001Good evening and welcome to Mount Vernon City School District work session. Today is December the 2nd, 2025. Please stand for the pledge. To the flag of the stands, liberty and justice for all. >> Roll call, please. >> Trusty Brown, >> present. >> Trusty Kelly. Trusty Mcdana, >> present. >> Trustee Middleton. >> Trustee Peterson, >> present. Trustee Scott, >> Trustee White, VP Mitchell, and President Marabel >> present. Uh, please note that VP Mitchell is ill tonight, so he will that's why he's not here. >> We have a quorum. >> Thank you. >> Greetings, President Marble, trustees, cabinet, and members of the community. We have two presentations for this work session tonight. Our first presentation will be conducted by Dr. Gail White, director of prek, who will discuss the district's prek program. You will hear information about
002the endofear data from last school year, beginning of the year data for this school year, and the plan of action to improve student outcomes for prek. So, without further ado, Dr. Gail White. >> Good evening, everyone. Hello, trustees. Hello to my fellow cabinet members and to our community members, our parents, our families, our students, and all of our stakeholders in the city of Mount Vernon. Thank you for having me today. It is always a pleasure to be able to share some of the amazing work that's happening here in the Mount Vernon City School District. And what makes it even more special is it's our youngest and smallest learners. Now they may be small in stature and low number in age but the way they are growing and achieving by leaps and bounds is bigger than
003most people could ever imagine. So let's talk a little bit about prek. Our model as many people know is prek knowledge is the pathway to college. Yes. And we're going to talk a little bit today about how pre kindergarten enrollment, statistics, and learning lead to creating a foundation for students to make it all the way to college successfully and beyond. >> We're going to start with our instructional pillars for this academic year. We're going to tie this to what we're currently doing in our pre kindergarten classrooms as well as in our pre kindergarten homes. We have the Mount Vernon Shines acronym. This acronym exemplifies all of the attributes that we should see within a classroom. Student centered excellence, which we'll talk about today. High quality instruction and innovation. Inclusive community and culture. Nurturing partnerships. Excellence
004through financial stewardship. Sustainable operations and systems. So what we have here are three pictures from this academic school year. Take a look at Mount Vernon Shines in action. First, we have Miss Elellanena Lupo, who is our social worker, doing a social emotional lesson with the entire class. Did you know that every single pre-K classroom both in our traditional schools and in our community-based organizations implement a researchbased social emotional curriculum that is taught to each and every single student. It is called second step. Our second is what we call student-led and student centered learning. Utilizing our technology in a smartboard to show how to categorize sounds and make compound words. Lastly, you see a readaloud by Miss Shields at the Trap Hagen Elementary School, giving students a read aloud in a variety of voices and putting
005students through instruction of a directed reading activity. So, why are all of these things important? Because they are directly linked to the 2025 2026 academic goals for our district. Dr. Strickland and our instructional team as well as cabinet have come together to set the barometer for learning and increases by percentages. But how do we increase percentages on grades three and eight? We can't wait till third grade. We can't wait till sixth grade. These increases start in the foundation of our prek classrooms, which is why we have labeled this slide foundation first. Students who attend our prek program outperform their counterparts by 30% on our local and regional assessments. Yes, 30%. And I know somebody's going to ask me about, well, how many of those students are staying with us? Last academic year to this academic
006year, we've had an attrition of 24 students that have left the district. That attrition has been due to moving and we had three students that did attend private school. So prek has set our own goals. End of year 2025 85% of our students will have le letter naming mastery. 81% of our students have mastery and letter sound correspondence. 45% of our students were sent to kindergarten with mastery of singledigit addition and subtraction. 60% of our students were engaged in leveled reading through guided reading. 60% of our students mastered pre- primmer site words and 70% of our students showed knowledge and content on our kindergarten preassessment. Last year we struggled with mathematics. I talked about that in last year's data. So with the help of my partner Dr. Satish Jagnandon we put forth a very stringent
007strategy and foundationalbased math program for our stu our students and we showed growth of over 40%. This started by one looking at the data, two matching the strategies for the students, then meeting with each and every teacher, providing them with professional development and completing focused mathematic walkthroughs to make sure that they were implementing instruction as prescribed and this is what you get. These are the types of results. So, how many students are engaging in this type of specific prescribed database learning this year? Our full day enrollment is 282 students as we have lost classrooms during to the closing of three schools. We currently have eight sites, six in district schools and two community-based organizations. Our community-based organizations are are chosen not only by their ability to provide instruction, but also by location. We do know
008that Lincoln school does not have a prek as well as home school. We have lost the prek there. So FFT is in the perfect geographical place to provide those students with instruction. We also know that we lost Mount Vernon leadership. Hamilton does not have space at this time for prek nor grimes. Therefore, the Our Lady of Victory School geographically speaks to addressing the needs of those students in those zoned areas. Total number of classes is 16. Miss Lewan White can attest to our enrollment data. We have a zero waiting list for prek right now. However, in preK3, we have 280 students that are on a wait list waiting for placement. These numbers, I know, could be staggering for preK3 weight list, but fiscally we have to be fiscally responsible and the state is only providing
009us with $6,348 per student. And at the cost of providing instruction to students, we have to figure out fiscally how we can add additional prek3 classes. Our other demographic data, 19 students are in our general education classes and least restrictive environment receiving related services only and six students are currently in the referral process. 51 of our students are identified in ENL and this is the language breakdown. I'm very happy to say that our staff provides support in most of these languages. We have a teacher that translates in Portuguese for us. We have an Haitian and French Creole staff member that provides translation for for parent teacher conferences, meetings both virtually in person. And we also have staff uh Spanish speaking staff member in all but one school. Uh we do have a parent that will
010help us with uh Albanian. We do not have support in Macedonian and Arabic right now, but we are utilizing Southern Westchester Bosey's translation services to make sure that all parents are able to access information as well as through the use of technology. Parents very important. This is our cycle of learning. This is how we create the strong foundation. Family and parent involvement. Each and every month we provide a family workshop. We just had our steam workshop. It was attended by 30 families. We had a fantastic time and we are now recruiting for our alphabetic knowledge and literacy workshop for January. Social emotional support. Students receive individual group counseling as well as whole group instruction from our social workers and my the social workers and myself also push into classrooms and push into homes and provide
011referrals as necessary. As per the new New York State briefs, we are ensuring that there's collaborative culminating projects and performances and celebrations. Board members, mark your calendar. Are y'all writing this down? December 18th. I don't see y'all writing writing now. December 18th. Make sure you stop by a prek class cuz we have our major family project. You know what it is? It's Polar Express Day. You got to shimmy for it. The parents and the kids are going to build trains where they sit inside of them and construct them to engage in a Polar Express day. We have Polar Express stations, cookies, bells, the golden ticket. We're watching the movie. They're coming in the pajamas and they have to use their knowledge of shapes to construct a train car. So, pop on by one of our
012classrooms to come and enjoy Polar Express Day in preK. And of course, we have trips and cooking and all other experiences. Special shout out to Brian Simmons and the CTE program, partnering with Feeding Westchester, where we are giving cooking lessons to kids and families every other month, as well as providing them with groceries. So, how did we get at these numbers for data? Because I'm supposed to be talking about data today for the foundation. When students come into preK, it's a a little bit different. We begin the school home partnership from day one. Before they set foot in any class, they meet with me and the teachers. We give every student the mandated New York State screener. This allows us to assess for any developmental delays or any precursors to special education. Every student has
013this assessment done before entering school. We also do a social history on every single student identifying needs we may have uh that may fester in the beginning of the year and providing support for the parents. This is what your developmental screening data look like for this academic year. 200 students screened okay which means they've met their developmental milestones. 22 are resscreened which mean they didn't do so well in about two to three competencies and 19 students screen refer which means they scored severely low in the 20th percentile for their benchmark. So what do we do with that? Do we leave it? No. The parents are there. So we discuss with the parents the findings within the first four weeks of school. We meet with every single parent on the refer and res-screen and we put
014a plan together and then we retest and rescreen six weeks after that as a part of the student's academic plan. Areas of deficiency, nobody should be surprised. Look what the good old iPad did. Fine motor skills and speech and language, the lowest competencies for all of our students. students speaking, using a pencil, drawing, using a crayon. They could swipe. Well, they can swipe all swipe to the left, swipe to the right, go on Instagram, scroll. They know how to scroll. These kids know how to scroll. But it's the using of the writing tools and strengthening the hand strength we notice is a big deficiency. Also, speech and language with the number of words and sentences that they should be speaking at this developmental ska stage. So what are we doing in preK? We have fine
015motorbased data groups. We also have special language-based activities, coral repetition on the rug, and staff student center time discussions. That means when they're playing once a week, a staff member needs to be in the center and talk to them about what they're doing and students have to talk back and answer questions. Our second and our last assessment we're going to talk about is your traditional diagnostic instructional assessment. We here in the district use circle which is CLI engaged. It comes out of Texas and these are our beginning of the year competencies. This is where we are 56% in rapid vocabulary 56% in rapid letter naming. Not horrible. The competencies that we really are going to drill down to is that 16% which is wrote counting, 18% syllabication, rhyming, and number counting and number discrimination. Those
016are some of our areas of folky across all of the schools. This next slide compares uh the 2025 BOI which is this year in the white to last year's BOI. So you can see there's not really a big difference between the two cohorts when they are entering school. So we know what to do with them because last academic year we were able to raise the bar over 40% over uh the 10 months than students are with us. How are we going to raise the bar from here using Dr. Strickland's gems of instruction? Take a look at that. What you're looking at right now is our weapon. It is what we use to move students. It's databased small groups. All students in preK are pa are placed in databased small groups. Here we have Pennington School.
017We have Williams school. We have Mandela school. And you can see students working in their groups. You know what's even more fantastic? That top left picture is a teaching assistant providing instruction to students. And if you look at the paper, they're taking anecdotal notes about student proficiency as they work with their students in their group. And in the bottom left corner you have parents learning and setting goals in parent teacher conferences for their students for the first and second for the second marking period. On the right you have Miss Herbster at the good old Edward Williams school, my school that I started teaching here, coupling fine motor with mathematic activities. Instead of having students merely count, they're using clothes pins to pick up pompoms to strengthen their hands as well as reinforce onetoone correspondence. How
018do we do this? It's right in front of you. So, we're going to take a second to pause from the PowerPoint and I'd like all the board members to look at the handouts behind the PowerPoint presentation. So the first handout you have is just a sample. I just picked any teacher. A sample of the databased beginning of the year planning that each teacher does. Each teacher meets with me in a small group of two or three to construct their groups, what they're going to teach, the lessons, the activities, and the frequency. So what you're looking at is a teacher's uh planning. she might have a fine motor group. Her class might not need it. Uh we identify the days and we identify the staff members who are going to support the instruction and the activities.
019So I'm going to stop for 30 seconds and let you take a look at that. teachers are going to do this doc complete this document for the middle of the year. Also, do understand that even though we've only been working through this document for the last 3 weeks, we're already moving students across groups and that's the beauty of this small group instruction. We're able to move students as they're progressing and give them what they need to make sure that they are meeting their individual benchmarks. There's another document behind there to tie everything in professional development. So, we've identified what we needed to do. So, each teacher during our professional development day uh engaged in a PD on how to create engaging databased hands-on centers. So, it's not like it's playtime. So what you're seeing is
020the result of their professional development because you go to PD to have a plan for our children and we want to make it concrete. So what you have in front of you is a sample of one teacher's action plan that they created with the adjustments that they're going to make in their classroom. My job is to make sure that I'm in classrooms every single week to make sure that the plans, the small groupoup instruction is occurring, the quality of the instruction is occurring, and those items that are identified in the action plan are actually happening. This is how we're going to move our students. These are our basic areas of focus this year and our solutions are to the right. These are what we just reviewed just to give you a sample of the documents.
021All teachers have a data binder in prek. All teaching assistants have a data binder in prek because they are teaching assistants. They are partners. Teacher students do not know the difference. They don't know that Miss Wayne is a TA. They know that's their teacher. That's what they know because everybody is working in tandem together. Parent school goals are a integral part at our first marking period. We do not do report cards for precam first marking period, but all of the parents are given their color-coded student uh data pieces from CLI Engage. They look at their child's uh artifacts from their student work and with the teacher they create goals for the next sparking period. We take that goal sheet for the second mark marking period parent teacher conference and measure student growth and then plan
022again for the third marking period. Here is a sample of those centers that you are that you may see written there. We have to the left that is Akalon know the classroom that is Rebecca Turner and they are doing the letter F and they are doing movement to letter F sounds and words. We are doing fine motors for we're going to create these picture frames for their letter their special letter which may be the first letter of their name or a letter they need to work on. And then we have the building for our PBL days. Last but not least, we've talked about the how. Here we have our goals. 80% of our students kindergarten ready and above. That is the goal. That is non-negotiable. And I need everyone to understand that kindergarten ready moves
023beyond ABCs and mathematics. Kindergarten ready means they can put their coat on themsel. They can open their lunchbox themsel. They can talk. They can express their needs. They know how to be a good friend and participate in their classroom community. That is just as important for us as the ABCs. And here you have some other pictures. Uh our a lot of our students took trips for our community helper to the library. That's a trip at the library that they did last week. Getting the students library cards. getting the students to read as well as you see some students writing already. Look at those students at Rebecca Turner writing the site word of the week already. And that was that picture. I think I took it two weeks ago. And then we have the wonderful Miss
024Kellogg also working with students. Ladies and gentlemen, that is the prek plan for this academic year. It is my goal to make sure that we make the barometer. It is also my goal to work with Dr. Strickland to advocate for additional funding so we can add additional preK3 classes to uh our CBOS as well as make sure we have equitable dispute uh distribution of classes in all of our zoned areas for schools. And that is my presentation for today. >> Thank you Dr. White Wallace. questions. >> You have any questions? >> Uh, our ex official member. >> Hello. Hello. That's >> Hello. >> Hi there. >> Hi. >> Um, like I say, thank you for the uh the detailed presentation. It was very insightful. I saw a lot and was quite interesting. And um with
025that, I actually wrote some stuff um based on your uh presentation specifically. Um >> can we turn the volume up on these microphones, please? Thank you. >> Um Okay. Anyways, hello. Oh, that works. Okay. Um, so as the student trustee, I recognize how uh critical early learning is to um is to long uh terms student success and I appreciate that uh that the goals and data that were shared this evening. And I have a few questions. Uh first I noticed that the areas such as the fine motor skills and um language developments uh shows um deficient um you know errors there and during the early years. So my question is what what additional uh support or instructional um strategies will be put in place there this year to help uh close these early gaps before
026students um enter kindergarten. >> Perfect. Great question. Kudos to you. So um always just as this shines format we use three prongs right part partnership parents and student centered. So the partnership is great news we are getting Mount Vernon basics back on the road. Uh so Mount Vernon Basics is going to play uh and I don't want to get into that as a presentation but Mount Vernon basics through the MBK grand will focus on getting students school ready 0 to three. So putting in hopefully about eight workshops between January and June, identifying babies 0 to three and working with parents doing workshops and pushing in to begin supporting that work around fine motor sensory and language development. So that's the partnership also partnershiping with um WJCS um in that work as well as some other
027outside agencies. Second of all, when we talk about the parent partnership, it's providing parents with support and opportunities to understand how important it is to talk to children. How many? Raise your hand. I Okay, we going to go to church real quick. Okay, I need you to testify. If you walk down the street and the kids in the stroller with a iPad or a phone, if you see that, raise your hand. or you are going to uh the supermarket and you notice that the mom is on the phone with the earbuds or the dad or the auntie and the grandma and the parent and the kids just walking around. If you see that, raise your hand and testify >> running around. >> Right? So, we're not talking to our children enough. I don't think we
028talk to each other enough. Right? So if we don't use the muscle, if we don't use the skill, what happens to it? It doesn't develop. So having conversations with parents, when we did our steam workshop 3 weeks ago, we talked to them about how steam and math is every day. When you're in the supermarket, can you count these apples for me? Can you do that? Or when you're walking with your child, identifying, oh my god, I see a machine. Do you see a machine around there? um or you're learning the letter O. Letter O is the the letter for us next week. Do you see things that start with the A sound? Just just developing parents and reminding them how important it is to talk to children and within the classroom creating opportunities for students
029to talk to each other, which is why centers are so important, as well as answering and asking questions when they're on the rug. So those are the ways that we're going to support that fine motor. We are going to have more activities with writing their name. Uh using broken crayons, using things like coloring with Q-tips, um using clothes pins, and having very targeted activities for students to use their hands to increase the dexterity. >> Um first you mentioned the MBK grant. There's Oh, okay. Um also I also agree with you um honestly the generation we are always always on our phones and even we can't even read or write scriptive which is kind of needed and we we can't even read the you know uh independent the what's called um wow it slipped my mind
030but in general it is what she said actually makes sense um and also I'm just going to say my last question about this presentation so secondly the date the dates The data shows that students who attended prek uh outperform students who don't um by more than 30%. Which is am I right? >> Yes. Correct. >> Um at this uh at the same time there is over 280 students on the prek waiting list. >> Mhm. >> Okay. So what step is the districts taking to extend access to what um access to so that more students uh children can benefit from these early learning uh opportunities. >> So we have two we have two ways that we're going to support. One is advocate for additional funding at the state level. So universal prek is a statef funded
031uh program. Um the district does supplement with some general funds but we know those funds are very limited. We are very all aware of our our our fiscal obligations and issues that we are having right now but also creating partnerships. So once I've exhausted my list of preK3 my job is to go in the community and create partnerships. So I've placed 30 students at FSW in the new FSW building near Williams. Um, also sending students to the Mount Vernon daycare on Second Avenue and just making sure that I connect parents to other places so that they can get instruction. Um, there is no way that we're going to be able to provide 380 students with preK3. It's just it's not feasible. It's not realistic. It's a it's it's a high cost basis. Um, it it
032takes a lot of staff for three-year-olds. it's a different ratio as well as a facilities needs for those students. So, we have to also pour back into our community. So, also making those partnerships. I have a list of all 89 there are 89 daycarees in Mount Vernon. Did you guys know that? Um, there are 89 dayc carees that I've looked up and I have them on a mailing list and if I need to I will reach out to them and if we and when we begin the 0 to3 push we will reach out to them as well as I'm going tomorrow to the Mount Vernon network meeting to also talk about other opportunities for those students that are on the wait list. Um, so in the process and wouldn't those days carers lose their jobs
033and or are you trying to um add them to >> No, I'm trying to give them students. >> Oh, okay. I understand. >> Trying to get them. >> Thank you very much. >> You're welcome. Other questions? >> More questions. Trusty Peterson. >> More of a comment because you know, Dr. White, I have watched my my own children since you've um um been the director of our prek program here at Mount Vernon. Um gone through it and having substitute um taught in some of your classrooms and I have watched you just every year, year by year by year, just grow the prek. It's one of the most amazing preks I feel personally um here in the county, here in the state. and to see how you kind of rebounded, revamped after during COVID the program and
034you really that's with the focus on fine motor skills. I have I've seen it. I talk to everybody so you know my my kids talk to everybody too. But you're right, there are certain um there are just certain things that our children have lost due to technology. But I love that you are you know putting that back in the program, putting that back in the curriculum and it's it's it's definitely working. So kudos to you, right? I love Thank you so much. >> And thank you to the prek staff as well. Let's give them a round of applause as well. >> Listen, >> I tell people I am the least important person. I am the least important person. My staff are the most important people and my parents are are are right there next to
035them. But they do all the work. They're up at night. They're sending me emails. They make deadlines. I get lesson plans every Monday and I'm reading them and like and I walk in classrooms and they make magic happen. Like literally I like think it and they color it. Like they they bring it along. I'm like I think I want to do this. They're like, "Doc, we could do that." I said, "All right, let's do it." And like there is no boundary. There is no boundary for our students. So they are my TAs, my teachers, my social workers. Shout out to them out there. paving the way every day, beating down doors. We're going We're going two houses tomorrow. Two houses tomorrow. If I have to set up a calm down corner in your house, I'mma
036get a bean bag and I'mma set up a calm down corner in your house and they're like right there with me. So, definitely shout out to them and shout out to everybody out here for all of the support over the years. Um, some of you have been on this journey with me when we had 60 something half day kids to moving at one point to 428 full day kids. So, it has been a journey over these seven years and it's a pleasure to hone it and change it and mold it and and and move with the times and be able to support the work of Dr. Jag Nanden and Mary Beth Rhodess on the upper grade levels and Dr. Dogit and Brian Simmons because you're not going to have a CT program without some smart
037prek kids or kids at the steam passing the steam test if my kids don't do what they need to do. So, it's it's it's definitely a pleasure and it's an honor um to to do this ministry. >> Trusty Brown. >> Okay. >> Good evening. >> I would like to also uh echo uh Trusty Peterson's sentiment. My daughter went through that prek3 and prek4 program and it was amazing. I remember um that word of the day and it wasn't like you know cat dog, it was like anonymous and it was like crazy words and my family would say where's she going to school and I'm like Mount Vernon City School District and she's attending the preK3 PreK4 program and I could see the progression. And I could see that that early learning has set her on
038a really good trajectory while she's a fifth grader and it's just trans is just continuing with her. And so I you know when new parents that I meet who come to Mount Vernon and they're like I don't know where to put my kid and I go well Mount Vernon has an amazing universal prek3 prek4 program. So that speaks to, you know, your leadership and the people you're molding because it it definitely has made an impact and other people have noticed it and so I'm always shaking my pom poms when it comes to that. So amazing work and I appreciate you and anything that we could do, you know, to help and thank you for the invite cuz I will be at Polar Express in my pajamas >> um popping in on a school or two.
039But yeah, I'm I'm excited and to see where it's gone, it's it's really nice. So, thank you. >> Thank you so much, Trusty Scott. >> Thank you very much. Um, great presentation. I love the spirit. I love >> I can listen to you for a long time. >> I didn't come with props cuz Dr. Dog said I was supposed to be short. I was going to bring my puppet today, but I didn't bring my puppets today. >> But it's great to see what you presented today. And one of the things that you said here, I can recall when my kids were growing up, um, we used to say, "I spy." I don't even know if they still do that, right? where you in the community I spy whatever and then they have to look for
040it and things like that which help them um in terms of their learning. >> Can you just use your microphone? >> You can't hear me. >> But um the family involvement piece, you know, being a social worker, anytime I see home visits and workshops and counseling and things like that, I just want to hear more about that piece of the work. So, can you talk a little bit more about that? >> Sure. So every month we have an activity that families can participate in. Uh a interesting piece of data I tried to do an inperson workshop three people signed up which really shows the shift right before I could pack a house for family game night but it was like no like I was feeding them and everything. So, I've just learned that the shift
041I I need to do everything virtual, right? So, just just parents work. I get it. So, every month we do something different. So, we're we're gearing up for language and literacy. We'll have math coming up. We do a paint and lit like paint and sip event based on a book. It's actually social emotional book. Elmer, you probably know that book. So, we do a social emotion lesson. We paint. It's it's beautiful. Um and we also do the cooking classes. We do steam. Uh this year based on the social histories that we received, we did a how to get your child ready for school routines workshop also because that was very important. I've got parents telling me their kids on iPads 6 hours a day, 5 hours a day, eight hours a day. Um and and
042I appreciate the honesty because then I can work with that, right? Um how many kids are not potty trained? I do that too. We do that too. I just bought, if you check my bills, I just bought seven potty watches. Um, if you didn't know, those are a thing. We potty training children. Uh, we're helping parents with that cuz they are coming to kindergarten and not potty train by the way. Um, that's another stat, but that's a conversation for another time. So, the social emotional part are all of those things like getting them developed. Uh, we do make house visits, one when I don't see a kid, when the attendance is sketchy. Uh, so that's two visits tomorrow. Um, but I also do setup at home. Sometimes parents are having a hard time with children.
043They may need a calm down corner at home or a different setup or something like that. So, we'll do that. And then we do do parenting classes not till the winter. And in the spring, we do parentmies on Saturdays. It's a three-week commitment. >> Thank you very much, >> Trusty Mcdana. >> Thank you so much for this. Um, and congratulations on the success. That bump in the mouth is >> fantastic. And I'm sure we're going to hear hear more about it. Just and I apologize if if you've said these things already. I'm hoping I'm not I'm causing you to talk again about things you said, but 282 students enrolled. What's the split between preK3 and preK4 for that? >> So, we only have two preK3 classes. So, 30 of those students. >> PreK3. Okay. >>
044I lied. Sorry. 36. 18 plus 18 is 36. Yes. >> Okay. Um, and you mentioned uh the state aid uh portion of the tuition. Is it a 10-month program? >> Uh 10-month program. PreK4 is like 8400 per student allocation and preK3 is like 6,300. The full aotment is 3.9 mil. If we max out at 413 kids, we can't max out our allocation. We don't have the physical space for that. Even if I got a whole bunch of classrooms, right, um we wouldn't be able to max out our allocation. So the allocation is prrated per student based on the number of students that you serve. >> What what's the the actual cost per student per for a 10-month program? >> Depending on the teacher salary, it could be 13 12,000. >> 13. Still that's that's that's
045pretty reasonable given what you guys have to do. Um that's that's not a lot of money. Um and you mentioned so the parent training piece or the parent workshop piece you said 30 attended last >> the last one. Yes. >> Last one. Is that about typical you get? >> That's about typical. That's like my max especially on virtual because you getting 50 people on Zoom is just it's it's ineffective. So we try to do 30. Yeah. >> Um and if we get a big outpouring of parents, we'll do the workshop twice. But also the materials are pricey. So yeah, um we have to cap it. >> Great. Thank you. I appreciate it. >> You're welcome. >> Okay, >> any other questions? >> Well, thank you. I think that that's all the questions. And I would
046also like to add that Dr. Gail White Wallace is a proud graduate of Mount Vernon High School, >> 1997. >> Thank you, Dr. White. >> Thank you. Next up, we have Miss Jessica Graves, associate superintendent for human resources, who will give an update on the human resources department. In her presentation, you will hear updates regarding staff vacancies, attendance, human resource initiatives, and events. So, without further ado, Miss Graves. >> Okay. Good evening, Vice. Good evening, um, President Marbel, trustees, cabinet members in the city of Mount Vernon community. I want to give a brief update on some of the initiatives that the office of human resources is working on and some data points that was requested. Oh, thanks. Thank you. Okay. It's not >> excuse me. >> And just the next Okay, one more slide and
047then one more after that. Oh, I did. Okay. Thank you. >> All right. Sorry about that. So, um, in front of you right now is the 2025 vacancy report. It's starting from the month of July. So, as of July 2025, there was 138 vacancies districtwide and we have decreased from then. Um, we are not currently at the number that we want to be. Right now, it's 49 vacancies. That is consistent of certified and classified staff. So, that's just um some numbers for you as we're trying to work through the summer and the fall of what the vacancies throughout the district look like. The next slide will show exactly the titles that we're looking to fill. So, there is a need first and foremost for special education teachers at the elementary and high school level that
048we're currently recruiting for. Um we also have any for speech and language pathologists, biology teachers and the list goes down from there. Um on the classified side we are looking for a district treasurer, a payroll and benefits manager, security monitors, lunch monitors and senior clerks. So interviews are currently being held for I know the payroll and benefits manager and the district treasurer. Lunch monitors are ongoing thing and senior clerks that we're trying to staff each department in the district and across the district. Um, of course there is a focus on the certified staff, but we also need classified staff to support our buildings. Questions? Okay. I was requested to provide um the record of absences for the district across the whole. Um, next to each title, you'll see a number that is a number of
049staff per title. And then the number under each title represents personal and sick days. This data um is as of November 7th, 2025. So, it just gives you a snapshot of um some of the needs of our employees that you know when they need to be out for whatever reason. This is um the slide that is most important um some of the initiatives that we are working on to build morale in the district. Um, we are trying to build a recognition a recognition board of employees that will be dedicated to honoring staff throughout the district. This will be across union groups and just employees in general. Um, the next part is affinity groups. We're looking to build connections between staff that's share similarity, whatever that may be, whatever that they could build connections with and
050support each other. I think that's much needed in today's times. Um there is also a focus on professional development of course on the certified side but also for our classified staff there is a request for additional training with workshops software so all of us can progress in our careers and build ourselves professionally. Lastly um we're designing stay interviews. We know some reasons why people leave the district in an ex interview, but what what is keep what excuse me, what are some factors that are keeping people here year after year? What do they value about the district? How can we improve on that as a jurisdiction to make pe make sure that we keep people here longer than the average three to five years. So that's um a priority for our department right now. The last
051slide, these are some of the events and partnerships that we're looking to develop. Recently, November 18th, I participated in a career fair with LIU. Um, I met quite a few students that have an interest in coming to the district. They'll be finishing their studies December and June. Um, also on December 16th, I'll be meeting with the dean of LIU, Dr. Sylvia Blake to discuss some of the staffing needs that we have as a district to get a ball rolling before the um recruitment push in the spring and summer. We're also developing a recruitment video that will hopefully have staff, students, and parents showcasing the great things that are happening in Mount Vernon and to bring staff here to make sure that they know that we're trying to improve things and to keep the interest alive.
052Mercy University, I'm talking with Dr. Janet Rivera. She has three school psychologists that are interested in doing their clinical hours here and also 12 student teachers in the future. Lehman College will be having a career fair as well as Manhattanville in the next few months. And I'm speaking with Miss Dorim McQueen from the Mount Vernon Public Library to start local career affairs starting in January to make sure that the community knows there is an interest in local talent to fill certain roles. And I know there was a employee engagement survey done in the summer. We're trying to also have one midyear to gauge if there has been any changes and to see how we can make any improvements if necessary. Um we're also exploring other platforms to showcase our opportunities LinkedIn idealist and other platforms
053that are more cost effective than the um the regular ones that you've seen. So that was just a brief overview of some of the things that we're working on. Office of Human Resources and that concludes my presentation for right now. >> Thank you, Miss Graves. Do we have any questions? >> Trusty Brown. >> Hi, good evening. Thank you for your presentation. Um, I'm sorry. So sorry. Spicy up here today. Um, thank you for your presentation. No problem. >> And I just had one question on the slide with the record of absences. >> Yes. >> You showed um there was a number in parentheses and a number underneath. Can you explain that? >> Yes. The sure the number right next to the title that specifies the number of employees in that title. So custodial staff there's
054114 and then the number underneath right right underneath that shows the number of personal and sick days from July 1st until November 7th. So those were the total days taken. >> Total days taken as >> 114, >> right? From >> 722 calendar days were used. >> Yeah. Right. Ex from July 1st till the 7th. >> July 1st to Nove. >> Right. Correct. Yes. >> Trusty Peterson. >> And just that I had a question concerns about that page as well. Um there was no summer school this past summer. Correct. students didn't have summer school. No, there was no summer school. >> No, just for um credit recovery for the high school. >> Just for credit recovery for the high school. So, and I believe some of our special education ESY. >> So, majority of the staff,
055they weren't working this summer from July 1st to August. >> And then school starts what? September 8th and this is to November 7th, >> right? So that's not really more than let's say I don't know 50 days. I don't we'll we'll say 50 55 days. So between then with very limited summer school going on um to me I feel like the number that the personal and sick days that is pretty alarming. It's high. It's very high. >> Are we h >> 2.7? >> Yeah. And that's why I calculate. Yeah. I did the round two. Good. You know, that's my research buddy over there. Um, so are we finding out why these numbers are so I mean I know we have teachers, you know, there are sever several sta um staff that don't have contracts. Um,
056and sometimes that can be a reason why they tend not to use their their time off. But this is really high. This is really high. Okay. And to know that we didn't really have much summer school and till November 7th there were only maybe 50 60 the most days of school if that like this is these numbers are are bad. >> I admit the numbers are higher than we would like to see at this time but I know for sick days you can there's um allowances for family and yourself. >> I was going to ask are does are like FMLA included? >> FMLA is included in that. So that's >> Sorry. Okay. Go ahead. >> No, no, no. I'm because I was thinking about that as well. So, >> and sometimes people are out for
057weeks at a time. So, that would make the number a little higher than expected. >> Okay. Thank you, Miss Graves. Trust D. McDonald, did you have a question? >> Just quickly, if you know, how does this compare to the same period last year and the year before that? >> I can get that data for you. I don't have it right now. >> Yeah, I'm curious about trend across time. That's >> I can get it to you. Trusty Adora, >> I don't have a question, but um I do have a comment. Um honestly, thank you for this presentation. I actually appreciate that you actually brought this presentation because honestly this talk has been talked u around students a lot and we can have um well I may be the student trustee but we can't have u
058students without any of these staff members custodians administrators must u security guards we can't have any of them without um especially teachers we can't have any of them on this um without sorry we can't haveu uh students without them and honestly I appreciate that. So I I say thank you very much. >> Thank you. Okay. Um I would uh any other questions before Trusty Sky? >> Thank you for your presentation. Um I was thinking the same like everyone else was thinking, but for me when I see this based on other work that I do, I always like to put this into dollars and how much how much all of these absences equate to money in terms of um paying out. Plus, I also remember something that Dr. Joseph was trying to I guess explain at
059the last meeting in regards to um savings or something like that. So, I would love to see how all of this comes together in terms of what he was trying to convey and what this equates to in terms of dollars. So, I guess I can send my email or question of what I want um to you and to everyone so that I can at least see what that looks like. >> Definitely. I'll look out for your email. >> Absolutely. >> If you could just direct your email to um >> No, you got it. You gonna get it's definitely going to get to her. Do we have any other questions? I have a couple of um I don't questions comments more so. Um is it possible to disagregate the data by FMLA, by personal days, by
060sick time and also provide us with percentages and maybe even a bar graph or a piraphph so that we can understand even for each individual uh area so that we can kind of get a a handle on where some of the trouble shots trouble areas may be and also historical perspective in terms of uh what that looks like. >> Absolutely. I think that might be helpful for the group. >> Would you agree? >> Uh, per school. >> That might be Yeah, I don't know if we want to drill down that deep yet, but we definitely need to to at least get an overall picture for the district. >> Okay, if we can. Thank you. >> No problem. >> Any other questions? Okay, thank you so much for your presentation. Uh we're going to move on
061to comments from the board. Do we have we I'd like to for each board member if they have a anything they need to address if we can do that at this time. Uh Trusty Adora, would you like to begin or would you like me to start with Trustee Scott? >> Okay, Trustee Scott, you're up. Currently, I do not have anything to present, but I we do have a um technology meeting coming up um in two weeks, I believe. So, I hope to be able to present after that meeting. >> Great. Thank you, Trusty Brown. >> Um so, we will have our second um facilities health and safety meeting and a component of that meeting is a wellness committee. It's a subcommittee and so if you would like to join that committee, you can email Rita
062um our district clerk um if you are interested in um joining that subcommittee. Um I do have a we have done some walkthroughs of some buildings and we are scheduled to do two more in two days on Thursday. So we'll be conducting those and we are we'll by the end of this year we would have hit 50% of our school buildings with our walk building walkthroughs and then after the holidays we'll get back to doing them. We want to try to wrap those up um between January, February, maybe early Marchish just so that all the buildings have been addressed and so I will pro we'll give a full committee report um at the next meeting. >> Do we have a date for your uh committee meeting? Yes, it is the second Wednesday of the month.
063Or is it the third, Randy? Second or third? >> Thank you. I have a lot of dates in my head. >> So, it's the second Wednesday of >> technology is December 18th and >> uh uh health and safety uh facilities and wellness is December 11. December 11. Okay. Thank you. >> That's at 12:00 p.m. >> Okay. Trusty Peterson. >> Uh good evening. Uh so two things. Last night we had our family and community engagement meeting and uh Miss Hillary Fleming went over the after school pro the programs for after school that will be coming up starting with for the district. And she did a great job going through each, you know, each one. People asked what the uh what they were going going to entail. Um and she covered that. I had a hard stop
064at 7:00 so I couldn't finish off the meeting. And I do believe our next meeting is what? Tuesday, January 6th at at 6 6:30. Um, so, uh, we had that and then tomorrow at for all the parents, everyone listening and watching tomorrow at Graham School, Wednesday, December 3rd from 6 PM to 7:30 p.m. we will be having our conversation with our state monitor, Dr. Kimberly Young Wilkins at Graham School. So, please come on out tomorrow evening at 6 o'clock p.m. at Graham uh Graham School uh to have our um intimate uh cozy conversation with our state monitor, please. Thank you. >> Okay. >> Oh, Trusty Scott, >> just wanted to make a correction. Um the next technology meeting is December 17th and the next wellness, health, building, facilities, all of that is the 10th. >>
065Got it. Got it. Thank you, Trustee Mcdana. The >> the budget committee had its inaugural meeting, but I think I'm going to wait until the business meeting when Dr. Strickland is here to review that in case he has anything to comment. The IDA has a meeting next Thursday, and I they may I don't know if they'll have any comment on that resolution we passed. If they do, I'll I'll bring it up at the at the board meeting uh meeting. >> We will be passing on that resolution for the IDA to our NISBA advocacy group. We've already reached out to Danielle Groso and they will be submitting it for our for the itinerary for next year's conversation, but it it happens throughout the year. So, they will be um put adding that to the agenda and
066we will also during that process we can maybe solicit some other school districts to join in with us on that particular issue. So, just to let you know and uh Trusty Adoro, if you have a comment and then we'll >> Okay. Um I was looking into uh the buildings um maintenance or actually the structures of the buildings lately in um um different schools. Um, and some may say um, it's not important per se, but um, take my my team academy uh, for example, in our auditorium is technically is half made if you go into there. Um, but um, that is some last year I remembered um, some middle schoolers had their own graduation in there even though it looked like that. Um so you know five or 10 years later they're looking back at the
067picture you're going you're going to say wow the school was much more bad but um the importance of the manufact um the building structure and how it looks is very um it takes what's the word it's hard to get the words right but um that okay you can go with curve curve appeal and aesthetics but yes um and also um the stuff really get broken down a lot for example elevators have been broken down for like three months already like two months already and um a lot of people that are injured uh had to work the stairs or they stay in uh the counselor's office in when they're supposed to be in class so we can uh rule that too but um so far yeah uh Minister Lens of the building so far. Yeah. >>
068Thank you. Um our state monitor, Dr. Wilkins. >> Thank you. Hopefully you can hear me. >> Yes. >> Okay. Um first of all, I want to say thank you to the board for um the work we did together and getting our plan out the door and and approved. Um it was accepted by the commissioner. The letters went out yesterday. I sent something to the president and to Dr. Strickland and to the commissioner as well. Um the only thing she does now is just basically accept the report. So that's where we are. But the report is the time is ticking away. So I have a couple of things I want to kind of just remind folks of the immediate impact of the report under talent on page 19. I'm going to always refer to the to
069the document. Um immediately um HR department shall review the implementation of the annual professional performance review which is APR and a multi-dimensional principal performance rubric. This is page 19 by the way again um and performance evaluation program PEP to ensure compliance with all provisions of the contract. This is multi-year but that starts immediately. Evidence of full adherence to all components of these three is to be initiated in a format approved by the monitor and shall be included in each district quarterly and each annual report. I have began working with um Miss Graves in regards to making sure that there's a calendar to make sure that each of the benchmarks of anyone who's not tenured or just the evaluation is being done. And right now she has a calendar that goes out like weekly to supervisors
070and building principles. So, we're just going to kind of keep that going at this point, but that's one of your immediate um action items of the plan. Under instructional transformation, page 22, immediately the district administration should establish an effective process for ensuring timely completion of annual IEP reviews. Director of special education or design shall by June 1st establish timelines for finalizing annual reviews. Now effective immediately is the district should establish an operational pro process for ensuring timely timely completion of the annual reviews and provide monthly IEP reports to the monitor and superintendent in mutually agreed upon format. That's going to start as of um January because I really want to make sure that the IEPs are being done as per the law in a timely manner. So that will be starting immediately. I it's short
071time for the December and um we have a big meeting happening in December. Then finance financial page 34 effective immediately a district budget development calendar shall be created and you didn't miss you hit this benchmark no later than December 1st the budget calendar shall be reviewed by the superintendent monitor and approved by by the board. It was actually approved at the November work session no the business section the 25th. Um there will be a change on there. You're supposed to get the report to me on the 20th. Dr. Joseph asked for it to be on the 25th. I have no problem with that. 25th, 24th. I'm going be looking at that. That thing's gonna go out the door to to the super to the commissioner. No problem with the date. So, I'm fine with that.
072And then on page 35 under financial, again, effective immediately, there will be treasury reports presented monthly to the board, and it should be by the assistant superintendent of business, not your treasurer. And that you had the first one happen um last month, and that has to be every month. It should not not be happening. You have to have it. So that's moving. And finally, under turnaround leadership, beginning immediately, that's on page 15, all board members shall be all board meetings shall be conducted in strict accordance with the robbers's rules of order. Now, um the documentation for this shall be collected um every time legal counsel invokes the need to to the board to follow Robert's rules. So that will actually be done by your in-house legal counsel. Um the artifacts demonstrating the following shall be
073made accessessible for review by the monitor. The annual training at the first board meeting um on Robert's rules which actually be the July meeting, but we're actually going to do something in January just to get everyone's feet wet again when it comes to it because you have already violated um the first two things that have come through and then the last meeting and one other meeting. I just want to remind everybody in accordance to Robert's rules, you should be re waiting to be recognized by your chairperson and you do that most of the times, but you need to recognize you need to be recognized by your chair and only your chair. And when you do get recognized by your chair, you should be speaking to the chair versus speaking to each other. The other part
074of that is then when you are talking and you're in debate, members do not cross talk or talk directly to each other. I just stated discussion is kept in the issues not personalities or other members of motives or members motives and members listen when others are speaking the grandstanding stops and uh if it does happen again I'm going to be working with your in-house council that will be one of the first violations of the board moving forward today so um three strikes you're out you have two already third one I will invoke the um violations of the board immediately so any questions on that. Oh, and just by the way, since you have four members missing, this would be repeated at the next meeting. Thank you. Any questions? >> Give a give a comment to
075the student trustee. >> Student. Okay. >> The steam elev elevator steam is fixed. Just so you know. >> Yes. Fixed. Yes. >> Great. >> That was fast. >> Great. snap your face, >> click the heels and everything. >> Those are uncomfortable. I heard >> they are. >> Okay. Thank you. We're going to move on. We have uh we have an item on the table that we have a request from Mount Vernon High School to send our students to Panama. And so we would like to hear from the board um your thoughts on sending our students abroad during this time. Does anyone have a comment? Would anyone like to comment? Uh I'm going Trusty Adoro. Would you like to comment? >> Can I get to go? >> Sure. >> Really? >> That's if we decide to
076go. >> Oh. Okay. My bad. Okay, >> Trusty Scott, >> I guess for me my only concern would be around the safety of our students and our professionals that are going because of what's happening around the world and in this country at this time, you know. So basically, I would want to know what the safety plan is um for the time that they're going to be there, locations of where they will be on every day that they're there. Um so that as well as the health factors in case someone should happen to get sick or whatever the case may be, how that will be addressed while they're there. Um, so I guess once I have more of that information or responses from the folks that are planning this, then I can, you know, say how
077I, you know, would go with respect to this trip, >> right? The intent is to place this on the agenda for December 16th for votes. So, we want to just kind of talk through it so we understand what the asks may be before we even get to that. So, Trusty Brown, >> so I would love to know like um how many students are going? Um and those who are preparing this trip, would they be able to come in and give us like a presentation on this trip? Um, I am an avid traveler, so saying no to traveling is not something I would say, but given the given the climate, like what is the um what is that country score rating for Americans going to visit because each each country will have a rating on if
078it's safe or moderate or extreme. So, I would love to know that. Um, also a health and safety plan as um trustee as a trustee mentioned. Um, what does that what would that look like if if a child or a um or a chaperone gets sick? How how does what does that look like be? Um I know we there are a lot of additional travel insuranceances that you know that I would personally take myself and is that included in what um they're preparing for as for this trip? Um, so those are the things that I would want to know. Again, I'm not saying no because I'd throw my hat in the ring to be a chaperone. Um, but yes, would love to know that. Thank you, >> Trusty Peterson. >> Uh, so similar concerns that
079Trusty Brown has. Um, and I know because I told you guys I'm a nerd. I know that Panama on the US Department of State because they just I just watched a um a story the other night on the news that Panama is at a level two on the list and it's it's an increase for crime and civil unrest. So I think those are things that we need to look into and really you know me personally I wouldn't feel comfortable sending my child even on a school trip to a country that's on the level that's at level two right now. So, I think that those are things that we have to consider as well. >> Trusty Mcdana. >> Yeah, I I agree with all of the concerns uh of of my colleagues here. I I will
080and I and I understand the perspective of uh I think of of legal counsel um and the caution there. But on on the flip side, um the experience um is is kind of invaluable for for kids. And sure, there's risk. Um but a little bit of risk isn't a bad thing, you know. Um it's not an uncalculated risk. Um so I would I would just say say that I I certainly understand the caution and the instinct to protect. Um, but I also think there's some value in kind of, you know, letting go and getting out there a little bit. So that's my thought right now. >> Okay, Jesse Doro. >> So um, as a student that also went on a trip to like North Carolina to compete and um, getting experience there. Honestly, I'm all
081go for it. But at the same time um I understand the risks the risks on to that but um we also got to consider it depends on the specifically the students and as in the students um discipline um history also if the uh student is um prone to violence more sometimes or um in general is great and specifically other fields we can just look into but yes I'll just say that Okay. Um, so there are some I would like legal counsel to weigh in at this time and then we can have further discussion if we need to. >> Well, in reference to insurance, we've had a little bit of that discussion. That hasn't changed a lot and I will save that for executive session. But to uh Trusty Scott's comment, I just want a little
082bit more clarification on what the ask is. So the principles or whoever is watching, uh if they can provide that information, great. If they can't, then they can't. So I heard you say safety plan. And so I'm trying to see what a safety plan looks like in the four corners. We have safety plan as far as liability, extended health. Um, but are you looking for something else? >> Um, for me definitely. Which adults are going? Will we have security as part of the professionals that are going um with them? Right. So, >> so let me stop you there. When you say security, are you referring to Mount Vernon security? >> Yes. like Mount Vernon security team where a couple of the um security staff can go on the trip and be those eyes in um
083around things. I don't know. Just basically protecting the the young folks as well as the >> that's what the adults are for the chap. >> Yeah. >> I I don't have I don't have any definition. I just wanted to hear your definition. So when I had that conversation >> that person I don't want to preclude anything. Well, based on what um trustee um just said in regards to being a level two, right, we we may have teachers that are going, but they may not have the the the um the street sense or knowledge, the security sense based on what to look for like our security personnel may have. So, making sure that in the group that goes, maybe there is a security personnel that goes with them, you know, those things like that. just seeing
084what they think is good in terms of the number of chaperoons versus the number of um students that are going and how they have an itinerary. I would love to see what the itinerary be for each day so that we know where our young people are as well as our professionals are on any given day at any given time. So if something should happen at least we know. >> All right. Thank you for that clarification. Um, also being an avid traveler, having been to Panama and having chaperon students as a former teacher and a principal, I I really would um air on the side of caution. I am comfortable with our students traveling domestically, but I'm really uncomfortable, especially in this climate of having our children travel internationally only because we don't know what's going
085on in those other countries. We don't know what security measures, let's say, they they come back and there's a problem with somebody's passport or paperwork because we don't we can't verify whether or not their paperwork is in order or not. we may and I I really just have some concerns about let's say if somebody gets injured and it doesn't have to necessarily be because they were you know acting out or doing something um that they shouldn't have been doing just a matter of somebody tripping on a rock or you know or slipping or falling or something being wet and you know it could happen of course domestically as well but international health care is very different than domestic health care and trying to get somebody back to their family and back into the country. So
086I would have some some real trepidation about um about this. So just to share my thoughts in terms of insurance and not just for insurance for students but just insurance for staff because it doesn't you know it it leads from students into staff right so and how what cost could be attached to all of that. So I would have some some serious concerns about it. Any other comments? Okay. All right. If you have any further comments, if you can direct them and then we can um pass them through and so that we can have those questions answered for you so that we can consider the vote on December 16th. Thank you. Okay, we are at um section five, human resources. Are there any questions? 5.1 human resources number 135A certified sport and extracurricular activities. Any
087questions or comments? >> We just lost connection. So, one moment. It'll be on the screen. >> Okay. Any questions or comments? hearing. None. We're going to move to 6.1, curriculum and instruction. And we'll wait until our technician gets back to the monitor so that we can show it on the screen. Authorization to add mentor names to the Mount Vernon City School District mentor program for new teachers. Any questions on that? Hearing none, we'll move to seven, student personnel services, approval of student personnel services memorandum number 07 dated December 2nd, 2025, which is item 7.1. Any questions or comments? Hearing none, then we will move to item eight, which is authorization to send items to consent agenda 8.1. May I have a vote? >> Can I have a motion, please? >> Second. >> Questions. >> All
088in favor? >> I. >> Any oppose? Abstain. Motion carries. >> Nine. May I have a motion to enter into well may I have the statement for executive session and then if your desire we would like to have a motion to enter into exe like a motion to enter an into enter executive session for the purpose of discussing pending litigation the financial history of a particular person or corporation or matters leading to the appointment demotion discipline suspension dismissal or removal of a particular person or corporation and to receive legal advice on pending matter. Motion please. >> Motion. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> Okay. Any oppose? Abstain. Motion carries. We will be entering. We are now in executive session. We will not be returning. So, thank you very much. Our next meeting is December the
08916th. Public um comment will be available on December 16th.