Haldane Board of Education - May 20, 2025

001All right. So, the first thing we're going to do tonight is be is um appoint a clerk prom. And since we don't have clerk yet, I'll read the recommended action. Be it resolved that in absentee clerk, the board of education hereby appoints Maggie Valentine, board vice president to serve as the clerk towards him for this meeting. May I have a motion, please? So moved. Second. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. So now I'm going to call the meeting to order. So this is the Tuesday, May 20th, 2025 heling board of education. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice here. Um, Vice President Valentine, Trusty Clemens here. Clemenson,

002sorry. Clemenson, I always mess this up. I did it last year, too. Trusty McNall here. And Trusty Copper here. Um, I don't believe we have any changes for um the agenda. So, may we have the recommended action uh for the approval of the agenda? Be it resolve that upon the recommendation of the intern superintendent of schools, the board of education hereby approves the agenda as written. You have a motion, please. So moved. Second. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Um so our next meeting will be on Tuesday, my gosh, June 3rd, uh at 7 o'clock. That'll be a business meeting here at the middle school of high school library. And um we're going to have a special presentation from Highland Electric Fleets who has been advising on the electric classic. Yes. Yes. Great. Um

003so the I think the only other thing I'll say is that we're certainly in the thick of end of year activities with senior nights for spring sports. Uh I got to go to the middle school and elementary school concerts last week which was really fun. There's I think 15 events happening on Wednesday that's going to have people different places. Um I'm looking forward to going to the valadictorian saludaictorian uh dinner with uh Mr. Albano and uh Tom Cunningham and the valadictorian and the saludiatoran um as part of the Laura Hudson uh regional education council. That's really neat event. You just see how big our area is and all these great kids. Um, uh, there was the end of year art show tonight sponsored in part, I think, by the PTA, which I just took a

004look at as I was walking through. It's really lovely. So, anyway, lots going on. It's great time to do it. Um, that's really all I have. Sure. I just have a few brief updates. Um, yes, Highland Electric will be here at our next meeting, which is exciting. Um, but an update from from the state. New York State did add an additional $100 million to support the transition to electric buses. So, as you may recall, we we have an EPA grant application in for four uh electric buses. It would cover about 50% of the cost of a bus, but then New York State funding would cover maybe an additional 40%, which would give us about 90% coverage if we received both grants. if the EPA grant falls through and we we have no news. I check

005it pretty much every day or every other day at least. Um but if if if it falls through it this is promising that the state has increased their their budget line. So uh there is more support and that may be an alternate route for us if we don't receive EPA grant money. So, um, in fact, Adam and I, uh, right on quue are meeting with Highland Electric tomorrow and we'll be going through some of this and and reviewing, um, you know, some of the infrastructure plans and we do believe this is something that we're, you know, is very doable for Haldane. Um, you know, it may take a few years. Um, but we're certainly we've taken the first important steps. So if you have questions, you know, definitely bring them next week and and Highland

006Electric uh does consult for many many districts in the region. So uh they're they've been wonderful. They've been very knowledgeable. Next, I just want to recognize um as part of our capital project planning, uh we have a a stakeholder team dedicated to uh the steam labs, the one here at the middle school and and the new one that will be built in the high school. So, I just want to recognize the effort of of our high school principal Julia Sniffen, our elementary principal Christine Jamman, middle school principal Maryanne Silky, Josh Elder, Simon Dudar, Mark Patanella, Gabe Horn, and Megan Shields. Um, this group has done numerous visits. They went to Chapaqua several times. They went up to Marbor and and Regina Kishan is also participating in the steam uh stakeholder committee. And I was really

007impressed our our most recent meeting with CS Arch. I mean, we're really getting down to the details. Things like dust collection systems and you know where the the power equipment will be placed and technology and screens and it's very exciting to see this. Uh we do have a board presentation. The renderings for the interior of the steam labs should be completed and you should see them at the second June meeting. I believe it's June 17th. But again, this group has put in many, many hours, you know, long longer beyond the school hours, giving up lunches and prep periods. And I just thought all of them deserved some recognition and and I have to say it's very exciting. And I do plan, I hope I'm invited back in in two or three years to to to

008see these and and walk through this exciting project because I must say it really is uh something special. Um lastly, uh earlier uh this afternoon, Maggie, Julia, and I uh met with Supervisor Van Tassel, um and also Mayor Foley and representatives from the Highland, uh Hudson Highland Fjord Trail, um the CEO, as well as his team. And I thought it was a very productive dialogue. There were some concerns around the closure at Breakneck Ridge and some parking lots that have been closed in in in our area. And the concern that we have as a school district is, you know, people may seek parking on on school campus and of course during school hours. Um that presents a safety issue. Um we are a closed campus to to outside uh people and you know on weekends

009that may be something that the board has to consider in the future whether or not you know we want to set policy and have signage where parking is not allowed or permitted even on the weekend. We do have a lot of school activities on weekends. So I think the policy committee will will take a closer look at that. But for me this this meeting was a very productive meeting because you had your village, your town, your school district which all you you know in some ways may be impacted as this project moves forward. There's going to be various stages of the project and I think it's really important to keep that open dialogue. So um it was productive. We we the outcome of today was that we we identified places where signage will be very

010helpful. So even you know um at the village level to have signs before people even enter uh you know the school the school um entryways which are not really school streets. They they are public streets. So to get signage and and make it clear that during school hours, you know, tra through traffic is not permitted and parking certainly is not permitted. With that, I would just ask Maggie or Julia if I missed anything. I I you think it's a pretty good summary. Yep. And they've agreed to have ongoing meetings which which I think is the most important thing because you know new things will come up and present themselves and just having a healthy open dialogue I think is very good. Actually, if I could add one more thing, it's not just the parking, right?

011was it's people who may sort of walk down toward campus as well, right? So, just the whole idea of of safety for the for the kids during the school day um because I think that was the incident, right? It was actually people they were in a car, but there's have been people wandering down from the back of um you know, seeking that way. So, yes. Yeah. So, you know, again, I I think so I I think we're getting together in like in two weeks finalized some of that signage and then they agreed, you know, to meet on an ongoing basis, you know, as needed. So I I think that was very productive. That's great. Okay. And I appreciate that that um Supervisor Van Tessle and Mayor Foley also joined because I know they're um concerned.

012I mean you know really it's a a real partnership to to um uh and and I think you know I think the fuel trail also is certainly wants to keep the campus safe and so that that's a great partnership. Thanks for the update. Sure. My pleasure. All right. So, since this is a workshop meeting, um it is our um honor to get to welcome uh some student adviserss to give us presentation uh about some of the things that are going on at the high school. And so, as I understand it, we now have Asing Stoos and Lucas Ellison to give a presentation. So, if you wouldn't mind please coming up here, we'd appreciate it. Good evening members of the board. I'm Ashley Stapos. I'm freshman class president Kira Helen. Um firstly I would like I'd

013like to take a moment to thank Mr. Cunningham, our athletic director for his support and coordination of merger sports programs like the North Aland varsity ice hockey team which I'm a part of. Um, these programs allow student athletes from the smallest place of Thailand to participate in sports that would otherwise be possible. Being able to compete at the varsity level with sport hockey requires strong collaboration between districts and it's thanks to leadership like Mr. Cunningham that opportunities like this exist. Those routines expand access, promote equality in athletics, and allow students to represent their school communities in meaningful ways. I'd also like to take a moment to recognize someone who has made a huge difference in my life and the lives of so many other students, Miss Michelle Cordera. She was recently named the Westchester Putnham

014Social Studies Teacher of the Year, and anyone who's ever been in her class knows exactly why. Miss Cordderero makes history come alive. She challenges us to think critically, encourages discussion, and always supports us inside and outside of the classroom. She's the kind of teacher who believes in her students and pushes us to be our best. I can't think of anyone more deserving of this award, and I'm proud to be one of her students. Thank you for your time. Hello members of the board. On the 1st of May this year, Halden held its annual school spring concert. This concert featured the held chorus, wind ensemble, and jazz band performing a variety of musical pieces. I greatly enjoyed performing in both the Haldane Jazz Band and the Haldane Wind Ensemble. Events like these are a great example

015of how performing arts can bring students, families, and the entire community together. This concert would not have been possible without the hard work and dedication of Jessica Stein, Sam Sour, Christian Hulen, and Dan McGroy. Overall, being a part of both ensembles helped me grow as a musician and become more confident performing a variety of of musical genres. Also, the school year is coming to an end. This also means that the New York State regions exams are approaching. Students, including myself, are preparing for these tests in subjects such as geometry and earth science. In class, we've been using geometry and earth science regions review books. While these examinations do bring stress and pressure to many students, using class and personal time to review for testing reduces stress and brings more confidence as the exams come closer.

016with extra preparedness and the support of our teachers, I feel much more ready for these exams. Thank you. Stay for just a couple questions. So, actually, would you remind so to remind me what is the um award that Miss I don't want to put on start Miss Cordero. She won the Westchester Putnham County um social studies. Um, and uh, yeah, I had another question. My a couple days ago, my my son who's been playing the piano for about five years, a couple days ago said, "I never want to play the piano again. What's the use of doing this?" So, I was just curious to know like if you give me some advice to give him about why you continue playing and how it's been a benefit to you. Well, it benefits me because um you

017get to like meet new people who also enjoy playing instruments and I think that's really I think that's really great because you can learn about music more and you can also meet people who play other instruments too and you get involved with more clubs and stuff like jazz band which I really enjoyed. Great. All right. What was your uh favorite jazz band song you guys played this? I I enjoyed Caravan because I'm familiar with the song and I think it's really fun song. Did you say what you played? Oh, I play the uh Bflat clarinet. Um it's so great to hear about those sports mergers and and it's you're totally right that Mr. Cunningham's office completely coordinates all of that. I will give the board a little bit of credit that the board a while

018ago really made the decision uh uh because different sports, right, like different numbers of students and there's different things involved with different sports. And I mean, I'll just point out that a number of years ago, the board made the decision to really sort of embrace all mergers regardless if it was one student because I believe like you said, you're the the one girl from Halloween. Yeah. The playing ice cot hockey regardless of the number of students or you know what was involved that it was something that the board as long as we had the resources to do really, you know, really wanted to do. And it's it's really nice to hear that it's it means something to you. So, thanks for sharing that. And it's so impressive that the board also like everyone can come

019together because I think there's 13 schools and by merger so it's insane. Oh wow. Well yeah but it's but you know I mean it's interesting you know I mean the different sports and you know at one point I mean we've had a couple of boys on the hockey team I think pretty consistently for a while now. So it's great and I'm glad they're enjoying it. Yeah. I think we have a total of three hockey players. Is that right? Three varsity hockey players I know of. one senior boy and two senior boys I know of. Are there any younger boy merger? Yeah, there's two sophomore. Yeah. Excellent. Thank you both very much. Thank you both. Thank you. Thank you. Um All right. So now we're going to um have a special presentation uh a workshop presentation

020of special education. I mixed up my special presentation. You you all are welcome. I mean you're welcome to stay but you're also welcome to leave. Yes. Thank you so much for taking it. She had it all set. Is it over here? Nothing. Not like really offset. Not just a little set. Really sick. Um, so thank you. It's okay for me to see. Yes, it's fine. Now I can like whisper to you. I have to. Um, thank you, President Clemens and Vice President um, Valentine and Pres. And thank you, Mr. El Banto and to the Heldane community for this opportunity because it's actually nice to be able to um reflect on the work of the department and and um to kind of put together some of the work to be to celebrate a little bit some

021of the work that we've done. Um but also to reflect on some of the work that still needs to be done. So it's a it's a good exercise. um work. Um so I'm going to touch on a couple of things and I did want to um invite my esteemed administrative colleagues to add in here and there because everything that the pupil personnel department does is highly interconnected to and dependent on um the work that's happening inside of our buildings and happening at the district level. Um, so I want to make sure that they have the opportunity to add in because, you know, they're they're experts in the work that's happening in their buildings. So, I just wanted to state say that right from the from the jump. Um, I don't want you to feel like

022this is anything um like a filibuster. I'm not going to talk until we postpone the vote, but um I did plan a few extra things just knowing we had a little time because typically we end up having to, you know, get through our presentations in 10 or 15 minutes. So um hopefully the board will feel like you can also ask questions as we go on. Um so just a year um in in at a glance of some of the department goals that we focused on and the board will recall that a lot of these goals were um derived from broader district goals but also from our PPS audit and the audit came up with you know almost a dozen recommendations but we decided to you know based on stakeholder input we really zeroed in on

023the three that are listed there which is trying to enhance our inclusive practices and our specialized instruction. instruction um enhancing the professional learning for all of our PPS faculty and staff in service of the first goal um and then expanding our curriculum for special class students. Um so these were derived basically from the audit and there's a few examples down below that just highlight some of the work that we did in um service of those goals. So we started working with um GNR which is a consultation group um that that supports inclusive teaching. Um it's through Putnham Northern Westchester Boseies and this year we were able to start with the elementary school co-taught pairs and um we decided on a coaching model rather than having the teachers leave the building and go off to Boseis

024because we have good teachers we have solid teaching happening but we wanted sort of on the site on the job training and so we went with the coaching model starting with elementary our plan is to continue carrying over this work with GNR into next school year including hopefully one of our professional learning days at least part of the day will be dedicated to a K through 12 work on what is inclusive teaching what are inclusive practices um how do we partner with other um educators because health is small so there almost everybody's going to be co-eing at some time and almost all of us will be working with related service providers pushing into our build into our classrooms you know more so than ever before um and there are many other examples we've been partnering

025and I'll talk a little more later about the Hudson Valley Arburn Center, which is the the the regional board for expanding our understanding of multilingual um diverse cultures and learners and and speakers of different languages. Um and we're going to hear a little bit more about how our our population, our diversity is growing, which is a good thing. Um but we also need to grow with it. Um some of the other things we did for example is that we got feedback that um our our uh afterchool um heart program was maybe a little more intimidating for our middle schoolers to go to because it was up the hill in the high school and and middle school students were reluctant to maybe go get help with high schoolers. And so I got feedback from our um

026our um learning differences committee leader um Miss Loggererman. And based on that feedback, we had worked with Julia to create a classroom that was dedicated for middle school students looking for heart support. We also worked with Miss Amato, our school counselor in the middle school, to walk them up there so they were escorted up to a classroom where they could feel a little more comfortable with other middle schoolers getting help. So little things like that can make a very big difference in terms of being more inclusive. Um, and there are so many other examples. I wanted to highlight some of the work in action and some of that includes you know we we talked we did some professional learning last year on universal design for learning. Uh Josh Elder is working with um offering curriculum

027hours with the principles for this coming summer to continue that work where we embed some of the UDL principles into our um our already designed units and how we can design them and redo them better. But here's just I always think it's just great to see it in action. This is a group of students that received special education services. They're working with their teacher, Miss Peron, and they did um hands-on, built their own volcano. They had to read through the directions. Part of this, you know, also met some of their IEP goals, which had to do with following multi-step directions and carry out this active um activity. And then they simulated a volcanic eruption, and they were very proud of it. So when I asked people to send some pictures that celebrated some of the

028work they were proud of, uh, Miss Peron shared this picture. Again, don't hesitate to ask questions. Um, part of the way that we become more inclusive is to build our own understanding of things we just don't know enough about. And so in service of that, during autism awareness month, um one of our special class teachers, Miss Gordon, partnered with our speech and language pathologist, Terresa Harden, and they put together such an incredible opportunity. Um it was a lesson in the fourth grade class, Miss Hartford's class about different types of communication. So they worked with um helping students understand why we communicate. It's not just to get things, it's to socially connect with other people. They talked about what it is to use communication to be a good friend. Um, and they talked about different ways

029that people communicate. And they got to actually play a game, that game, headband, where you have to use words, but you can't see. Um, they worked with, they tried communicating using an AAC device, um, which some of our students in the building do use. Um, they used picture communications. So, it was apparently extremely wellreceived. the kids were open, they were curious, and they wanted to try it. So, that's just an example of some of the things that we're trying to do to continue the, you know, we need to continue to do this kind of work because I think there's so much we don't understand about um neurode divergence really. And so, this was something that they were extremely proud of and rightfully so. Also, um an example of like interdisciplinary work. Um, we've also moved

030the needle in terms of how we're instructing literacy and how we're improving our specialized instruction. Or will you remember that last year we ensured that pretty much all of our elementary special education teachers were trained in PAF, which is um stands for preventing academic failure, which is a terrible name, but it is a multiensory approach to teaching reading. And so this quote that um one of our special class teachers gave um Olivia Astralo I thought was just you know captured a lot. She she said for the 2425 school year there have been three cohorts of special class reading in the elementary school and that's an an example of our expanded continuum. We didn't have that before. These classes have used PAF as their curriculum resource which has been bolstered by the professional development opportunities revolving

031around the science of reading. And as you know that work has been led by Mr. Elder, by Christine Jamman and an entire team of literacy um specialists. This has influenced me to include phmic awareness as well as phonics skills into my reading instruction. And then she goes on to say that this multiensory approach to teaching reading has given the students the tools they need in their daily lives when faced with unfamiliar words and that she's noticing that they've gained more confidence and they're more eager to read than they were at the beginning of the school year. Um, so we measure success in so many different ways, but the idea that kids who didn't want to read, were embarrassed to read, would do anything to avoid reading are getting excited about reading is pretty special. It's

032also an example, you know, we really talk a lot about co-taught classes and how important it is for all the children to be together, but I still maintain that there are times where having children in a smaller group to really target specific needs has its benefits because some of these children might have otherwise been embarrassed to read in front of the bigger group, but in their group where they're all working together, um it's it can be very beneficial and very confidence building. I have a question about Sure. So, so it mentions there have been three cohorts of special class reading. Are those kids typically from the same grade or do you do it more like We pretty much have to do multi multiple ages together. So, we we try to ban them not necessarily specific

033to their grade, but to with what level of PAF they're at when we can. Um, Christine Jamman has to like I don't know play Twister and stand on her head to make a schedule period for that like a reading time for that to happen, right? Yeah. Which I I don't think has historically been how things are scheduled. But anyway, that's great because I would think because the classes are so small and reading can really be all over the place that you would actually need to have multiple Yeah. grades. That's interesting. And one of the things we're trying to do and and it looks like we're being able to pull off is some of the feedback we got was the 45 minute block wasn't quite long enough for a PAF lesson. PF lessons are rather robust.

034There's a lot of components. So again, Miss Jamman has I just tell her stuff like we need this, you know, and here's the criteria and she she she can often pull it off and sometimes it takes a group she pulls in this group of additional sets of eyes who are primarily teachers who live the schedule and they can actually see some things that we don't see after staring at it for a while. Good. Yeah. Okay. So, this just kind of goes into the numbers a little bit. It's always kind of curious to know where we're at, how many students are classified. Um, I would say that we're pretty steady. You know, overall our classification rate is fairly typical. You look at other schools. According to our beds data, our classification rate for 23 24 was

035around uh 12 and a half%. Um, that's that's that's a good place to be. I don't I don't see it going down necessarily. Um, but it it it isn't a bad neighborhood. Um, in fact, it's almost identical. a couple of hundreds of point off from Garrison's classification rate. Um it's a slightly lower than North Salem's and we I also looked at like Mayapac and Lakeland are much higher. So are cities like Yoners. Um but it but it's a it's a a pretty decent classification rate. And you'd be interested to know that some of the districts, some of the um I would just say traditionally um more financially uh welloff districts, some of their classification rates are lower. Part of it is that we see it a correlation with socioeconomic status and whatnot. But also, and

036this may change for Heldane a little bit too as we talk more about developing a more robust multi-tered system of support, there are school districts who don't classify certain kids because they can handle their needs within their multi-tered system. So, for example, I know a school district, you know, where a decent number of their children who have dyslexia, they have a built-in building level dyslexia program. And so, any child could access it. They could access it for a period of time. they could access it for as long as they need. But so there may be times where some classification rates look artificially low and and sometimes that's the reason. Generally speaking, I don't think we're going to see classification rates go down all that much even if we and and we are improving our MTSS

037process. And that's partially because we're better at we have better tools and we're better at diagnosing things like reading disabilities. learning disabilities are usually the biggest category of students who are classified and of learning disabilities it is typically a reading disability. The other thing is that we know that um autism is being identified much more frequently and there's you know different reasons for that. Some of it may be that maybe it's more prevalent but there's also the idea that we're getting better at um identifying and what is autism and and we know that there's a extremely wide spectrum. Um so I I you know it'll be interesting to follow but right now I would say that how's numbers are solid. Um another interesting thing I just want to highlight is that we have students who

038are from other districts who are placed in private schools within our community pretty much manitu. Um, interestingly enough, their school is having more and more and more students who are coming with disabilities. And so, um, this year we had 17 different students who came from other districts who had a, you know, identify a disability, who had the need for us to manage their cse process. Um, so we hold their meetings, we manage their testing, we we're pretty involved. We go over and observe. I go over and observe. Um so that number was 17 this year which is almost doubled or more than doubled since the previous year. So um it is interesting right now I I don't I don't know if the state's going to reook at their policy where it's the district of location

039rather than the district of residents that manages that. Um I have opinions about that which I will not share tonight. Um that was my question. Okay. So if you have a student who lives in Beacon who's going to Manitu, it's it's policy right now that it's the district of where the school is location, right? But what's so interesting then is that we don't necessarily know that student well, right? And we're then making decisions about their special education services and then we're billing the other district. So decisions we make, we we hand them the bill. So it's it's a lot of kids. it is in terms of our number of students um who are in preschool who are classified. Um well, just backing up for a second, this is a nice time to just talk about

040how exciting I think it is for Helane to have their universal prek. I think it is going to be such a windfall for our students and our families. Not only is it right here at Heldane, um, but we we hear such great things about Garrison's UPK and how they just they said that the children coming from their own UPK into their kindergarten are so much more ready, not just with academic skills, but with like social skills, how to be a little friend, how to be in a classroom. So, that's exciting. I also think it's going to be better for our students with disabilities. A lot of children with disabilities in our pre-K program will be able to get their services right here, not by us still. when they're preschool, it's still through the county, but

041it'll be easier for the county providers to come and deliver those services because because it'll be more consolidated rather than in three or four or five different preschools scattered throughout Philipstown. So, I think that's going to be really beneficial, too. And just the benefit of children being able to be together and learn together, I think, is is really um really special. Uh so, I just wanted to highlight that. And um I know Miss Jam has talked about our UPK more. Um the UPK curriculum is sort of closely dictated by the state but it also includes some additional screening and I think that's going to be beneficial too. So when the students come in they have a full screening into UPK and then they have the screening when they exit and there's also some benchmarks and

042progress monitoring while they're at UPK that they wouldn't have gotten at a typical preschool. So we can pick up on um weaknesses and and need for intervention as well. So I think that's, you know, there's just a lot of different benefits to that. Um, so our numbers for UPK, I mean, uh, preschool students that are classified, you know, you can see that they were a little higher in 18 and 19. Um, our groups coming in were a little bit big, bigger than, uh, bigger than. Yes. And then there was a little bit of a drop off maybe related to pandemic and and some, you know, some of that going on. Of course, recently in June of uh, 2025, our numbers are up again. Um the the reason that's a little bit interesting, first of all,

043it's consistent right now across the region. There's a rise in preschool students with disabilities. But this is just a little concerning just in the sense that our numbers are so low for the class the group coming in for 2025 and yet our preschool numbers who of students with needs are um have increased. So it's just something to monitor. There's not a lot we can do about it except to just be proactive and and learn about them and and be prepared. We do. So, go ahead. Oh, we actually don't have that much time, but still it's interesting. So, I know a little bit. So, CPSC, it's it's the meetings are run by the school district, but the services are provided by the county, but these are all children who res who reside in the These are

044heling students, families that reside within our school district. Right. Right. And but typically I guess families well I guess families or pediatricians I'm just trying to think about the process for a child to even get a CPSC. Often it starts at a preschool where a preschool provider will say to the parent, hey I'm noticing your child struggling with speech or something like that. And sometimes it's with a family pediatrician but then typically they will call us. They'll call Kim Patnella. I'll get involved. I usually have an interview with the families. I'll go out and see the children at the preschools. Um because sometimes it's not an assessment, you know, sometimes it's like let's wait and see, but sometimes it is. Great. Um I'll go a little faster so we can get through some of the

045material. Um talking about 504s, another thing that our PPS department does manage our section 504 meetings. Um section 504, the idea is that it's not special education services, but it's supposed to level the playing field. It's supposed to be an equalizer so that people with a disability can have access to what they need just like everybody else. Um, we have seen a rise in the number of section 504 plans. Part of that I I would suggest is because we have been able to get some people off of IEPs and get them serviced through 504s, which makes sense if they don't truly need special education. Perhaps they need programming testing accommodations access or a counselor, but they don't need special education services. The other thing is that this trend is also consistent with school districts um

046who believe it or not are predominantly white and who also are of higher socioeconomic status because some of that is that we have families that are um they have the means and they're also you know education is a priority and there's an element of you know some people will go out and get private neurosych exams but we are definitely seeing a rise um I was reading about I think it's I won't name this school district, but it's in Connecticut in Fairfield County. Um they're they're dealing with, you know, uh 30% of their population is has a 504 plan. So, um I think some of the work we did last year in getting a little tighter on how we give them, holding those annual reviews, making sure that we have re-evaluation meetings every three years so

047we don't just automatically keep renewing 504 plans. So, it's we just have to stay on top of it. It's an excellent tool and a needed tool for people who need it. um staffing overview. So, Julie and I talked about this a little bit. Um this current school year, we were able to experience the addition of our 910 counselor, Maggie Heindman, and it's been an incredible addition to the high school. Having two full-time school counselors in the high school has just made such a world of difference for social emotional needs, but specifically around academic planning, um, transition planning, all of the different things that school counselors do. They are busy 24/7. There's people lined up at their door. Um, and so the addition of Miss Heindman, we look and say like, how did Miss Cotchen do

048it without Miss Heindman? But what we know is that she's now able to focus on 11th and 12th graders better and Miss Heindman is giving those ninth and tth graders really really um you know I think supportive services. She also was working with our rising eighth graders to support their transition to the high school. So it's been incredible. Um we also for the first time this year added point4 school psychologists. So, we have two full-time school psychologists and I think that that's um a very important factor for the like really um better functioning of the PPS department because school psychologists who can hopefully do all of the different things on the national practice model for school psychology um will help the department run better. Ideally, I'd like to have two school I would have both

049school psychologists chairing meetings, being able to help with the MTSS process, being able to offer teachers consult support. Um, so those are two very exciting additions. Um, we are definitely looking at defining a little more tightly the different roles, what what should really be in the domain of the social worker, what should be really in the domain of a school counselor versus a school psychologist. And in fact, this year, our clinical team during this coming summer is going to do some curriculum work. Um, spend some hours on defining their roles so that we're all working to our strengths so that we're not doubling up. But then we also from there want to look at maybe how we're allocating our resources. Um, is there enough school psych help in the high school? I would argue no.

050Um, so how do we how do we spread our our people out? I do think thankfully um thanks for the board support that we have the right number of people and we are getting the right people on the bus. So now we just have to talk about how to use them to their to their strengths. Anything you wanted to add because I know Julia did you want to add anything to that? Well, I just think one of the other things we were talking about is, you know, you tend to see based on developmental need, you know, your speech and language pathologists, your occupational therapists, your behaviorists developmentally, they spend more time in the elementary school and that's appropriate, you know, where your your guidance counselors and maybe social workers like are spending a little bit

051more time at the high school depending on the the needs of the students. So, you know, I think it's not often that the behaviorist is up at the high school. Um, yeah, but sometimes it's required. So, things we were talking about and then just I won't go through all of it, but um our continuum of services has over the last couple of years and again with the support of the board, we were able to expand it. Um, we talked a little bit about the special class reading that we're able to provide. Um we know that we have our bridge program both running at Garrison and at Heldane um this year. We're very excited to say uh Miss Jam has been visiting some of our little potential candidates, but we've been able to open up our

052bridge program for some applications for students that might be a good match for our program. Our program is tiny. Um the bridge program started out at around five or six children. A couple of those children were able to move to less restrictive. Um so we are we are in a place where we were two years in. Um we started that teach town curriculum through Boseies and and so it was a time we got to a place where we felt comfortable. So we are now in the process of looking at some candidates and I think we have two potential so far. Miss Jamman two and observing another one tomorrow. So, three potential students who would then um you know their their home districts need to then review whether they agree with the placement but um those

053students would then uh come and attend as we would be their out of district placement. Um and then um for this coming year we you know based upon a need uh Mark Patanella from our science department and um Andrea McHugh from our special ed department got together asked to meet with Julia and I and basically said hey we have a need for co-taught and science electives we have co-taught in the high schools in our core classes but what about our science electives? So what we're planning on doing is starting that this coming year and the idea would be that we would have three different electives rotating over three three years. So each year there'd be a different science elective and after three years it would start again. Um this way students who needed co-taught that

054this will help them access some of these electives. Um, and there's many changes coming up in terms of uh, we know we're waiting on our the new graduation pathways, but some of those changes include things like all of our students entering high school in the year 2027, which is coming up soon. All of those students will now need a CT for career and technical credit um, in as part of their graduation package. So, the more we can get kids into electives, the more we um, build up our steam program, the more we keep that in mind when we hire or, you know, or train from within. Um, but we need people who are CTE certified because that's part of the program, but also it's really good for kids and it's particularly good for our kids

055with disabilities and not reflected on here too much um is our MTSS which is available to all students whether they're classified or not. And we'll talk a little bit more about that. Um I'll move a little quickly now. Just some of the things that I've I've said before help to inform how we approached our budgeting. Um, this year we didn't seek to add any new positions in special education per se, um, or really do any other major changes, but we tried to continue some of the work that we've already started. And some of that work was very much tied to, as I said, um, our MTSS management system that Mr. Elder is going to talk about, as well as continuing the, um, the adopting the literacy program. So, our overall department budget um, the numbers

056are high and they've gone up. Um but if you notice the actual budget tends not to come in quite as high as what we have to budget for. Um I can tell you that the fairly significant jump from the 23 24 um sorry 2425 budgeted to what we have now is because and this is just what happens. We have we have two students, one who just moved here um and one student who is a little a preschooler now school age and I had mentioned to the board last year that we were anticipating um they have complex needs and and we have to do what we have to do. So from year to year you just don't know um but at the end of the day and these numbers don't include the fact that we probably

057will get hopefully some reimbursement um as we expand our bridge program. Also, Garrison is looking to expand their bridge program and we have a tuition agreement with them so that if they get more children, our cost goes down. Um, in terms of number of students out of uh out of district placements, um, we're estimating around 10 for this coming year. That would quite a bit higher if we didn't have our bridge program. We do live in an area where it's very difficult to find appropriate out of district placements and and that's challenging um because there you know it's we're we're we're far we're far from some of the um programs and also there's just not that many programs out there. So that that's an ongoing um struggle. Just real quick, Regina, to that point, the

058bridge program that we had, you said there was going to be about two or three more students coming in. Ideally, is that going to cut the time that those children would have been on a bus if they had to go to another program? The students that will hopefully be coming in um are from a a neighboring district. Okay. So, I think it could be a winwin for them. I can tell you that the parents are wildly excited about this opportunity because they were given a bunch of packets to look at different schools and when they got housing um when we and we also did something different that other schools haven't done. We went and this was our choice. We went to the child's place of comfort and saw the child in action and the parents

059were very touched by that. They're like, "Most people just make us come visit and and or you know, so um they they they were happy about that. Now we're welcoming the children here for a visit." Actually this week, Thursday, Miss Jamman's working quickly. Um I wanted to touch a little bit on student performance. I know that the board has asked for that in the past and you know when we're talking about children with disabilities um and this is just going to be a quick overview. It's by no means a in-depth analysis of student performance but I just wanted to kind of talk briefly about you know we all have high hopes and it is very important to set high expectations for all all our students but some students progress is more linear than others and

060I would say the but the reality picture is is probably more like just being human you know we have ups we have downs we have plateaus um but the important piece is to make sure that we're still moving forward we're still making progress Um, but the ways that we measure success for students with disabilities is variable. And we have to really look at the whole person. And I don't mean that tongue and cheek. I really mean we have to look at all of the different ways that that person is living and thriving and being and able to actualize their potential. And so it's very important that we have really talented special educators who are able to to um do a good analysis and to write really good and strong present levels of performance to design

061very specialized instruction and to write goals that really do target the specific needs because having those goals that are measurable, that are really targeted, that are attainable, um it's what it's all about. Very often that's how we're measuring success because some of the students are not going to do as well on a standardized test. they're just not maybe they can't sit through it even if they really could perform well on it. Um and and when we're working with students with disabilities, we celebrate the small successes. We celebrate all of the accomplishments. We also our department's also accountable to the state. Our our district is accountable to the state. We have performance indicators and some of them we report on every year. Um Miss Niff knows she's been our CIO. Um so you know every year

062we find out information about dropout rates and graduation rates and it dis it's disagregated to look at students with disabilities as well as students in gened but then there's a rotating um assignment of an indicator that we have to do more in depth. So this year we had indicator eight. That meant indicator 8 we had to assess our level of parent involvement in the cse process and we had to send out surveys and resend them and resend them but we had we're we're looking for a certain percentage of response rate but the idea is we're getting input from parents about how well are we working with you to support your students needs. Um in previous years we've had other indicators sometimes indicator 13 and 14. Sometimes we do great other times we need to adjust.

063when we were doing indicators 13 and 14, we realized we had to we had to do better transition planning on our IEPs. So, we did some training and we made some corrections. So, I can foresee that that will continue. Next year, I believe it's child find. Um child find has to do with how we're going out there in the community and identifying children that may have disabilities and what are we doing about it. We're getting close to our time. So, um I wanted to give you a couple of snapshots. This is just a um a snapshot of an ELA regent exam from 23 24 and um you can see you know hopefully in the distance that you know our district really does perform well compared to the average across New York State and that's great

064and we've known that we know we've had a blue ribbon high school. We have high performing students for the most part but when you look at the disagregated data our students with disabilities on this particular exam also did really well. So we our students with disabilities were at 87% proficiency on this exam. So there's there's some really good information out there for us. There's other exams though, for example, the algebra regions where we only had four students take the test who had a were identified with a disability. So it it the N's too small for them to give us a percentage. That being said, I was looking at this data with Julia and Julia was like, "Oh, those four kids." And she names them. She knows exactly who they are. She was all the team

065was already very aware of who they are, what they needed, and actually as she was talking to me about it, um, three of those four actually passed because they they scored high enough um and and there's some other, you know, um, structures in place, but they actually passed. So, only one student actually didn't pass that regions. You want to add anything to that, Joel? Um, and here's an example. Well, this one it was our living environment regions and our students with dis disabilities did less well on that. We were at the 60th percentile for proficiency for students with disabilities. Um, but one of the things I can say is that we were able to this year I had a little bit of money left over from one of our federal grants, the 611 grant. And

066in seeing the the list of students that struggled on the regions last year, it was pretty easy to go down the list and and I could recognize a lot of their names. So I'm like, "Oh yes, this child has an IEP. This child has an IEP." So if we know, if we can predict going into something that this might be an area of struggle, what can we do differently? So we put our heads together and one of the allowable uses of the grant money is to provide specialized tutoring in in in advance of the regions. So we are now offering that. We have teachers who are willing to give up their lunchtime. They're getting paid, but they're giving up their lunchtime and other time to tutor students in advance of the regions. and they're specifically

067tutoring students who are at risk of failing. And we got names from the teachers as to who might be in that pool. I was just going to say maybe half are classified and half aren't. Like it's not just so it's just teachers identifying students, us getting federal funding, putting together programming, teachers in certified areas willing to do this. And and the conversation was, well, maybe 10th period, but then the teachers like, well, if we do it 10th period, then we're blocking out other students who might want help. So they didn't want to do 10th period. They knew the students probably wouldn't stay from 3:00 to 4. So they're like, "But if we all eat and learn and eat and learn, we can do it then and everybody's available and we can make it work." So

068we have five or six teachers that are that are doing this. We have algebra, we have geometry, we have bio, we have earth science, and global history. So those five subject matters. So, just to clarify, the grant money can only be used for uh the special education teachers, but we had some other tutoring funds which we always budget for, we were able to use because we didn't want to preclude anyone from being part of it. Um, another snapshot. So, I'm kind of trying to give the the group um some samples of data that we look at, how we use that data to do better. And um this is a sample of the eighth grade uh I'm sorry, the three through eight math New York State exam. And um hard to see from the distance, but

069you can tell that Heline, which is to the left in the multicolored graph, Heline does fairly robustly. Sometimes we have a blip in a particular grade. Sometimes the grades bigger or smaller, higher number of classified students are not, but generally speaking, compared to Croin and North Salem, our our scores are solid pretty much grades three through eight. Looks like all of all of the group didn't do well for fifth grade math in all three schools. Kind of interesting, the red bar. Um but I I we copied and pasted this data. Um, just to look at how our students with disabilities were doing grades three through eight compared to other schools. And you can see it kind of varies yeartoear. Generally speaking, if I just glanced at this, North Salem students with disabilities were doing slightly

070better on their grades three through eight math exam. Um, Heldane was doing perhaps a leg up on Croin. Um, but it varies again by grade. So once again, we're going to be keeping to look at this. We started a new math program Eureka Squared. you know, hopefully over time, fast forward two or three years, we're hoping that we see an uptick in performance for all students. Um, this is just one more slice, the MWA. Um, I I picked this one on purpose because this I I took out the name, but this is because this is a student with a disability. You can see that this student's actual achievement, which is up in the top left, is still below the mean. He's at the 33rd percentile overall. Um, but what's important to notice here is his

071growth. His growth was at the 99th percentile and that was after we implemented some support. And so again, kind of funny and this is what makes Haldane different and special. I was going through this presentation with Julia preparing and I wanted to kind of like use her as a sounding board and rehearse what I wanted to say and and the narrative I was creating. and I showed her this slide and she knew with the name redacted which child it was and so I was just kind of blown away and I'm like well yes you're right about that. So um I do hope that in the future we can have the NWA scores um disagregated to show our students with disabilities because we still lack and I think the MTSS program is going to help with

072um a a a better longitudinal way to look at data over time. Um, and if the two systems can speak to each other, it's going to be easier to do with NWA. Um, and then I'll invite uh Mr. Elder up. I might have to finish some other things on another day because I know you're going to have the vote count in a moment. Well, I have to and I have to go close the polls in two minutes. So, I want to I want to bring Mr. Elder up just because he spearheaded this effort to explore um an MTSS system that we could use and this team volunteered and put a tremendous amount of hours. So, I will let you finish your slides and then maybe we'll end. I'm going to follow up with you because

073I don't want you to rush. I want everyone else to be able to hear it and I do have to go downstairs, but that's Go or don't go. I'll I'll you should go. You should go. Sorry. I You'll follow you go. I'll follow up with you. Appreciate it. I'll be back. Um, thank you for clarification. So, um, I do think that, you know, integration of lots of different goals. One of our our district goals has always been or has been in the last couple of years of of ways of using data processes in a bunch of different ways. Um particularly in program design, curriculum design, staffing, those types of things. Um what has become apparent over the last couple of years through the work that's been doing um has really been the idea that we

074needed a system that would help us better organize the amount of data that we are collecting. Um and as Dr. patient had said more or less for um usability for our teachers um kind of a repository and like a single place for us to look at this um as well as to better track how students are collecting over a longitudinal period of time as they you know go through their journey here in Heldane. Um this is not to say we don't have this information. Um I think what we had come to realize is it's living in different spreadsheets. it's living in different programs like NWA or New York State or we're doing oral reading sync fluency through the reading league at the elementary school. There's been the resurgence of the heler profile which has just

075generated a tremendous amount of information that is living in all different places. And so um when it comes to MTSS or having conversations around kids uh what we have come to find is that that pro process is less efficient based upon just kind of a programmatic need of collecting information together in some way. So um I spent some time with the individuals who are listed here uh probably about 10 hours or so over about three different days and we um were charged with looking at about four different programs um for thinking about adoption for the next school year. Um we went through a series of processes to go through uh given the amount of time that I have. Um you know a couple things were really big was like data integration right the ability to

076speak with multiple softwares right to be able to pull this information in one in one place. Uh so that was first and foremost. Um what I would say that was more secondary that that was also important was um how the software helps our workflow and collaboration right so not that it's a stagnant thing but as we analyzed these programs are there built-in ways that helps us work better together um through an MTSS process. And so those are really two of the main lenses that we looked at um as we analyze these programs and we did you know um we did it on our own. We had software demos through people. We had a sandbox we played with um and we had all these rubrics that we were looking at. Um and so what we had

077come to a conclusion was we're happy to report Can I advance to the next slide? Yeah. Right. Um that Edu Climber was the one that was an overwhelmingly favorite out of all of our teachers uh or the people that were on that uh committee. And if I just going to go back for a second, I think one of the things just to say quickly is when we started this, this wasn't just academic information, right? Um you'll also see up there um counselors, psychologists, social workers. It's the collection of not only the academic interventions that we're doing, but it's also the concept of um you know the social emotional supports that we're also putting in place. So it's um a program that hopes to encapsulate all of that information right in one kind of area for

078our teachers to be able to look at uh as they're as they're continuing through adult. So um that's a important distinction to be able to make um with that. One of the reasons why it's really more or less at an elementary level is we utilize P school as our student information system which was one of the systems that we actually looked at and we were hoping that P school would make this really robust well enough program that we would like because it's our student information system. It it didn't rise to the level that we were really looking at which is unfortunate in other ways. Um but our elementary teachers uh and I say this softly they don't really inter uh access uh the student information system that a secondary teacher would do. Right? they have

079their kids for the whole day. They have their attendance. Everything that they really have is right there. Um something like a educ climber uh that we have will create a platform really for those teachers that houses a lot of this information in one area. Um so we were really cautious to making sure particular the secondary level doesn't supplant our student information system or we feel like our secondary teachers have multiple systems to be looking into. Um and we're to look at as we move forward. But I think one of the things I just wanted to say is that this is an all-encompassing process for both academic as well as social emotional um supports we put in for students. And so Educ is the one that we have recommended and that we're looking forward to moving

080forward with budget dependent of course um and working with uh Katherine Platt. And so the idea of next steps after tonight would be obviously um starting to onboard some of the information that we need to move forward with this and set up the training processes that are being needed to have this be a go uh for September. And then also working with this team to kind of create a multi-year implementation. It's vast. There's a lot of stuff there. um and the ideas jump in one one simp simple idea, but ways that we can kind of maneuver into this work um from a very systematic, logical, professional development standpoint as we go forward. That's mine. I have like one or two more things, but should I just hold off and maybe come back on June 3?

081I don't see uh Peggy here, so you may uh come up and speak. I'll speak. Uh, I think we Yeah, you can always go with Thank you, Mr. Um, I think it's always important for the board to know that you're getting a good bang for your buck and the board was encouraged to and did approve the hiring of a second ENL teacher. Um, and I can't say enough about um, Miss Bellazardo. Um, Barbara Jennings, first of all, is an absolute Yeah, she is one of the best teachers here in the entire district and there's a lot of good teachers. Um, she goes above and beyond. She wanted me to emphasize that some of the work she values the most is not just teaching the kids in the classroom, but getting to know their families because

082you work so intimately with the families when they're coming in um, and they don't speak the language. She helps them from every step from when they first try to register to to getting their children involved and learning about activities and she really gets to know them and also gets the benefit of working with them through the years. Um actually Mr. Albano had brought up the idea of looping and how beneficial that is that that study showed. So our ENL teachers in a way do that. Um I'm just going to pause for a minute. Did you need me to um wrap it? No, no, no, no. It's going to take him a while to count the vote. So perfect. So um Miss Jennings was able to share with me some of the professional learning that both

083she and uh Miss Belazardo engaged in. Um she spoke so highly first of all of their partnership, how much she's already learned from Miss Belazardo and vice versa and also um that she's been able to do a little bit what she said a more targeted focus on her high school students because she's able to spread out some of the work. Before we really did not have um proper coverage. We really didn't. And um this has really helped us to really meet the needs of our students. Um so there's a few different uh samples of some of the professional learning that they engaged in. Um when we think about our changing population, I was able to pull some numbers from um basically 10 years ago from 2014 and compare it to 2024 just from the state

084data. But you can see here in this picture that um the Haldane school district was and still is predominantly white, but in 2014 it was 87%. Now those numbers are 80%. So that means 20% of our children are coming from more diverse backgrounds. Um and again that's a that's something to to um to be proud of and to celebrate and something that enriches our community. Um this year alone it was interesting because they had seven new students join the program. So between September and December um four students came in and three of them were at the elementary level. So the teachers just have to pivot. They they give the assessments they determine how many um number of minutes children's are children are um required. Um and then then from January until now we had three

085more students enroll. So seven alone just in this one school year. And because they had the two of them, they were able to do it. Um, I just did a quick snapshot of some of the units of study and staffing requirements for ENL. This is the K through8 one. Um, but it basically shows that depending on the child's level of language proficiency, that dictates the number of minutes of service that they are required to receive. Um, so it really adds up fast when you have um children who speak different languages and and to be able to support them. And I think Heldane's doing a really good job at supporting them, but it's even better now that we have the two teachers. It also really dubtales nicely with the work that we were doing um with

086our um Hudson Valley Arbor, but also with our universal design for learning and that connects to um the New York State's framework, which has to do with having a culturally responsive and sustaining um framework. And I think that that's something that as a district we can and should be delving into even more going forward. And it and it does fit nicely with the work of our um that our community wants us to do that our community that's you know looking for us to have a more inclusive and supportive and welcoming environment. So, um I look forward to like that continued work here in the district. Um because I think it's going to make it better for everyone when we make it when we're culturally responsive and celebrate who each of us is. Um and that's

087really all I had. Um, so if anyone has any additional questions or anything they'd like to know more about, I mean, just real quick, uh, you know, LA last time we talked about, uh, the successful your guys' ways to kind of really gauge the success of interventions and I think you hit on that and it looks like you're, you know, through this next uh, program, educating each one of those interventions. It also looks like what you've kind of put out is there there's two basic advantages. There's number one the advantage of uh the interventions of which you're doing but then also the advantage that we have such a small school. So the fact that you know Julia knows a kid just by the data plot the that speaks to me that not only are you

088looking at you know each type of intervention that you're doing evaluating that um through multiple means but then also looking at the whole child through that process and kind of evaluating all these different um not just interventions but kind of just different characteristics of what you're looking at. And um it it's it sounds like that's in, you know, kind of what we had asked about, right? Like we said, how how are you how are you showing this? How are you proving that? Um like you said, the bang for the buck. Um how do you make sure that we're doing this? And it sounds that you have gone back through this entire process looking at those interventions finding out how they function and have a plan in place to even you know kind of organize it

089a little bit better. Right? So I'd say this is this is fantastic. Um this it's man and again it's the advantage of a small space and the disadvantage of small though sometimes is that we all do so many jobs that I think finding enough time to have those data conversations to zoom out because you know our principles are running around doing everything in the building. There's no assistant principal. So um finding that time and prioritizing that time to to have the look from the balcony is is essential. And um you know, I wish there was more time in the day. Thank you all. Thanks for the support. I think we're starting to see I think some of the fruits of the labor and some of the investments you've put in are starting to really show.

090Well, I a question, but I want to say I was that was a huge amount of work. It's a bittersweet presentation because it's your last presentation, but it really shows all the work that you've done and it is I really so appre I thought it was you know it was it was really a great way to to to wrap this up. Thank you so much. Very appreciate all of you. There there is there is one but you know since you know you did make a good point. Um where do you see kind of you know now that you have the advantage of leaving right? That's the way I word it. Well it provides good perspective. So you've seen your tenure coming here. you you have you you saw kind of needs uh that that you

091I think addressed and going forward where do you see some of those especially in the presentation um you you noted uh definitely at the prek level you know kind of services popping up um where do you see our role and and what can we should be be jumping on uh early for next year and into the following year. Where do you see this projected outcome? Well, I think to your point, you know, the district's going through a lot of transitions. We're going to be welcoming or I've already started to welcome Dr. um Gail Duffy and um Miss Pette and yes and and um Aaron Pquette is going to be the new director. So on June 10th actually um Miss Duffy is going to join us for our administrative council meeting and sit with us and

092just watch one of our ACVs session and then at 10:00 when the meeting is over we've welcome we're welcoming this pet in and our new one of our new school psychologists to come and meet the administrative team and then we so just to kind of make sure that we have a really good transition so that some of the work that's been going on and the work's been going on way before I got here but um just so that we move some of the district goals and district work forward and don't lose all sorts of time with the handing over. So, I've actually and again part part of it was the audit, but I've made a really um concerted effort to log um to almost make like a special education manual of sorts. Um I've done

093things like making sure that the role of the um case manager is defined. We didn't have that defined before. Just things like that are now like stored. Making sure that we have it stored. How do we decide if a student should be um ineligible for or you know the the um world language requirement should be waved? What what rubrics are we using? Just trying to get some things um in place. So I think that will help. Um to your point, I think that the work from the the audit will still carry on and um the my fellow administrators, it's really it's all our work and that's how we did it and I think that's the only way it's going to move forward. But I think as we embark on some of my suggestions would be

094as we embark on this MTSS and and Mr. Eller's all over this. He knows it. Um as we start with new software, new software is only going to take us so far. It's going to be you know what data do we input? What will it we get out of it? But then what are we doing with it? So I do think this would be a good opportunity for us to refresh our faculty and staff's approach toward response to intervention in MTSS and what does a classroom uh in intervention look like? What you know what is tier one and tier 2? What data should I come with when I come to my student support team meeting and and and who says no you can't come to the SST because you have no data. get the get

095baseline data, do some intervention, and then talk to us about whether or not you need help beyond that. So, I think we need to tighten that up. Um, all schools do. I think uh I think Josh was saying when he went to his curriculum, yeah, we do MTSS and every single person in the next breath said, "And we need to do it better." So, um I think that that's something that would be good work for us to continue engaging in, but we're already moving the needle on that. Um I I don't know if we can possibly carve out time for data teams, more data teams, more meetings with looking at data. I think that would be really vital. Um and then I guess the other work is around in my mind, especially with special education,

096the CTE piece. I think um they're starting to look at getting work-based learning starting in ninth grade. Making sure that some of those hours you you're volunteer, you're in town, you're doing an internship, like those are work-based learning hours that we could start to log. So, you know, maybe in the future as our hour we track. Exactly. Bank them as bank them as easily as we can, you know. Yeah. And um I also just think it will open doors for kids as they start to get exposed to more work-based learning opportunities earlier. So as we have declining enrollments and we've talked about this, it might be an opportunity. So maybe I have a faculty member that has 04 or point 2 of their day available. Perhaps they could be a transition specialist that works with

097students on internship opportunities, work-based learning hours that, you know, takes them to transition fairs and learns about jobs and careers because our our right now our special education teachers are fully booked. Who's doing that? Who's keeping track of that? Some bigger districts do have transition specialists or transition coordinators. They also have MTSS coordinators. So again, as our as our enrollment goes down, those might be good investments of our extra FTA FTE that'll that'll benefit everybody. Just some thoughts. But that's something to really think about like because the the the there has been talk in the district both from the board and from the administrative team who's doing all the work and the teachers on becoming more data literate and using data but it does take time. I mean and that is something you know that

098could certainly be built into you know a schedule for how to take again maybe another example of somebody who doesn't have you know is you know has some extra room in their schedule and that person like comes up with I don't know a data coach like and they and they because people sitting with their own data somebody to cover you need somebody to cover the classes to give well how do we give I guess where I was going is how do we give what what's the best way to give teachers the Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you. [Music] Um so we're now at the opportunity first opportunity for communication from the public. Um the HUD and Board of Education desires and values input from the entire school community. This first public comment session is

099reserved for comments on special presentations and active agenda items. For those that wish to address the board, we'd ask you to sign in. state your name for the record. You keep your comments three minutes or less and um avoid disparaging remarks or discussion of course now. So next we have on our agenda our um very valuable administrator information reports that note much happening. My calendar is getting a little um all right. So, um next we have on committee minutes our committee our policy committee has been working hard. Is there anything you want to say other than the policies we have on you know we focus on New York's really pushing these um these three what they call student centered policies um to be implemented before the fall. So that's kind of what we've what we

100were looking at. We'll talk about looks like one bit. So, moving into consent agenda um minutes. May I have a motion, please? So, moved. Second. All in favor? I I consent agenda financial. May I have a motion, please? Moved. Second. Um all those in favor I post uh consent agenda personnel a motion please move second and I don't think there's anything there all those in favor I any opposed um the unfinished business last time we spoke briefly about the school board meeting scheduled for 2526. Carl, when you spoke to Gail, Gail's on board with us scheduling initially one meeting in November and one meeting in December. And so, um, if everybody's okay with that, we'll move forward with the idea that as as always, we can always schedule. Um, so may we have the recommended

101action, please? Be it resolved that upon the recommendation of the interimm superintendent of schools, the board of education hereby approves the 2025 2026 board meeting schedule as attached. Okay, we have a motion, please. So moved. Second. All those in favor? Any opposed? Uh next for new business. The first thing on the agenda is the CSC CPSC recommendations. May we have the recommended action, please? Be it resolved that upon the recommendation of the interimm superintendent of schools, the board of education hereby approves the recommendations of the committees on special education and preschool special education as presented. May we have a motion, please? So moved. Second. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Um and next [Music] um that's fine. Um, next we have our um, uh, uh, basically just approving our uh, photography agreements for next

102year. Doing it um, keeping Christina has done a nice job and and sort of and adding the second. So I guess we first have the um, recommended action for the elementary middle school photography agreement for 2526. Be it resolved that upon the recommendation of Superintendent of Schools, the board of education hereby approves agreement with Christine Ashburn Photography, Hudson Valley School Photography for the 2025 2026 school year to include elementary and middle school student portraits, candid photography, extracurricular photography, and additional photography support as detailed in the agreement and authorizes the interim superintendent to sign the agreement on behalf of the district. We have a motion, please. So moved. Second. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? And the approval of the high school photography agreement for 252. It resolve that upon the recommendation of the interimm

103superintendent of schools. The board of education hereby approves the agreement with life touch photography for the 2025 2026 school year to include high school student portraits, candid photography, extracurricular and athletic photography and additional photography support as detailed in the attached agreement and authorizes the interim superintendent to sign the agenda of the district. Okay, I have a motion, please. So move second. Um, all those in favor? Any opposed? All right. So, the policy review, the first reviews I'll let um Yeah. So, we just wanted to be the policy committee would just wanted to hear everybody's feedback on um policy 1210 um which is requiring school boards to adopt um to adopt it by July 1st. Um and we're required to appoint an executive student board member um so somebody from the student body to sit on

104our board. Um and essentially we're just looking for process. That's all we really need to put in by July 1. we can, you know, talk about details later, but um I reached out or included Julie on the email because obviously I think we want her to tell us what to do, but what would make more sense, provide suggestions, correct? That um so yeah, so I don't know if anyone, you know, was I attended a online training about it um just to hear they laid out a bunch of ways that other school districts are doing it. It's really all over the map. um you know it could be elected by the student body, it could be elected by the the principal, the superintendent. Um so it's sort of however much involvement that we really want. Um

105you know might be worth thinking of meeting the people before they're approved. Um we don't have to do that. So when I was talking to Maggie about it, so the one thing so when I think back to when we had an exeicio member before those students they show they came to the meeting but I realized in retrospect like we didn't really create a structure or scaffold to really engage their input and it was a lot to ask them to be younger in school very busy and then to come to these meetings and weigh in. So, the policy to me is fine and I'm happy with the process. I mean, I'm pretty open to what the process is for selecting them, but I'd really like to think about is how we can Oh, actually, I didn't

106finish. So, they used to just come and be kind of put on the spot. Right now, we have students come and they give these really lovely reports, but like that's again like it's putting this burden on them to write something and report on something. And I always love the reports and I love them coming, but it's often also things that we're hearing in other venues as well. It's great to hear the from students, but we're but it's not giving us their input. Like the whole purpose of the Exopysius student board member is to get student perspective. And so I'm not, you know, maybe it's something I guess we'd have to talk about it in open meeting, but maybe just something for us to think about and it could be a role that a board member

107needs to take on, right? To you know, I don't know if it's to meet with them before a meeting. I don't know, you know, it I also feel like we want to avoid having one student's opinion, right? And so does it need to be someone who has a chance to go and like is it someone from the student council? I don't I just I think there's a way to do this in a really thoughtful way that really gets what we're supposed to be getting from having student members and that yeah I think I from my viewpoint as an educator it's a really good educational moment for the child and for us right so um they're able to teach us about certain things and then by them being on the board it's a really good educational

108moment for them right so um I I would love for that uh our structure to reflect something that provides benefit to the child um opposed to just sitting you know sitting in a meeting right on the spot for something which I think is I do have one question and it is it I thought it could be a rotating apparently that's not the case is that not the case there is no set number um and many schools have two or Um, so they do, but the idea is that it's somebody to a degree somewhat regular. So, you know, they're involved and they're they're coming back and forth. So, it's not just a a rotation of sorts, but no, there are and it sort of depends on who we have. If there's more than and yeah, more

109than one student interested, it can be more. So, it can be a few but not uh 10, meaning, right? Not one not one per month or something. Okay. one regular and a sub like an alternate or they could maybe rotate you know they take separate you know every other meeting kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. It's a tricky thing because one of the reasons why it didn't work when we had a single member is the students became so busy and then they just pulls from the same pool of children who are busy. Right. That's the issue. Right. Well, and but I also felt like anyway I mean I could see it was like one more thing that they had to do which was one of the reasons why I don't know like maybe I don't know

110like maybe the president and the vice president have their agenda meeting so that ends right at lunchtime and the board buys the kid lunch and we talk to them about what's going to be on the agenda. I don't know. I mean, that's to me the the that and I think it's something we need to we have until the fall to appoint them. I think it's just something that we want to think about. Well, there's a there's a p there's kind of like a new philosophy in the way that uh student councils run um is that they are are not elected. Um what happens is when you go out for elections, especially with um it it it tends to be uh the same students over and over again, and it prioritizes [Music] um if you're thinking

111about trying to educate as many children as possible and provide an opportunity to children, um you by holding elections, you're actually like specifically ignoring the vast majority of the children uh and their opinions. So, you know, it's only the people that raise their hand and step up. And um so I I add that as just some perspective that there is a push just in general in student councils to try to try to avoid like classroom elections and things like that and have uh that's why I mentioned like rolling appointments so that you have um you know an opportunity for a kid that almost would ne number one never win an election, number two never run for an like never even think about doing it, but has an opportunity to provide um valuable input. Yeah. So,

112you know, I just put that out there if that's something that, you know, to consider or for Julia to consider. Um because uh you know, the last thing we Yeah, I think we'll leave it there. I'll leave it at that. So yes, I can read what but Julie had had recommended and we can um you know talk about that. She had suggested a student council representative who's either junior or senior um and then you know some type of formal process and she and the superintendent meet with them, they talk about it um and then make the recommendation to the board. You know that's one option. We could also extend that another step and meet with the students. because some other schools use a written statement, you know, so it's almost like they apply. So, I

113like an application process. I agree um that I I I think I would prefer to not have it be an election or somebody who's already in student council because those are the kids who are already super involved. I would also love to hear some potential nominations from administrators. you know, maybe they could, you know, target a couple kids who they think would be potential excellent candidates for a role like this who maybe they could approach and or maybe a teacher that they're close with could approach them and kind of encourage them to put in this application. Um because I really do think this could be an excellent opportunity for a kid who maybe isn't otherwise super involved who will a have some more time, right? But also would really um benefit from an experience like

114this, somebody who's interested in what we're doing. So I've been write I've been writing the recommendations for my students, right, who have been, you know, where I work, it's an application process. the board sent out an application process, you know, with a deadline, you know, give a certain resume, fill this out, you need three recommendations, right? And I've been helping out those students. And one of the nice things is um some of the students that applied and, you know, and asked for, you know, my recommendation um are are ch are children that would never raise their hand for a for an election, right? So, um, and because they just they just know that's like not going to be a thing. And, um, and and and would be strong people for their board. Yeah. Would be

115good. I was just going to say I think we've done it many different ways. What I sent you was how we did it with Bill. I think when we had the last I think was it was Luke. Yeah, it was Luke. Um, but we also did like when it was May McGrath, we had reached out to the social studies department to see if there was students involved in policy or like they felt like this might be something they would be interested in doing. And the social studies department gave us a few names of students that might not have been in student council, but and May now works in Washington DC. I think she works on policy. Um, so and I think when it was Andrew N Champion, I think it was student council like so

116it's it's taken different forms over the many years that we've we've done this. So, I really I hear what you're saying and and I I do think there may be students who have a really strong desire to, you know, engage at a different level within the community and within the school that might not be the student council kid. Yeah. Um and so I I I do agree and I do I do like that. I do think we tap the same students often a lot of times and even if it isn't a student council student, there's still kids that most of our kids are tapped for multiple things. So, I do think having a backup or having two is not a bad idea. Yeah. Um, you know, you don't want to eliminate an athlete during the

117fall and then a play student during the play time of year. And so, having two, I think, is kind of a good idea. Yeah. And and I do think I do think juniors and seniors um are that does make sense. I think in a better spot and there may be some sophomores who may be completely ready for something like this. I would never say no, but I just I think to think about the age or the grade level. Yeah. Um and you would be our facilitator then you're open to that if you would like. I will do whatever. Yeah. But I do I mean do you agree the idea that there needs someone from the board to sit down with students periodically? Like I just to ask them to like look at the talking about

118No, no, no. I was going to say that I feel like it's sort of incumbent upon us to it is yeah structure this experience in a meaningful way. It's not merely come and sit around the board. It's we have to decide for ourselves what key responsibilities we feel like it would be great to have their input on if you know what kinds of committees board committees in which there might be opportunities for them to sit on should they choose like you know those are kinds of things that I think might be meaningful and actually useful to us um as opposed to you know in the past where wonderfully they'd arrive on the day of the board meeting and report and hear what we had to say but you know outside of that you know we

119really didn't engage them in any meaningful way about what governance looks like. There's a part of me that doesn't want to hold them responsible for having to write reports because that's like that's just work. But like you could imagine that we could think about I would really like for them to like meet with somebody around the budget and around like when we have policies on you know or I mean I don't know what the right set of things but definitely around the budget. Yeah. you know, oh, the capital project like like if like and even if they came, you know, I don't know, like maybe they only come to workshop meetings or maybe they only come to Right. Like figure out a way to make it more feasible. But I anyway when you Yeah. And

120we have time for all that and we also have time. We don't have to point them now. It doesn't have to be over the summer. We decide the terms of office, you know. So just just the process in in place. Yeah. So, so I guess what I'm hearing is that we'll um hopefully the nominations or the suggestions will come from Julia and then we'll come up with some type of application process. That sounds good. And then the policy committee so we can take another crack at maybe coming up with some language around that and present it for a second reading. Does that sound good? Yeah. Yep. Thank you. Um was there anything we wanted to say about the max temp one? Sounds like the school is on it. Yes. Yeah. That and then this is

121for um obviously the policy isn't isn't in bedrock. It's it's um it has to be implemented I think by September 1st that one. Um but it's totally dependent on the school and rooms and and building by building rooms by room. So we we've already been doing that the work with our facilities department in terms of um how how they mitigate hot rooms, right? And moving people around. So I think this is we were waiting for maybe a little bit more the policy committee was waiting for more information from you know having them put the put the language together but just in terms of how things are measured temperature measured in the classrooms and there's two different temperatures 82 versus 88. Um so yes I I don't know if anyone took a read that has any

122questions about that. Yeah. The lower number is you have to have a you have to begin to mitigate begin mitigating and 88 you gota you have to evacuate. We've already been doing that before you know they asked asked for the for the policy still. So that will be we're heavily relying on our facilities department for their procedures and that and um did I miss anything? No no I I think you're in a good place. I I I think uh Adam deserves um a lot of credit him and the facilities department they they they really worked hard starting over the April break and they've implemented I want to say at least about 20 18 to 20 extra window units, portable units. Uh we already had some in place but we've added to that and now we

123have u money in the budget. So going into next year that that process will continue. And right now we're feeling very comfortable that for example in June if we we do have some very hot days and and humid um that we at least have enough air conditioned space where we would not need to cancel school or do an early release. There was a power outage. All bets are off. Um but again right now we we may have to double up some classes or bring two or three classes to the library here or the gym. Um but we we think we can make do and you'll even be in a better place next year. So I don't see an issue. The policy is required. But in going forward with it, I I do believe we can

124comply with it and keep classes moving along instruction. I guess when the units have become this is a question for Adam. So, like a long time ago, we were talking about putting window units in and there was they're concern about the electricity, but I guess maybe the units have become more efficient. They're not so Yeah, I I as far as the electricity needs, I think if you were to design an air conditioner for the space, you would be looking at something that might be 220 volt instead of a 110 vol unit. So that said, um we're really putting in units that are going to keep us in in compliance, but not an ideal. Yeah. Right. Right. Like reduce the humidity a bit, keep it maybe around 80 or 70, which is better. I mean, it's

125not great, but it's Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think when designing it, you would design it on in an extreme situation with when they when they do the measurements for that would be, you know, the heat of the summer, which really isn't necessarily something that we need to take into consideration since we're not talking about air conditioning in space in July and August. We're talking about air conditioning space in June or September. So those calculations can be taken down a notch, I imagine, to try to just keep us in a comfortable level for those temperature that time of year. Um, all right. Great. Well, thanks for the policy committee. Thanks to Aggie for going to a workshop on these be able I do get it in and the policy committee to bring these before us.

126So, all right. So, at this point, we're just waiting for now. Actually, I'm just gonna I think go talk to Josh about what I miss. I was just in a recess, but like can I just really quick I just I think I'd be remissed um the resignation of the teaching assistant Joanna Valvo. Yes. She is going to get her masters. Um as a school psychologist and she's been with us for two years as a teaching assistant at the high school and she's phenomenal. Um she's definitely going to be missed. Um big shoes to fill. I think you all know we had Christopher Vino for many many years. Was able to retach every subject matter, was able to baffled information from algebra 1 to chemistry to trigonometry, you know, and and um John has really stepped

127in and done a great job um with our students. So, we wish her the best. Um, but it is definitely a sad resignation for us. Um, she's been tremendous and the kids really have responded to her. Um, she's doing a great job. So, that's really exciting. I saw her letter and I didn't know that. That is that's really fantastic. Yeah. Proud of her, but sad. Thanks for that. All right. So, Oh. Um, yes. I'll move for us to go into recess and have a second. Yeah. Second. All those in favor? I thank you about the MTFS software. Um, do I have to stop the recording for the recess or Oh, right. or pause it? Probably a good idea. Probably. Yeah. Yep. But you want to session a second, please. Was a complex balance. Yeah. Second.

128All those in favor? I Any opposed? All right. So, here we are um through the last uh topic on our agenda, which is to get the result of our vote. Following are the results of the annual district meeting of May 20th, 2025. Proposition one, school budget passed with 474 yes votes and 125 no votes. Proposition two, school bus passed with 476 yes votes and 120 votes. Proposition three, capital reserve fund amendment passed with 480 yes votes and 117 no votes. In the trustee election, Ezra Clemenson received 381 votes. Sha McN received 464 votes. The total number of Brighton votes was 21. Therefore, Ezra Clemenson and Shan McNell will assume the open trustee positions on the Helane Board of Education commencing July 1st, 2025. And proposition four, Butterfield Library passed with 508 yes votes and 86

129no votes. That's great. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you. All right. So, the second opportunity for communication. All right. Board reflections. I have Do I have to um Oh, oh, we do. Yes, we have to do the um Can you say Yeah, that's right. Yes. Thanks. Uh so, may we have a motion to accept the results of the annual district meeting? So, moved. Second. All those in favor? Oh, sorry. Um All right. We need recommended action first. Be resolved that upon the recommendation of the interimm superintendent of schools, the board of education hereby accepts the results of the annual district meeting budget vote and trustee vote for Tuesday, May 20th, 2025 with Proposition One passing with 474 yes votes with Proposition 3 passing with 476 guest votes. with Proposition three passing with 480

130yes votes. Um, and with our two board members and Sean McNall both elected to to two three-year terms expiring on June 30th, 2028. Um, and then yes, with the proposition for the Butterfield Library also passed um with 508. Yes. So now, may I have a motion, please? So moved. Second. Um all those in favor I any opposed? All right. Now communication for the public. Thank you Christina. So we have accepted the the [Music] um the result of the election. Um any need communication from the public. Correct. Board reflections. Thank you to everybody that donated and worked on the uh election. We really appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. And huge thanks to Carl and to Katherine and to Megan and to the whole administrative team to getting us to this place

131and running the election. Uh super appreciated. Thank you, Maggie, for stepping in as uh prompt this evening. Well, that's from you. Thank you to the community support support and and a very um a very good voter turnout which I think is good high engagement. Thanks very much for the voters for coming. Absolutely. Um I move to adjourn the meeting. May I have a second? Second. All those in favor? I. Thank you. Thank you. with eyes.