

131like they'll be highlighting it there for parents to see it too. So, uh she's been doing a great job on that. Thank you, Janette. >> And again, to demystify and just simplify the uh process, we created um a checklist and timeline. And it's a one pager simple that students can look at in 9th grade, 10th grade, 11th grade, and seniors. They can look at the tasks, responsibilities that they need to accomplish per you know, month by month. Um let's see. So I think that one of the um it's again points of pride is the expansion of information and outreach. So we can continue to broaden our outreach and provide earlier access to uh college and career readiness resources. So last year we shared program information programming information with um sixth grade families highlighting the benefits

132of advanced coursework. I think this was mentioned at a previous board meeting in which um all students uh in families grade six through uh 11 rising 7th graders rising 12th graders received a notification about all the academic opportunities and the course offerings. And last year was the the debut of the um of the advanced courses uh offered at the junior high. So we uh ensure that they that families and and students were informed. Uh we also increased our awareness of career and technical education programs giving students giving students additional pathways to success. And so what that means is that we've had the um Wilson Tech and Lisa um reps coming in to talk to our students. And so we will do that again because we do recognize and understand that students um want to engage

133in other pathways whether it is aviation or you know musical theater or dance. And so we respect that and we uh empower students with you know the the connections and the uh and the resources. um all junior and senior high school families uh are invited to our counseling presentations. So, you know, like our financial college financial aid night, I had a mixed uh grade level uh audience. So despite where the families are at in terms of grade level, uh we have been committed to invite everyone to the party basically so that they can um enjoy and and and grasp and take notes from our our presenters and our speakers. Um counselors are meeting individually with students for goal setting sessions. And so the counselors uh have already met and connected with the ninth grade uh

134students. Um, Miss Pickering has also been connecting again that transition year from six to 7, 8 to 9. So, she has been diligently also working with the seventh graders. Um, we've added study skills and time management groups for grades uh 7 through 11th and continue to share resources as needed with our grade 12 students. So, our wellness uh504 chairperson, Miss Don Donahghue, formerly Miss Herald, uh she has uh done a great job uh conducting um again study skills in time management groups for those that that needed. Um and those are definitely uh with the permission and authorization of of the parent. Um individual course selections and college readiness meetings have also been expanded to include seventh grade families. In the past, um, those individual meetings were not being held and so last year we started

135having those individual meetings with our seventh grade families. Um, okay. So, what's up and coming? Looking ahead, we have several exciting initiatives planned. So, this fall, uh, we're we're forming a guidance advisory committee to strengthen collaboration and gather input about our programs from stakeholders. Um so we want to receive feedback in terms of you know what programs we have, what's working, what's not working. Um input as as tonight in terms of you know college visits and you know exploring um having a better connection with uh college admissions representatives. That type of insight and input and and beyond is welcome at the newly formed uh guid guidance advisory committee. So pretty soon I'll send a a communication with regards to um having those. Um we will have two meetings uh this year uh and if need

136be a third one. Um in the spring we'll offer a comment at boot camp for our our juniors and plan to host an unsight college fair during school hours. Our goal is to provide two college fairs. One in the fall, so that would be fall of 2026 and one in the spring and thereafter obviously. So, one in the fall and one in the spring. We will also offer additional college essay review sessions to support students with this important part of the application process. Um, we have established um college essay reviews by um two of our English teachers. We want to not um take away, we want to actually support and supplement by having college admissions reps coming in and providing feedback on on students um essay drafts. So we feel that that was important. It's

137something that um was done in my previous uh district and so I have connections that I can bring in and have those one-to-one connections and that valuable feedback that the students will get. Um we aim to support the annual alumni day run by our wonderful PTG. And so we will be I will be uh reaching out to Miss Gerber to um you know in in in support in any way we can um to bring back the alum and um to have you know a meaningful conversation with our our parents but also I would like to expand it to our students and hopefully if we c if we can we can record the event and then share it out with um with the community. And finally, this is um I'm not sure when this is uh

138going to be um materialized, but we plan to uh reconfigure the counseling center to create a dedicated college resource center for students and families where we can have, you know, a room where we can have students come in, um have conversations with, you know, college representatives, um have, you know, convers conversations, virtual meetings with uh coaches uh at at colleges etc. So um we also want to use a space that students can >> we talked all tonight about uh our rankings and the portrait of a CSH student and right so part of this all culminates with what is the message we want to give to the schools right because they look whether it's a student or a school they get overwhelmed with more applications than they can possibly ever really comprehend and so it's really

139important that last piece where we have solid consistent been talking points, for lack of a better word, where we talk about the great aspects of the school and we get them excited to to think about us like just like we're excited to think about them. >> And we're very optimistic and definitely we're working really hard to get to get that and to meet that goal. >> And Bill, you're right on. It's our students are performing academically. I think Kim and we've been in and has been saying and everyone is those other things that really help separate us. Okay, you all you have the 3.9 GPA, you've done this, but the club, the activity, all these other experiences is what's going to separate that little tip you over to get, >> right? When you look at

140Navian, everybody's got a 3.9, you know, like so to make the message a little >> those little differences. And so if I may, I think it's, you know, it doesn't matter at this point, you know, in terms of my talking points, but if I may, last year we brought in two college representatives to discuss the essay, right, and essay writing. And that is um as our rep from Princeton said, that is the student's voice. That is their their chance, their opportunity to speak directly to the admissions uh reader, you know, the reader. And so letters of recommendation are are based on others talking about the student but the essay is actually that student's voice and that's the the opportunity to share the I guess the uh other nonacademic the other you know whether it is

141a video of that student playing the cello or um you know uh attaching a YouTube video about their experience working with um individuals disabilities or at a nursing home. So what what makes them uh uh set sets them apart is actually what is viewed as as as a as a great asset because colleges do know that our students are strong in the academics and opportunities but they just want to hear more about um the other aspects of of them as as human beings. So, and we are definitely coaching them and guiding them along and informing parents about the importance of that as well. >> So, one more one more comment. Um, I I know we're tracking like community involvement and and things like that, volunteerism. The message is, oh, you need volunteer hours. But I

142think it would be great if the counseling department can sort of find opportunities to connect students to those types of things and get that message out really early because by the time you're a junior, it's really a little bit too late to build that resume. So, >> I I think you have an opportunity. >> That's a great point. Last week, uh, the counselors mentioned, uh, the importance of extracurricular activities and volunteering. Um, and that's why we also link the volunteer opportunities, summer opportunities, as well as activities and clubs handbook to our website, but also to share that in again in the classroom, individual meetings. Um, and just spread the word so that again and then repeat repeat and repeat. >> I I I don't think Janette's um really highlighting the work she's done on the

143on the website. She's really condensed all the information for students to go as a one-stop shop on the guidance website. all the opportunities for volunteers over the summer experiences really making it simple the seals that they can earn with the criteria. So exactly what you said though you could start in eighth grade or seventh grade start building that up cuz 11th grade is too late. She made it very simple for them to get there and the counselors have been showing the students in there and I think next week Wednesday is a 10th grade presentation. There's one I there's one every week. >> It will be it's coming up. There's one every week. it seems like they'll be highlighting it there for parents to see it too. So, she's been doing a great job on that.

144Thank you, Janette. >> And again, to demystify and just simplify the uh process, we created um a checklist and timeline. And it's a one pager simple that students can look at in 9th grade, 10th grade, 11th grade, and seniors. They can look at the tasks, responsibilities that they need to accomplish per, you know, month by month. Um let's see. So I think that one of the um ex again points of pride is the expansion of information and outreach. So we can continue to broaden our outreach and provide earlier access to uh college and career readiness resources. So last year we shared program information programming information with great um sixth grade families highlighting the benefits of advanced coursework. I think this was mentioned at a previous board meeting in which um all students uh in families

145grade 6 through uh 11 rising 7th graders rising 12th graders received a notification about all the academic opportunities and the course offerings. And last year was the the debut of the um of the advanced courses uh offered at the junior high. So we uh ensure that they that families and and students were informed. Uh we also increased our awareness of career and technical education programs giving students giving students additional pathways to success. And so what that means is that we've had the um Wilson Tac and Lisa um reps coming in to talk to our students. And so we will do that again because we do recognize and understand that students um want to engage in other pathways whether it is aviation or you know musical theater or dance. And so we respect that and we

146uh empower students with you know the the connections and the uh and the resources. Um all junior and senior high school families uh are invited to our counseling presentations. So you know like our financial college financial aid night. I had a mixed uh grade level uh audience. So despite where the families are at in terms of grade level uh we have been committed to invite everyone to the party. basically so that they can um enjoy and and and grasp and take notes from our our presenters and our speakers. Um counselors are meeting individually with students for goal setting sessions. And so the counselors uh have already met and connected with the ninth grade uh students. Um Miss Pepper has also been connecting again that transition year from 6th to 7th from 8 to 9. So

147she has been diligently also working with the seventh graders. Um, we've added study skills and time management groups for grades uh, 7 through 11th and continue to share resources as needed with our grade 12 students. So, our wellness uh,504 chairperson, Miss Don Donahghue, formerly Miss Herald, uh, she has uh, done a great job uh, conducting um, again study skills and time management groups for those that that needed. Um and those are definitely uh with the permission and authorization of of the parent. Um individual course selections and college readiness meetings have also been expanded to include seventh grade families. In the past um those individual meetings were not being held and so last year we started having those individual meetings with our seventh grade families. Um okay. So what's up and coming? Looking ahead, we have

148several exciting initiatives plan. So this fall, uh we're we're forming a guidance advisory committee to strengthen collaboration and gather input about our programs from stakeholders. Um so we want to receive feedback in terms of you know what programs we have, what's working, what's not working. um input as as tonight in terms of you know college visits and you know exploring um having a better connection with uh college admissions representatives that type of insight and input and and beyond is welcome at the newly formed uh guid guidance advisory committee so pretty soon I'll send a communication with regards to um having those um we will have two meetings uh this year uh and if need need be a third one. Um in the spring we'll offer a common app at boot camp for our our juniors

149and plan to host an on-site college fair during school hours. Our goal is to provide two college fairs, one in the fall, so that would be fall of 2026 and one in the spring and thereafter obviously. So one in the fall and one in the spring. We will also offer additional college essay review sessions to support students with this important part of the application process. um we have established um college essay reviews by um two of our English teachers. We want to not um take away, we want to actually support and supplement by having college admissions reps coming in and providing feedback on on students um essay drafts. So we feel that that was important. is something that uh was done in my previous uh districts and so I have connections that I can bring

150in and have those one-to-one connections and that valuable feedback that the students will get. Um we aim to support the annual alumni day run by our wonderful PTG. And so we will be I will be uh reaching out to Miss Gerber to um you know in in in support in any way we can um to bring back the alum and um to have you know a meaningful conversation with our our parents but also I would like to expand it to our students and hopefully if we c if we can we can record the event and then share it out with um with the community. And finally, this is um I'm not sure when this is uh going to be um materialized, but we plan to uh reconfigure the counseling center to create a dedicated college

151resource center for students and families where we can have, you know, a room where we can have students come in, um have conversations with, you know, college representatives, um have, you know, convers conversations, virtual meetings with uh coaches uh at at colleges etc. So um we also want to use a space that students can come in and also work on their essay. The counselor can go in perhaps run some groups. So that's the vision in terms of the physicality aspect of the uh department. This is just a tiny highlight of what's going on in our department. If there are any other questions, um, >> thank you. It's very exciting. The website looks great. I looked at it at the beginning of the year and it's totally different. A lot of improvements. Thank you. >> Thank

152you. You're talking. >> I was like, you go home. >> Go home. >> It's late. >> You can stay if you want, but you can go home. >> Go home. >> If you don't go home, I'll go home. >> We'll fight to go home, >> Joe. They change order next instead of the budget so they can get out of here. They've been very patient. Sorry. Thank you. >> And during these >> uh came tonight, Joe Lawson, Saloko, Eric Jansik, and Kenny Tester. Um I think that what you saw is going to be helpful to you in the work of the capital committee because what the capital committee should be doing and what the budget should be doing is supporting the aspirations of our students. you have now a sense of what we have as aspirations

153for our students and I think that will be helpful to you in your work. Um as Mark requested I will gladly present anatomy of change order first and then we'll go to uh development. So I I want to show you some basic definitions uh for capital work. The uh capital work is done through the provision of plans that are architectural drawings broken out by the primary trades for any project that is $1.5 million or higher. That threshold is set by the Wix law in New York State. If it's less than $1.5 million, it does not need to be broken out into the four primes. Beyond the plans, the the drawings, there are specifications, a book called project manual is put together with details about the work. And included in that spec book is a set

154of general conditions that all the trades must be associated must be uh compliant with. Uh and there's a section of specifications for each trade for each job. We're going to be talking a little bit about Rei tonight. Really is the electrical contractor um who in essence sparked this conversation. Uh section 16 of the spec book is devoted to electrical work. And last but not least for the committee to understand especially is that capital work in a school district must be approved by the state education department before the project is put out to bid. Unlike work that we do on our own homes, um work that businesses do in the town of Huntington, as an example, who get a building permit from the town and then their plans are approved by a town planning board. Uh

155we our planning board is in essence the state education department. Oops. So here's what a plan looks like. I know you can't read this. So I did bring and I will distribute to you um the uh a sample plan uh in miniature. These plans, uh, if you ever see, uh, the plans themselves, they're usually about four feet tall and six feet wide. Uh, and then they're legible. There's a drawing like this for each section of the work that needs to be done. And the drawing, the plan includes notes to the contractor about specific things that need to be done. For example, there's a sample um of the way the lights should be installed in the ceiling detailed on the plan. The specifications are a very very long list of things that the contractor must perform.

156Uh the specifications are 40 in in the case of this project, they were about 70 pages long. Uh, and this is a sample from a spec page. Now, before we actually do the project, we have to put it out to bid. And putting it out to bid on the street involves putting out both the big spec book and the plans that contractors pick up. And when after the plans are actually sent out on the street, there are very often agenda that are written and submitted to each contractor. This particular project had eight different agenda uh that was sent out before the bids were received. The process results in a bid. Um, a bid is an affirmation by the contractor that he or she can perform the work as specified in the plans and the specbook

157exactly the way the architect spelled it out, including the full scope that the architect gave. In this case, the contract was awarded to Rally Electrical Contractors. Um, the total amount that this contract was a little north of $3 million. Now, here comes the part about change orders. A change order is a recognition that there was a condition that was not anticipated for one reason or another during the course of the actual construction. I'm going to show you nine change orders for this project. Each one of them was a change or necessitated by a condition that was either discovered during the course of construction or was a request by the district to do additional work beyond the scope that was laid out in the contract itself. So here's the first one. there was a conduit feeding

158the boiler room that was in the way of the general contractor's installation of the steel. This um change order was broken out into the cost of materials and tooling and labor costs. It was vetted by the construction management firm and by the architect and the negotiated price for this change was $7,638.90. Now, when I say negotiated, uh, you you're not going to see a change order that was rejected by the architect, but I can tell you that there was one change order proposed by the electrical contractor that would have cost $100,000 or more, and the architect said, "No, we don't need to do that. You do it our way." Uh, and that that was done. So we the architect in essence blocked that change order from happening. >> So this change order go back. >>

159Yes sir. >> Is this in this was not visible? Um so that it was a surprise and there's no way our architect could have foresaw that and and had it in the original plan. >> That's what I am told. Yes sir. >> A conduit feeding a boiler. That's that's hidden. I guess. >> Mhm. That was in the in the way of the general contractor putting in steel. >> Okay. Yeah. >> Uh this next one, uh there's an interesting note on this one. The contractor actually asked that uh he be allowed to add a percentage for overhead and profit, which is a normal practice in the industry. When somebody does work, they're allowed to ask for five 5% profit and 10% for overhead costs. I may have that rehearsed, forgive me. But the overhead is the

160cost of the work that has to be done in the back office, like the secretarial work, etc. And the profit is what he's allowed to um add to the cost of the work. So you're saying on a change order they can add the five and 10%. >> On the change order, yes, if it is not part of the allowance, this change order, remember this uh I'm sorry, let me let me step back a bit. This contract of $3,29,000 included an allowance of $100,000. That allowance was set aside so that the the full contract would be only 2,929,000 if no changes were necessary. And in some cases, as you've seen in the past couple of months when projects have been closed out, there were allowances that were not fully used and returned to the school district.

161We got $56,000 from one contractor a few weeks ago, $23,000 from another. >> Um, this particular contract, the allowance was completely exhausted. >> I I guess I'm confused because I know Mark asked at one of the meetings, you know, many months ago about whether we see on the bids the actual amount of profit >> and we were told we don't and that we weren't entitled to. So, I'm not sure like how do we know when this new negotiated change order is done? How do we know what's profit and what's just cost? Because now you're adding to a number we have no visibility into things like labor and overhead, >> right? I understand. And that's that's why most architects will avoid at all costs any change orders if they possibly can because they want to hold

162the contract within budget. But as and I can tell you that I'm not a construction manager. I'm not a contractor. I'm not an architect. So when somebody says to me, "This is going to cost $3,63 to do this work." I'm relying on my construction manager and my architect to actually look at that work and say that's reasonable in terms of the labor that needs to be done, the materials that need to be purchased. >> I got to tell you, Bill, I would never I would just not know >> that was a reasonable number. >> That's how we ended up with $1,800 square foot bathroom renovations, though, because so that's why we're addressing this. So, this was a um I guess I hope it was client direct at this one, right? >> Yes, sir. The what

163happened was that there was a staircase um that was reconfigured somehow and the uh contractor was asked to install wall-mounted LED strip fixtures and three-way switches at the top and bottom of the staircase. >> Who else? Uh, it was actually done by Brian Graham and approved by James Stoio. >> Bill, you mentioned something that I just What did you mean by the percentage? So, they make their percentage on the change order. >> I think Joe was saying once you negotiate a change order value, >> then they are also entitled to add 5% for overhead and 10% not part of the original aotment, >> right? >> Yeah. And and that bill was normally when they put together the $3,29,000 quote, they included in that number what they felt was going to be their profit and their

164overhead. a change order if it exceeds that 3,29,000. What they're saying is, well, you didn't catch our overhead or profit on that. So, we should be allowed to charge the additional overhead and profit. They call it PNO. And it's 10 and five. And forgive me, I don't know which one is which. But because it was part of the allowance each of these change orders that was already built into their $3,29,000 contract amount. So they were not allowed to charge overhead and profit on any change order that fell within the allowance. Forgive me for getting to it, but is there a certain number or a certain point where you would need approval that's beyond the business administrator? And when would that be? >> In my opinion, >> every change in a contract should be approved by

165the board of education. Every single change. The $100,000 is your money. It's not mine to spend. So, it would be my intention if I was your business official to at least alert you during Friday notes as an example if the change order is less than that threshold amount. What is the threshold amount, Joe? 50,000. >> 50,000, >> right? Uh if the threat if the change order is less than 50,000, I would at least alert you in Friday notes. This is what's happening. And then you would see at the next meeting a formal change order for you to approve and adopt. >> We lowered it to 25. No, >> I don't think we we have we didn't change the policy to it. >> We didn't. Okay. >> But we said we would let you we alert

166you of any I I think Joe's going to get to some of it is there's also a timing. There could be especially with summer work. We may need to alert you before a board meeting. you're doing some work and there's four months in between and they need to fix something or do something. We want you to know ahead of time. Uh we did that one time this year already. This is what we see. We want you to know so we can move forward. We don't we can't wait four or five weeks because we need to get it done. Um but we we will let you know of every single change that goes on. No problem whatsoever. I will tell you that I have no evidence whatsoever that any of these changes that were made spending

167the $100,000 allowance were ever preapproved by you. And I think that that's a mistake. I think that in the future we should make sure that every change to the contract is approved by you either in the Friday notes letting you know and you could call us up and say wait a minute that's not what we intend or if it's more than $50,000 stop the work until such time as you could approve it. >> Okay. Can I just say something? It's this this presentation is 22 pages and it's already >> So here we go. 950. >> You ready, Kate? >> I'm just slipping through all of the others. They're in your presentation. I'll let you read them on your own. Um, these are all changes that were requested by the district. Um, and were charged against

168the allowance. This one, uh, is kind of a logical one when you think about it. uh it was not the plan did not include taking the old PA system and wiring it into the new public address headend unit. That could be a mistake on the part of the architect for not including that. but it wasn't included in the contract. And therefore, you can expect that if this work was included as part of the contract, instead of 3,29,000, the contract would have been 3,60,000 because they would have included this work. So, it's not that you spent more than you should have spent, it's just that you spent it at the end of the project instead of upfront. There are some changes that are reductions in the contract amount because apparently at some point um there was

169a decision made to not install certain devices in science classrooms. I don't know what those devices were, but the the contractor gave a credit to the district for not having to install those devices. The material was only $293, but the labor to install those devices, whatever they may be, uh was $3,000. >> So there there's no paper trail of even things that we're not doing. We just get a credit and say, "Okay, great. We have a credit." No one even knows that the the credit was determined that was offered by the contractor and the construction manager and the architect vetted that credit based on the work that the contractor presented to them. >> So you're saying you don't know it tonight or you don't know it cuz there's no paper trail on what was not

170performed. >> I don't know it tonight. If I was in a construction meeting where this was discussed, I might have more information for you. No, but is it in your office somewhere in a file? >> Oh, no. What we didn't do? Yeah. It's >> okay. I know I'm probably not allowed to do this. >> What? Don't never stop me before. Um S, you look like you want to say something? Am I putting you on the spot? >> Have you Do you have experience with this? I'm just curious. >> Uh yeah, I've done schools. I've done about 100 libraries in the state across New York State. >> Could you go through? >> Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, >> I know my wife is wondering where I am right now, but sorry. >> I feel bad. This is

171a long night. >> Yeah, 7:30. Um, I'm an architect. I'm happy to be on the committee and be a resource. Um, that we were just talking that the change order process, uh, there's a lot of paperwork. You're looking at a little snippet here. I doubt anything was done, uh, improperly. Um, I don't know why you paid $18,000 for the the bathroom. Is that what the question was? >> It was a square foot. >> Oh, per square foot. You probably shouldn't have done that project. You shouldn't have done a small project like that. It's really expensive to do public works. But hopefully I can help with the committee, you know, kind of guide some of these projects with you uh to make sure that they're the right projects are done and it's money spent well. But

172we were just talking about change orders and um it shouldn't be that complicated or mysterious really. Um every job has change orders. Getting a credit is really unusual. I don't see them very often. An allowance is already in the project usually. Usually, we put an allowance aside so that there's not like a $20,000 alarm allowance that uh for extra smoke detectors or something and then you just end up putting them in because the fire marshall may come in and say, "Well, we need a dozen of them." Um, but there's a logic behind it. Um, I don't know if we're still working with John Griller or not. We we have a new architect. >> Okay. Good luck to him and you know happy happy to work with them. I don't know who they are design Michael

173from Mark design. >> Okay, but uh >> can I speak on procurement? >> Well, I guess that's up to you guys. >> Yeah, >> it has to do with the change orders. So, I work for the municipality and my specialty is procurement. I'm actually going to a seminar tomorrow and the next day on procurements and I'm meeting with the New York State Controllers's office with regards to procurements. So when you bid something out, the whole entire thing of bidding is transparency. So you can't put out a bid and then do a change order. The town likes to do change orders and they can't do it if it goes above a certain threshold because certain thresholds need to be publicly bid. So if there and that's where you have improprieties because they're like, "Oh, we're just

174going to put a change order." And that's where somebody like with the town, they'll bring an article 78 saying, "Hey, I didn't get to publicly bid on that because you're not putting it out to the public." And you awarded the contract to somebody else. And there's a lot of thresholds on what these amounts are. And I don't know what kind of if this was just a project based or it was a requirement contract, but once you go out to bid and you award a contract, you can't do any negotiation. Once you have the negotiation, that means you're specializing this awardee and you're giving them special um treatment. And then with regards to the addendums in these contracts, these addendums is is for all these contractors that are putting out these bids to ask questions and

175to answer. and everybody has to acknowledge that they are reading all these questions and all these answers. Um then this is now you're going to couple this this is public works project. So public works projects are even more scrutinized and there's a lot of guidelines with public works. So like and and you have to connect it with the contract of what they're allowed to bill and what they're not allowed to bill cuz yes there are certain allowances but you have to reference it back to the contract in order to make sure that this these change orders are correct and there should be POS issued on every single line item. So it it is a very intertwined and very complicated procedure. So what they're doing to I think to avoid the the rebate is they're just

176working within the allowance and eating up these allowance. >> There needs to be checks and balances and that's where you have employees money >> at this project. >> Is anybody on the project? Is everybody making sure how many hours are being checked in or do you have like >> Yeah, there there was a construction manager on this project who did exactly that. um counted the hours that people were working. Um Kim's point is very well taken that sometimes people do a project, they get it approved by the state education department and then they attempt to add to the scope of the project um by saying, "Okay, we were going to do windows, but guess what? Now we're going to do doors as well. Can we write a change order so that you can do doors?"

177And if those doors cost more than $35,000, general, municipal, requires that they be bid. Not if it's an additional window because that was within the scope of the original project, but to expand the scope requires you to go out to bid if it's more than $35,000. That's a general. >> These are all smaller though, what you're showing, so they fall under that. And they went through $100,000 in change orders. And you know, these little bites are adding up. >> Yep. They did. Absolutely. Um there was one change order to Kim's point. There was one change order that was required when PSEG told us that the switch gear that we had was not not the switch gear but the uh panel that we had needed to be split into two panels because they were afraid there

178was going to be an overload in one of the panels. um that was a change in the regulations that caused us to spend an additional 15 $20,000 whatever it was it's in one of these slides. >> I have a perhaps a suggestion since this committee which thank you all for being on this committee and I'm also a member of this committee will meet separately. Do you think since there's not the availability of as much back and forth with the committee that it would make sense to carry on this conversation to be had at a committee meeting so that we could have more productive >> back and forth rather than keeping guests here for a slide presentation. >> Absolutely. and keeping board members in what seems like it's a we've been discussing the granular nature of

179these change orders in very detailed measure for a number of board meetings. So perhaps it's met better at a committee. >> It's it's your pleasure as a board. We just wanted to give you all the information that you needed. >> Okay. Thank you. >> I'm a little worried I don't understand the change process and I'm not on the capital committee. I'm not looking to keep people, but I don't think that's gonna work for me if I don't get to hear >> what but >> we could do it at a different meeting. I'm not saying I extend this, but >> No. Well, I think Alex is trying to say is this back and forth isn't typically we don't typically permit it um with the committee meeting and observe. >> I was just going to say >>

180as a non committee member, can he or can he not? >> No, you can attend but you can't speak because then you have a quorum. So, I believe you can attend and you can listen if it's informative. >> Um, but I would agree with Alex for a more thorough back and forth. I mean, it would make more sense. This way, they don't have to hold every question, >> visit Joe and have have him explain it to you. >> But if any board members have any other questions on Joe's presentation, I I think that's totally fair to, you know, let him answer it. You have a couple more questions before he moves on. Do you have a >> I'm listening. I'm trying to learn. >> Okay. >> So, I don't know what my questions are yet.

181>> So, I I don't know how to explain it um in more detail. I think more detail will probably get me even more confused. Um but the the basic reasons for change orders are either a dis a condition was discovered that was not anticipated and it was not specified in the contract documents or on the plan documents and the contractor has to do it for whatever reason. safety, um, fire safety, convenience, whatever the reason may be, that becomes a change order because it's changing the terms of the contract. >> Yeah. >> And that in my opinion, >> the examples you've given, I I understand. I think uh what I'm I I probably have a bigger picture question that that won't be answered tonight and hopefully this committee will help get us better situated. But I

182think you know >> like the bigger question is why are there change? >> No, how much of it is uh less than great planning by the architect or less than great collaboration between the architect and the contract manager where maybe the contract the contracting manager could spot issues. So I'm curious longer term where those things are not were not happening maybe in the past and we could do a better job. So and maybe the answer is they were happening and and we can't do a better job and these are just the way they are. >> I I can tell you that I have not yet been in a district doing a capital project where there were not change. There's no >> even when you do work on your house, right? Like you do a big

183renovation in your house, usually there's a change order, right? I mean, >> you one that >> I mean, you just approve it. You don't have to go right, but it's >> should be a change order. >> One that was listed here and I mentioned last week was the the piece of fiber. >> I have to say that was an overlook by the architect. We were building five or six rooms that are going to be classrooms that need to be connected to our network and he didn't have a fiber running back to our knock. So I saw like it had to be done. So there was a change order for 32 I forget what it was. So that was something on our end like we requested but in my vision that was missed by the architect.

184>> Right. >> So I don't know where we came out. >> You didn't pay for it anymore. You didn't pay for it until then. >> We we paid for it after right. Yeah. Yeah, I think that that's that's an important point that S is making. If it was missed by the architect and was not in the contract, in a perfect world, that dollar amount that was spending on that change order would have been in the contract amount if the contract had been written correctly. So, $30,000 for the fiber. Okay. Instead of 3,29,000, if that fiber was in the contract, the contract would have been for 3 million $59,000. >> Well, we we don't know that because we don't have a breakdown of how much profit is in the original bid and so >> Well, we

185do know we do know though what the specifications were and we do know what the plans were and that fiber was in neither. >> Yeah, understood. I do I do I do remember when we did do that project we spoke to one of our cableers and it was within it was 3,000 in change not 30,000 so much but and he said that's within reason it wasn't astronomical >> yeah there's kind of three buckets it falls in client directed changes >> architect missed it and then the third bucket is um the um oh >> discovered condition >> discovered right thank It's getting a little late. So, the thing is the architect firms we just met with all universally, correct me if I'm wrong, said it's it's rare an allowance is taken because it only gets taken

186usually in the event of a surprise. Client directed not a surprise. So, that's going to be that. And then the other example um the three client directed what was the uh >> aritectural error >> architectural error. So I want to understand how much of the percent was architectural error import planning cuz when they come to the board to vote on the project amount we're approving that amount. The allowance is our money. we expect that to come back only in the event of a surprise um or if we change something. >> I'm pretty sure that no architect is going to come to you and say my bad. Um you're going to need to spend more money cuz I made a mistake. Some some may >> I'm not even saying that. I just want to know how

187many times that happened and how many times you know this cuz the the architects we met with they said it's a very low it's really a surprise when money is taken uh in the in the form of an allowance and are and if we're going and making these client directed change orders who's doing it you mentioned uh former people right and then is that process is there oversight in that process do we have the proper controls as a board going forward Let me say again, Mark, if I was your business official, you would have known about those changes, even though they were charged against the allowance before the end of the project. You would have known as they happened. That's the way I operate. It's your money. It's not my money to spend. >> And

188we and we agreed to do that. The these changes are four and five years ago for this contract. We're in complete agreement to say here are the changes proposed and why >> done >> and then if you have concerns we would have the architect come to the meeting and explain why it's necessary >> and we've been seeing that in the last few months haven't we? >> Yes. >> So I'll show you the last one on this presentation. This last one is, if you remember, we had um the uh the marine lab. Uh we did to do electrical work in the marine lab. We had a walk through with uh Anthony Clemens looked at the plans as well himself. These were not part of the plans. The contractor estimated the cost of $15,000. They proposed the

189cost to be $15,000. Uh, and because that exhausted the allowance completely, there was one less one additional amount added to the contract in the amount of 5,000 something. Um, here's the construction manager summary of the change orders and the change orders according to the contractor which line up exactly except for that last change order uh which this report was written before then. Last uh I wanted to show you what a certificate for payment looks like. This is a form that's prepared by the American Institute of Architects. uh it is a way that the architect and the construction manager can review uh a payment request. I wanted to point out one thing to you on this page in the middle of the left hand side there's a line called retainage. Retainage in every contract we are

190allowed to retain 5% of the money that the contractor has earned. So that, God forbid, there's something we discover after we've paid the contractor, we still hold 5% of his money so we can get him to come back and fix it. Right? That's retainage. Here's the schedule of all of the various parts of the project that Rowley agreed to do. The schedule of values it's called. And every time he requests a payment, uh, he tells us how much of the work he's completed in each of those lines. He hold back 5% and then we pay him the balance. And that's my change order presentation. >> Thank you. >> Can you back up to the first page of that last one? They they didn't break out overhead profit as part of their >> schedule value. >>

191no, they normally don't. >> I point >> having trouble controlling it because we we want to see that and we understand prevailing wage. We understand people's capitalistic need to make a profit, but it's hard to say when there's a $3 million project. >> It's all contractual. It should be I believe >> right in there. >> It should be right in there. >> Yeah. >> And if it's not, you know, depends on the state or >> negotiations already in there. >> Yeah. Right. >> I think um if I I don't remember where we this may have been discussed and agreed to already, but can we also do like a look at a re-review of our construction management firm? Not saying we would change, but uh we we did this with the architect and I thought it

192was helpful. But I think it's good to keep this process fresh where we interview again and make sure we have the right people. >> Yes. You just at your reorg meeting you did renew the agreement with East. But >> we have a schedule I believe where we are supposed to >> RFP basically everyone every few years. And I don't know that it had been done. I don't know that it had been done. So that could be a spring >> for them, I would think, or >> winter even just to see see where we are with that. Um, yeah, I I this came up a lot is whether or not just we were even on our contractual side, we were doing our due diligence with what we were presenting people. So maybe that's a conversation to

193have at the committee >> level. the same with the with the bid process >> for your RFP and stuff like that. You guys have procurement manual. >> So, let's do this at a committee where we can talk cuz we're not really >> right. >> Okay. >> Can't really go back and forth cuz while it works in this capacity, it doesn't work in all capacities. And then we're >> That's right. >> All right. the construction manager and RFP process or it's just uh >> any professional service architectural CN lawyers doctors are all procured through an RFP not a bid and so and Kim knows this because um many of the public works projects that are done are through a bid because you can specify exactly what you want to have done. The ash should be 5/8

194of an inch thick. It should go from curve to curve, you know, etc., etc. That you can bid. An RFP is used when there are other factors that you have to think about. >> Okay. Well, because of the late hour, we do have another presentation which is an important one. It's the budget presentation. So, I was going to bring it to you guys what you thought we should do. Um, we could do a brief overview of it which may not be giving it enough attention or perhaps Thank you everybody. Um, >> or perhaps it would be better that we have says we have some interviews coming up. We'll be meeting again in a couple weeks. Perhaps it's best to move that um out a couple of weeks. I'm looking at the budget calendar. or we

195wouldn't want to wait till February, which is the next time we're meeting to discuss this. We want to start the conversations earlier, but perhaps it would be better. Do you guys want to wait for a couple weeks and do it then? >> Instead of rushing it, >> just one thing. >> Okay. >> Just one thing. >> Just one literally just one thing. give us guidance as to what you would think would be acceptable in 26 27 >> as far as what >> tax >> well you know the one thing I will say is that last year we asked for 0 1 and 2% just to see that and we were presented initially with like 1.8 8 1.9 1.98% and then eventually got the zero one and 2%. So I I think whatever people agree with,

196but I I that to me seemed like a good way to take a look at our range to help us make a decision. I don't know how people feel about that. >> Yes. What Joe, do you know when we I'm sorry. When do we get our maximum tax? The 2% tax app can be harder than two. It doesn't make sense, but >> because I I think we do like what Alex said 012 and max. >> We don't know yet. >> Oh, we don't know. We >> It's usually a little bit higher than >> 2.12. >> Yeah. Yeah, we could. But >> we have close. I'm going to give you some food for thought. All right, Alex. I guarantee you if you told me to prepare a budget with a 0% tax levy increase, I could

197do it like that. No problem whatsoever not change a single thing about the program you offer children. And I also guarantee you that I'll be polishing my resume for my next job because next year you will not be able to repeat because you want to drain. >> I we just want to see it though. I don't want I I feel like that's not really it's like >> No, >> but you're already telling us that we don't want it and I think we'd like to see what that looks like with a projection. >> Okay. So then we will present to you how a 0% budget would look if it was going to be sustained with me. >> Yeah, that's what we we would want of and a 1%. >> You got it. And so we'll make

198a list of programs that it needs to be cut. >> Do that. >> We want to see it. We just want to see it. Doesn't mean we're doing it. We just want to see it. Right. >> I think we also want to one thing and I'm happy to do the work on this because I know maybe you don't want to, but I just need help trying to understand where we stand in all of our funds reserves versus other districts. So, what percent of our reserves do we have compared to our $81 million budget versus what does Jericho have, what does Memphis Valley have, etc. Right. Our current fund balance is about $24 million. compared to an $82 million budget. Of that $24 million, most of it is in the capital reserve which can only be

199used for capital projects. 4% is in the unassigned fund balance which can be used in emergency. you can increase the appropriation and the rest of it is in reserves like the TR reserve the heavil reserve and in my presentation when we get to it >> we'll get some of these answers right >> yeah I just think if we're not looking at zero then when people say how come you have $24 million in reserves and you're increasing my taxes we don't have an answer for them if you show us zero answer >> and then when they say why didn't you do this percent or this percent we can say well these are the things we were going to have to cut, you know. So, it's good to see the worst case scenario. >> You got it.

200>> All right. >> You got it. I'm sure that your new business official will be happy to do that. >> Okay. All right. So, moving on to other matters. Um, I guess first I think we should I'll take a motion to approve the budget calendar. Could I have a first, Kate? a second. Mark, any questions? I was just going to add that. We probably will add another >> There may be more >> meeting >> that's minimal >> to that. So probably and one certainly before February. Okay. So any other questions, comments? >> I I have a question. So, we had two years ago, we had put together like a list of sort of pie in the sky wishes and other wishes that board members had for what could be put in to the budget. And

201I believe that was done in like December or January. I I just don't know what the lead time would need to be on something like that. I think if we wait from now until February, then we're coming in a little late for those, right? And that's how we got some really big things approved in the budget that year. >> I think on Joe on your last slide, right, you have you're asking for that information. And that's why it's important that and we add that meeting in the next couple of weeks, but we have other important items to get to like these interviews that need to be held. And this the same comment I think goes for the building leaders and other people who because I I feel like they were afraid to ask last year

202for things. So yeah, absolutely. And if you have any things you send them in, we could start pricing them out, looking at them now. There's no reason to wait till later, >> right? And maybe we can spread those presentations out over time because, >> right, we >> if we look at the calendar because it's it's a lot in one night, >> right? We put we dedicated I believe it's three nights adjusted to budget in the previous year they were part of the regular board meeting the dedicated adjust to budget starting earlier 6:00 um the way we used to do them. So >> I guess I guess the question is is it too late if they're doing these presentations with requests in mid to late February if the principles are coming and saying it would be

203so nice to have you know new >> college style cafeteria >> right and >> is that a capital expense >> that's that's definitely a capital >> not a budget u but uh you know send the college counselors I want to send them all to the west coast this year or something. So, can we just make sure that we're giving them enough runway for that, too? >> I think that um if I remember correctly, I think that Joe has put together in previous years that wish list. >> We we will the the um principles and directors will not be restricted to what they want to ask for. Now doing your uh cafeteria overrite that is a capital project. That's not something you typically do just in the budget. So they will have all their wish lists

204and everything and we'll take a look to see you will see them and then we'll add track change adjust appropriately as a team. >> Any other questions? Okay. All in favor take a motion to approve the RFP for the marine wetland May 1st. Kate, a second. Alex, any questions? All in favor? Um, I'm going to take a motion to wave the first read of the second read of policy 6710 and policy 8334 as a slate. Could I have a first uh bill? A second. Kate, any questions? All in favor? Um, we have a audience to visitors but no one left in the audience. And one more discussion section. Anyone have anything items for discussion? All right. And before we go, I want to thank Dylan who hung in here. 10:23 with all of us. Great

205job. Um, all right. So then I'm going to take a motion for an enjoyment. May I have the first, Alex, Lisa? All in favor?