001good evening and welcome to the January 10 2023 Gilman School District Board of Education meeting would you all please silence your cell phones and rise for the pledge I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with Liberty okay first item on the agenda is we have public comment uh do we have any public comments no thank you next we have a program report I'll turn it over to Dr Wiles all right good evening everyone we have an exciting start to our Board of Education meeting tonight we have some guests here who have come with a very large piece of paper with some interesting writing on it so I can't wait to see what that's all about but we
002are this evening going to be the recipient of um some technology equipment and some cash to help us start some exciting new programming and to say more about it I am going to invite Mr James Connors come up to the microphone he is from Intel to talk about this exciting opportunity for Guilderland High School hello hello thank you all so much for having me today I am very very excited to be here on behalf of Intel so um just to provide a little bit more context around uh why I am here and exactly uh uh why this grant is being awarded to the school here um so I work with our Intel retail Edge program and our Intel retail Edge program is actually a training campaign we have a website that uh we keep regularly
003updated with trainings on the latest and greatest technology now this is aimed at the retail community so that the people working inside locations that sell computers such as Best Buy or office stores Etc so that they're able to stay up to date and then inform customers whether they be uh you know people working from home and needing to get set up with that or they have students in school that are doing e-learning Etc we want to make sure that they have all the knowledge because I think we know that computers are becoming just more and more pivotal to the education of our youth right so we try to keep them informed and in doing so we like to run training promotions and then as an award for those training promotions we have lots of cool
004prizes for the staff but we also love when we do our annual campaign that is score with Intel Core and what we do is we actually have 30 stores that win grand prizes and they get to select a school to award a technology Grant to now so the Albany Best Buy actually was one of the top 10 one of the grand prize winning locations that got the maximum Tech Grant and they have decided to award the school here with that and actually if I could have them come up I have Matt and Doug from the Best Buy location here and I have this wonderful plaque to award them and they have something to hand to uh to you all as well that that aforementioned big piece of paper so guys congratulations on all the hard
005work I actually I can't even express enough how much work it takes to battle against all the other retail stores across the country and to land number one so uh this plaque is to commemorate you guys winning the grand prize and awarding a 25 000 Tech Grant this includes technology and five thousand dollars in cash that will be awarded to the school so congratulations to you guys there we go okay all righty uh I'm gonna let Matt who uh really drove the participation in his location to uh to make all this happen I'll let him share a few words at well did I grab that big piece of paper so just to describe a little more about the enormity of it right our store had about eight to twelve competing employees so folks who work
006in the store not just sales associates but also operations Associates helping learn about Intel product but also driven by the idea of giving back to the community of those eight people there are a total of 19 000 competitors that they were going against so those eight folks in our store helped drive this competition and ensure that we came out on top and with Best Buy's commitment to giving back the community whether it be or teen tech centers whether it be St Jude's and those donations or even just giving back to specific schools and districts we knew that Guilderland was in our backyard it's in the same district so that's why we selected the high school here as our recipient so thank you all yeah [Applause] and yeah I think that would be fantastic to use
007this awesome technology I just wanted to say thank you to Best Buy and Intel for this donation we have been investing in the Esports team for a while and we got some students from one of our pipe from our Python Programming class and our a couple of our help desk students or potential Esports players to be here to accept the award tonight so foreign [Applause] [Laughter] I'm Jake I'm in the python class as a lab Aid and I'd like to thank for the technology we're getting it's gonna be great I'm Tim I'm on the help desk and thank you for everything I guess I'm a junior and I'm part of the time of Meenakshi and I'm part of AP Kansai program and thank you so much I am Prima part of the Python program and
008thank you Natalia and Sanju and I'm part of the Python program foreign Mike you should get in there yeah Mrs Sherry please get in there too isn't she yeah he's a teacher hold on right one more come on Mrs Perry there you go perfect all right foreign thank you all so much so glad you could join us tonight yeah you're getting a minute great thank you Dr Wiles and thank you again to our special guests and all the students that came out tonight next on the agenda we have the budget development and I will turn this over to Dr Wiles or to Mr van alstein yes both of you [Music] all right so thank you all and uh glad to see I uh could drive everyone away um it's hard to follow up a giant
009check being donated but um I'd like to start out by thanking everyone for uh making my first couple weeks in Guilderland uh so wonderful and hopefully a very auspicious beginning to a long time here what I want to talk about uh to start at this point in the budget process are some of the financial tools or concepts we use to help Drive sort of short-term and long-term Financial sustainability in school districts uh and that is fund balance and reserves so we're going to start out by defining these Concepts uh fund balance is what we have left over in the general fund at the end of the fiscal year and it can come about because we brought in more Revenue than we forecast or expenses we're a little less than we had projected but that we
010have some sort of savings or net net um positive cash flow and then what we do with this depends on how much we have so school districts are allowed to carry over four percent of this fund balance of the next year's budget in fund balance um and then there are other things we can do with it and those four categories are assigning it we can use it right now to pay bills we have in the current fiscal year we can appropriate it that is we can use it in the following Year's budget in place of raising taxes through the levy we can put it in reserve funds this is restricted fund balance and these reserves are designated uh legally allowed uses to set money aside and sort of save it for a number of possible
011legally defined options and then finally there's that unassigned fund balance which is the four subject to that four percent limit uh there are 13 legally allowed Reserve fund uses in New York state and they are subject to different levels of restriction so some of them creating spending from them has to get voter approval some of them a board can create and designate and use revenue from depending on the various source and again as we get into their use they can be applied in a budget for a specific purpose we're thinking about how to understand it by using the framework of our personal finances the unassigned fund balance is like the cash Reserve you would hopefully have in a rainy day fund we don't know what it's going to happen um but you keep some cash
012and you're checking account or your savings account in case something happens you lose a jobs and the catastrophic happens that's your emergency fund this is your cash there's no no designated plan for it it's there when you need it to cushion um in times of crisis reserves are like you're saving for something uh you set up a 529 plan to pay for college expenses or you set up a savings account to to make a down payment in a home or you put money in a retirement fund now each of these purposes has their legal restrictions around them sort of like School District reserves you can create a savings account to to save up for a down payment but you could take money out of that without a lot of restriction whereas if you put money
013in a 401k or a 403 b for retirement there are legal restrictions so just like some School District reserves have more rules around their use some forms of school district personal savings are have different legal requirements as well [Music] so why do we why do school districts want to have healthy reserves and fund balance the first is flexibility we don't know what's going to happen in a given year something pops up whether it's something internal to a school district whether it's the emergence of a global pandemic uh we we can deal with that challenge we can also do long-term planning right so if you are saving for a capital project putting money in reserves lowers the amount of money that we would need to borrow saving taxpayers money also having healthy reserves affects the school
014district's credit rating this makes it easier to borrow and it makes it cheaper to borrow lower interest rates with a better credit rating that saves taxpayers money over the long term as well and finally having those reserves that we can appropriate in the following year can help with stability in school district finances in the levy and local taxes [Music] now where people can get into where school districts can get into trouble is when fund balance is used to fill in for recurring expenses right the metaphor we use here is the fiscal cliff and it's pretty easy to picture what happens when you fall off a cliff right you're going along and all of a sudden everything falls out because what happens is if you're using fund balance to cover recurring expenses you don't just run
015that bank account out but those the expenses endure right so when your fund balances are exhausted you have to find money to fund those expenses or make painful cuts so fund balancing reserves are very valuable tool but they can also be very uh dangerous for the short and long-term prospects of a school district if they are used as a substitute for recurring Revenue an example of how Guilderland has used fund balance and reserves in times of Crisis we see here when the the Great Recession started guildwin had a little over 11 million dollars in fund balance and reserves but because of state aid cuts and freezes uh the used the reserves to help fill in some of that cushion um which minimized the damage to the district but also resulted in uh challenges to the
016credit rating um it led to the Office of the State Comptroller designating the district as being susceptible to fiscal stress and as I said earlier that Bond rating is crucial so with the district's Bond rating was lowered uh when it was lowered from aa3 to A1 borrowing money became more expensive again we have to borrow money to fund capital projects or other long-term expenses so having those higher costs ultimately affects taxpayers and then in New York state about halfway through that last chart the state implemented a tax cap so um about 10 years in the tax cap uh so the the levy growth in the school district is subject to a district-specific calculation that's based on inflation after exempting some allowable permission use permissible uses for additional levies this is known as the two percent
017rule it's not actually two percent for school districts themselves but School Districts The Levy growth has been lowered as a result of the tax cap making that long-term financial management piece so much more important right because if you need additional Revenue you're constrained and how much you can raise in a given year [Music] so this is the current um a state of fund balance and reserves in guildland that 4.4 million roughly is the four percent fund balance uh the unassigned amount so it's good to have that if we go through the various reserves were you to have a copy of our reserves from last year the big one that difference that would jump out to you is the tax service or certiori Reserve has gone down to zero this is a reserve that is allow
018school districts to set aside money in case of negative judgments and tax Century claims these are when a entity a property holder a contests the assessed value of its property in the courts if they win not only is the value of that property lowered in the in the taxing process going forward but the district is liable to pay back three years of what was over taxed so those tax refunds so the old one is faced some of those there are more on the horizon but that's what that Reserve was used for uh the bright spot here is the retirement contribution Reserve this allows districts to set aside money to pay for uh the costs of pension on the district's part so every year the employee Reserve retirement system and the teacher retirement system ERS and
019TRS set a contribution rate for employers that is you have to pay in a percentage of your employees income into the pension system to help fund you know future pensions those those costs are not at all determined by a district they are imposed you know they're Set uh by the state uh and while the calculation is complex one of the big drivers of it is market performance because the State invests Pension funds and so when the market is doing really well the contribution rate lowers when the market is not doing quite as well the contribution rate increases uh not last year was not a great year for the stock market um if you followed those sorts of things so that means going forward we'd expect the contribution rate to go up this kind of Reserve
020allows a district to set money aside to plan for that to use for those costs without affecting a current year program so that that is a bright spot in the reserve and fund balance this graph right here Compares Guilderland to Suburban Council peer districts by looking at the total amount of that unrestricted fund balance and reserves compared to spending in each year right so if we pull Guilderland out and look at other suburban suburban council districts they have about 15 of their spending in fund balance and Reserves here we see the pandemic hit our expenses or our Revenue uh much harder than the overall Suburban Council so our fund balance and reserves dipped they're coming back up slightly but we are still well below where our peer districts are all right so again what this
021means we have less cushion for long less cushion for crises more of a challenge with short and long-term planning potentially more susceptible to fiscal stress more expensive to borrow in dollar terms this is the gap between what our fund balance and reserves were in a given year and what the other pure Suburban council districts were right so again we see the spike in 2021 where we would need about 4.4 million dollars additional and fund balance and reserves to be at the overall level among other districts um so why does this the starting point of a lot of our financial planning because this is our our best tool in dealing with challenges that arise and making long-term plans right we need to ensure that we are meeting the needs of our students today and the needs
022of future students we need to do long-term planning with regards to facilities and capital projects we may want to launch new initiatives all of these things are going to depend on ensuring that what we spend today will not imperil our future prospects while making it um more important that we sort of Shepherd this process with this planning because uh we are subject to restrictions on what we get in state aid we are in entering the final year of a three-year Foundation Aid phase and at the state level which has been uh favorable to guildland We Were Far underfunded in Foundation Aid [Music] when the governor hokel gave her State of the State talk today she signaled that she is going to be following through on this year three of the foundation Aid phase-in so that
023will be one of the bright prospects her executive proposed her executive budget proposal should be coming out in about two weeks at that point we will have a better projection of state aid for next year we will take these numbers as we continue to work with internal stakeholders and then go to the community and defining and developing at next year's budget all leading up to March 7th when we will uh present the superintendent's draft budget [Music] questions comments yes so we won't know for until March March you know how how that will impact our district so one of the benefits one of the benefits we have right now is foundation so Foundation Aid itself is an evidence-based formula that the state has developed that asks the question well it tries to answer three questions how
024much does it cost to successfully educate a student how much of that can a school district uh does a school district have the ability to cover itself with local resources and then how many additional resources do certain categories of students need that are higher needs students right so how much more does it cost to successfully educate a student in poverty or a student with disabilities or an English language learner right and so all of that develops an amount that the state says this is how much the school district needs from the state to do that now the state's never given those school districts that amount right and we've been as high as four to five billion dollars short Statewide over time where we are right now is next year every district is set to at
025least receive that amount so we can Project based on what's in the law how much we're getting next year now it will go up and down as data change but the we have that tool at our disposal now so in in nor in previous years we would have to wait for the governor to say this is how much I want to give a school district the legislature would then say well no actually we want to give him this and it's usually appearing and then in April we get the amount and it's somewhere in here um thankfully we're not at that point the reason I highlighted uh Governor hogle's address today is even though it's in current law now we want to make sure it happens in April and given that she talked about it today
026and it's a very positive sign of that actually happening thank you Andy okay next on the agenda we have the consent items this includes the minutes from the December 6th meeting December 20th meeting cpsc and CSC recommendations Personnel action and financials can I have a motion to prove the consent items Kelly second Katie any questions or comments all in favor I passed his eight zero before you go on Dr he happens to be in the audience and she was just appointed our new instructional technology specialist so congratulations great thank you Dr Wiles next we move on to the information items curriculum and instruction Rachel evening everyone I have a few honors for individual students and some of our music program ensembles I like to tell you about this evening first Bowden kinal who is a
027senior at gilderland high school has been invited to participate as a member of the 2023 all Eastern Jazz Ensemble at the National Association for music education Eastern Division conference which is being held in Rochester from April 13th to the 16th the honor Ensemble consists of the best high school students from the Eastern Division of the United States states excuse me which stretches from Maine to Washington DC and selection to this prestigious Ensemble is highly competitive and students are carefully selected from the eastern states Allstate participants and so that is quite an accomplishment so congratulations to Bowdoin also Carson rittner and sexy Wang have been selected to participate in the 2023 High School Statewide honor band the New York State band Directors Association annual Symposium in Syracuse in March each year hundreds of applicants apply for
028Honor Band and some are chosen based on their nisma score from the previous spring we also have six Farnsworth middle school students who have been selected to participate in the 2023 Middle School honor band and they include Adam herall check who plays the euphonium Austin Lee with oboe Anthony Padula French horn Caleb Pinder flute and Aaron vitelli trumpet and Timothy Kelly mallets who was also recognized as an alternate for the honor band the gilderland high school Wind Ensemble under the direction of Ms Kathleen Ellinger has been selected to perform at the 2023 New York State band Directors Association annual Symposium also in Syracuse March and Ms zellinger and the Wind Ensemble will be presenting a session titled collaborative rehearsals in the traditional band setting to ban directors from all over New York State so these
029are fantastic opportunities for our students and congratulations to all of the music students their teachers and the ensembles great thank you Rachel next superintendent information Dr Wiles thank you two items this evening for information the first is a draft school calendar for the 2023 2024 school year this draft has been in the works for several weeks in collaboration with the regional colleagues but also with many stakeholders within the district we had our most recent meeting to look at the calendar yesterday afternoon um I will just point out a few things about the calendar that are different from things that we've seen in the past um first it's a 185 day calendar which means that includes the possibility for five emergency days or snow days it also includes a new holiday a new and that is
030on April 10th 2024 the draft proposal here recommends that we celebrate the holiday of Eid which is the end of Ramadan the other point I just want to date that I want to point out that is something new um June 17th is a day of instruction here in Guilderland but the State education department is also recognizing it as a Muslim holiday it's a another portion of the Eid celebration and even though that is in the middle of Regents week or in the midst of Regents week no Regents exams will be given that day so it's kind of a a new a new variation on how we will be working through regions week next next June so I'll take any comments or questions that folks may have go ahead Judy I just excuse me I just
031want to say how how pleased I am about the Eden celebration because we had students who came and requested it and made a very um excellent presentation to us about why it was important to them and that we were able to get it in I think wonderful it's a tribute to them and it's good for us absolutely I think the students did a tremendous job advocating for something that was important to them all right so the plan then will be to bring this calendar back to the board on January 20 31st for adoption and then we'll go from there so thank you everybody and for everyone who participated in the in the review of the draft insights really are helpful and help us get a good calendar for the upcoming year and my second item
032this evening I just wanted to provide a brief update on our conversations around the school resource officer we spent a quite a bit of time in the fall talking about the opportunity that the Guilderland Police Department offered to us to have a SRO in the middle school for the balance of this school year on December 21st um Nate saberin like Laster Matt pensionat um student Rachel Dwyer and myself were part of an interview team that met at Town Hall to meet four potential resource school resource officers we spent a few hours interviewing the candidates And discussing and we at the end selected officer Christopher Scarano to be the SRO in our Middle School for the balance of the school year he actually was able to begin on January 3rd so when we welcome students back
033we also had officer Scarano there he has settled right in I actually visited with him the other morning he we've got an office space for him and he's getting to know the building which is no small feat um and he's already got opportunities to push into classrooms and he's been making himself very visible and available around the building so I just wanted to recognize everyone who was part of that process and offer my thanks to gilderland Police Department chief Dan McNally who did a great job coordinating coordinating the interview process it was thorough it was productive it was collaborative and I think we landed in a great spot so I'm happy to take any questions or Nate you were there I don't know if you want to weigh in no no I think you covered
034it pretty well I mean I stay as I said candidates were all amazing exemplary uh fine examples of what the government police department has to offer um and I think we settled on what I think is probably the best candidate of the before yeah yeah our thanks all the way around great thank you Dr Wiles next we have board president information I have a one item on the agenda this is uh the Board of Education goals I think we talked about this at the beginning of the school year and this is kind of the Midway checkpoint and hopefully talking about the goals will help in the planning of the budget so I have the um you both you all should have the the working goals and then the um the document that's letter B that
035has kind of the updates of what we talked about at previous meetings I have the Google Doc open so I thought we could just briefly go through the few goals that we had written here and I can add any notes if anyone wants to provide feedback or make some comments so the first one is in Dr Wells I know that you said that you could also provide info because I know you've obviously the districts have obviously been doing work around this um so the first one is the to close the achievement or opportunity Gap um and some of the things that we talked about I think in the past were how are we looking or what metrics are being used obviously that was changed during covid and now I guess post covid I think we
036talked at the last meeting the last time we talked about this we talked about shifting to a focus on student our social emotional learning with students and then also what other what other ways that we can assess that we're closing that opportunity Gap so I'll just open it up if people have comments or feedback I can take notes or Rebecca go ahead the attendance the discipline Etc um at the end of every Academic Year and I wonder if it makes more sense to sort of look at it before the budget process um so more like a spring review as opposed to waiting until the end of the Academic Year when the budget is already hopefully passed you said attendance and what was the other day there was a list so attendance discipline oh right types
037of courses offered we could add to that honors versus AP courses truancy and absenteeism engagement extracurriculars College admissions and graduation rates I can jump in here if you don't mind um so we we do now have um um quite a bit of quantitative data to look at around these topics we have been looking in recent weeks at some of our student achievement data as as illuminated by the results on state assessments um which came back into being last year so we all recognized very much that those are only one snapshot in time but they are a useful tool for us to get a window into how are our students doing against the New York State learning standards and that's what we're focusing on here are the standards that these assessments are measuring how are we
038doing against those standards so we just had a leadership Roundtable session where we spent some time talking about that very thing and I can see I do see us continuing us to look at that data those data points over the course of the school year we're also interested in some of these other items that are listed attendance discipline and suspensions courses engagement and extracurriculars these are being woven in on our Equity planning so we had In This Very Room today our secondary schools middle and high school looking at um beginning their Equity action plans and yesterday all the elementary buildings were here and there is interest in digging deeply into these very things to figure out so what do we need to do next to make sure we have for example appropriate participation in our
039extracurricular programs or and not too much an inappropriate um representation across all groups in suspensions and discipline so I just wanted to say that we're very much engaged in that right now does anybody else have uh feedback or comments questions I just want to add that if um I know we have that snapshot of data from I guess last year and now we have the state test back Etc I feel like it's still only you know just a snapshot and I know that we're comparing it to um the learning standards but I guess this really kind of overlaps with the second goal of the focus on the whole child I think that those are you know just one small piece of the puzzle and I don't know if we have really I think out of
040all of the goals this is the one that we probably pushed pushed off because of covid and so I'm not sure exactly how much more we can start looking at them I don't know what point I feel like we don't really know the full effects right of covid with students I mean we hear of Behavioral issues and kids having stamina to sit through school day so I don't know I don't really have anything else to add to to this one but is it possible to hear about the equity action plans from the the groups that met today um absolutely we want to they just began putting the plans together I think they have one or two more sessions I would um suggest maybe in March maybe sometime mid merch late March will be ready to
041bring in the team so they can give an overview of what they're working on great thank you oh Gloria so the the equity action plans are drawing their data from a variety of sources including the equity walks that just happened the focus groups that are happening this week and other data sources that have been brought to the Committees so on one hand yes it's a baseline but with the Committees we're working on today was you know short-term things that we can do based on what we've observed mid-range activities and then longer range so we'll get one to two three to four and five years out um I don't think we've made a lot of Headway for a wide variety of reasons so but it is still yeah important to us right so the next goal
042is focus on the whole child looks like the last few meetings the comments were about the mental health professionals in the district the caseloads um in the amount in the mental health clinic right now I think what is the ratio still it says one mental health professional for every 150 students um see current so I don't know if anything has changed on this or if anyone else has comments or feedback about this is especially in comparison to what other districts are doing or what the recommended ratios are could be really important I can add I don't have the current ratio I am going to hypothesize though that it is less because we did bring on some additional mental health providers in titles like counselor using federal funds um those are short-term we those funding streams
043will go through next year right no 23 yes through next year so I think right now we're probably a little bit higher and I can do that math and let everyone know where we are um but the extent to which we can transition additional positions into the general operating budget Beyond next year is that's the tricky part assess the social emotional thing where we're doing because if we're talking about moving forward I mean you just need to know where are we not meeting making progress Where We Are I believe and I have representatives from both the middle and high school here that both middle and high school did some surveys of students around climate culture belonging earlier this year so follow-ups later to see any change over time so yes I think I think I
044mean we just can't make these songs where the problem areas are where we might need to put resources any other comments um are we capturing how we're utilizing our social workers and our psychologists I remember that Lisa Knowles came up and sort of presented a general description but I wonder are we capturing that in our surveys at all and additionally I'm curious speaking of the culture of surrounding mental health is there a stigma do students perceive that there's a stigma in you know going to see a social worker those are just things I would like to capture if possible um let me ask what you mean by how do we capture it like what kind of things are they doing yeah are we asking students you were talking about the survey that went out did
045we ask that I think we asked if they'd ever use the mental health services but did we did we ask things like do you feel like there's a stigma attached to that I don't think that question was asked directly I mean we did it in the fall and I'm my memory is stretched a little bit to remember some of the specific questions we can go back and look at that the only reason I bring it up is that it had come up at the what is it the subgroup of the Dei committee okay bye students and also it had been it had been mentioned at some of the focus groups that we're holding okay and I won't get into it because I believe we're not supposed to so that's the only reason I bring it
046up okay any other comments or feedback all right so the next goal is um focus on diversity and I guess now we would maybe even change the name of that goal to Dei because this has evolved um I don't know I think we're probably hitting this goal so I don't really have anything to add sure so um again as what I was hearing at some of the focus groups um are we through our Dei work are we only focusing on Race because I believe that's a question that came up I believe somebody said that the steering committee had decided that that was a priority but they weren't sure if that was permanent or it was for one year so I'm trying I'm trying to get at that we it's not just a Focus right on
047right no I would say and especially in work with progression partners for all kinds of difference so it's disability Social um emotion um socioeconomic differences cultural differences which would be a go beyond race around religion and culture gender so that's what I said I want to make sure I was around okay okay thank you I think he's a good representative of all of those things on the Deo committee there was I think that's a focus to continue that yeah I believe when we selected members we were cognizant of that okay I mean we haven't updated the notes of looking at this and I can see that there was probably a lot done even the mou with the sros um like how we change it how we change the language to um I don't remember what
048it was but it was basically supporting or providing PD for requiring requiring thank you for um the SRO so I guess these are things that we could add to this right because that impacts that goal but we we don't really we're not really documenting that so I guess I can do a better job of that any other comments or questions Oh Katie um looking at this goal and hearing um from Matt pinchanat as wonderful as he is in all of the work that he's doing as we're discovering more work that needs to be done across the district and how much support is being provided to the high school are we are we looking at this to make sure that having Matt doing this work on his own he's able to to cover this goal and
049meet this goal throughout the district you know just really hearing if if he's you know um you know he's talking about all of the work that he's doing if he's needing more support in in needing this goal across the district at some point while we're while we're working yeah that's an interesting question for you because I was thinking too it's a brand new position so I'm wondering if um I don't know if he gives feedback to you Dr Wells oh yes about like what he thinks or where he thinks there could be more support Etc so we we did talk about that both at the end of his first year which was actually September um but we also just had stage two with Matt Matt gets the stage two budget meeting as well and we
050did talk about how much one individual can do when it comes to the um kind of the day-to-day meeting with individual people providing professional development um so you know part of the role of the director is to have create the capacity where some of the work is done through others which is you know all of us and I I think Matt is absolutely working on that building capacity among our administrative team our Equity teams um you know teachers and some of our buildings and you know other staff in our buildings who are committed to this work and are willing to step up and do um but at the same time I know he is running like crazy so you know we talked about the potential of perhaps expanding um the uh the role to include
051another teacher on special assignment who may help with PD so we're talking about some things and um you know based on Andrew's presentation and some of the other variables like what what can we fit within our spending in order to make this happen so that's an ongoing conversation we do recognize that Matt's car is often the last in the driveway and I sometimes have to yell at him to go home yeah yeah I mean my only comment on this one is I mean I I feel like we're kind of patting ourselves in the back real well here and forgetting what happened in this whole year and everything that kind of came out of the and is his greatest strides as we've made there's a lot of work there's a lot of work to do so
052I think we need to just take a pause on patting each other on the back and and really dig deeper on what we can do in terms of professional development what we can do in terms of student education and understanding and building that up and finding ways to do just that because that that is where we really fell at the beginning of the school year and what kind of transpired and whatever what came after that so if I think we need to add anything here it's it's we've made good steps but we got a long ways to go sorry I'm typing notes go ahead I think with regard to um the uh let's see reaching out to the community and collaborating with the committee I think those Fireside Chats that are starting them will be
053great and then also um the students developed a flyer for the subcommittee for the Dei to try to get student enrollment to increase and so I think those are those are steps that are important to recommend great so um go on to the next goal which is facilities and does anyone have feedback on this I'm going to add in that um some details about the the capital projects that are going on um but I think in the past I guess I'll have one one piece of one thing I can add I know I think it was before covid we talked about visiting one of the other school districts to see kind of like what a more futuristic School building would look like and then covet happened so that we haven't done anything so maybe I
054don't know that's something we could think about I don't know if other people are interested we talked about getting a school bus and going like on a field trip border who you know other admin who are interested yes the invitation to Queensbury is standing I've spoken with Kyle Gannon who's the superintendent up there a few times and so whenever we're ready I guess I just want to frame that in a bit of realism that we are in the midst of our 2021 Capital project that may get expanded out an additional Year we're hopeful that that won't in fact be the case but so we have kind of a lot going on right now around our capital projects so I'm not quite sure we're ready to launch the next until we get this one at least
055through the State education department approval process which we're hoping will be very soon so I don't mean to put a web blanket on it no just a dose of we have a lot going on right now also the um the school bus is having to be electric by 20 2035 yeah 37 something like that finally I'm like what's that I should probably eventually that also feels like it could be a bullet or something on there yeah and that's uh that's a law right so that's not really an option it's also making a future ready right and that's part of the smart goals Andrew do you know any updates on the when that will really happen no there the New York's law isn't too far too far so there is a a deadline after which you
056can no longer purchase uh non-zero emission Vehicles which buses there's a deadline for full transmission the one thing that has happened is in November the state passed the environmental Bond act which was 4.2 billion I think but it had 500 million uh dedicated to Electric school buses so that is a very positive sign um we are hopeful that the state budget process this year will will support districts nyserda uh is supposed to be releasing a technical document in the next few months about a road map for school districts because they're charged in the law with providing all technical support the school districts need so we should be getting a lot more information resources in the next few months but I also think that the way the market is going it's it's important to start planning
057for it but it's premature to tell you by without the districts that are buying buses are doing so at least partially with grant funding that any other comments okay so we can move on to the last one I think it's wait is that the last one yeah okay that's good any other comments or feedback or this is the Google Doc that I just added notes on so I can just send this link and if you want to add anything on there you can because I don't think this has been updated in a little bit so great so we'll look at this I think was it toward the end of the year again but I guess back to Rebecca's question can some of that data Dr Wiles can we have if you know if we are
058planning the budget and we're looking at um whatever was in the first one the the quantitative about where we are yeah so I wrote myself a note here about perhaps doing some kind of a program report that would capture some of this information sometime between now and when we actually adapt the budget might be helpful thank you so back to the agenda next we'll move on to action items School business Andy thank you very much our first action item is accepting a walk-in cooler freezer bit award bids were open on January 5th we received three of them this is for a walk-in cooler freezer that will be installed at Guild Wind Elementary the lowest bid is for 88 000 19 from Saratoga restaurant equipment sales can I have a motion to approve the walk-in cooler
059freezer bid uh Gloria second Kelly any questions or comments all in favor okay passes eight zero uh the next action item is for the granted easement related to Cobblestone Schoolhouse and the neighboring property this would be an easement that would allow the property owners uh access to 100 foot by seven foot section of the property and exchange the school district would have access to its property via this driveway and parking and any needed access to the school through the driveway that was built there great can I have a motion to approve the grant of easement with the Cobblestone Schoolhouse Katie second Nate any questions or comments all in favor passes eight zero next we have three internship agreements with schools Maria College sunidor Oneonta and sunya Potsdam these are agreements that would allow for students
060to be working in the district and getting experience while also benefiting the districts can I have a motion to prove the internship agreements with Maria College Sunil Oneonta and Potsdam Blanca II Judy any questions or comments all in favor passes eight zero the next is approval for inner fund transfers in the total of 52 233 dollars these are two transfers one is related to additional funds for non-instructional salaries and another is related to the costs of the appraisal of the Crossgates Mall property can I have a motion to improve these general fund transfers Nate second Rebecca any questions or comments all in favor aye passes eight zero the next item is an emergency contract for transportation services with Amazing Grace transportation in the Raja group these are for new Transportation responsibilities related to McKinney vento
061students on a new enrollment at true north can I have a motion to approve these emergency contracts Kelly second Gloria any questions or comments all in favor my pass is eight zero next we have the golden High School class of 1971 would like to establish an annual scholarship of 500 over the next five years to a high school graduate in good standing who has Financial need has not won another award during the graduating year and maybe attending a trade school apprenticeship program or two or four-year college or university can I have a motion to approve this scholarship award Katie second Blanca any questions or comments all in favor aye passes eight zero and finally approving the donation that we started the meeting with from Best Buy for 25 000 in computers and um can I
062have an emotion to approve the donation or accept the donation Kelly second Rebecca any questions or comments but thank you again to Best Buy all in favor aye passes eight zero thank you Andy next we have superintendent action Dr Wiles thank you my first item is a resolution they would authorize Cliff nooney our director of facilities to apply for a grant to the U.S department of energy he would be applying for an award through a new program called renew America's schools programs to be used on eligible projects that can include a variety of energy improvements such as heating ventilation air conditioning as well as new windows uh the deadline for the applicant concept paper which is kind of the first phase of the application is January 26 and the full applications are due April 21st
0632023. we have a policy that requires that any grant that would be potentially more than a thousand dollars that we bring it to the board for an approval before submitting it okay can I have a motion to approve the Grant application Nate second Kelly any questions or comments all in favor aye passes eight zero and my second item this evening is a follow-up to discussion that we had at the last board meeting about amending our current memorandum of understanding with the Guilderland Police Department over our SRO program the highlighted section which is letter c training requirements reflects an interest in saying that training for sros is not recommended but rather required so about halfway through that paragraph it says in addition it is required that sros receive and this next part is new as well
064at least two additional trainings each year on topics such as and there's a wide variety of there a wide variety of school related topics including I just want to point out the cultural competence piece which would meet our work around Dei I did share this language with uh Chief Dan McNally he is very much in support of it and once the board acts on this the town will be doing the same I have a motion to approve the mou with the police department Rebecca second Katie any questions or comments I could just have some questions about this um the two additional trainings when we talk about hours of initial training before two additional trainings could be I think we need to be more specific um and the other issue I have is some of the
065topics of which these tuitional trainings are just repetitive of the topics they have above I know some of the concerns is really more about the cultural competency if you did if you give this wide variety of what they can do additional trainings in are they just going to be repeating the training they already got which is kind of not what we were trying to get to with adding these additional required trainings like I'm looking at like conflict resolution well let's conflict resolution is literally one of the ones above it trending school day slot enforcement topics New York educational laws is above it if we're trying to get them to go above and beyond what they're getting trained for as an SRO I think we need to focus on those topics which they are not trained
066for as an SRO that those are my comments I mean that's again my issues have been stated and I'm just pointing that out Dr Wiles I know you mentioned that they were going to have like a like sros meeting from different school districts in the area through BOCES um is there a way we can maybe just follow up and see what kind of offerings that BOCES would have for that group because if I remember correctly we couldn't find anything that was there besides what's offered at the school so um the short answer is yes I mean they're going to offer the training that we ask them to offer they're very much interested in our input and what would be useful and appropriate um so the other piece of this is for example we're um getting
067ready to plan our we are planning our March superintendent conference days and one of the things we're talking about are what are the sessions that we would offer for our employees that would be helpful for sros so in addition to the culturally relevant or cultural competence pieces we've also heard from families who say well let's make sure our sros have a good understanding of what it means to work with students with disabilities especially students with autism that that came up in particular so the idea was and I do see there's some redundancy here that these would be topics that are really about school manifestations of these topics so not just conflict resolution in general but you know conflict resolution among middle school students or or so I mean that's the intent I know it doesn't
068say exactly that just their training they might just take that opportunity to be repetitive in their training whereas my understanding of what we were talking about of acquiring this was to have him do what you were talking about the school management manifestations of these issues so if we if we're taking this opportunity to craft we want those additional trainings to be then let's be accurate with what we want them to be that's just you know they spend eight hours a day reading contracts conflict resolutions there child development's there I mean it's just what if we added something at the end where it was or suggested by pools or something like but I see it means like repeated lists not everything's repeated but I miss seeing an opportunity what about receive at least two additional trainings
069relevant to the school district each year on topics such as thank you I feel like we're in policy that way you sort of open-ended policy yeah we've been I mean we can vote on it with the amendment if it's right Dr Wiles if it's not going to be like a huge change sure to the language we can just vote on it with the amendment what was the language that you had Rebecca at least two additional trainings each year relevant to the school district foreign well it gives us some control yeah to pick what's what's important to us this year because you know there may come a day when we have the cultural competency down and we don't have to worry about it maybe you know when that happens um but whatever the focus is something
070because what happens and it's different than that and we got you to focus you know so that's right because these things are evolving their things changes from 10 years ago than it was today yeah that was a good catch Nate so can we um change the add that language in there and then we'll vote based on the additional language that Rebecca added is everyone good with that yeah yeah okay um so all in favor of approving this with the amended language motion carries eight zero thank you Dr Wiles sure next we'll go to board committee reports uh first we'll go to Communications discussions the first one was on the voter turnout analysis continuing to look at the follow-up to our last communications committee meeting when Neil shared the work that he and Linda Livingston had
071done to analyze the voter turnout in westmere they went ahead and did the other catchment areas so we got some data there um Altamont had 26 percent of eligible voters vote gildalin 17 percent Lynnwood 19 Pine Bush 20 West mere 14 and that's where our discussion first started with westmere we wanted to see where the other catchment area is felt um we discussed the value of gathering these numbers especially in subsequent years as we move forward to see how that progresses uh now that the model is built hopefully it will be a lot quicker to do uh Linda won't have as much uh work to do Neil noted at the meeting that Gathering the street by Street information is more difficult especially with apartment complexes Marie suggested that we look at the flex zone streets
072uh designations we have those areas that are Flex Zones because they include a lot of those apartments so we're still going to move forward uh we're at ongoing questions about this analysis include all the turnout numbers typical and we'll know that as we move forward are there areas within the district that we want to focus our information Outreach efforts and that's what we're really looking to learn are the things we need to be doing in certain areas so that was our first discussion my second topic was the community engagement which the board asked us to talk about and think about uh in terms of for the budget how we can increase that from just using the thought exchange to other ways of doing that so we brainstormed a number of ideas to gather Community input
073to augment what we were learning from the thought Exchange the idea so far that we brainstormed was partnering with the PTA to hold events or activities at various buildings uh conducting surveys setting up an information booth at highly attended events on the budget revisiting the community conversations using BOCES facilitators to assist with small group discussions we invite people to come to offering an online Forum like those done during the summer prior to the reopening of school when we were dealing with covet so those so far we brainstormed those ideas if anybody has other things for us to consider feel free to email me something after considering some of the challenges so some of these things are more challenging than others to get going for example low attendance and participation bringing people out at night just
074seem to be a difficult thing in the past cost of facilitators of course uh difficulty of creating valid and reliable survey tools um the consensus of the group was that a tentative recommendation to hold focus group meetings after we released the March the budget for the draft that then people will have something to talk to and reflect on and then share their thinking about uh at that time the community will have something to respond to as opposed to completely open-ended questions you know what's important to you what kind of things we will also have just complete the focus group meetings for Dei which are going on now and then we'll have some good good insight as to how to structure them perhaps so that's one we're leaning towards right now but we haven't put any
075final things hoping out our next Communications committee meeting will be able to come back with some recommendation as to what what we might do to get together Community input and our third item uh I just happened to ask the committee uh to follow up to our meeting with our school attorney so I asked the committee for some feedback on the December 6th meeting and some of the comments from the group included it was a good reminder of some of the problems that come along with using email uh it's always good to review our practices Midway is a good idea the paper handout that Jeff gave us was very helpful some people thought uh there's still some question from some about the subjectivity of what's appropriate to include in an email discussion but the final kind
076of the thing we came to is there should not be discussion via email to avoid violating the open meetings Law email is not for discussion the board did not resolve a discipline matter that was the subject of an email that the board had received from a parent and our conclusion from that was a disciplined matter would only be active upon by a board if it was brought to them through the formal appeal process so there was no reason for us to be talking about that the building principle takes the lead on discipline goes to the superintendent in cases where a hearing is required and then would only come to us with on an appeal and finally uh you're off the there was an offer off the cuff comment about the positivity project during the regular
077meeting when we were discussing the SRO and the members on the committee felt that that was hurtful to staff and it really wasn't appropriate because we were dealing with a topic on the SRO and we shouldn't be just bringing in another topic without properly having it on the agenda for discussion so that was some of our feedback uh our next meeting date is January 17th at four o'clock you have any input for us I'm all ears great Gloria the the voter turned at the first topic are those numbers on the minutes yes okay yes is a little chart great um so the next committee business practices we have not met and really Andrew is ready we'd be happy too great um on it you know I'm another we have not met yeah and we do
078not have a meeting scheduled and policy uh we have nothing in a while we've been having issues trying to get things scheduled our hope is understanding is probably the beginning of February when everybody's field great thank you and then Dei we met on December 20th yes um right before the holidays um we kind of already talked about a lot of the things that we discussed like in the course of this meeting tonight we talked about the Fireside Chats that are happening in the community we talked about focus groups yeah um we talked about the engagement with the students through the flyer with a QR code we had our book discussion we talked about um some books that all of or many of the members of the committee recommended um for their own families or for
079their own use that I think are available on the um agenda um trying to think of what else we talked a little bit about the equity audit which you kind of discussed tonight thank you Rebecca those are all the Committees right I'm not forgiving anybody okay um public comment number two when there's anybody else send a comment thank you and last board issues ideas and sharing I had the opportunity to go to one of the assemblies that they did this week What's the title of the group crime violent crime and something yeah sexual violence basically um and uh someone from the Albany County uh Center came and facilitated this program there were four assemblies one for each grade level I got to attend the 10th grade one and uh students really formed the core of
080it talk about Matt encouraging students and and I know Mike played a big role in working with these students uh getting them organized and it took a lot of courage to do what they did I have to say sitting in that assembly the 10th graders were like focused they were really paying attention uh to the topic of sexual harassment sexual abuse sexual violence uh and the kids did a great job and there was such a a respect shown among the four members from Mike to them and them to Mike obviously a lot it was obvious a lot of work had gone into the dialogue I know on your part Mike I have to say it was very evident uh and the kids took it very seriously so congratulations on a beautiful program and I know
081there's a lots more to do but it was great to see the conversation begin and the kids were paying attention to it kind of circling back to the school calendar um who knows it's still it's still we're still kind of Towing this line between indigenous people today and Columbus Day they're both on there it seems confusing and like I just happened to look at our my calendar from the federal government and it's there's no talk of Columbus Day I don't think right it's a state calendar probably has a no talk of it can't imagine anybody else just seems like we're holding on to something for for no particular reason and I'm wondering and it's come up at Dei yeah we talked about this last year and thanks for bringing up Kelly I didn't see that
082I don't know I think it's ridiculous to have both I mean is there a reason to does anybody have a reason to keep it on there it just seems confusing and I think people get sideway looks it's on the calendar that way of like well one of the students pointed out at the DI meeting how ridiculous it is to have both yes it looks it looks ridiculous I agree with them and we had both this year correct yeah I think if we're gonna do it just do it and I don't I don't see any other organizations keeping both at current time and Kelly which calendar were you looking at besides our draft calendar oh oh no I know my days off calendar from the government of the federal government says indigenous people sure does yeah
083yeah it sure does so I can we just maybe make emotion to scratch it and and release on the draft one and see if there's any yeah comments yeah I don't understand why we there was a discussion about it and then it was a summer and then we started the school year we had a discussion about it and then we moved on after kind of I think the whole football game incident kind of changed the discussion and then we never got back to it but does this draft calendar Dr Wells does this mean like how it's displayed too including like all the names um down below so this is really um the purpose of this calendar is largely how do we get to 180 days of instruction or in this case 181 days of instruction
084so the reason they're both there is because we're trying to get the calendar pinned down for 180 days and how it gets labeled I guess you know ultimately is a board decision so if there was um you know if you were to say we're not going to have Columbus Day noted on the calendar we don't have to do it but I would caution that we will hear about it and so I'm just saying that um you know last year we were kind of stuck in the middle with a print date to get our other document to to print we have plenty of time before the main calendar that gets published and hung on people's refrigerator gets published so um I for one would love guidance on are we doing one the other or both as
085stated given any um they have not I don't know I would just make a motion like I would make a motion there if you want to Kelly let me just change this I think I think it's confusing to have too if we're getting to like a if it's a if this is the purpose of this is to count up days I'm counting Two October 9ths on there I'm like makes it more confusing uh I think that's a I think that's a typo um well it just says a cover knife October 9th Columbus Day yeah but we should only have one October 9th on there all right I'll make a motion to just call it indigenous people's day and be done with it um this is not the formal motion the motion okay to uh to
086help Albert nine indigenous people day I think it's just to clarify Kelly to label it on our actual calendar and label it that way on the actual calendar just avoid confusion and we welcome comments I just don't see any other entity doing it both ways at the moment so can we postpone yeah can we vote till next yes I'd like to do that you know I really don't like to just jump into a decision right away even though I'm leaning one way but I think it would be I just want to add so like this is what happened last spring right but we can put it on the agenda for next year right but I'm just saying right I'm just saying that this happened last spring right and it came up and came up and
087it came up and then all of a sudden Kelly and I were contacted like oh the calendar needs to be printed right so we need to make a decision now right so so let's make the decision next meeting well well it's a year ago like what yeah it's on the agenda now the agenda is draft calendar we're talking it's not like we didn't discuss it so I totally agree and you're not adapting a calendar tonight okay honestly remember this is a draft for information that's fine so perhaps all of the action could happen in two weeks so when we vote on it we want to make a motion and to change it okay to remove the preference of Columbus Day and the current draft count yeah I will make a motion there you go that
088Columbus Day removed from the current draft calendar for consideration by the board there you go so when we vote on the actual calendar next next um on that same motion as well perfect so when this comes back next week it'll say October 9th indigenous people's day foreign all in favor of having that come back you know when we when this calendar comes up for Action hi hi taxes eight zero thanks Kelly forgot about that thank you um any other board issues ideas and sharing I just want to share uh SEMA and I are the board members for the advisory committee for the business program Teachers program at the high school and tomorrow they will be holding their interviews with members um they collaborate with the Chamber of Commerce and local Business Leaders will be coming
089and helping students with experience with interviews and for jobs so just compliments to the hard work of the program at the high school for that tomorrow oh go ahead Judy this I just had never seen an action before and uh I don't know when it was a month ago two months ago I went to the dentist and they had asked me ahead of time if it would be okay their son was going to have back to work or observed some you know your parents or him and it was wonderful he he was dressed very professionally and he was watching intently he wasn't in the way I didn't think it was anything that he ever wanted to do but he seemed very interested and I think what not a wonderful opportunity or the job shadow day
090yeah my daughter did that too I thought it was great I thought I thought it was wonderful and I'd never been witness to it before and just to see what it did for him was was very good I was funny please because he's helping them find it I realized a lot of friends or people I know work from home so I had to figure out who does not work for them and does is it the whole school the whole eighth grade how seriously he and his soul thank you oh yep no we're still on right forward issues that he isn't sure um Marie this question might be for you it might be for Mike piscatelli um we Katie and I had a few parents ask us well they were discussing the trades and how um
091how the school promotes students who maybe want to take a different path and not go to college how they promote different options I remember asking when I first joined the board and I think you remember you said it was part of a presentation and so when is that presentation what year does that take place and and what are we doing basically to let students know about what they can do so this is the introduction to CTE sorry Mike all the all of that gets kind of through our counseling department and what they do in the spring I believe it's the sophomore year they bring them over for students who are interested they bring them over actually to the CTE facility for tours and uh presentation about the programs over there so students have to sort
092of self-select and say that they're interested it's not like everybody's learning we don't do a presentation to the whole student body about it no it's usually in those individual conversations with their counselor that it comes up that they have an interest in those areas okay thank you so I just want to sort of food for thought Mary the vibe that we got and correct me if I'm wrong Katie is that some parents would like to see us they're saying that students don't know they know about college being an option out of high school but they're not really they don't even know what trades are or the different paths that there are so it's only the students that are sort of self-selecting it sounds like but if there's a way to to introduce it to the
093general student body that might be good I can add something to this the associated general contractors agency in New York City HCC has in-school programs I don't know if we have ever worked with them but they I was at a presentation probably about a month ago and they specific Ally mentioned about coming into high schools and providing knowledge about alternative past alternative yeah I mean construction industry is to be booming I mean that's where the jobs are going to be for the next 10 years if that's where all the federal funds are going to is building and a lot in this area there's massive projects going up all through the corridor I mean Micron Utica global foundries um so I don't know if our counselors have reached out to the AGC but I know that
094that would be a good place to start with having yeah that's great I didn't know that existed and what I what I know about is um that for csca employees for example and for other unions any one of their benefits now is doubled for interest in trades so even if you're a secretary but you're interested in welding your normal benefit is worth twice as much you know so you get twice as much money to study and that's a way of tackling it so it could it can really be lucrative for students you brought up wanting not just that because I remember a couple years ago at a board meeting we had the business teachers do a presentation on um like different courses that students could take and I remember this is one thing that Barbara
095and I agreed on was the personal finance course and kind of you know how important it was and then how it's I don't say sold but kind of marketed to students and there's also stigmas attached to it which I feel like is detrimental to students like yes um so I don't know thinking about the way that that is offered or um you know the way the opportunities are given to students in the way that it that it's provided right and and just so you know Seema it was brought up in the context of um Dei in that not all families can afford colleges and even something they can consider and so they need their children to go and begin in the workforce and they need a different path and so it was brought up that
096way I I know that there were some presentations that were done in specialized tutorial for some students I don't know if all academic tutorials have presented them at the high school but I I did see um through you know that specialized tutorial had done some work presenting that to students and I know that there is a big push currently with um with both ccte center with presentations that help highlight women in trades so that it's you know that female students are also seeing that as an opportunity to them because there are certain trades that you know women have to that have not been steered towards um our students have felt that when they've met you know in different um with advisors weren't really as open for them but so they're trying to break through some
097of that and open up all trades to female students yeah I know that this coming week um I can't intend but I know that there's like the parent meeting for eighth grade students like that will go you know into high school next year and so I'm wondering if and I don't know because it didn't happen yet if that's where there's um like what kind of opportunities are shared at those meetings um because I also think in terms of like Dei and just exposure if people don't know that it's there they won't know to ask those questions or to attend right they don't know um and then the last thing I was asked to ask Marie or Mike is actually no why don't you be Mike or wouldn't you be you it might be Mike Lester
098when is um advanced placement for eighth grade discussed with the parents when should they be expecting some kind of email is there a meeting how does that work you mean acceleration yeah so seventh graders going into eighth grade who would take you know what is it biology I think right around now is typically when that would happen okay and so do the students have to show an interest do the parents have to reach out initially teacher recommendation I'll just add because we're going to that right now I um I don't know what the parent brought up but I um so I know that there's a meeting this coming week for parents about it but the students have to do like a self-assessment before that and this is going to the high school start sorry so
099not seventh to eighth okay but I think they're similar but it's the same idea that I don't know now that I guess we're going through from eighth to ninth a lot of this stuff is I feel like even people who are really looped in who are parents who are super engaged and went to school here and speak English as their first language it's a lot to figure out and so I can't I just don't I feel like they could do a better job and when I say a better job we could do a better job of how that's presented to parents um I know a parent asked me oh well oh what do you have to do for that and it was the day the self-assessments were due by their kids so like you know
100there's a transition when they're like 12 and 13 of like yes they have to take on some of that on their own but they're also getting their support from the parents and they might not know the full term or the long-term impact of those decisions or not asking those questions then and um I know people have said this in the past so I don't think it's new I'm just personally happy you know have happened to experience this right now um so I don't know what that parent brought up but I definitely see that that is it was in reference to their child and my child actually it was have you received anything yet about accelerated and I said no yeah as my not as a board member but as a parent and I said no
101I'll find out when if there's a meeting an interest meeting what how you go about it um my and then with regard to what you were saying you know my my middle child is a high schooler now and I remember that I didn't hear about what my child had decided or had sort of assessed herself as in terms of placement and one of one of the things that I struggle with is expecting that an eighth grader who may have you know not feel confident in a certain subject that they're going to say that they should be in in you know in honors I know some some students may feel like oh yeah I could totally be in ours but other students who are capable and their parents would know that they may not feel that
102way and so that concerns me a bit it's also going back to like so the current eighth grade never had a knot like so sixth grade was the covet year and then um so they never had the you know a normal middle school experience so we're going these processes and not really making adjustments for that and assuming that students can make those decisions or know what to ask Etc and they have not had a normal experience so um I don't know I have concerns about that same um I will reach out to Mike to see that what's the timeline and what's the exact process thank you any other board issues ideas and sharing so can I have a motion to adjourn Rebecca second Katie all in favor classes eight zero thanks everybody