001Good evening. I'd like to call to order the Wednesday, February 4th, 2026 Board of Education regular meeting. Um, please stand and I will lead us in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance 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 for all. >> All right. Um item 1.3 on our agenda is our superintendent's update. So I'm going to turn things over to Mary Fox alter. >> Right. Uh good evening everyone and welcome to our first meeting in the what has turned out to be a 29 degrees of balmy uh February so far. Um this is the start of our Black History Month and we have a number of educational activities planned that have been uh posted and sent
002out over social media throughout all of our schools in honor of Black History Month. This is also um the week that we celebrate the national school counseling week and we pay particular attention to the work of school counselors in our and our culture of care in our prek through 12 environment. Uh we are super excited and super proud to announce that Aiden Menddees has been selected to receive the Westchester County Youth Board's 2025 Chairpersons Award. This honor recognizes Aiden's outstanding leadership, dedication, and commitment to serving the community. So give a big congratulations to Aiden. Thank you. Uh we are I did think I was like oh I'd love to go to that ceremony but then when I looked at the invitation you're only allowed so many people uh we could uh log in and watch
003but again that is a very exciting and quite an honor. Um we are proud that our MB MBK students and our youth council were attending the 2026 annual l youth leadership forum in Albany. I was able to speak to Ann de on Monday and then a little bit yesterday and our students are heavily involved in learning about advocacy, how to approach elected officials. I think we have two board members who'll be chiming in about that a little later. Um and I am very proud of our students and I want to thank Dr. Dilly for her leadership in this program. Um, our high school students are launching a free tax prep through the VA program, helping working families and individuals file their income taxes with confidence. Uh, taking place at OS now through April after school.
004Please, if you want to do this, I mean, I think last year it was well over 100 tax returns they completed. Please call 211 to make an appointment. Um, Brookside Schools celebrated our Mathletics at our Winter Olympic Games last night. Um, it was a fun-filled evening of learning, teamwork, and friendly competition. The Brookside Song shares were taking place this week. Claremont winter concert was held this week. Um, and the OS course fair takes place tomorrow. That's a lot of activity in our schools for this time in February. The destination imagination mock tournament will be held this Saturday. So again, I know we have some excited students getting ready to participate in that. PreK registration is open at this time and closes on March 2nd. Children must be four years of age on or by December
0051st, 2026. And if a resident of Austining to enroll, everyone needs to get ready to join Austining Manners for their fundraiser on Friday, March 6th. The details will be on their website. And last but not least, I want to congratulate Austin High School senior and basketball player Claire Schnecker, who became the 15th player in our history to reach a thousand career milestone points. So congratulations to Claire for achieving that. And I do want to mention because it was in for those of you who get I still get I get the online version but I also get the paper version of the Loa the journal news. Um I like to support our local newspapers. So, um, in that, um, when I opened up the SAR Sunday paper of the front page of the sports section was
006this, um, huge article on Claire. >> Hi. >> It's a fabulous picture. It's absolutely fabulous. Um, so we want to congratulate Claire for achieving this. This is a great great cover. Uh, and to occupy the entire front page of the sports section of the Sunday edition of the Journal News is pretty amazing. So, Melissa, if we give it to Annie to pass it down, put it Frank's seat. >> Awesome. >> You can see it. Thank you. Right. >> Can we have it seating up so we know like >> Oh, yeah. There you go. >> There you go. >> Thank you. Okay. And um um that's it for my section of the update. I want to turn it over to Owen. >> Thank you. Good evening everyone. Last Friday at the high school, we celebrated wellness
007day. Throughout the day, students participated in activities that connected them with their classmates, promoted mental health awareness, and attended house assemblies. Shout out to the culture of care committee and the student mental health club for organizing these events and to the administration for coordinating assemblies. Today at the high school we celebrated black history month. Uh this is a this wonderful event spotlighted our students, faculty and community members while honoring the legacy and impact of black history and culture. Throughout the month we will continue to celebrate black history. Just yesterday a student sang the black national anthem on the loudspeaker in the morning. Tomorrow at OHS, we will have the course fair um in the morning. Um so underassmen will be able to see what OHS offers and get an idea for what they're signing up
008for next year. Um I also had a shout out to Claire Schnecker for scoring that uh 10,000th point uh earlier this week. The game was actually a very good game too. They beat Ursulin and it went down to the last second. So >> phenomenal. >> Yes. Yes. >> Absolutely phenomenal. Uh, I also want to congratulate our January Pride Award winners, Dante Couch in boys basketball, Brandon Hamilton in indoor track, Jared Lauren in wrestling, and Sophia Toriieri in girls basketball. This monthly award is given to students who demonstrate sportsmanship, determination, and diligence on and off the field. Next Monday, I will be meeting virtually with principal or dues of Brookside. Brookside is one of the schools that I have not connected with yet in the role. So, we're looking forward to coordinating some events between OHS
009and Brookside for the springtime. Uh on Friday, I'm meeting with our science research liaison team and Miss Prior Gro to discuss our plan for the rest of the year for Roosevelt School and for the mentorship program in general. Uh we also plan on having a presence at the Claremont Science Fair in May and discussing opportunities at AMD for next year. >> That's great. Uh, and then at Claremont in March, I'm organizing a readaloud event with Miss Shamzy and Miss Narapore. And this will have OHS students go to Claremont and read aloud to third and fourth graders. And then, as I mentioned last week, as part of our wellness day at OS, we had a virtual assembly. Uh along with Miss Langley providing expectation reminders and a message for the second semester, I discussed the importance
010of students checking their email and staying up to date with um with different testing dates and notifications. Uh this is kind of going to be a continued reminder for students especially because in the next coming month we are rolling out a student uh newsletter uh created by the administration and the communications team uh that will provide students updates on the school uh with testing dates, events and other information about what's going on. So and this will be provided via email. So it's important that students are checking their email. >> Thank you. >> That's all. Thank you very much. All right. Um I think we're ready for our work session item. Our first uh item and our equity item for the evening is our cultural arts and STEM presentation. So um I'll turn it over to
011Mary to introduce our speakers. So, we are thrilled this evening to hear from our fabulous Kate Matthews um who is going to give an extensive um presentation on our culture um culture uh cultural arts as well as some uh clubs and activities and um it it's I I don't like when some people call it extracurricular right to me it is co-curricular it is co-curricular so Kate again thank you for your leaders leadership. Thank you for the enthusiasm and energy that you bring every single day to your craft and to your field and for the impact on our kids. >> Well, thank you. Um I get to talk about my favorite things. So, thank you to the board members um and our administrative team um to give me this opportunity to to share and to brag
012a little bit about the arts here in Austining. Um you know as you know of of course we have our vision that we we approach and I wanted to point out one of the core values that I think it really speaks to us which is in Austining we promote a holistic approach to education through academics athletics and the arts. So as as uh Miss Fox Alter said we are we are curricular and co-curricular core. So, it's all part of the whole learning experience for our students and we take our mission statement to heart as we work very hard to make sure that our students are responsible citizens and that we do have equitable outcomes for all. Um, when we first came up with the portrait of a learner and it's it's it's named portrait of
013a learner, not just portrait of a graduate, which I love because we are all learners. um students and and and faculty, we are all learning and I we when we first brought this out to in the Austin community to staff, the arts department took a very deep look at this and we realized that every single one of these puzzle pieces really fit so beautifully with what we do in the arts. So, we were very excited about this. Um, and now we're looking for as the New York State um, portrait of a graduate um, comes about, we're looking at some of the similarities and and connections. Um, and we're working towards that New York inspires, which I think as we look at that work and we start to do that work in other areas, we'll see
014some wonderful connections to the arts and some learning that we can hopefully connect to other disciplines. And tonight, I'm going to be talking a little bit about each of these pillars. Uh we'll we'll go through um a a few things in in teaching and learning. Um what we're using for data, some of our equity highlights, and our family and community partnerships. So we are a visual and audio medium and uh so it would be remiss if I didn't add a few lovely photos of our students in action, but you really have to see them in action on the stage and in the art shows. So for teaching and learning uh we have been taking a deep dive into vocabulary for the last few years and each year we've we've gone deeper into that work and
015and become more sophisticated in that work. So we created a list of tier three vocabulary terms. Those are words that are specific to the content. We took those lists from the New York State glosseries that are attached to the uh New York State learning standards for the arts and we created those lists and attached them to projects that we are doing within the arts programs. And then we did some learning around Isabelle Beck's protocol um to teach explicit vocabulary instruction. And we've been working this year on incorporating vocabulary into our reflections and self and peer assessments. So, it's it's important that not only are we teaching students the words, but we really want the students to be able to talk um and express themselves as artists do, so that they're using the language of a
016musician. They're using the language of an actor, they're using the language of an artist. We've been using word walls with visuals, which uh if you want to see a great word wall, you have to go into our visual arts teachers classrooms because they have terrific ones. Although this picture here is actually our theater um terminology as an example, but we are making sure that that these words are visible to all. And recently we started to do a little bit of work with um a connection in math. So quick quick little anecdote. Uh Miss Shamsy was working with teachers um on math and they were reviewing NW NWEA data and the teachers were really pleasantly surprised at how well students did on the topic of symmetry because they hadn't taught it yet. Um but the students
017did really really well and it was pointed out that symmetry has been taught in our visual art class with with Mr. Sherski. They do several projects with symmetry and the students really were able to make that connection from their visual art class to their mathematics class. So that set the light bulb off and so we worked with our friend Asa and Peggy and received the list of vocabulary words for math and we are connecting them to words that have authentic meaning in in the arts as well. So, our teachers are just beginning that work so that we can make help our students see those connections and make sure they understand that interdisciplinary um connection. And then the other thing we're working on with uh teaching and learning is several curriculum writing projects, but one that
018we're really diving into is our um Anm Dorner uh middle school general music curriculum. So, data in foreign practices. We're really good at qualitative data in the arts and we have been working to develop some more quantitative data. Um and um and so we've started to work a little bit about what what is it that we want to look at? How can we um analyze how well our students are doing in a quantitative way? Um so one of the things that we've been working on and have finished this year are common note reading assessments in music. Um that will start from um elementary school through middle then through high school. Um, in the visual arts, they're working on common self-reflections and self-perure assessments. Those are templates that they're using so that they're having students write
019um or speak to uh the work that they're doing, highlighting the vocabulary terms that they've been doing. Um, one of the one of the qualitative pieces of data that I thought was that I think is really really important is the opportunity for our department to be able to share K through 12 with staff sharing best practices. And one small thing came up um a few uh weeks ago in our department meeting where we were talking about how is the vocabulary work going in your classroom and one of the teachers shared such a simple thing that uh really I think makes a very big impact. um she she said that she shared that she has the students write the tier three vocabulary on the back of their project so that when they go home and share
020that work with families that those words are right there and they can speak directly to the skill or the um or the method that they're using. So I thought that was a really good great suggestion but those small things really help us deepen our practice. Um, another piece of data that we've used this year and we spoke about it a little bit last year and we were really not off the ground but this year we are fully off the ground with the use of passport for good for OHS club attendance. Um, it took a little bit of a of a of a learning it was a little bit of a learning curve but now I would say that a good 95% of our club um advisers are using that uh faithfully. Um, and we are
021going to then expand, uh, Miss Meyer and I are talking about expanding the use of passport for good to make sure that our guidance department is able to use it. It's a great way to keep track of community service hours, great way to keep track of uh, seal of biiteracy or our civic readiness. Um, so that these are other ways that we can use that passport for good and students have access to their own data which is very helpful when they're getting ready for college. And then of course we reviewed some participation data which we'll be I'll be sharing in just a moment. Um and the topic of equity. Um we uh talked a lot about how do we make sure that our uh students with disabilities feel welcome and supported in the arts and
022that that everyone knows that all of our programs are open to all children. Um so we did a survey to families. Um Kimio was was very instrumental in helping us design this survey and we reached out to families and we learned a few things from this and we've been reviewing the information that we've received from families. Part of it is making sure that we are communicating well so that families do know that our programs are open to all. communicating with our um our um physical therapists, our occupational therapists, our special educators to make sure that we're identifying ways that we can support our students within those programs. Um and then starting to ex explore ways to inc increase the number of adaptive instruments for example so that our students feel really welcome and supportive and
023most importantly successful within their within the um within the programs. So that's been that's been a work in progress and we're very thankful to the families that responded to that survey. That's that was very very helpful. Um we also really want to encourage student voice. So, so a couple of examples and there are so many but a couple of examples is um the OHS club fair that's completely studentrun. We do that at the beginning of the year um so that our particularly our our ninth graders but everyone has a chance to really see what clubs are out there. We have a club website that we um encourage students to look at um so they see all the various options. There are a ton of options for students in in clubs. Um the OS student council
024also um held a club symposium where they invited the um leaders of clubs across the across the school to come and give some feedback about how things are going and ask questions and really talk about how can we get more students involved and motivated and excited, how can we build some uh community culture and how can we build some excitement for for school. So that I think those are two examples of how we really try to encourage student voice. Um, another way another area is our OS news and noticas where we have our our uh our broadcast in English and in Spanish for students and that's great resource for families as well to see. Um, so another new thing, we've been talking about this for so long and this is the first year we we
025we really started to take a piece of this which is to support Destination Imagination. Um, Destination Imagination is a phenomenal international program that's really stream. It's it's actually a perfect day for uh Asa and I to be here to be talking about Destination Imagination. And I know um mayor you mentioned the mock tournament happening on Saturday, but we're really excited that for the first time we're we have a school-based program where the district is supporting the um directors. So we have co-directors Jen Morris and Liz Bllye who are doing a terrific job working with team managers who are parent volunteers. And we have right now four uh Claremont groups that are getting ready and we're excited to see what they create. Um, and then I labeled this little idea as from inspiration to involvement. And
026um, Owen, I appreciate your your working your work in this area where we really are working with older students to work with and perform for younger students. Um, there are so many examples of that. Um, Owen is is preparing one in March where there's going to be a readaloud for for uh, literacy month. But we also um brought the robotics club to Claremont for the Claremont Enrichment Day. And the robotics students ran the club completely. They ran the sessions um having students uh build and create and um the the kids were just so excited. That was one of the most popular sessions that was that was chosen. We had today's students, tomorrow's teachers go down to Claremont for enrichment day as well and supported various programs. So those are some ideas. um wi within our
027theater and this is again ways to build excitement and and recruit so that kids can see themselves in the work and and continue on. So for example, our um our middle school theater program which they performed um Susicle this year. It was a terrific show. They went and visited Claremont and did a number from the show and did a little talk back and answered questions for students and then they traveled to the high school where they got to see the Austin High School production of Clue and did a talk back with students. So those are some exciting opportunities where where students get to work together. Uh next week we're going to have um orchestra day where our uh AMD eighth grade orchestra will be visiting the high school and taking a little bit of tour
028a little bit of a tour where students are going to be leading that doing some team building and seeing what it's like to participate in a high school level orchestra. And these are all ways that the reason I I put them under the equity category is because again they're all ways for students to see themselves, see um other kids like them participating in in programs and um really making sure that our programs are strong and open to all. And then our last pillar is family and community engagement. We're so lucky that we live in this amazing community where there are really terrific partnerships throughout. Um I I probably could do two pages of of great partnerships, but to highlight a few, um Bethany Arts Center has been a phenomenal uh partner with us. We have
029uh for Black History Month, they're doing so many things with us where uh student le tours where they're being uh trained as dozens. Uh we have Claremont uh attending this week. Um we have uh earlier in the fall we had a project where the high school students and Claremont students met at Bethany uh for a workshop on printmaking that that's the photo there with Miss Buchelle and Mr. Sherski um on with a a an artist from Venezuela. So it was taught bilingually for our students. It was really a a great experience. We also have wonderful partnerships with NU builds. Um, for example, we have a quilting uh workshop that is taking place on Saturdays and the Saturday piece is a really nice addition to students who are so busy during the week that they might
030not be able to participate during the week. So, the Saturday is a nice option for them and um they're we have a fashion club starting um very soon and so that's been another great partnership. Uh Jacob Burns as as you know we send our students to Jacob Burns but in addition Jacob Burns will be hosting the first ever uh Westchester BASH. BASH is the Broadcast Alliance uh awards for senior high school. Um Austin has been part of that for the last four years and um it has taken place at Hopster University. It's a great program, but getting Westchester folks to Ha, especially on a rainy day um during uh yes, during rush hour is not easy. And so the last uh time that we were there last year, last spring, um many of our groups
031because of the rain arrived so late, it took us over three hours to get to Hopster University um that we missed part of it. And so we started to be in discussion. I'm I'm part of the board of this fabulous group. and we talked about having a Westchester version of this as we're building the number of schools. So, right now we have 15 schools signed up. We will be at Jacob Burns. They have graciously opened up their space. So, we will be at Jacob Burns May 20th. I will send you all an invitation. It's going to be great. Um uh Bran Wills will be there as a keynote and we're just really excited that people will be joining us for that. Um, again I mentioned that parent survey that we did as a way to
032build family engagement um and to understand how we can better support of course the destination imagination and you know the arts. You've got to see it to live it, right? You've got to come to see the performances and art shows and and there's just so many of them. Pick a day of the week and we're we're out performing and and show showcasing our talent. So I just wanted to highlight a few of those. So, I wanted to turn to some of the uh quantitative data that we're going to look at, some of our ensemble data. And I'm looking at this picture, which makes my heart sing, no pun intended. Um, but this is our sixth grade chorus. And one of my goals over the last four years has been to increase the number of students
033participating in our coral programs. Uh, we were always a little bit lower than than I I would imagine we we we would have liked to have been. And then co actually we've really uh lost numbers and so we've rebuilt and when you look at this group of sixth grade students it just it's really lovely. Um so we're very excited and you'll see some data that's supporting that across the board from grades 4 through 12. Um so this is a a snapshot of our enrollment in band chorus and orchestra. This is for Claremont. The next slide will be for Roosevelt. Now these are before school programs. you will see um that there is a a drop actually in the um uh band and orchestra in particular. Um I want to point out why that is. Um
034we would love to take every single student. Um but we are limited by space and we're particularly limited by space at Roosevelt School. There isn't a dedicated classroom for instrumental music right now. Um we hope to get that back soon but as of now there is not. And so the teachers are doing a phenomenal job in a teenytiny space, but that does mean that we need to limit the number of students that can that can participate. Uh the good news is that every student who was on a waiting list, unless they were waiting for a particular instrument, we have a couple students that are holding out for a particular instrument, we've been able to accommodate. Um and we will hope to grow that program again in in sixth grade. So you'll see when you see
035these numbers for Roosevelt, this has been a bit of a challenge this year with these high numbers in that small space. Um we had students sign up before we had the change of space. So it's it's difficult. But I want to point out here our Roosevelt for school chorus. Um we were always kind of struggling and in you know in the teens less than 20 students and now we are at 50 students. And in the Roosevelt concert you will see not only did we you know uh quadruple our numbers, but they sounded phenomenal. So, we're very very proud of that. Uh again, you'll see just a snapshot of numbers for our sixth, seventh, and eighth grade programs. So, the biggest difference here and and and you'll see a thread throughout the uh the rest of
036this data is that our middle school programs are part part of the core day. It is part of the school day. So, this is no longer a before school or an afterchool activity. We do have some additional programs that are after school such as theater and jazz club and glee club, but our chorus, orchestra, band program, general music, those are all during the school day. And as you can see, you know, if you look at that middle column with the with the chorus, again, that those numbers are are are are wonderful. We're very excited by those. Um, and again, we're a little bit limited by space. We're we're definitely maxed out in in instrumental music. there's there are only so many places to put instruments and um and to put students playing those instruments. Um
037so I wanted to point out um some of our um and you'll see the difference between the the elementary and the um middle school data. Um so this is out of our students who are participating in chorus, band, and orchestra. This is our demographic uh breakdown. And I'm going to just show you middle school. And what you'll notice is that middle school changes um to be more aligned, mirrors more of our general population. And again, once we move to a during the day school day where we're not relying on families to have to drop off, um you'll see it the change. So, our sixth, seventh, and eighth grade ensembles, those demographics are are more similar to our general population and mirror that in a in a more authentic way. So, the other thing we looked
038at is out of our groups, how many of our students are um our students with disabilities within our groups? And again, just like with our demographic data, we're looking to see do do those numbers do those percentages match the general population. And in um and they're pretty similar. So they they go from 8% in in fourth grade up to over 15% in sixth grade, which is fairly within line of our um overall population of of students with disabilities. Again, you notice that increase in the middle school, easier access for all. And then this is just outlining. These next few slides are outlining this is within the entire population. So out of all of our students, um we have students who do not um who do not have IEP, students without disabilities that we have 41%
039of those students participating in fourth grade ensembles. Those again are morning programs. and students with disabilities. We have 23% of our students. And so you'll see similar numbers in fifth grade and and then it starts to change as we get to a a school day program, seventh grade and eighth grade. And I think what you see is a a decrease in eighth grade as students fulfill a music requirement. for example, they um they might need to take if they're taking um a lab plus they're taking say a resource room that could impact the ability to continue in taking multiple music or a music ensemble. So again, this is outlining our students within the the electives. So all of our art and music electives and as you can see in the middle school and this is
040this makes sense because our students are are required to take music and art and it's part of the school day we have um almost all of our students are participating in music and art electives and at the high school I think what's interesting about this these numbers is that uh in high school in order to graduate you need one credit of of an art and so you can see that we certainly have more than just 25% of our students taking that um taking an elective. So, it's it's great to see that, you know, between 62 and and 65% of our students are taking um arts electives. And this just breaks it down again by um demographics. And now on to clubs. So, one of the things last um year when I was here that we
041chatted about was I I had some data for you about club enrollment. Um it maybe wasn't as accurate because we were doing it on Google Sheets instead of passport for good, but I didn't have the information about sports. And one of the questions was, well, how many students who are not in clubs are in sports? So, I have that answer this year. Uh I worked with Kim Saxton and her department and we were able to figure out um the percentages of students that are in um that are in each of these activities. So the dark blue that club enrollment that 27.6% that means those are students who are only in clubs after school. They're not in sports, they're in clubs after school. The orange are students who are only in sports after school. And the
042green are students that are enrolled in both clubs and sports. So that light blue is students that are not in clubs or sports. And I think that's a pretty impressive number um when you consider we do have students that have jobs after school um have child care responsibilities um perhaps go to Boseies or other programs. So I think our we can see from this that our students are are really quite involved. We're always always looking to make sure that all of our students are participating and we've been talking a little bit about clubs that can support students who have some of those off-campus experiences and how can we harness that so that they can can reflect on that. So, for example, uh perhaps like an entrepreneurs club where students who are working after school might
043meet maybe once a month with an an adviser to look at resume building, to look at job um training, to think about, you know, to reflect on their experiences in in their in their jobs after school just to really try to deepen that learning. And this is enrollment by grade. So students who are in clubs by grade and this is just clubs not sports and I should mention back to the sports that does not include spring sports that's that's uh fall and winter sports. So again, this is this is just sports. I mean, excuse me, this is just clubs. And then I I wanted to end with with two uh uh graphics that I think just highlight. Um again, best community for music education. We've received that designation 18 times. Um we're very very proud
044of that. And um you know, one of the things I want to thank the board and the community about is that one of the uh key components of being named a best community for music education is that keyword community. That it really is about the support of of the district. Um not just financially, but in terms of of scheduling and uh hiring terrific teachers. So, we're very very excited about that. And then kind of new, hot off the presses is that we had 42 awards for Scholastic Art Awards. These are the art and writing awards. They're very competitive. They're uh nationwide. And we have 42 uh students who've won those awards. We have gold, silver, and and their bronze is called honorable mentions. We were really really excited about that. And there'll be more. There'll
045be a little press release on that soon. That is literally hot off the presses. But thank you so much for your time. We're really excited and hope to see you at you are always welcome to any event. We're very excited to to perform for you and to have our art shows and very excited. So, thank you so much. >> Thank you very much. Um, I'll open up the board table for questions or comments if anybody has any wants to start. First, I'll go down. >> I don't really have any questions because this was so thorough. I had questions and then you answered them while doing the presentation. Right. >> Um, thank you for all of that data and how many different ways it was broken down. I really appreciated that. And the addition of adaptive
046instruments is I'm just really thankful for that. and really happy to be in a district where the administration wants to include those kids and is working really hard to and being creative. >> Yeah. And if I could just add one thing to that. So, you know, we have a recorder for all students in third grade. So, we've been working about adapting some of those um teaching practices. Actually, we haven't adapted the instruments. The instruments are fine. It's our teaching practices. So, we've adapted some of those teaching practices to support all students. Um, and then really what we need to do is look at what students want to play, the instruments that they want to play, and match those instruments and match those the adaptive instruments to the student. So, it's not like we're just going
047to go out and buy, you know, 10 adaptive instruments. We're going to really look to see what is it that a student wants to play, maybe try out some things, maybe work with OT or PT depending on what what the um disability is and then really match those instruments to the what the child wants and what the child can be successful with. So, we're really working on that. That's that's learning for us, too. Um we've very happy to belong to NAFME, that's the National Association for Music Education, and um actually we're just about to do a a workshop through them on this exact topic. So, we're all learning and deepening our our learning on that. >> Um, I'll come this way. Do you have any? >> Yeah. Hi. Uh, two, thank you for the presentation.
048So, AMD specifically, there's a drop off on chorus and band and orchestra year over year over year. There's differences in the percentages. I guess I believe my understanding is that's normal. That's not weird that like you sees from 6th to 7th to 8th. If that's accurate, do we know why that generally happens? Is that beyond oene? And then the Austinine semi-related question there is is there what do you think about like ways going forward to keep those students in those ensembles because right when you get to high school like if you stay with it you get credit for it right diploma credit and other I don't know I don't know how the state's changing the requirements on that but I guess my my broad question is you know do do you support trying to keep
049these students in it and continue that pipeline into high school so kids can you know get credit towards it. >> Right. Right. So now we're looking at these we're talking about band chorus and orchestra. There is also still general music and at the middle school there is music technology for eighth grade. When you get to um and then there's visual arts. When you get to the high school there are so many options in addition to the ensembles. So what we notice is that yes there is a drop off. So for example, if you're looking at sixth grade in last year, 86 students were in sixth grade band last year and then this year 81 students in seventh grade. So about five students uh dropped. There's there are a few reasons for that. Um band and
050orchestra in particular require students to practice and they need to commit to that that practice, that extra time. Um they also in these ensembles need to commit to performing in a in a concert. Um and and so that extra piece of it, some students are like, "Well, I tried it, but maybe not for me." Um and that's okay because there are other things and there are other options and opportunities for students. Um again, we hope and we try to make sure that those numbers, you know, stay up, that kids are having a successful time and really enjoying it. Um but yes, that that is one of the things that happens that each year we do see a few students who who drop off. Our goal is to keep an eye to make sure if there
051if we see a large drop off why that is and and what could what we could do to prevent that. And then going into the high school, we see pretty good numbers. And I I don't have that for you here, but there it's pretty consistent that those students who are in eighth grade are pretty much unless there's a a scheduling issue, and that happens sometimes, um they will naturally they will typically continue on with that ensemble in high school. >> Got it. Okay, great. And then the other part of this is and I believe there's data to support this that you know if you play an instrument and you're involved in cultural arts that leads to positive outcomes whether it's an ELA math attendance and if that is accurate do wonder this is sort of
052future state I wonder if there's a way to show like you know that might be interesting for the community to see like if we got all kids in culture arts aside from us being winning that award year after year after year it's not in a silo like it leads to better attendance better engagement better If if that's all accurate, just something that maybe, you know, we think about going forward as we look, you know, to tie it all together. Whole job. >> Yes. Yes, that would be. Yes, I can look at some of that data and see if I can work with Tim Sculton on figuring out what uh typical GPA are, for example, in in high school for students who have an arts elective versus students that don't, students that are in um the
053performing groups that tend to be year after year um or students that have more than one arts credit. That would be another interesting data point. Um so that you know you're seeing students that have that sequence of arts and so you would yes you would think anecdotally that makes sense that um that those students are more engaged. We see it qualitatively like that's a kind of our anecdotal understanding of it but yeah I can work on seeing if we can get some GPA data. >> Thanks. >> Um I inadvertently skipped Owen so I'm going to go back to Owen. >> I just had a couple of comments. The first one was kind of on that question like I think when you look show who does sports and who does clubs like qualitatively you can see
054everybody at the high school is pretty much involved in in something and I think it's definitely it's definitely going to go up in the spring too. There's going to be more students who are involved in sports and clubs and more students who are involved in something in general. And I think that's just kind of like the the community aspect there. like there's a lot of um a lot of people in clubs that I'm in or science research or stuff that's also in band also in in chorus or or in the play. So um that's really that's really interesting. The other thing that I um wanted to touch on was the passport for good the student access. So, I actually I I went to look on how it looks on my view and it it's it's
055what would be so helpful if for like college applications to look at it to see how many hours I've put into clubs. So, that's definitely something I think um we we should just show students that they can access because I mean when you fill out a college application, you're you're looking at these extracurricular activities and they ask you how many hours you spent and really you're just kind of guessing, but this is has the data behind it. So that's >> when what will be very helpful too is all your community service hours can go into passport for good. You can enter them yourselves and then the person who was supervising that can just click and say it was accepted. So it takes out that that paperwork which is a little annoying for for you know
056kids who like to be digital um and teachers. Um so I think that those are good points and yes we will work with students too to see help them see >> how they can access it on their end. Um there are some things we're we're still hoping that we can get with Passport for good where we could have student leaders. Right now we don't have that access and it may be a privacy access issue. Um where students can take the attendance but right now it has to go through the the club advisor. >> And the last thing I wanted to talk about was the the kind of the equity aspect in the OS student council. And I think, you know, being a part of that, they've taken such a large step this year in making
057sure that every club is involved. Um, this was something that was just brought up at the equity meeting last week. Um, it was how can we make sure that every club and every student voice is involved in the student council and I think Mr. George has really taken kind of the next step in making sure all the clubs are involved in that and everybody's heard. So, I I think we've taken a they've taken a big step for that. Yeah, I thought that was a great symposium that you ran and I appreciate that work because I think it was helpful to have students share their thoughts and and real world experiences and hopefully we'll we'll as the adults we'll learn from that too. >> Sorry about skipping you all. I'll continue back this way around the
058table. Katherine, do you have any >> um Thank you very much. Thanks for all of the information and the data. Um, I'm going to talk about Destination Imagination because it's obviously very near and dear to my heart and it's something I've been involved in for 10 years now. Um, and I also serve on the um, global organization. I serve on their as a um, appointed to their uh, diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging committee which I think because they received some form of federal funding had to recently change their name to belonging and togetherness or something along the lines. You get you get the point. Um, so I don't get paid for any of that just in terms of like announcing any sort of conflict. Um, it's just something that I volunteer for. And um, I
059wanted to throw some numbers out there because we have our first year of Destination Imagination participants from 10 years ago now as sophomores at OS. So, I was able to look back and find some data and um 90% of participants are in National Honor Society. Um 70% are in the science research program and 25% are either on varsity sports or play an instrument in the high school. So, it's a pretty good indicator of connecting kids very and these are kids who did this when they were in first grade. So, it's a very good indicator of how to connect kids to their schools very early on, but more than that, it's a program that connects families to schools. Um, because it's not something that can be done um just as an extracurricular without it really being
060like a team and a family experience. Um, one of the recommendations from the DEIB committee is these programs are great and the volunteers, especially the the parent volunteers who are coaching it are super important and that's the model really that the program runs on currently. But it's not a model that serves communities that are underserved. And their recommendation is that um districts that really believe in the program switch to or start incorporating a model that is part volunteer sponsored and part district taught >> and that is how they find that the underserved students become involved in the program. And I mean, look, it makes sense. You you have three board members that are coaches in the program this year, and it's of course you're going to coach your own kid, and of course, your word
061of mouth spreads amongst your sphere of influence, and it's very difficult to expand that sphere without a significant amount of help. And that's a big burden to place on volunteers. So, I know baby steps in this, right? We have we have directors. There's there's more funding than there's ever been, which is awesome. I would love to see it grow beyond the current model, which I think will always limit the demographic and the socioeconomics of the students that are able to take advantage of it. And so that's the recommendation just from the the international level. Um, and I I I see it. I've I've seen it for 10 years um very directly, but I've I also see the tremendous amount of difference that it makes in students lives and I think the data now that we've
062got 10 years of it has definitely shown that to be true. So, um, if you don't know what it is, it's if you mixed robotics and science research plus cultural arts and you said to perform your science research project or your robotics project in the form of a play, that's basically what it is. Um, so it kind of hits all points and I know we're going to get STEM in a little bit as well, but I think it would continue to exist privately forever. And if the district is really going to take it on, funding it in a way that allows additional access is something that I personally would like to see. >> Yeah. No, that that that makes sense. I mean, I know we have been talking a little bit about what are the
063next steps for us with supporting the program. We do see the value without a doubt. So, thank you for that. That's helpful to know. >> Uh, Roger. >> Yeah. Thank >> Hey, thanks so much. Appreciate you um sharing all this with us. Could you do me a favor? Could you go to slide 31? I just want to make sure I have some clar um clarity on what I'm looking at specifically. >> Can you tell me when to stop? Uh, this is Yeah, this is the one before it was the the proud BCME district. It was a slide just before that. >> Okay, got it. >> This one? >> Yep. >> Yes. >> Yep. All right. So, uh, just remind orient me again on this one. I'm so sorry. I This >> these are um these
064>> Tell me left side, right side, what what >> Yeah. So, by grade, the number of students that are participating in clubs um and um and the totals. So this this slide was actually I want to I want to double check this data only because I think we pulled this before all of our staff had updated their passport for good. But the but the concept is right which is that the number of students in the in that greenish color. Those are the students that are signed up for one club or more. Um and the students in that gray color are not in a club. Um and again this does not include sports. >> Okay. So, I want to just make sure I'm reading this correctly. So, if you look at the ninth grade, right, the
065207, >> sorry, on the the 207 are the ones that are not in any club. Correct. If you look at the top, okay, and the 157 are >> and then it gets they're probably I don't know. It It looks Okay. So, let me go with an overarching question in this here. What can be done to engage more of these students? And I'm saying this because anecdotally, I know there are challenges for some of these clubs to even recruit members, but maybe there's various factors and reasons why, but you know, I think there perhaps could help to build a greater sense of quote unquote belonging. um by having more of these students brought up into the clubs. And I think last year we talked about something like this. >> Right. Right. >> And I think the
066the the challenge on this was what exactly the same. What do we do more of to build because the 753 this is really good. The 808 what can we make this to be even better? Um because I I worry in a school district that where we are today that we don't have that level of engagement. I think that engagement lends itself to a lot more peer-to-peer interactions. There's that social interaction and building a lot more of that community sort of a feel within the schools and with those and I'm wondering to to what extent those kids that are in in that total 808 number, you know, did we miss them in fifth grade? Did we miss them in fourth grade? Did what point did we miss them that their participation level did not continue or
067just did not stick in um in the high school? Cuz I mean, in an ideal world, you'd want to see this number be even greater because if we have a club for just about everything, so to speak, I I think maybe there's something that we might be missing and I'm not sure what that is. So, I'd like to see a a lot more stickiness of getting um students participating in some sort of a club that would be of interest. And I don't know what the solution is, whether it's a it's a club that that meets, you know, it at a, you know, earlier time. I'm I imagine there's lots of challenges to this but and there's a lot of variability in why but again I think creating that sense of belonging within this um within
068the school is critically important and just I'm looking to find from you where that should begin what should happen what are you what kinds of plans do we have to make this number to be >> half of what it is in the no club bucket >> right right so I mean we have worked on of a few things. And I think going back to this work that that Owen was so instrumental in with with with Claremont School, for example, having our older students show what robotics clubs are like at the at the youngest ages, I think are is starting to help get that um going. I know our our science research students go and visit and support the uh the science fair. um connections between um AMD and OHS um in in theater or in
069other clubs. Those are ways that we are trying to build that up. Um I think last year, if you recall, um I don't have those numbers in front of me, but I remember last year we were really struggling with freshmen and we thought, how can we make sure that our freshmen know? Um we did, I think, a better job this year of making sure that our freshmen were really um invited and encouraged to participate. And so that number actually is is higher than our 10th graders this year. Um so we still have work to do obviously but I think we are going in the right direction with that. And then again you know um not all clubs are equal. So so we have some clubs um and same thing with sports. So if you're involved
070in in sports and depending on what level you are if you're varsity you might not have time for a club. Um you might be doing sports and and that's about it. So you're seeing those that that piece as well about students that are just in sports that about you know 17% of our students. Um and so that that's a piece of it too. But I I I definitely agree with you. We want our kids to feel connected. Um it's part of the work that student council has been doing with those symposiums with the club symposiums hearing from other students about how is it that we can spread this? What what else can we do to to get kids excited about clubs? Um, one of the things we also have is an opportunity for students to
071um, uh, propose new clubs and there's a whole process for proposing clubs. Um, and that has been pretty successful in getting students to um, make sure that we're hearing from them of what they want. Um, but we'll still continue to work on that. >> Yeah, I I appreciate that. So, I just want to start to see this number really start to go down. Not a little bit by by like really big numbers. So, thank you. >> Uh Melissa um thank you for the presentation uh and the details that you provided in that I just had a have a few questions but um in an effort to follow protocol I will email the rest in and ask a couple now. Uh I did have a also have a question about passport for good. I know Owen
072brought it up. I remember when you know this is first a thought of the district taking on this um and some of the things that Owen brought up were some of the things we were hoping it'd be used for as well. Also along with um logging community service hours as well. So, I'm imagining those are things that are still on the radar in terms of just enhancing the capabilities of really showing a record of that non-academic Yes. >> involvement in the community and the school as well. So, >> um you kind of answered it already, but >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. That's that's definitely I mean I think we um if you think about it, we've kind of piloted it with clubs. Um, and then the next step is, uh, Miss Meer and I are
073talking about working with Miss Mauricio, our our counseling department, um, to be able to do the community service hours, the graduation requirements, um, this the seal of civic readiness, um, the seal of biiteracy, those those aspects, those pathways which are going to be so instrumental as we get to New York inspires. Um, it's good that we have these uh, in place that that'll help these structures, >> right? Um and just a technical I guess question approximately how many clubs do we have and I don't know if this is too you know meta but what would constitute a club is it like cuz there's stuff on the slide you have under equity and community involvement are those clubs right as as it >> No those those are not. So, the clubs we have about and I'll
074get you the exact amount when I sit down, but uh we have about 60 clubs. Okay. >> Um and they they're a wide range. Um environmental club, we have, you know, robotics and engineering, we have business club, um we have uh uh mud club, ceramics club, um the theater, you know, drama, um uh law, you know, there's there's but in every category. I won't name them all, but in every category basically you could think of. And then some will uh come up with some that I just was we were just proposed one where >> they kids will learn to knit and crochet and listen to true crime. So I that was very specific and but I love it because that came right from students. So >> um >> when you say 60 clubs you mean
075at the high school. >> At the high school. This is Yes. And I'm I'm just talking about high school. There are so many at at AMD. I'm just talking about my work with the high school clubs. >> Okay. I'll um send in my other few questions because those are a bit more extensive in the detail I would like. >> Okay. >> Um thank you very much for the presentation. Um, I want to give kudos for the huge like the growth in chorus numbers is really impressive and it's so beneficial musically for chorus students especially to be singing in a larger group because it's very um feels very exposed and it's kind of difficult to really learn some of the concepts that you need to learn when you're not singing with anybody else, right? So, um
076I just want to give credit there to um you and the staff for really, you know, promoting it. Um and I think that 80% of kids in a club or sport is a good number. Um but like kind of we're hearing echoes about I am curious about that 20% of kids who aren't and I know some kids work after school, before school, provide child care for siblings by their time they're in high school, etc. But I I am curious about that and I don't have any specific question. I just like to understand who those students are better. >> Right. >> Um the other thing, there's two other things that jumped out to me and I don't expect to have solutions for those things, but I do find it curious I should say that it looks
077like males are less likely to take more than what is minimally required in fine arts and cultural arts than um female students across all cultures. Um that's a head scratcher to me. I don't expect you to say and yes and this is why. I am I don't like that. It's um >> and the other thing I noticed that I also don't care for and I also don't expect you to have like a quick solution for is the way that the um numbers in elementary instrumental or uh and and chorus involvement um become more equitable once students all have access to it as part of a curricular. um school day group indicates to me that there is a lack of equity in elementary school. I assume because of either time or transportation outside of the school
078day or an inability to get to school before school begins for our Hispanic students because that's the group that that grows at the middle school level. Um I I'm saying this with the understanding that if space is already at a premium when more kids are in the room nobody is receiving quality experience which is not good for any of the students. Um, I just hope that as we, you know, if our community has generously, um, funded our, uh, facilities work that if that problem is solved for that that we'll have more of an ability to solve this because to me, I look at this and I see an equity issue there for our Hispanic students. >> Um, and like I said, I don't expect Tate Matthews to say, "Yeah, and this is what we're going
079to do about that. problem solved. Equity is solved. Um, but I I just I kind of want to publicly acknowledge that I see it and I like it, >> right? >> Um, >> so I guess if you have any ideas, >> I I think I think you're you're exactly right. I mean, it's it's the structure of of how we, you know, how we have our our before school programs in the elementary school. You know, I think some of the things that we have done to combat that are to make sure that our programs within the school day are as vibrant and rich as they can be. So, making sure that we have a strong recorder program in in and ukulele and guitar and piano, you know, through through elementary and middle school that those opportunities
080within the school day are really strong. Um, that our visual arts programs during the school day are very strong. I think those those are ways that we're, you know, we want to support students. I do think this will be a great opportunity when you have a a fifth and sixth grade building to think rethink what that looks like um and and what does fourth grade look like and and how can you change it knowing that kids are going to be in um in a different setting for fifth and sixth grade that could more mirror a sixth grade program. So I think that will give us some opportunities to really think about it then. Um, and I think we just continue to try to make sure that again our communication is that this is this is
081open to all. Um, and we'll do the best we can to fit as many students as we can in that space that we have and do it safely and appropriately. >> Yes. And I would point out also that our school district does allow students to join in middle school and a lot of instrumental music programs do not allow students to join that late. >> That that is Yes. Thank you for saying that because that's actually really important when you see in sixth grade we in fifth grade students have the opportunity to select their music uh elective for sixth grade and that is an opportunity for us to then have students join orchestra chorus or band who were not able to do it in elementary school. So those numbers really grew. >> Um thank you. I
082would also just point out to my colleagues if you read your recent onboard magazine the very like front page top half article is about the importance of arts and education and there's actually another uh article within that um focuses on band specifically um kind of to the benefits that uh Rob was talking about earlier. So great um just check that out everyone. All right. Um, I think we're good for Kate and I think we're ready to head so much. >> Oh, Annie's got one more question. It looks like Go ahead, Annie. >> Um, I was just thinking when everyone was speaking and I agree with what everyone said about, you know, the inequities and wanting to capture those students. Just anecdotally, I see as some kids get older, they like, for example, dance, some of
083those kids starting in third grade take seven dance classes in a week. So, by the time they're in high school, they might be taking 10 or more and they maybe prefer that as instead of something that is actually at school. So, it's not that they're doing nothing, it's just that they're doing it somewhere else. I'd be curious if there would be a way to capture that data. So, we >> Yes. Yes. Uh again, Miss Mar and I were talking about how can we survey students to find out and get an accurate reading on what students are doing after school. I think that'd be very helpful. And then and and I think we should tap into and and support students. If you're doing child care after school, how can we support you to be the best
084child care provider you can be? You know, what skills can we give? if you're working in a job after school, how can we pro how can we support you in resume writing or or other job uh training that would help you be successful in those roles so that we have that school and outside of school connection. So I think that's a good point. There's also, just building on that, there are ways to organize yourself. Even if you're providing child care for a family member that makes yourself a business, that makes yourself marketable, that builds your resume. you know, just because you're taking care of a family member doesn't mean that you don't have something real entrepreneurship that you can build and then use in college applications or as a jumping off point for work um
085after high school. So, I'd be curious to know, you know, if there is a significant percentage of students that are doing that, if there is a way to connect them to support that can help them see it a little bit differently. >> That's a good suggestion. >> All right. Thank you, Kate. >> Thank you. >> On to more work session information. We'll get to learn even more about our programs at school. I'll uh turn it over to Mary Fox alter to introduce our next speaker. >> So um and again uh I think we can all just tell from Kate's report the level of enthusiasm, professionalism and energy that you have and it certainly shows in all aspects of the program. So thank you for that. >> Uhu. >> All right. So now we are ready
086to um have our new director of state STEM Asa Shikapashwa come up and talk about the um our STEM programs. Right. Asa is um in the middle of his first official year in the role. Many of recognize him as an assistant principal at OS last year. So I want to also thank Peggy Galott who's here this evening for helping support our particularly math programs in the elementary school. Welcome Asa. >> Thank you. Good evening. Um I'd like to thank uh you know just like begin with a couple thank yous. Um you know I want to thank our educators, our fabulous educators uh who are in the classroom with our students every day. Come motivated, inspired and prepared. um to share their knowledge with our students. Um our math teacher leaders and uh math curriculum coordinators
087at elementary and secondary um who are helping lead that work at grade level at each school. Uh and our principles, you know, for steering the ships and and and their vision, right? And us as directors coming alongside them and supporting that vision. uh as well as a fellow director for uh collaboration, our superintendent and her cabinet for all the support they give us and this board which represents the community for your support and your trust in us as well. So thank you. Uh you know STEM is uh all our work. Uh so I'll just start with um just pulling one sentence from our vision which is we strive to be a model uh a model education system that puts equity in the forefront and I think you will see from this presentation that um our
088STEM program here uh in Austin um really embodies that first sentence uh of of the vision. So what we'll see is we'll see these goals reflect uh the excuse me the STEM goals reflect that first sentence. Um within each uh goal um I'll discuss the tier one uh teaching and learning data literacy equity and family and community. So our STEM work this year is about creating a coherent equitable PK through 12 system so that every student is prepared um for high level math such as algebra 1 as well as high level um science pathways. So I'm going to focus on three instructional priorities uh to connect uh excuse me three instructional priorities that connect everything. Forgive me. Just give me one second. Start. >> Okay. So uh the first goal here in um STEM department
089is that by June 2026 we'll increase uh the New York State Education Department grades 3 through eight mathematics proficiency rates and region's performance in algebra 1, earth and space science and biology by a minimum of two to three percentage points through the implementation of targeted instructional strategies, differentiated supports and datainformed interventions. questions. So, the three things that I'll I'll probably, you know, talk about mostly are the uh 3x5 math plan, um the 5D instructional model, uh as well as some of the data that we're going to we're going to look at tonight. So, with the 3x5 math plan, it's really about vertical and horizontal alignment in in what the students would experience in the classroom. So, I'll explain what that is. It is uh grounded explicitly explicitly grounded in the New York State uh education
090university briefs that were released last spring. Uh there were about eight briefs that were released and the focus of these was how do we improve mathematics achievement in New York State all research based. It was research done over two years by New York State or research based. So the three in the 3x5 math plan stands for the three dimensions of teaching and learning which are conceptual understanding uh procedure fluency and application. This is the lens in which the teachers would approach uh teaching math in the classroom. Um and the five uh uh five represents the five proficiencies that students should exhibit um when they have mastered math. And those five proficiencies are conceptual understanding, uh, fluency, adaptive reasoning, strategic competence, and productive disposition. So, what we're going to see is that everything really points to
091this 3x5 math plan because we are trying to get our students uh, and we're we strive to get our students to be mathematicians. And to do that, uh, we want them to, uh, we want to see evidence of proficiency in some of the work that they do and eventually reach uh, mastery. So this ensures that no matter what the classroom or school is, uh students experience math in a consistent way because this becomes our umbrella in which everything else that we introduce or everything else that we expand on um you know uh falls under and there's been great work that was done before I took this this position um and laid a really strong foundation and we're really trying to take that foundation and just build upon that foundation uh so that our students are
092reaching even greater heights. The next thing I'll point your your uh your attention to would be the 5e instructional model. Now the 5 instructional model has been around for a while. It is researchbased. Uh it's in the district. It's alive in the district. uh even before I I said like we got to focus our STEM on the 5B model and the E stand for engage, explore, explain, elaborate and evaluate. So what does that mean? It means that at the beginning of a class, uh a do now would represent something like this. I'm going to ask the board this question. All right, so this for you. So you're my class right now and I'm going to ask you this question. Is it true or false or convince me? Okay. Doubling the side length of a square
093doubles its area. I'll read that again. Doubling the side length of a square doubles its area. And I'll let you think about that for a second and any volunteer could give me that answer or what they think is the answer. >> I think it's false. >> Okay. So what makes you say that? >> I think the area quadruples. >> Okay. So in a lesson as a teacher, I would not say yes or no to that. I would want to engage more students and get their responses. So the idea here is that curiosity comes before instruction. We want our students curious and that engaged portion invites every student in the classroom into the conversation. Okay? And that's what the 5e model is all about. It's student centered and it's inquiry based and that's where we're trying
094to get all our students. >> Am I right? No, but like was she right? I don't know if right. >> So So again, being my students in a classroom, we're not going to we're not going to get to that answer until we get to the explain portion of the 5e. And because that's only they engage and I haven't taken you to the explore, I'm not going to tell you whether it's right or wrong. when you when you tell the students early whether they're right, you know, then you know they may think they know they don't need to pay attention the rest of the lesson, right? So want them to come on the journey with us, right? So >> I'm going to go on Goth. I got you. >> So um and we have other things
095here that I I'll I'll point your eyes to really quickly. um the math incubated PLC's and STEM incubated PLC's and we'll get to that a little later on. Um and of course u working with uh Owen and uh the science research team at the high school. Uh it was very interesting when Owen sent me an email about what he wanted to do because when I came into this role, one of the things that I thought about was the pipeline of science research, engineering, robotics, computer science, you know, at the high school. Being at the high school, seeing the quality of students that were there, uh amazing students, but also seeing that the numbers could also be improved. Uh so I had this great idea coming into uh you know the fall and then Owen sends
096me an email and Miss Prior Gro has got her ideas and we those three ideas converge into the same thing. How do we start at the lower schools right at elementary especially fifth grade and bring you know start to uh expose students to science research ideas. The robotics team goes down to Claremont they're being exposed to robotics and engineering ideas. Uh the idea behind this is the more students see themselves as scientists, the more likely that they'll participate in a lot of these programs when they get to the high school. So hopefully um you know as Kate came before us and and and we looked at the participation of clubs um you know that's something that we can collaborate on that we do collaborate and we we we talk about that. So uh that's another
097way in which we can improve participation in clubs but also just in uh access to higher level courses at the high school or different science and math courses at the high school. Uh I'll talk a little bit about data literacy and you know data helps us decide where to look more closely right it doesn't make decisions for us as far as um you know in instruction but it kind of guides us right um and so this work that we do we we uh you know we focus on uh datainformed interventions uh instructional designs uh we've done a great work excuse me the the high school Latoya Langley has done a great job the principal there moving into quarterly assessments. Um, and what that has done is helped us get uh a much broader uh snapshot
098of how the students are doing with the within assessments. Um, another thing that we did as far as data was this summer we worked on modifying our benchmarks at the elementary school uh to make them cumulative as opposed to chapter-based tests. What this allows us to do, it allows us to really uh monitor how students are doing on a particular standard, even if that standard has not been taught. And what it does for teachers on that first benchmark early in the fall, it lets them know the students who are right in front of them, what they already know and how much time they should be spending on that specific standard. So, by modifying our standards to be cumulative, uh we're getting some great data and we're going to be able to show you that data.
099I'll be able to show you that data later on. As far as equity, um I think we talked about equity um you know with with Kate and you know with it being having a student centered uh 5D instructional model it speaks to equity as well um in that when we look at science research that's already happening with the explain and the exploring and engaging with robotics and engineering and the focus here is now to bring it to math as well right having more students with access to such an instructional program. It means that most more students uh can have access to um higher level math and higher level science as well. Uh we've also focused on a vocabulary progression. Uh Kate talked about the vocabulary that we have. Uh so what we did was we
100took we brought in our math teacher leaders uh in our district math council which is an all day um in all day um session. uh and we talk about what the vocabulary is at each grade level. What are the 10 to 15 high frequency words that they focus on at that grade level? And what we found was that uh some of these words are present at for on different different grade levels. For for instance, the the word denominator uh is is prevalent at the fifth grade especially uh but it's introduced at the fourth grade. And what was interesting was teachers of math teacher leaders having a conversation about how frequently they use denominator. So even though it's present at the fourth grade, it's used mostly at the fifth grade. So it doesn't become a high
101um high frequency word at the fourth grade, but it is a fifth grade. So this work is currently being done and we're still doing it. Uh creating studentfriendly definitions and how those studentfriendly definitions change from one grade to another as students move up. It lets teachers know um how how they should focus their instruction, what vocabulary to focus on, which uh you know ties in beautifully with our literacy goal in in the district with family and community engagement. Um we are again connecting um you know bringing the science research principles down to fifth grade uh in in one capacity uh using the science uh club after school club. Uh we have thoughts about how that's going going to work uh as the students move up into AMD. Uh we're still I think in the process
102of really having those discussions. Um AMD had a family math uh pathways uh information night uh on uh January 12th and this was to inform uh the middle school parents as the students move up into the high school what their options are, what are some of the pathways uh at the high school. Um we're also uh excited uh about the Claremont science fair that will be occurring this spring as well and our science research pro uh students who going down there to support um you know our young scientists uh at Claremont. Uh and moving on goal number two. Goal number two is about aligning uh a lot of the great programs we have so that uh students you know there's there's kind of like a smooth transition as students move from one grade to another
103from one school to another right um a couple things that I would I would highlight here is that uh we um we met with our uh stream teachers at the elementary uh making sure that their programs that students learn things uh you know at prek kinderg kindergarten, first grade as they go up, we get a little more rigor. Um, you know, so the students are not learning the same things. Uh, you know, doing over, but we're actually increasing the rigor rigor. Uh, the computer science program, we um met with secondary school teachers at, uh, AMD and the high school. And what was interesting was that um you know the work that's being done at the high school is done almost was done almost in a silo not knowing what the students are already coming in
104prepared with. Now how does this impact students? Well, a student may not, you know, uh be may not be able to participate in or may not know that they could participate in like an engineering program which requires some programming or a robotics program which requires some programming or may not really know what the options are at the high school as far as computer science and how far they can go if that's something that they were interested in. So we brought these teachers together and they were able to to look at their curriculum, look at their uh pacing guides, look at what they offer and in particular uh we introduced code HS uh which is a a fantastic program that uh really uh brings together our secondary uh computer science. Uh the next step is to
105really bring together our STEM teachers, engineering teachers, and robotics teachers to kind of start thinking about what that looks like starting at the elementary, moving up to the high school. what other options are they? What things should we be focusing on uh as we try to increase the uh options for our students? And again, more uh we'll talk about data. Um I've got some slides here that I I'll share with you as well. Um, one of the other things that we've done as far as alignment is we've uh really uh provided our elementary educators uh with additional supports uh to strengthen their instruction capacity in in mathematics. Um so that you know delivering 5 instructional model under the 3x5 plan um you know is you know always has uh there's always an opportunity for multiple
106entry points for our students. Um, in the in the fall there was a Claremont Steam Night. Um, that was great because the Westchester Children's Museum came came over and they had uh amazing activities for parents uh for families and their and their students to engage in. Uh, this spring we'll be having uh a Tang Math. Tang Math is a resource that we use, a supplementary resource that we use. Um, and we'll be having a Tang math night uh for the community. It'll be a virtual event. Um, also we had uh four students, two from Claremont and two uh fourth graders from Claremont and two fifth graders uh from Roosevelt who were uh selected to join the IBM Family Science Saturdays program. Uh they've had a couple weeks in already. uh they're doing a lot of
107great stuff AI included, robotics included and um it's a really great program and also uh some of the community engagements we have with Boseies and having some of our our elementary students and our high school students um going to some programs uh in partnership with Boseies such as the wolf sanctuary um and and other programs as well. So, I'm going to uh I'm going to switch gears a little bit and uh talk about our STEM data. Um kind of set the table. This is kind of just a timeline of some of the uh assessments uh that have been introduced under the next generation math learning standards and as well as the New York State science learning standards. And this just kind of gives you an idea of when the implementation years of of this uh
108of the curriculara were were excuse me the standards were the new standards uh as well as when we first uh introduced or when we first had that assessment here in Austin. Uh so the first couple couple slides really represents uh math and science. So I'll talk a little bit of what quarterly assessments are, what benchmark assessments are, and what unit assessments are. So a quarterly assessment is an assessment at the end of a quarter. Uh and and included in there would be everything that was taught in that quarter. Uh a benchmark assessment at the elementary is um is a shorter assessment of about 10 questions. uh but it has all the standards that the student is going to um come across uh for that year. Uh and then a unit assessment is an assessment that
109is given after a unit has been taught. Uh and this is occurring mostly at the middle school. So I bring that to your attention because here we have some I'm going to show you some benchmark data and I'll I'll just walk you through this uh a little bit. Here's a third grade benchmark. uh uh data and what you see on the first column is a standard. What you see in the second column is the question in that benchmark. Uh the third column gives you the percentage uh on the test that that standard is likely to appear every year. The uh fourth column gives you what our students what we did how we did uh last year in terms of percentage. Uh and then the the fourth colifth column we're comparing to Boseis. Uh as we
110can see from the first question we're you know we're we're minus 10 um Boseis it was a 37% compared to the region uh the region was 33% were 20 27%. So what you see in the last two columns is what we're doing this year. Right? So on the same standard uh that I was that we had 27% this year in the first benchmark we saw 62% of our students proficient. Um in the second winter benchmark we saw 57%. So as we go down the line I highlighted those in green where there was an improvement from the first benchmark to the second benchmark. And again a lot of these questions the topics have not been taught yet. So this is not like everything's been taught. A lot of these they haven't been taught yet, right? So
111we're halfway through the year. So if you said half of them have been taught, which may not be accurate, it might be like 40% of them have been taught and 60% have not been taught. Um so there has been midway through the year there's been some movement uh where there's there has been some improvement uh with uh these questions as measured by the benchmark uh for the fourth grade uh benchmark data uh we can see also that we have some improvement uh from the fall benchmark to the winter benchmark. Uh if we look at question number one um you know we have a dramatic uh increase of course from 70% to 90%. Uh this question in particular asks students to um you know tell the difference when a student has say four four uh you
112know 11 I think something like four four apples and another student has 20 apples. How many more apples does uh someone have? What equation represents that? So this is actually connected to uh it is algebraic uh reasoning algebraic thinking operations of algebraic thinking. So uh and this you know this is the work that we're doing. We're really trying to work on these algebraic skills early but the best way to do that is you we have to measure where our students are and make some uh you know some important decisions as far as instruction is concerned. Where do we uh focus? So for example these benchmarks have been looked at at uh by our teachers. Um there was a particular question um that number sense uh question and that that was focused on rounding and we
113noticed that a lot of our students in the fourth grade were actually missing it but there was one particular class who who uh was who mastered it. So we then have those conversations with our teachers and say well what did you do differently in your class that all your students uh seem to have gotten this question and some of our students are struggling this question and that teacher was able to share the best practice. We put that in a document and we did that for every single question. And uh even though this is an overall view, there's some classes that are performing really well in some of these standards and we tend to excuse me and we tend and we're sharing what those best practices are so that they're universal on that grade level, right?
114So, uh we anticipations of the third benchmark is going to be even better, right? Because we're sharing these best practices. Uh we see more of the data here um for uh fifth grade and again a lot of green meaning that we are moving uh the needle uh this you know and we're only halfway through and again not all of these have have been uh taught. So if you look right at the top of this um this slide you see that star means it hasn't been taught yet. um you know but we see how students are performing on on on those right now which means uh and part of it is because our teachers are looking at the uh the curriculum tool that they're using and they're saying we can start to teach some of these
115uh concepts or embed them as we teach along the way. One of those is bar modeling which is taught right around this time but our teachers have been doing it since the fall. Right? So students are getting that skill much earlier before they get to that unit or the chapter. Uh shifting over to um Regus data and and what I have here is uh where we were last year in June at um 58% of our students being proficient. And though you know that's not where we want to be and uh our focus this year is to is to be higher than this of course um when we look uh further at what came out uh this week about how we compare to the state uh we we did outperform the state last year uh in
116uh in algebra one regions which is which is great. It's not where we want to be. Uh and again, we we're striving to get a lot higher. Uh but it is encouraging to know that um we outperformed. Uh the year before were on par with the state of 62%. This year uh we're 58, the state's at 56. Uh which uh gives us indication that the test must have been uh a little bit more challenging since uh you know there's a drop in the state um you know results as well. What I have next is is where we are right now as far as uh our algebra and uh I'll show you a slide on algebra one uh earth and space science as well as biology. So using the quarterly assessments what we've been able to
117do is we've been able to take the data from the first marking period or or the fall the first semester uh and the second semester we just completed midterms uh last week at MD and the week before at OS. So this this this data is is new. Our algebra one teachers had an opportunity to uh pour through their data and this data today. We had an old day session and that is our incubative PLC uh where our teachers look at their data how the how their students performed in a specific standard. Um we then looked at the state exam um and matched that standard to the state exam standard. uh we then anticipated or projected how well our students would do if they had that state exam today and based on what we thought they
118they would do uh we came up with a high priority standards that we're going to focus on uh moving forward the standards that we saw in 85% proficiency or greater uh on the midterms uh you know are are not necessarily a high priority. Yes, there are 15% of our students who who still haven't mastered that, but we really focused on those standards that were less than 85% and considering those as high priority standards and where we really need to um focus now at the high school we have that 0.5 um you know the algebra lab um really f you know re readjusting adjusting our our focus to really focus on these high priority standards as far as how they reflect excuse me, how that data reflects what the students might get on the regions. Um,
119so the teachers today came up with lesson plans, shared lesson plans, shared ideas on how to teach that the the students that did the best on these or the classes that did the best on these standards, uh, shared what those best practices were. So together coming up with a plan on how exactly we are going to, uh, readress some of these standards and how we're going to teach some of the standards that haven't come up just yet. So again the green represents um an improvement from last June um as of right now and we we've done only half the curriculum uh thus far. Uh so there is some movement in the positive direction um you know uh while we also see there's a couple standards here that are not uh where we want to be.
120So we we do recognize um you know I use the analogy of u you know I like sports I like football so I use the analogy of a of a football game this is halftime and we have to make the readjustments to come back and win the game and that is our focus uh we need to uh support our students and and definitely achieve better. Uh the next slide is a biology data. Um again some movement in the biology data. Again the biology exam is is a new assessment right we uh we took part in the in the first administration of that assessment last June. Um and uh using that data uh we are also going to have uh we're also having u an all day biology uh PLC that's going to address the standards
121uh shortly as well and as well as our earth science data earth and space science data which also uh we see some movement from last year and again this is just familiarity now with what the assessments like uh keep in mind that as our teachers taught this new curriculum last year there were no assessments out there at all. Uh there was some sample assessments from from the state, but it wasn't nearly enough to uh give us a bet a good indication of what that assessment was going to look like. So uh this is an improvement uh definitely from from June. And again, we're not satisfied until we we're hitting that 80% mark of proficiency in on the standards with our with our students. So I'm I'm going to take you a little bit through uh
122one of the analysis uh you know so what we do as far as answer analysis. Um and I want to point your attention to uh the highlighted uh multiple choice question six and multiple choice uh question 11. And again, you know, we thank Kathy Connley for really coming along and helping us understand our data, helping us put together. Um so if you look at uh multiple choice question number six, you notice that the correct answer choice here was four and 60% of our students and this is quarter one data. First 60% of our students uh got that question right. We see that 40% of our students did not get it correctly but they will spread across. That seems to tell us that those students seem to have guessed and maybe have guessed what that answer
123what that answer might have been. So what does this do for a teacher? What does it do for us? It tells the teacher that that those 40% students need this uh standard to be rettaught to them, right? They need a retaching in a different way. Um where 60% of those students have mastered uh this particular question, this standard that this question assesses. If you look over multiple choice number 11, you have 63% of our students um who have mastered uh this standard. The 24 is highlighted because these 24% really thought that was the answer. So now this is a different case of how you look at this question because you look at it more as a uh there's a conceptual misunderstanding happening here because a lot of these students actually thought that was the right
124answer and then the other 13% uh you know probably guessed and so how we retach or address this standard in the classroom once we have this data is different for every student. So a student who uh achieved mastery on the standard would probably would get an enrichment activity. A student who had a misconception um would be uh would be targeted differently in terms of the teaching than a student who completely guessed who needs to who needs a reticular standard. So that's our answer analysis and this is just a graph that that uh would look at would look at a specific period a specific class and we say look period f all you uh you know 100% of your students did great on this particular question what did you do right and really get from that
125teacher uh what that best practice is and we share it among our uh uh our teachers and then a reteing would really be in a different way. So, what's next? Um, really building shared understanding of student performance like we did today. Uh, sitting all day with our algebra one team from the secondary uh AMD teachers, OHS teachers all sat down in a room and we looked at uh the midterms. Uh, we looked at the regions. Uh, we looked at how our students are performing. Uh, we looked at best practices. uh and we agreed upon what's next. What do we do next with our 0.5 uh with our reteing of a standard? How do we teach that test? Um we identified those priority standards um and instructional gaps. Um and again it designed the targeted 0.5
126algebra lab intervention aligned to regions. Uh in addition to this with the science we we're going to have a similar process with earth and space science from uh teachers from both AMD and OHS tomorrow and this continues with the bio uh teachers as well in the next couple in next week as well. >> Okay. Thank you. >> So if I could just add for a minute just only because uh with math and science I think as could be here for two and a half hours because the depth and breadth of it. It was very similar to what we spoke about with Laya and English and literacy. So I I I I would hopefully we picked up on there was a lot here and again I I we talk about all the time how we end
127up in educational ease or all kinds of acronyms that get associated with certain topics. But the important takeaway here and um um I just want to recapture it ASA for everybody is that taking a look at the work we brought in a a really strong data consultant who you heard from earlier this year and we spent a lot more time, effort and energy and then we created things like and I want to thank the board for that because it was in last year's budget proposal. We created math uh elementary teacher leaders. We created a math council. These are the targeted groups that ASA spoke about. We we identified a number of really important strategies. Those of you who attended the summer retreat heard the talk about the three reads protocol. I think Miss Shamsy actually
128gave the board an exercise on what that means and how powerful it is. But it leans heavily into uh literacy as well. You heard from Kate, you heard from Laya, you heard from Asa about this really explicit approach towards vocabulary. We were looking for cross-disciplinary approaches and then this deep dive into the item analysis questions which we get from the state on what topics of kids and how. ASA has a slide up here talking about what are the type of assessments we're giving locally so we could use that data to help measure are we addressing these key concepts. He focused heavily on algebra because just like the English regions, the algebra regions is the must-have exam at the high school level. And as we know, there's resources put together for algebra. it's a double period
129at the high school and trying to see how we approach that to make sure all of our kids do well. We needed those type of structures and really a a a datainformed practice as to what we can do, what concepts are our kids missing. And again, I want to thank particularly Miss Langley at the high school for bringing about a uniform approach to some of these things because this information is really important for our students. Uh the typical in New York State, I I feel the pain for any high school parents who've gone through this. Switching an exam in biology and earth science when you haven't really moved the curriculum or we don't have data to test on it is always a tough place to be. But that is typical New York. Here's hoping New
130York inspires does change that. But just in terms of an overarching approach to this presentation tonight coming off last year uh ASA is new at this this year that that was the approach we took towards this presentation this evening. Thank you Asa. >> Thank you. Thank you mayor. >> All right questions from the board. Want to start? >> I can go. Sure. Um, thank you very much. Um, I have I I appreciated this and I really like the data and being on the curriculum review committee. Um, you know, we talked a lot about different areas that we could focus on, whether that's math or ELA or, you know, all kinds of different areas. And I think this is the kind of analysis that many of us were were thinking it would be nice to do.
131And it is great to see that it's it's being done and that decisions are being made and things are being adjusted in real time sort of all the time. So that gives me a huge level of of comfort. Um, I know that I think Mary, right around the time that you joined us, there was a shift made at the middle school with respect to algebra in terms of students being eligible to take it or maybe I'm misremembering, but I'm wondering how that has played out in terms of scores and whether or not we've seen now that that's been opened up if it has been if I'm memoring if I'm remembering properly if that's resulted in higher scores throughout >> we have um that that's a real comprehensive conversation I think Dr. and over also highlighted
132a little bit in her presentation. We'd be happy to share that data. We've been increasing in that. And again, it's taking a look at the kids that are in seventh grade who are in accelerated math, but being very explicit about the algebraic concepts and when they're taught and how they're taught as aligned with increasing more access and ability for kids, right? So, we're happy to share more of that data with you. Yeah, I'm just I'm interested to know whether or not that's shifted the needle um or we've seen a meaningful difference at all. >> You look like you might have a question. Do you have a question? >> Yeah. And it's almost um it's more of a clarifying. So maybe it's me or other board members might find it um clarifying. So slides 21, 22,
13323 with the benchmarks and then later on in the presentation with other sort of standards and benchmarks. I want to make sure I I guess I understand what I'm looking at with all the codes and everything. So >> when you have a benchmark question that's based on certain New York state type of question, correct? Right. what the kids learn. So is what we're looking at is are you saying that okay here in Austin we did some sort of assessment or question that we Austinine developed gave to the kids and then here's the outcome. So in the spring of looking at slide 23 for example >> okay >> we presented this type of question NY-F NY-5 NF1 number sign one two a question like that to the kids that we developed spring of 95 that's 25
134that's who percentage got correct then we compared that to what PNW did and we compared that to a region and then we did the question again that type again in the fall of 25 and then we did that type of question in the winter 26. >> Can you just clarify if I'm understanding that correctly like where are you getting the questions from? And then the second part of that is once I understand that is do you then consider taking that and mapping that potentially to New York state test to say okay this is a question we provided to the kids how it benchmarked amongst ourselves does that align with that similar type of question on the state norm test I want to make sure I understand maybe others did but I I admittedly was a
135little lost with these type of slides >> thank you for the question um so what you see in the third column here where he says um you know average correct spring 25 that is the New York state assessment. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> So these questions so we took this New York state questions and created a benchmark. So these are actual New York State questions that we used to create a benchmark. So what we're seeing is um in the fall that was administered. So, it's really like the students are taking the New York State assessment, but we selected specific standards and specific questions. >> So, I think Rob, just to highlight for one second, I think this important piece of information because I know this board was quite vocal about this. When our kids sit
136and take the state test, we uh we were never allowed to see the questions. Uh so now the state has an entire uh analysis piece where we get to see close to 80% of the questions which helps informs us as a district. Where's the gap in instruction? How did our kids do? How did our kids do in comparison to the region and then to the state? And then if you take a look at it and you take a look at someone who did really well, a particular teacher, a particular student, you can basically turn around and say, "How did you go about teaching that concept?" Because I I see that it's it's different than and so you're talking about instructional practices. So the model is basically what Austin limit place advocated for that we get
137to use this data in that fashion. >> Okay. So, so column three average percent correct is the New York State test results. >> Correct. >> On that on that standard, >> correct? >> Okay. Then that then the column the next column is comparing that to Putham North and Westchester. >> Correct. >> And then the next column is comparing our results to the region. >> Correct. >> Okay. So then what are the last two percent correct fall 25 benchmark and winter because those are not New York State test, right? because test was given in the spring. So what are those two? >> Okay, so so this test is again these are these are questions directly from uh the assessment from the year before. Uh so they released these questions and we use them and so forth.
138So this is a benchmark now we administer to our students and this is the result that we got. So and then we administered again in the winter um you know in January and then we got uh the last column. >> Okay. So you're taking the questions that were released on the test, >> correct? >> Then we're going to present them back to the kids and say, "Okay, now let's see how you do." And that's what the fall >> and the winter is. >> Correct. Next year kids. >> Got it. All right. And then so is the same principle then apply to the algebra standards on 20, you know, slide 26 when it says percent of students successful. Is that the same principle there? >> Yes. >> Okay. Taken from the algebra test. >> Correct. >>
139From the spring. Okay. kids answer this percent successful. >> Yes. >> Got it. Thank you. >> And I think maybe Asa, it would be helpful for the board in your next update to pull a question like New York State, you know, question number 7C, the exact language. >> Yes. >> And then pull it from what we give as a local so of the board could see exactly what these refer to. >> Right. No, that was very very helpful. So now I actually my real question is out of all these strategies tang math 3x5 are there like a couple that like really like you've got a lot of things going on. So like a couple that you like that say oh yeah this is where we see the most like is it the tang is it
140the 3x5 just curious about if if there's something there that does you know helps or is it dependent on the student the grade and more variables. >> Thank you for that question. Um it is really more dependent on the grade. Um so for instance uh now Tang Math is a resource right it's not a curriculum it's a resource it's our go-to uh for certain things and one thing that we've discovered this year is how effective Tang math is at tier one interventions right so where a student is not performing at grade level a teacher can jump into Tang math and go to that same concept of standard and actually trace it back to where it starts from and start building the foundation for that student so that's been effective that way. Uh we have our
141three reads protocol which is really effective for students understanding how to read a word problem and answer a word problem. Uh so depending on the case uh we using different resources to uh you know to help our students uh you know reach proficiency. >> Got it. Okay. Thank you >> Owen. So, I wanted to touch on just I think one thing really is the pipeline that you mentioned um that we were talking about and this also I think goes into Miss Matthews presentation as well. Like we've when I met with Dr. over. Back in the fall, we spoke about kind of integrating some type of thing in the spring to present our clubs and our classes to incoming freshmen so they have more of an idea of what they're going into and not just that
142course fair right at the beginning of the year. So, I think that is something that we we might do earlier in this later in the spring. And I think that also addresses one of the questions that was brought up like how can we make sure that we're decreasing that number of students who aren't involved in anything, >> right? And then the other thing, I know this presentation really only looked at the algebra one um class, but I think kind of from being in the high school and qualitatively like our more advanced classes like our our uh AP and Sunni stats classes and our AP and Sunni calculus classes are really that they're they're packed this year. There is a lot of students in them and I know I know calculus AB has three sections. So
143I think like that's also goes to the pipeline like how we're starting in Alberta and then going from there. >> And then my one question was about the quarterly assessments. Um so would that be focused on regions classes specifically or would that also go to other science and math classes like where where are you? >> Okay, thank you for that question. Um and thank you for the work that you're doing at at at Roosevelt. Uh it really helps build that pipeline. Uh thank you Owen. Um so our quarterlys are really focused in STEM on regions ending courses. Uh that's where our focus is. Uh so this year um we went with of course algebra one uh biology and earth and space space science as well as geometry. >> Uh come fall we'll be looking at
144adding more uh steps. So chemistry and physics come online in the fall as well as algebra 2. >> Yeah. The only thing that that kind of I I thought about when you mentioned that is just for some of the elective classes like you know we have forensics, anatomy, sports medicine incorporating like quarterlys in those might kind of lose the appeal for students because they're going into the class kind of just to have fun and learn about it and not see it necessarily as a test. So it's good that we're it's just really sticking to the core. So >> thank you things needed for graduation and requirements. Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. And I think that's also some of those assessments or results. We could add more of those to our osing by the numbers
145report that we given the spring too. >> Yeah. >> All right, Annie, >> thank you for the presentation. Um, I really liked your explanation of the answer analysis that we're doing this year. I was just really impressed with how far you're taking the data and how you can, you know, pick out singular students or teachers that are doing something right or who need more help. And it's just really nice to see the data being used to further the further the kids. Um, my main question is about demographics, which it usually is. I'm wondering if you've been able to identify groups that need more support even with all of this and what what you're doing to, you know, close that gap. And then going off of that, I remember the elementary school specifically talking about adding
146in, you know, different cultural cultural elements to, for example, math questions. And I'm wondering if there's been any kind of increase in proficiency because of those things. And that's not something you have to answer right now. It's just kind of a general question. >> Okay. Um, and I'll answer you briefly. Thank you for the question. I'll answer you briefly. And I think this is where I think u you know we're really excited about the 5D instructional model because that's really the opportunity where in an engage uh activity uh a pre-skll can be assessed and and the teacher can get an idea before teaching you know what other supports a student might need as they give responses and the engage and the explore part of the lesson before the explicit instruction and the explain. So that's
147one that's one way that we're um you know looking at the gaps right addressing those pre-sklls before explicit teaching. Um the other thing is uh they engage is really an opportunity to introduce some cultural aspects. Uh, for instance, a teacher and and I'm going to talk science here because that's kind of like um you know um a teacher teaching chemistry for instance might introduce uh a Ganaian woman in the village making black soap. That's an acidbased reaction normally associated right with uh a Swedish scientist who actually you know um you know who who wrote and and introduced the ideas of science. Um there was a teacher last year who uh had traveled to uh Mexico, I believe a village in Mexico, and she uh took note of how they were creating alcohol, right? And bringing
148that back to the classroom and teaching organic chemistry, you know, connects our students, right, some to something else culture. So, uh, really using like engage portions of of of lessons and this is what we're telling our our teachers and tell them to support them. Like that's a great way to introduce anything cultural. Um, anything that's different from what you normally see. Um, it could be just taking the bus, you know, at there was a teacher uh teaching um dimensional analysis in in algebra class and talking about how long does it take you to to get to school? Do you go by car? um you know or do you walk and using that and trying to um convert miles to kilometers and so forth. So local stuff as well as global stuff I think we're trying
149to bring that into the classroom. Yes. >> Just to highlight just because it's very confusing if you're looking at that slide about math data elementary benchmark. So it's the state of New York basically we look at this all the time. So sometimes we forget it's numbers operations in base 10 in grade five. What does that mean? So you would be looking at let's say element question number six you know section benchmark six number two that could be a question on decimals place values right orders of operations decimal notation to the 100. So, it's it's again it's a great way of being able to look at the state test with that level of specificity to help inform the local practice and how we need to be very targeted about our work. >> Melissa, thank you. >>
150So, thank you for your presentation. Um, I appreciate because I know one of the things as a district we were hoping to advance towards is equitable pathways to advanced math opportunities, right? And so your presentation I feel um shows that you're you know laying a lot of the groundwork to start earlier and earlier um introducing you know students to those opportunities and expanding their curiosity so that they can just organically want to engage in that stuff. So I really appreciate you showing those stepping stones that you're taking to really put that into fruition. Um it also isn't lost on me that you know cultural arts went in STEM so that steam. So, I really appreciate that being, you know, um, presented on the same night. Um, >> you know, as someone who's been on the
151forefront of bringing systemic equity to the district and making sure that how we apply things, you know, creates access across whatever demographics you can possibly think of. So, you know, I really appreciate what this is what this is showing that this is trying to build in terms of math. So, a lot of times I'll ask questions and this is kind of leading up to my question that have a consistency of curiosity because I like to see how things intersect. um when we talk about kind of assessing and we would talk about equity and how we provide offerings especially in in Steve I think there's certain things that I'm curious that kind of I think about outliers right so when I think about literacy we talk about reading literacy and sometimes it goes hand inand that
152we are looking for things like dyslexia and things like that I'm curious as to your take on discalculo which is often under under appreciated as a factor in difficulties of students, you know, reaching their true potential. Now, I will say what I appreciate about both our literacy approaches and what you're showing in our math our STEM approaches is that if you can build systemic models that kind of just support every type of learner, you really don't have to focus so much on the assessing for that particular thing. Mhm. >> So, it's a long-winded way of saying I'd be curious to hear and you know, you don't have to have a really long I'm I'm fine with getting feedback, but what do you think about the models that you see yourself building or currently have in
153place that can count for that kind of disculated component? Because I think it's such an underassessed um barrier for some students. sometimes it's the student, oh they just don't like math or oh they you know um you know and and so I'm just wondering what your what your take on that is and what your feedback would be as far as what you see for the vision of the program. Thank you for that question. And I think when we look at the 5D model, the idea that this is student centered, inquirydriven, that means that should mean that 30 25 to 30% of the lesson time is spent when students are doing. This is an opportunity for teachers to have those noticings right on where the student may be struggling and you can catch something like that
154if you if the students are spending 30 minutes or 30 minutes out of 40 actually doing the work. Whereas where we find it difficult is where the teacher spends more time teaching than the students working. Right? So I believe that we can start to uncover um some of the issues that our students may have uh as far as attaining uh the math um fluency that they that that they need with such a model. Uh in addition to a 3x5 model which calls for teachers to notice uh some proficiencies in the students. If a student cannot explain something right, it it it kind of draws a red flag. Either they didn't understand it or there's something going on where they might need other avenues to understand what they is what they actually do need to explain.
155Uh so for instance um we uh introduce a strategy where um students can either draw what what they think the expl they can draw the explanation, they can state it, they can show an example uh or they can elaborate on it. Right? So I think really looking at multiple ways but more importantly you know uh uh partnering with uh you know Jessica Gian Grand and and Lindsay about our students and what they know about them and and really that would be the approach once we notice things like that is really partnering with with uh our uh department of of uh special education and trying to figure out you know how we can support these students. >> Thank you for that. I appreciate that a lot of the um a lot of the approaches you know
156I'm no professional right in the field but I I think when you look at a lot of the approaches that work for whether it be dyslexia or discalcula a lot of them are things that can just be implemented right and I think I see that right and this and also some of the literacy based approaches is that it's just part of how we approach the work right and some of the things that you're talking about um either currently doing or you know can do to make sure you advance forward I think a really helpful foundation. So, I'm, you know, really glad to see that and thank you for what you're doing with the program. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Roger. Do you have any? >> Sure. Thanks, Asa. Appreciate this. Uh, I wanted to
157just take to the there's some questions I had just to understand a little bit more. Talk about code HS again. Um, uh, just help me understand what that is one more time. Sorry, I wasn't very clear. So just >> this is um the the biology or the biology stand. >> Okay. So the uh science the bullet says grades 6 to 12 computer science program alignment utilizing code HS. >> Oh okay sorry. Uh so code HS is um a computer uh platform computer science platform uh that provides actually um we're using it only for secondary but it's actually a prek through 12 computer science uh based program. Uh >> when you say computer science, can you give me a little bit more specificity? >> Um right. So so uh Python uh it'll have some uh CC+
158it'll have some um >> robotics uh like the Obot um it'll have some BBOT you know programming in there as well. So this program for robotics as well as just uh you know what we know traditionally as computer science coding. So this coding um so it's a platform that has several I mean it's it's really quite robust >> that that is great to know. I was not aware that this was going on. This is actually pretty pretty awesome. So thank you. Um I think you had mentioned something the effect of that um trying it said grades PK through 12 technology and engineering pathway alignment planning readiness to participate in high school STEM courses at the high school level. So a question for you I don't know if this has come up at all. Um as
159you're aware first sponsors the robotics they also have tech challenge as well as uh Lego League uh for that. um is has there been any discussions to integrate that as part of the the um uh prek through 12 because I think that does take it from a very young age on up through because it's part of the discovery and you know I mean it's just really kind of getting the motor skills and the tactile skills because you maybe that might be that pathway and I love the fact that this connects together to kind of create more of that CTE path yes of engineering data coding data science and prepping for the future. I think that's that's fabulous. So uh that is one of the primary reasons why we're having that meeting uh is because we
160see uh an opportunity to um spread the robotics down to elementary but also in thinking about you know what's coming up in a few years right uh CTE classrooms and you know we want to have students ready to jump into those classrooms. Uh that is that is one of the you know definitely one of the primary reasons why we're going to have this this uh meeting. >> Great. Thank you. Welcome. >> All right. Um first I want to say thank you for the presentation and and not just the presentation but the work that has obviously gone in not only to prepare the presentation but to have data to put into it. Right. Um I think this is like an expanded version. We've used this kind of example throughout the year when we saw um in
161Miss Ardu's class some math scores were really good in some classes. So you dig in and you say who's who was teaching these kids who got these good scores and what are they doing and how can we make sure everybody else starts doing that same thing. And this is just that same exact thing just multiplied um by so many. And it's so much to go through. Um, I just really appreciate how targeted of an approach it is because um, it allows us to really hone in on on what needs to be done and not spend time on the stuff that doesn't need to be done. >> Um, and it it I know it's it feels like New York State assessments are very consistent, right? So, we can use that from year to year, but the
162courses change, the requirements change, and so it's still a moving target. And so this work is never >> done. Um because you know there's always these little tweaks and what's on this year and what's not. So um I appreciate all the work that's gone into it. My colleagues have asked all the other questions. But I will say I have given it more thought since I've been sitting at this table >> and I am more confident in my answer. >> Okay. >> Oh. Oh. Back to um >> I have been thinking about it. I stand by it. It's false. That's a quadruple. Now, if you were in my class, you'd get an exit slip as part of the 5E as they evaluate and then you would know for sure. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Don't let the
163people who elected me to represent this community leave thinking that I am so bad at math. >> No, that is that is correct. >> The students saying, "When will I ever need to know this?" >> You can tell them you never know. You may be elected to the board of education and then you'll have your STEM director come and ask you a question. When you look around the table, you see nobody's going to answer this question. So, you better do it even though you majored in music. >> So, you are correct. I'll tell you that you are correct. So, now everybody in Austin knows you can do math. >> Thank you. You're also the flip side of the coin if you want to. >> Yeah. >> You're showing vulnerabilities. You're also expressing that to students
164that it's okay to be vulnerable and it's okay to have room to grow. >> You know what, Melissa? You were so right. I felt vulnerable. Thank you. Um, thank you so much for your presentation. >> Thank you for your time. Thank you so much. >> I want to thank Asa for his leadership. I think um um and Roger, I'm so glad you brought up the code HS. I think two years ago, this was something you explicitly asked for at the board table. I mean, you were looking for ways that you know what kind of tool, what's the best tool to approach? I don't know if I'm doing one project or another. Is it Python? Is it my like what is what are all those different tools? and this synergy around making sure that all of
165our um STEM pieces are articulated across and um across buildings and across grade levels that level. Um these were things that were mentioned by the board earlier. Um, and I think we will, Maria will make sure she gets some data about AMD to answer some of the other questions and we'll give you some samples of what these look like. So, you could all try at home and take a look at some of the >> I got the area one. Then this is going to get that far. I did I did get >> We should play the board version of Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grade. That should be really good. >> Thank you for your time. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you. All right. I think I might fail that actually. >> I
166needed indication there. All right. Um, we are still in our work session. We're, uh, next up is 2.2, our preliminary budget discussion, a much shorter presentation. Right. So, uh, the board looks forward to an update from Alita um, McCoy as soon as she we can get settled. Good evening everyone. I am here to um present an overview of the budget. Um we have been working diligently with our principles and our directors and HR Dr. um to uh populate the 2627 budget. Um but I'm just here to give you an overview, not really to present um hard numbers yet. Um you'll get that soon. Um but just some of the big cost drivers um that we typically see in budgets um school budgets and also the revenue sources and how those things are changing. So the
167biggest expense drivers are typically um uh salaries obviously because we pay teachers. >> Um so right now we're seeing right now we're seeing about a $4 million increase in salaries. Um TRS is actually um gone down as far that's the teachers retirement system is estimated um to go down about 700,000. Um ERS has gone up 230,000. Um health insurance is the biggest um issue here. Um the nightship plan has gone up um by $2.1 million. Um and you'll notice our transfer to capital um is going down and I'll talk about how um the changes in debt service. I'm going to talk about those two lines in particular, especially as it relates to the um the bond. So the estimated revenue um here that doesn't work. The estimated revenue here um the primary focus is on
168um our state aid. Even though I'm showing um an increase in aid um about 4.62% 62%. You should know that if you look at the state aid output reports um uh not the state the state aid um runs that were recently came out, you'll see that um there's a difference of negative half%. So actually our aid went down a half a percent. Um the reason why that happened or the reason why I'm showing this as an increase is because last year um the state did not complete their budget or um and so the numbers we were given um were before the state adopted its budget. So this page is budget to budget. Um now when you look at um what we're actually getting for um this school year and next school year, you'll know that
169our foundation aid is only increasing by 430,000. Our building aid has gone down by 613 and that will change once we start doing our final cost reports um for the bond. And the overall decrease in our state aid is $260,580. So, um I did check with our uh uh financial planners up in Boseis. Um our state aid planners, our experts, and there was no change to the foundation a formula. Um the the multiplier that I spoke about before is still in place. Um but we should know that the increases in state aid are not going to be as significant um as they have been in the past. The other thing that we're noticing here is our um interest income. Um in the past we in last year we budgeted at about 3.2 million. Um so
170now we see a drop. Hey Alita, I'm sorry. I'm not sure that the slides are syncing with what the where your voiceover is. Maybe I'm missing it because I'm I'm >> Yeah, this is the page. >> Oh, that is the page. Okay. Sorry. So, you're talking about the interest earnings line, right? When you're talking about >> Yeah, the um the interest earnings um has decreased by almost a million dollars. Um so, in the past we have budgeted about 3.2. So, we are noticing a significant decrease in our um in our um interest earnings and the nonpropy tax. That's really um the sales uh Westchester sales county tax. Um we see some slight growth there. Um so there hasn't been any real change in that figure. So, the biggest um areas of the budget, like I
171said before, are salaries and benefits, and they make up about um 72% of the budget. Um the other areas are are quite small. Um but that's the thing that we have to be the most concerned about. Um our debt service. um was 9.5 million. You'll notice that is 9.5 million now going up and our transfer to capital projection is going down. The other big C category is transportation. Um the contractual includes Boseies and consultants and uh utilities um anything contractual. uh the revenue rundown. Um state aid is now at 31% of our revenue which is the second largest. The next lot the biggest one is property taxes. Um so we you know that we determine uh what the uh tax cap is um which is due by March 1st. So we're still working on those
172numbers. Um, but that's where the most um income comes is from uh property taxes and county sales tax. Um, and then unfortunately uh a reliance on reserves and fund balance um is also a significant contributor to our revenue. Um, and that's something we need to talk about with regard to moving forward and knowing that our aid is not increasing um as significantly at as it has in the past um because we're fully phased in now >> and our enrollment has been flat, right? So right now as it stands at this moment, but this is an iterative process um we're anticipating using um capital reserve of about uh $3.8 million. Um we're looking at using our liability reserve and our um our grant fund loss our grant fund funding loss. So let me just go over
173the capital reserve. the capital reserve as you remember. No, the transfer to capital. So, the transfer to capital line, um, we're projecting that we're going to be spending approximately, uh, $6 million and I don't want to give the projects yet because we just have to refine the numbers. Um, you remember that line used to be $6.9 million. Um right now we are using money that is um available um in transfer to capital which is $2.169 $2.1 million. So the rest is coming from our capital reserve which is $3.8 million. Uh there are some health and safety um issues that need to be addressed. Um so we do have money available in our capital reserve. Um so we are using that in addition to available money that we have um from the debt service. The liability
174reserve you'll recall um that we established that reserve well we added money a million dollars to that reserve uh last year. Um, so we're using that money um to pay or offset the expense of settlements. And you'll remember that we set money aside for grant funding losses like the um MBK program, uh, New York Gear Up, >> mental health, >> and mental health. >> So that's how much is in the budget um for that loss, the expense, and it's being offset with the appropriation that we set aside. the appropriated fund balance and reserves is to be determined and obviously um the property um tax cap has not been determined either. Um with regard to I want to go over the debt service. So the debt service has increased from $4 million to almost $10 million.
175And um the breakdown is Uh the library is planning on doing a ban um soon and we anticipate the cost of the ban. They're looking to borrow $8 million. So we have interest costs of 320,000 budgeted in debt service. Um their original debt service that fell off or ended was 1.139. So that money, the difference of that, the 819 is going into capital as a a transfer to capital as a placeholder. Um, then we're taking out a ban for $12 million and we anticipate that cost to be $5.6 million. So we know we have 1.35 o left over from the 6.9. So altogether that's 2.1 million that we have in a transfer to capital that we have available as placeholders when the new debt the entire debt service comes on. Our current debt service is
1763 million and we have two EPCs which amount to 1 million. Um so that's um the difference in the debt service and why you'll see a large increase and you'll also see um transfer to capital projects. Um but the the the money besides the reserve um is accounted for um based on the change in the debt service and we need to keep that money there and hold it. Um so it can align with our debt service schedule for the library and also for our bond. >> Alita if you could just because we use the term all the time a ban for our viewers who might be what is a ban? The library is going to do what we're going to do. What is a ban? >> So, a ban a ban is a bond anticipation
177note. Um um you typically do that um for smaller amounts of money. We're not borrowing all of the money um upfront. The library's uh bond approved was 30 million. They're asking us to issue 8 million and um you know, ours was 210 million and we're only looking to borrow um do a ban for 12,500. So, it's a temporary um it's like a temporary uh borrowing until the full bond is um financed. >> Thank you for clarifying. I did Google and it just talked about banning cash. >> It's another example of picking a phase is how we live in the terminology but forget that the rest of the world doesn't necessarily always understand it. Right. So as far as the next steps go, we have been really um scrutinizing the budget, looking at past um expenses
178and trends um identifying creative ways to uh offset expenses by using these uh reserves and also the money that was set aside for the loss of the grants. Uh we have to strategize about how we're going to be using fund balance. you'll recall that we used 6.7 million last year and that's really too high. Um so we really need to uh wean off a fund balance um because that becomes problematic. Um and then we have to determine what the uh tax cap is um and we'll know that information soon. So, I think just a highlight of all this, and this is something you've heard me say before, um the the last year we um we did receive more foundation aid, but it came after the budget was adopted by the state and we had to
179do what we had to do. We were lucky to be able to put that money into um a a special fund to take care of some grants and to um help with how we needed to go about and look at fund balance. Um fund balance is what we have left over at the end of the year, right? And when you had this significant amount of unanticipated revenue because the state was quite late, we did get more building a we got others. The auditor went through that. we were able to take care of two super important big projects on our end. However, you know, right now our foundation aid is more or less what they eventually got to after we went through our process. So, we are actually slightly down in state aid. The big increase
180as you can see here is health insurance. Now entering into this process which you'll hear from all the principles in March when they come next month is that we have had now we had another one today multiple multiple multiple multiple budget meetings on taking a look at spending trends over three years really identifying uh individual codes for things. There's been an awful lot of background work. So what you're going to have is a budget that's very very tight. The board is going to see what fits in according to our tax cap and looking at our revenue. Um, and the board is going to see exactly um where every code is being spent to in the process. The other piece to this is, and you all know this, but I think it's important for the community
181to understand, is that when you get quite tight with your budget, your reliance on fund balance you should step down off of. While last year the 6.7 did make sense given how late the state was with their funding, this year that's not the case. Alita and I are uncomfortable with that amount. We feel it's too high. I do also want to highlight and thank the board. As you could see when you voted to use the TRS reserve, you you did so with the anticipation that you weren't going to need it as a consistent recurring revenue and that turned out to be the case here, right? we don't need it, which is why you should be and when you should be re using reserves. So, um there's more work to do here in this, but basically
182we're up a significant amount of money in health insurance, down a significant money, uh in our investment income, and um we are trying to step off our use of fund balance in this and we got a complicated approach this year towards our capital reserve and our transfer to capital line because of what's going on with our bond and the library. Okay, >> questions from the board. I just want to also point out with regard to reserves that um there are some hefty taxers that are coming um along you saw one um in the last board agenda um but there's a couple of that are coming up um and you'll remember that we did reduce our tax reserves a couple years ago. Most not most of you may not remember um but there's been several petitions
183that are coming up and we have involved our our attorney um in those big um cases. >> Does anybody have any questions? Anyone? Rob, do you want to start? >> Oh, sure. Um just want to walk through again. Alita, thank you. Just make sure again personally just understand maybe others want as well. So last year the debt service I think was about 4 million. >> Yes. >> Right. And then so this year it's about 10 million. >> Correct. >> And that's a so it's 4 plus 6 10. And then the main reason you're saying that that is it has to do with the library bond and >> band >> ban >> but the ban is related what to the bond or it's the ban's related to the bond the library and the other part of
184the >> increase in the debt service is related to a band tied to our $210 million bond. Correct. Okay. So that's this year and I know we're not even finished with this year yet, but just curious looking forward, will this be a pattern as we go on? Generally, I'm not obviously not looking for projections for next year, but like will this debt service continually to increase like year-over-year? We went from four to 10. Are we going to look at 10 to 15 to 20 next, you know, beyond that? >> No. So the debt service schedule that we shared um with you um during the discussions about the bond, >> you'll see that it was offset with building aid and also this um transfer to capital line. So that's what you'll see. So this will flatten
185um and it will the the revenue will offset the building aid will offset this expense. um and the 6.9 million. So again, right now we're only using 5.9 million uh for our borrowing, our ban uh for 12.5 million. And the library is a separate story. Like we never talked about how we always said that that was going to be an impact. Um but again, their their their debt fell off last year and that was 1.1 million. And right now their ban um for next year is um for 8 million but their cost the cost is $320,000. >> Got it. Okay. And I have one more and then I might have another but I'll see the sec after the second question because someone might ask it. So the the expense drivers this year salaries, health insurance
186obviously that you know you just explained the debt. Do we again not not I know you don't have a crystal ball but do you anticipate like the ex that percentages of increase next year or is this sort of like a one-time hit we'll see on salaries and the health insurance increase or no that's kind of based on our contracts and where health insurance going yeah look for this 2728 28 29 and so forth >> the salaries are a complete rollover contractual >> okay >> and the health insurance I I don't have a crystal ball for that. Um cuz you last year um or this fiscal year u it didn't increase at all. So now we have a big jump um of 2.1 um but we'll see. >> Okay. >> So that that that we might
187see that we may not. So that's so that one salaries roll up. Okay. Good. I have I'll probably have one another one but someone might ask it. So that's good for now. Thank you. >> Okay. Katherine or Owen? Does anybody want to go next? Owen. No, Catherine, >> I'm going to wait to see how things shake out. >> Okay, Roger, do you have anything? >> Not at this time. >> Okay, Melissa, >> I don't have any questions. Just, you know, observations of what we somewhat anticipated in terms of just an imbalance and increases in some places and decreases in other places, none of which we would have hoped for. Um, so I am curious to see how things are going to pan out, especially as we engage in our budget discussions and start to prioritize
188where we want to um, put our very tight funding in terms of equitable access for students. I think we'll leave it. >> You're welcome. any >> um I think similar to everyone else, I just need to kind of see where it goes. But could you explain to me one more time if you can briefly not to take up too much of your time and everyone else's the state aid? It was estimated at 58.5. Um the actual budget was 55.9. So percent change of 4.62, 62. But you're saying that that wasn't true because the state did not have its budget yet and then I kind of lost. >> Okay. So that is actual. That increase is actual. >> Yes. >> Because that is what we budgeted before the state put out or the state adopted its
189budget. >> So the estimated in this case is the actual or am I still not getting The estimated is what we budgeted. >> Okay. >> And then we after the state adopted their budget. It was after we adopted our budget. >> Okay. >> So when they adopted our when they adopted their budget, it came in $2 million higher than what we budgeted. >> Okay. >> So there's a certain date that we have to adopt our budget. >> Yes. and the state did not adopt their budget at that time, before that time. So, this is budget to budget. But now, when you look at the state aid runs, they're showing you what we're giving you this year and what we're projecting to give you next year. And that's an overall decrease of um 200 plus,000. >>
190Got it. >> And it's down half a percent. >> Okay. And then the um the foundation aid is only 430,000 increase. >> Well, of course me I was very excited to think because we we were in you know in the black for about you know 2 million last year which we put into reserve saying we're ahead of the game this year at 2 million and then to see health insurance took it all. >> I was like are you kidding me? They did that for a foundation aact billion dollar like this is not as bad as it's been in the past. >> No, I know but it's but it's like you know Rob to your question which is a great question wages and salaries make up so we can predict that because we know the con
191but the health insurance piece the unpredictableness when I was like she came in what? Oh god it was like are you kidding me? So again we are to respect about how tight things are. Why and I have to give a shout out to the principles who were there again at another meeting of this is a is a different more in-depth process. It's an extension of what we did at central office last year but now we're involving everybody into it. So they really need to come to the board and to the community to be honest with you with as clear and as tight where all the money is going. It's almost a tragic irony how closely aligned the gains are with the foundation aid with the increases in the health insurance. It's almost like >> I'm
192not going to I'm not going to get into but it's like how is it always kind of so close to each other >> but anyways >> here we are. >> Thank you. >> I've got one more. >> Oh, okay. Go. >> Yeah. And so this is just to clarify. So just to understand this. So as of today you're we're saying about five today as 5 million projected to use the reserves right so a couple things are TBD but it's 3.792279824 like all the reserve things right that's what you're saying as of today that one about 5 million so that's help so I understand is that to cover just the increases or is that if like we kept everything as a rollover budget plus the increases. You would need to say we need a minimum of
1935 million to cover or that's 5 million just tied to the increases separate of whatever we do for the final budget which of course you're working on. >> So the budget to budget from this year um projected for next year is more than $5 million increase. So to make up for that we have to use um appropriated fund balance and those reserves um and then >> no the reserves are here. So it be it would be appropriated fund balance that we would have to use >> um which was 6.7 last year and then whatever the property tax increase would be that would be another dollar amount to capture the entire uh amount of money that we need. So the amounts here, the 5 million does not cover the budget-to-budget increase, >> right? Is but is
194that based on the roll? Like if we roll over this year plus the increases, we think about 5 million to cover it. Okay, I think I got it. >> We need more than 5 million, >> right? No, because I know you have TBD there, but I'm just saying that. Okay. But as of today, what's today? The fourth. That's what we're saying. Okay. And then did you say last year's use? How much did we use in reserves last year to do the budget? Well, in in um fund balance we use 6.7. Okay. >> We use much we we use more money. Well, I don't think we used money for reserves last year. >> Oh, okay. So, we didn't use reserves last year at all. >> It was the year before we did the TRS one. Got
195it. >> Okay. Good. That's it. Thank you. >> So, I think Robbie, your question highlights it to make it simple for people our expenses. What's the delta and then how are we covering the delta? Right. Thank you. Y >> more to be seen. >> All right. Um we come to our first audience recognition. Um there's nobody here in person. I can't quite see, but it looks like there's nobody online. Are there people? >> Okay, this would be your chance person whose name I can't see. All right. Okay. We'll move along then uh onto our consent agenda. I'll take a motion for 4.1 and 4.2. >> So moved. >> Second. >> 4.1 resolution to appoint an additional consultant for the 2025 2026 school year. And 4.2 to resolution to approve an agreement with the teachers association
196OTAA concerning extra period assignments. Any discussion? All in favor? >> I >> opposed abstensions on to consent agenda business office matters. Uh does anybody have anything they wish to break out from 5.1 through 5.3? >> I'll take a motion for 5.1 through 5.3. Second >> 5.1 Resolution to approve the treasures report November 2025. 5.2 Resolution to approve the budget report and revenue report November 2025. 5.3 Resolution regarding interfund transfers. Any discussion? >> All in favor? >> I >> opposed abstensions. Uh does anybody have anything from 6.1 through 6.9 that they wish to break out? All right. Seeing none, I'll take a resolution for 6.1 through 6.9. So >> moved. >> Second. >> 6.1 Resolution regarding rescending bus attendant appointments. 6.2 Resolution regarding professional staff resignations. 6.3 Resolution regarding support staff resignations. 6.4 Resolution regarding bus
197attendant resignations. 6.5 Resolution regarding professional staff appointments. 6.6 6 Resolution regarding professional staff appointments before after school programs. 6.7 Resolution regarding confidential staff appointments before after school programs. 6.8 Resolution regarding support staff appointments before/chool programs. Uh 6.9 resolution regarding approval of school volunteers. Any discussion? All in favor? >> I opposed. Abstensions. on to our next audience recognition for general school business. Is there anybody online who wishes to speak? All right. Um on to board reports and dialogue. Um I'll start with committees. Uh curriculum committee met today. We made some progress and there will be um more updates I think in Mary's update or Maria's update to us. Um >> so you'll disseminate information to the board. Um but we had a very thorough and uh thoughtful and worthwhile discussion about kind of what direction we
198want to go in to start for um the establishing a real routine for um reviewing our curriculum. So more to come there. Um, any other committee updates? >> District equity committee met. I wasn't able to stay very long, but Joyce gave an amazing presentation about the history of Austining and really dove into a lot of the racial aspects of the history which I really haven't heard very much of and I thought was really important and eye opening and I want to have another private presentation from her. >> Joyce is great. >> I'm sad I had to leave early. But just to add on to that because I did go I know it wasn't noted but I think I probably arrived um a little after you was there as well. Um it's nice to see him
199there. >> Um I did you know we I always appreciate Joyce's work um you know just what she does with the district in general but definitely what she brought to the um committee meeting. Right. It was a definitely an opportunity for some to be enlightened and to also understand some of the intersections because this is such a community- based school district. I think those concepts and um the families and the community that you're serving, having context of that really matters, especially in an equity space. So, I appreciated that. Um there was some more, you know, unpacking of things and um the different teams around the district sharing their work. um especially the students. It's always great to hear from them and the work they're doing. We have some amazing students, one of them sitting at
200the table with us, but some other students as well who are um just really motivated to make sure that the true concepts of equity live on in our district and also that they take that out into the world with them as well, which is very impressive. So, I really appreciate always being able to see the students be part of that space um and just see how much they're evolving as humans. So, that's always great. >> That's all I'll add. >> Um, one other aspect of the equity committee that was like the very first thing we did um was talk about how we don't really acknowledge the native population here or the history of it further than, you know, really talking about the mascot. And so the question was how do we integrate that more and
201um there were various ideas people had some really personal stories about belonging and um just to share one of my thoughts of a of an easy way to incorporate it was you know the human rights club does all these different things and one of the things that they don't do is visiting a native museum or doing any kind of education on the local population here. So, that was just a suggestion. >> Yeah. And I think the one thing that I I would add to that is that after Joyce's presentation, there were some really good conversations of how we can kind of bring back the community feel >> um to the district and to Austining. And I think that was touched on tonight with the presentations and the clubs. So, um I think there a lot
202of people had some really good ideas of how we can, you know, make sure that every student's getting involved in something. If I may, um, Joyce will be presenting to our secondary staff during the March 20th superintendent's conference day, historical literacy and going through >> very important part of our >> Exactly. >> And a nice addition to the conversation was good context to have. So, thank you. >> All right. Um, I want to begin a discussion. And I emailed everybody so that um you would it's on board docs I think but I emailed everybody at the start of the meeting with a list of our committee appointments and I had um at some point we had asked Illy to um put this on the agenda to revote on it because of a change in the
203curriculum committee. I I asked her to not put that on this agenda because I think we need to revisit it right now. Um so last meeting we were in a position now we established kind of board norms at the beginning of the year where we decided if it's not on this list of committees we want to be consulted as a board before we send anybody. At the meantime we have a trustee who's invited um in kind of a unique situation or an an odd situation just as one board member instead of an invitation to the board. then you're in a position where you're going to this school event, but you were just invited as one board member and we don't have this formalized. So, let's clear it up and we can decide together if we
204want to because clearly it is board related work, right? We want to put it either in as a new committee or decide together which committee this belongs to. I take some responsibility for this. This is an oversight in board work that didn't live already in our um committee assignments and it should have to invo to have avoided being in that situation at all because we want to make sure the work is represented in a clear way and this way it can be um systemically integrated into our work. >> I appreciate your taking accountability I guess for that. I would also add that I think to a point you made uh in your email about really some you kind of fleshing out our board norms. I think there's a ton of fluidity to it and they
205are technically speaking suggestions right and I think we find ourselves a position where sometimes people are coloring out the lines coloring outside the lines right and not to say that that was my intention if that's how it was taken but um I think there's there's sometimes where it's just accepted and there's sometimes where it's like oh we have to talk about that right so what I would hope can do is establish board norms that allow for consistency. Right? This is just one area, but as I look through the norms as they last existed, I don't know exactly where they would live as far as cuz just for context, right? Cuz I appreciate us having this dialogue. A lot of a lot of just experience has brought me to realize the importance of things like you
206know bringing to the board that we should do a board self-evaluation right it was an idea I brought and I'm glad that we adopted which then out of that came a board manual and board norms to avoid situations where certain board members feel like oh I did something wrong right so I appreciate us having this discussion and I'm hoping we can keep evolving um what our board norms mean and what would be the result of what those expectations are when some people follow some of those expectations and some people are appear not to be right that's a discussion for another day but since you prefaced it with uh this lens of accountability I hope we can all take accountability over what we the expectations we're setting on each other having said that um wherever we
207land with this particular um committee um I What it what it reveals to me is that um when it comes to like sharing out and having open dialogue, being transparent as stewards of our community, we want to make sure that we are establishing board norms that are meant to restrict voice either. So, I'm hoping we can come to an agreement down the road that finds a healthy balance of that. >> I do have a question that kind of relates to this because I mean Melissa was invited for a very specific reason. I have been invited by NISBA to AsianAmerican school board conversations and I have reported back from those here. So where does that fall in all this? >> I think we've agreed in the past that NISBA related stuff is schoolboard related stuff and
208there and we can get into I I don't want this convers this conversation really it's sprawl. >> Um and >> it is but I just want to see because you're saying schoolboard related stuff that also falls under the umbrella of what I did but in the beginning of the conversation you said we agreed for only to report our own committees. Right. So, I'm just saying that that that shows how we really need to be consistent on how we apply this language to to to each other. >> Right. Well, I'm I'm saying like that um you know, it's so what we agreed on is if you find some something that you think that we should have board attendance at and it's not on the list, just bring it to the board before you go. That was
209the umbrella kind of thing you were in. an unusual situation of being invited as a board member to something that as the as a sole like usually we would get the whole board's invited or this committee is invited or whatever. So you were in a position that you I I don't like to see us in and we had to be prepared for that. Um, in this case, I feel like it's >> I also want for context and just the record that this when I shared out that last board meeting, it was not the first time that this committee had come up at this board table or had been shared that that it existed and that my attendance was there. So, I just want to make sure that that's clear. >> Yes. And um to that
210point, our our board norms are ever evolving, right? Like as our group changes and grows, as you said, this is something we continue to work on and it will never be finished, right? Like >> the board norm discussion and our expectations of ourselves and what the our board is most comfortable with changes over time, right? And um changes with the people on it and you know every board is different and every board culture is different. So um this is obviously a topic rich for further discussion in a uh self-evaluation or retreat setting. Um but to refocus this on the practical matter at hand um we need to make a decision about where the Black Culture Collaborative fits into our committee assignments. Does anyone have any ideas to share? Well, so I guess I'm not fully
211f is the question that we're trying to resolve tonight because it is getting late. Is that the committee that Melissa or others could be invited to that's not an official committee on this list? If we want to add it to the list, then we have to vote on the committee being added to the list or formation of it. True or false? True. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So, I guess is that what we're trying to resolve tonight? Whether that committee should be an official board committee and if so, is that the procedure to do that? >> I think there's two questions, right? Or two pathways that could be >> or at least two I don't want to limit us. Are we saying that we ha everything has to be a committee for us to speak at
212the board table, right? Bringing me back to my not restricting voice. Are we just saying that if it's outside of that that part of our board norms now is going to be there has to be some >> heads up or some process around that, right? Because that would be the easier option if that's what we're really asking of each other, right? Otherwise, we're it's a slippery slope to say everything has to be a committee or we can't talk about it at the board table because that's the takeaway I got from where we left off. >> Right. >> I am not sure that I'm comfortable with this as a committee because I mean I guess I'll just speak for myself. I would not feel comfortable being on this committee and contributing when I don't have this
213background and this knowledge. So, I understand why Melissa was invited and yeah, I think if like we really need to I I know we have the board norm of keeping each other informed. So, I guess I think that if Melissa gets an email asking her to come, her forwarding that to the rest of us as a heads up is more than enough for me. >> Um, I have a couple thoughts about that. And the first is that um I don't want any groups that we decide through the board to work with to have their access predicated on the makeup of who is on the board. So for that reason, I would want more pe that group to be open to more people if that is what makes sense because I don't if we've determined that
214we want to have this partnership and we want board presence in that partnership. >> I don't you know I'm trying to imagine all these different solutions and I don't want that pathway to be cut off if >> we don't have to unpack it all. >> We don't have to unpack it today. I want to give context cuz I I feel like it's lost as opposed that because this is not a foreign concept this committee, >> right? >> There's other ethnically based committees in the district that lend themselves to the district to make sure that there's cultural awareness and activities, special uh events, um holidays. And that's what this committee was born out of, having one for black families in the district and black heritage, right? because that did not exist. There's other committees that are
215ethnically and heritagebased that lend their voice to the district and collaborate with them to have a culturally responsive framework of offerings. That's all this is, right? So, it's not we're not reinventing the wheel here. We're just adding another spoke. That's it. >> I I don't think this needs to be a committee. I mean I think in the past when one of us as a board member has received an email saying hey we want you to come to this whatever it is we've just for we've we've replied and then CCD the board and said thank you very much for this invitation and then either said to the board I would really like to attend this there's obviously three of us can attend if anybody else is interested and sometimes we've had time to bring that up
216at the at the board table sometimes emails been enough I don't see why we couldn't just do that. >> Yeah. Yeah. And it's it's for any event like if this happens to be a committee. So if someone gets invited, they are actually allowed as per NISSBA to go as a school board member, they can't obviously say I'm representing the entire board I guess. So that so to me that falls within anything whether we get invited to whatever this case is a committee. So the last piece to me believes like okay what was our norm? Do we bring that back to the board table to discuss it? And I believe our norm was no we don't for all type of outside things that we may or may not be in I personally don't I would be
217open to the discussion of should we allow the discussion but I believe that was the I think that was what we had decided outside stuff you can go you can go as yourself you can go as board member question is does it come back to the team >> and that's the thing right that's where the the fluidity comes in cuz what is outside cuz this was a district like this was a collaboration. >> I think this is similar to PTA. >> Just to finish my sentence, what was that conversation we had was born out of getting an influx of literally outside invitations to events, right? It literally was based off of discussion at the table based on an exclusively outside event. So the context and the precedent for that discussion is the framework I was
218working off of. Then we started call and it seemed like everything was outside if it wasn't on the committee list. That's a whole other variable that seemed to have been introduced last board meeting. So I think part of our norms needs to be what is outside because a district collaborative committee even if it's not an official board committee is not outside. Um I'll disagree on the point that this just came up at the last board meeting. We have discussed you know >> this particular topic. Yes. But I mean like that concept of like hey if it's not on the list just ask the board give the board a heads up. That was the the ask. Um >> and it sounds like we're happy with that. I'm hearing >> that we don't need a we don't
219feel like this needs a committee. We just feel like >> I don't >> what >> I I don't see why we would have a committee. I to me I don't see this as any different from a hey this particular group of parents would like you as a board member to come talk to them about the bond. I was invited by a group out in the Newcastle area when we were going through the bond. And so I said to the board, hey, I'm going to go and speak in my capacity as a board member, answer some questions about this bond. Others are welcome to join me or you cannot send me and we can discuss other people to send if you want. I think that's fine. I don't I don't see this being any different than
220that. Okay, it sounds like we're on the same page except this is maybe even arguably more tied to the school because it's it involves apparently school personnel and whatnot. >> My only hesitation is this is a district. I mean, I I don't really see anybody saying, "No, you can't go." You know, but I just want to not cross into that line of not allowing people to attend heritage events that are, you know, specifically being put on by the district in general really. like I think we should be able to go to those and whether or not we represent Ford is I don't know based on outside organizations versus in the school but >> in this case it was a district event and I appreciated the update so I guess I'm hearing that you just want
221a heads up. Yeah, that's >> I think it's universally at least from my perspective that we don't we never go and say I'm unless that's something we've agreed to like you're going to go on behalf of the board. We never go representing the board to anything right and that's not what happened here. >> Um and just to be clear, Annie, you can go to anything you want as a community member, as a human being. >> Nobody's saying you can't go to cultural events. I know Katherine just mentioned bringing it back to the boards and whatever. I just that was it. >> Yeah. Um okay. I feel like that was a good dialogue and a late one. So thank you for your patience and thoughtfulness at this hour. Um is there any further board dialogue that
222we need to have? Um, >> oh yeah, I was going to say I want to hear about this, but I don't >> know. You're welcome to share it right now at 10:35 p.m. if you would like, but if you want to table that update until the next time we meet, which is very frequently lately, you can do that, too. Um, either way, >> we have one next week. It's um up to you. I will leave it to board members what >> I mean, I'm okay doing it today. This is really an update for the community because we have sent you a pretty comprehensive update. >> Okay. Um, so Roger and I went for three days to DC. The first two days we were really in breakout sessions learning about different aspects of school law, school
223policy. Um, we mostly split them up and you guys got an overview of that. We have um many many pages of additional notes should you want them. >> So feel free to ask. >> There are just a couple um points on this. So, um what was a little interesting in that um in in all of that was the fact that um there's still just for everybody know there this funding um it's still kind of like on not like the most steady ground just yet, but just to give you an update, the bill that was passed yesterday um this um it was basically puts $79 billion worth of funding back to the Department of Education. um which has like an increase over the fiscal 2025 levels, but what it does is um for title one um
224it it's getting a $20 million increase um in uh IDA funding. Um that's also um seeing a $20 million increase for for what they're calling part B services. Um there the um the other pieces of this that you there's a lot of other little pieces that kind of went into this, but the the thing that I found to be most interesting is that there is a new provision in there that requires the Department of Education to distribute the the grant funding to the states by July 1st. So that it prevents previous funding delays. Um and um that's that that's in there. However, it still does not completely stop what's been happening in terms of inter agency transfers. Um, so you know, it's more to come on this one. There is a stop gap in that's
225coming in about two weeks. We did spend the time talking to um um our representatives and a a senator of their rep their staffers. So, that was actually really good. Um it I heard a lot of little things I did not know specifically about what and how you say things in advocacy. Um and so um we learned some things and >> and Mary turned things around very quickly for us. Um so thank you to Mary and team >> for that because they're very much into the specific stories um anecdotes um numbers of on the impact. So that was actually very eye opening. So, I just want to thank um everybody for their support in this. Um this is important work, but um this is not a oneandone. This has to stay continued. >> Roger and
226I logged what was it 11,000 steps just going office to office. >> Yeah, that that was Yeah, that was 11,000 just walking on the hill. >> Yeah. >> Thank you both for going and bringing back such u great details. Yeah, there there's if there's a lot of detail and well there the summary has some good details. If you want to know what was in the agenda, etc., etc., we have that on a Google Drive and which I think Annie if you want to just furnish that to everybody and that would be fine. >> Thank you so much for going and for the update and I already saw the first the cliff notes I guess. So >> those were the cliff notes that the other ones were pages and pages of notes. Yeah, >> I'm not
227kidding. It's like pages and pages in it. So, you feel free to do that to put you to sleep at night. >> Okay. Anything else? >> All right. I regret to inform you. We will be having executive session tonight. So um I'll take a motion to enter into executive session to discuss the medical, financial, credit or employment history of a particular person or corporation or matters leading to the appointment, employment, promotion, discipline, suspension, dismissal or removal of a particular person or corporation. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Any discussion? All in favor? I opposed. Ascension.