The Board of Education Meeting of December 3, 2025

001Good evening. I'd like to call the Wednesday, December 3rd, 2025 board of education regular meeting to order. Uh, Vice President Roger Batitaria is going to lead us in the pledge. Please stand. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> We've got a busy night, a lot going on. And the first thing we have here as our item 1.3 is our superintendent's update. So, I'm going to turn things over to Mary Fox Alter. >> All right. So, good evening everyone and I am delighted to share my superintendence update tonight with a number of individuals and reports. So, the first item on tonight I want to welcome to our board meeting um our

002team from PNW Boseies. Um, we have our district superintendent, Neil Bole, here, Mike Coino, the uh, Fox Meadow principal, Mr. Nick Villano, who's the Fox Meadow assistant principal, Mr. Josh Thompson, communication specialist, and Miss Heather Gistler, social worker. They're here because we have a very important they have a very important award to hand out to an Austining student who is participating at the PNW Boseies program. So, um Neil, I'd like you to take it away. >> I don't want to mess this up for who might be. Oh, there you go. Make that a little easier on my back. uh just on behalf of the Boseis board, one of which we get to share with you, Mr. Frank Schnecker, uh it's always a pleasure to be here and we thank you for the opportunity to recognize

003such a remarkable student. So, we're grateful to the partnership of the board of education, Dr. Fox Alter, and the entire administrative team here at Austining. So, behind every student success is a strong support system, and we extend our appreciation to the Fox Meadow administrators and teachers. And also with us tonight are some of the Walden staff that had a pleasure of working with Matthew earlier in his career at Boseies. So just having all these people here standing in front of you today just shows the impact you've had on not just Boseis but the community. So Matthew your accomplishments stand as a testament to your hard work your dedication and high standards upheld bying and by boseis. While you're surrounded by an outstanding support network the credit for your success belongs to you and you only

004also thank your family for being here and also being a great support throughout this whole process. So, I'm not gonna get to brag about you too much tonight. So, I'm gonna hand it over to Mr. Coven to talk a little bit more about you. >> Thank you very much for having us. Uh, so Matthew has stepped up to all the challenges of high school with sense of maturity that inspires others. Although, although he's a freshman, Matthew has already become a leader and role model within the Fox Meadow community through his engagement not only in academics, but also meaningfully participating in and contributing to campus initiatives. Matthew's making incredible progress at Fox Meadow, ending the first quarter with report card comments such as cooperative positive attitude, a pleasure to have in class, and excellent effort in

005conduct. While in class, I've observed him actively engaging in content and asking meaningful and thoughtful questions. He's particularly thriving in carpentry, where he's focused, hardworking, and brings humor to the class, and PE, where he can regularly be seen very actively engaging in the daily activity, whether volleyball, football, or basketball. His positive attitude and commitment have been evident since the start of the year. He's taken a lead role and excelled in the development of our Dungeons and Dragons campaign, an activity which fosters communication, collaboration, and problem solving. His engagement, contributions, and collaboration with peers positively influences the classroom environment each day. But Matthew's presence and influence extends beyond the classroom. Day-to-day, Matthew has demonstrated an ability to approach challenges thoughtfully, is supportive of peers, and utilizes creativity and teamwork to progress as both a student and

006a valued member of our community. As such, Matthew was one of a handful of students chosen to participate in the Fox Meadow Peer Mediation Program. Upon being chosen, he participated in a multi-day training in which the students hone their conflict management and mediation skills. His diligence during the training and kind-hearted and thoughtful approach will help our program continue to utilize a restorative approach to peer conflict. Overall, with his strong work ethic, maturity, and positive attitude, we know that Matthew will do great things in the years to come. It's my honor and my pleasure to award Matthew Narvea as the December student of distinction. Thank you. ALL >> RIGHT. So the mic Mr. B your the mic. Oh, picture. He wants You want a picture? >> We want a picture, too. >> To have a picture

007with the board with Matthew and his family, >> please. We would love that. >> Grown up close today. >> Yeah. >> I think we're here with Matthew's mom, Amy. >> Right. We just look towards me and just do one. Can we do one more? >> Can we have the P&W team join us? >> Just let me get one more from the truck. proud of our partnership for everything you do. We're part of the same team. Thank you. >> Runway chair everywhere. Sorry. Okay. Uh for my next part of my superintendence update, we have a um very special recognition of a tenure recipient that um um the board voted on at the last meeting, but um um but we're happy here tonight to have Carol and her family to congratulate her and on it. I'm going

008to hand it over to Dr. just to give a couple of words. >> Well, I'm going to hand it over as well uh to Miss Castellano, but um last as as Mary mentioned at our last board meeting, uh the board approved your uh your tenure appointment, Carol. So, congratulations. We because you couldn't Thank you. You can applaud. But tonight, tonight, uh, Miss Castellano would like to say a few words, uh, Roosevelt principal, uh, about Carol, who was hired in November of 2021 as a reading teacher. >> And we're excited that, um, Roosevelt, assistant principal. Um, Derek, I think you're here. D. Renzo, you're here as well. >> Great. Good evening everyone. Tonight we celebrate someone whose impact on our students is nothing short of transformative. Our reading teacher, Miss Carol Wilkins. She's a teacher everyone

009would want their child to have. Carol has a remarkable gift for reaching the children who struggle the most. She sees each students individual needs, meets them exactly where they are and helps them feel empowered, capable, and confident. She never gives up on them, and even takes steps to involve them in setting their own goals, then reflecting on their progress. Because of her patient guidance, students who once hesitated to read now participate eagerly, take risks, and grow every single day. Her relationships with them also help them come out of their shells. Carol is a master reading teacher in every sense of the word. She draws from a rich toolkit of strategies to support students who haven't always seen themselves as successful readers. And she helps them view themselves in an entirely new light. Thanks to her

010dedication, many of our students are exiting AIS services and reading on level, an accomplishment that reflects both their hard work and her extraordinary commitment. We also want to extend our gratitude to her husband Rey and her daughter Asana for supporting her and the work that lifts our entire school community. Carol, thank you for your passion, your expertise, and your belief in our students. Congratulations on this well-deserved celebration of your tenure. Ruse grows leaders and tonight we honor your growth and commitment to ongoing learning and leadership to many years supporting our awes. Congratulations. It's a a huge milestone in uh a person's professional career as a teacher. The tenure process is a rigorous process involves observations, multiple multiple meetings and um full review by the board of education. So, Carol, it's quite the milestone and we're

011very proud of you and have a great evening. You are more than welcome to stay for my riveting report that's coming up next. Um, or you can um choose maybe go out and get a little ice cream with your family, but it's up to you. >> Thank you. Thank you, Katie. Thank you. >> Ice cream board meeting. Ice cream board meeting, right? >> Okay. So, um just a quick little important um shout out. Some prouds here, uh which is um an important part before we go into our curriculum review. Quick update. So, uh Claremont had an enrichment day which was a huge success right before Thanksgiving. Um I was happy to be there and join Owen and Shane. And that day we saw um young engineers, young scientists, young mathematicians, we saw young artists. We

012saw tons of wonderful things. And Owen, I want to thank you for organizing a huge group of student volunteers. That was awesome. Miss Fran uh Fzine, she just was beside herself with just the level how well. And I saw these young third grade engineers respond beautifully to our high school students. I I mean there was a level of synergy, a level of excitement, level of problem solving. It was just great. And I know Shane, you captured a good chunk of that on video. I'm hoping that we get those of you who didn't get a chance to um attend or hear about it, hopefully you'll get a chance to see it. So, it was a very exciting day. Also, that same day, Brookside School held their first annual turkey trot. I was exhausted just watching them

013go around and trot around that circle. And the teachers involved actually dressed up as turkeys, very different types of turkeys. That made it quite difficult to do the turkey trot, but um um it was great. It was very exciting and the kids were thrilled. Um um Park School was filled with um students who were showcasing their own balloon parade. For those of you who are aware of the Macy's um Thanksgiving Day parade, it's an iconic tradition. And I want to give a huge shout out to um Emily and her team at Park School because they were able to do their own parade showcasing balloons for Thanksgiving. Um the Austining High School students celebrated their science research seniors Regeneron talent search submissions. I know that had a feel, right? and a great sense of relief. Hit

014the proverbial send or submit button. >> Okay. Um so I want to congratulate all those kids and their mentors and their teachers for helping and parents for doing that. It's a team effort. Uh I want to give a big shout out to Megan and O Prime for helping our community this holiday season. We were able, Megan and her group were able to distribute 186 bags of hope. The um that Wednesday before the break there were and Tuesday there were cars lined up all day picking up bags that she got um a donation of turkeys as well and we were able to distribute it to families. It was just wonderful. The Austining High School prestigious prestigious ladies of power visited Howard University and explored the campus and learned about academic opportunities and the university was thrilled

015to have them there. Back to Brookside for the annual Stone Soup celebration. Um, and many who attended and brought our Brookside community together was much appreciated by the staff and the administration. Uh there was compet competition for all winter sports started this past Monday. Best of luck to our athletes. This the springs the winter sports season is well underway. And I want to thank Lowhud for giving our girls varsity basketball team a shout out in the paper. Our wrestling team is hosting the annual coach Mike Nardone Invitational on Saturday. So just some quick upcoming events. Um, pay attention to AMD's production of Susicle the Musical. We've been sending out notices and blast. Oh, absolutely. Um, it's this December 11th through 12th, 7:00 p.m. at the high school auditorium. And on Saturday, December 13th from 9:30

016to 11:00, again, another mark your calendars event. This is a Saturday explore and learn cookie decorating party at the Austining Public Library. So, a wonderful way to celebrate the holidays. If by any chance you um have any new or gently used toys or winter gear, we are collecting those through O prime. Please drop them off at um any school or at 400 Executive Boulevard. We're looking forward to having those for our holiday popup shop. So, uh, registration, believe it or not, I can't believe I'm saying this, uh, for a park and the Austining Children's Center prek program starts a month from now, January 12th. Uh, and it closes March uh, 20th. So, children must be four years of age or older by December 1st of this year. And Austining student, they must be Austining residents

017to enroll. So, we have a lot going on to celebrate. So, I'd like to take a moment to share with um um the community to share with the rest of the board of education an a really important update based upon a new board policy that the board adopted at the end of last year's academic year. And this came out of board goals. It came out of lengthy discussions. and it's a board policy that speaks to a curriculum review cycle itself. Um um we had our first meeting today with the committee and I want to just take a moment to take you through a brief presentation that synthesizes what the three-page single space policy states. Right? So um we we're we've adopted and we're implementing a curriculum review cycle and it's a structured and cyclical approach

018towards looking at all areas of curricular or instructional programs. Now I put a little star next to that uh when I talk about curricular areas what we mean by that these are areas outlined in the New York State Education Department's part 100 regulations. You would know them as math, science, English language arts, world languages, art, music, bigger areas. And sometimes we misspeak sometimes, but for the purposes of this committee, it's clarity of language is critical. So for example, here's a big example that we spoke about today. ARC, which is our reading program. ARC stands for the American Reading Company. It's not a curricular area. It's actually a tool or purchase program to teach English language arts and reading. Math in focus is a tool or a purchase program that we use to teach mathematics. So,

019we're trying to make sure that people understand when we take a look at a curricular area, we are speaking about the ones identified through the state of New York. This model also works for an evaluation of an instructional program. Osning has um a huge level and number of important instructional programs. Some of the big ones that just come to mind would be your dual language program, your guidance program, the uh special education program, athletics, um extra and co-curricular activities. If I take a look at our performing arts program, we we obviously the state education department has CTE units and Carnegie credits for the study of music and art. However, we have a significant extracurricular program based on the performing arts as well. So again the the committee and the board the board always has final

020say can pick any of these areas to study but this is meant to capture this is what this model this lens will be used for to analyze. It's meant to be data informed. It starts with questioning and for example to what extent does our English language arts program support our students and their instructional needs? It starts with that question which is basically at the heart of all decision- making by the board of education. It's reflective of researchbased practices. So you have to incorporate what does the research say? What does the data tell us? It provides for a structured and collaborative process that we look at and evaluate um from the beginning through a scientific model through a researchbased model. You analyze current programs. You do a self-study. It has to align to the state standards.

021That's our requirement. As a as a New York State public school and we want to make sure that we do that as part of our work and the board has an outstanding policy in equity. We want to make sure that this process promotes equity and excellence across all content areas for the benefit of our students. This model has an internal and an external piece associated with it. And it needs a committee of individuals who have volunteered to oversee this process and to steer this process. Oops, wrong way. Okay. Um the committee uh is the responsibility of the office of curriculum and instruction Maria Meyers department but this first year the superintendent of schools is going to share in that because I this is a topic near and dear to my heart going back many years

022where this was a model that I had used before. Um the committee membership is outlined in the policy. We have three board members and we have central office administration. We have to have leadership from the Austining Teachers Association. Today we were lucky uh so excited to have Maria Carlson and Vanessa Vicero join us. We have the leadership from the Austining Administrators um association um as on that as well as our principles and our principles uh represent two different groups of our schools your elementary schools and your secondary schools. The process will have subcommittees here. Now, subcommittees come when we and we expand the participants in this when we're looking at areas for under review and that will include many many layers for community members, for students, for staff to get involved here. They could become

023members of a subcommittee or they could uh participate in feedback roundtables and I'll explain that in a moment. Okay. The process has four phases associated with this. The internal and the external have four phases. You do an initial program of view and rea and research and then you bring in someone to do an evaluation and as an organization we have evaluation responsibilities. You visit different schools. You benchmark against what other programs are like. You bring an outside lens. You bring in outside organizations to help you do that. You create a report and then you talk about an implementation plan for recommendations that the board decides on and maybe those that you decide not to do. And then after it's been implemented, this committee has to constantly monitor the work. You have to stay on top

024of that. it. This takes place over a two-year process for the initial program or curricular review as I mentioned before the internal process a self-study of the area and then an external process again where you bring in a consultant or you use an organization like tri-states and you definitely include site visits, feedback sessions and an annual report is given to the board of education and obviously any recommendations coming out of individual reports would go to the board of education. So for example, the internal part the self-study. So let's say we decided on an area, we pick an area. Let's say it's math just for to use math. That was the example we used today. So we would put out a call, the committee would put out a call for members from the community. Do we

025have mathematicians in the community? Do we have math teachers? Do we have people who have a level of interest in math? you could become part of the subcommittee because we're going to start this two-year process around math and we'll look for levels of expertise in that. Um, we would look at all the data associated with math. That would involve the level of let's say electives we have at the high school. What are our enrollment trends? What are our performance trends? How the middle school? What does that look like? Same thing at the elementary schools. We would look at the curriculum. We would do benchmarking. What are other school districts using? What are they use utilizing? What does the New York State Council of Teachers of Mathematics say about these individual programs? What are they putting

026forth as best practices? And we would do a gap analysis based on our internal study um about where our strengths and where our weaknesses as they align to that benchmarking data. Um and we would welcome as many subject specific staff in the if we go through all of this. We select a consultant and we jump to the external process. After we put together a self-study, the consultant reviews it and he reviews the curricular of visits of the program. he might come out or she might come out or the organization might come out with a statement suggesting I want you to go visit this school in New York City or maybe there's a school upstate that you want to see or something they might know. Um and they might have new research in an area that

027would be helpful to us. They will lead communityled uh focus groups of staff, students, families and community members. In this model, I have been um happy to have a consultant pull together a group of high school students. They would visit different math classrooms in the field of math, ask feedback independent of administration in a research-based approach. Any of you who know how to um basically do a doctoral study, it's that same type of feedback, how you gather data in a reasonable and research-based fashion. Um the consultant will write a report. It's reviewed by the steering committee and then an implementation plan is created with budgetary impacts or maybe they're piloting suggestions that come out of this and it's identified at the end of years two and three with the model. Okay, this is just a

028sample of what it looks like. just a sample um an internal external implement continue to implement and monitor and monitor any additional implementation in this ELA phase and I'm going to you know recommend to our committee that we plop ARC in here because we're on monitoring so we will use this model to take a look at some of the work we're doing with ARC here um but I also added the field of health here as well because sometimes With this model, if you're uh an elementary principal where you're responsible for all subjects, you would go, "Oh my gosh, I'm involved in two major and significant curricular reviews right now." So maybe you start with a big review and then you put a smaller one in there or you could um extend that over a two-year

029period. So this is something we will talk about as a committee. Right? We had our first meeting today. I personally thought it was terrific. Uh these are our upcoming meetings. We'll pick additional meetings as the year unfolds. And the next step for the curriculum review committee would be to select an initial curricular area to review to identify other areas that we'd like to include in this. And again, remember I talked about curricular areas and program. um create a a calendar or cycle and we would just start the cycle should be adopted by the board and if there's a need to change it or adjust it um we have a form at a board meeting to do that and we want to communicate the work we're doing broadly and um to specific audiences to understand the

030process. So that is a just a brief overview of the policy that the board adopted and I would um welcome some feedback from the three board members who spent an hour and a half with us today. >> We're all sitting uh next to each other over here. I'll let uh colleagues start instead of me. >> All right. >> I thought it was fantastic. Um it is really great work that is going to happen and I think you know one of the things that we discussed with the OTAA specifically was like the messaging around it and it's important that we look at this uh curriculum review is no one's in trouble. We're not saying any program is doing anything wrong. The results of this work could be you guys are doing fabulous, right? The results could

031be hey um this is a great start. These are we recommend adding the following things. It could be you've got 10 little programs going on in this and it would be better if you streamline some of them and here's our recommendation. Really can really run the gamut of what the the feedback could be. At least we at the board table know if we are putting money in a budget to support an initiative, either a new one, either expanding one or we don't want to support an initiative any longer. We're not basing that decision on anecdotal evidence. We're not basing it on, you know, maybe there's a special interest group that's especially loud for some reason, but we're taking the time to make it data driven in the decisions that we make. And I think that

032that's hugely important. And um it also takes the time to get a very diverse set of stakeholders involved in the process. And I think it ultimately is designed to be very supportive of all of the educators in our district, whether you're a hallway monitor, a custodial staff member, admin, a teacher, superintendent, and everything in between. >> Um, I mean, I want to just add to that. academy because I think Katherine said um what she said captured a lot of what the sentiment really here is. I think what this is a point of inflection for us as a district in many ways because it's going to help us in a collaborative fashion across board administrators and teachers and and external stakeholders to create what will be our programs for the future to evaluate to look at

033what is it that we do well today and how could we keep doing more of it. uh to really build for what will be the future for our students and our learners to become the best that they can possibly be by giving them the most relevant time bound to what what's happening in in current events in modern times to help to prepare our kids to become leaders for the future. I think that's such a critical element. But above and beyond all of that, it takes the noise out of the system. >> It allows for us to really think about how we bring together some amazing programs in a very thoughtful and and very carefully orchestrated manner, across the district, across stakeholders with full buyin. And this could not have come at a much better time.

034But you know, we all wanted things yesterday, but no better timeline the present. So, thank you for your leadership in this. Thank you for helping to get this together. And thank you, my fellow board members, for helping to bring this policy to life to help bring this uh curriculum committee into a way that it's going to help us as a district. And I'll hand that over to um President Manelli. >> Thanks. And I don't want to speak too long on this, but I mean, we are really proud of this work as you can hear. We're really excited about um how the meeting went. We feel good about that. I think it's fair to say. Um I don't want anybody who's watching this to think, "Oh, my curriculum is, you know, my department's up there and

035now this means we're curriculum shopping and everything's going to that this is really more of an audit >> um of what we are already doing so that we can make adjustments if they're necessary, as they are necessary. And I think what what we're hoping everybody benefit benefits from is the transparency in the process, the input in the process, the voice. Um, obviously there's no there's never pleasing everybody. Sometimes there's no pleasing anybody. Um, but at least this way there's a system in place that uh we hope outlasts any of us who are sitting in the chairs in the room at this time. So, um, again, thank you for the work for this was a kind of a years'sl long something that was bubbling under the surface as a as a need. Um, so we're very

036excited about this work and um hope that everybody else can get excited about this work too. >> Very much so. And putting it into a board policy creates longevity and sustainability, which is key to this process. Um, as I mentioned to the committee earlier today, you can take this and um add it to your long range plan in a in a really fun way. Uh, you can create action plans around that. Um, so the there's a lot that can be can happen with this which I think is terrific. The other little piece that I want to say here just for it doesn't mean that when we have to make a decision regarding curriculum for example the state it was biology then it's living environment now it's biology again um so when the state does come

037forth we have to make certain changes in certain areas we will do that we don't wait for the thing to be reviewed if we have certain initiatives that find their way in our current program and they find a place and space for that. Um as you all are aware the um profile of a graduate um are the uh climate change requirement and um the financial literacy piece are all new things that have timelines from the state education department. So uh we will be doing an analysis on those to meet those areas. But um and clearly at the high school level, if there's a need for a new elective, if students have a great interest in something, um this does not prohibit that level of work. That's not meant. We're talking about significant changes in curricular

038or approaches. For example, going through this, if you used it for um ELA, um you would be looking at multiple reading programs to help adjust your um what you wanted to do and what you wanted to accomplish. and then make a decision. Okay. Right. So, um that was my uh portion of the update and my last I saved the best for last. The next part of my update, Owen. Good evening. So instead of my regular report this evening, I am presenting on a project that uh myself, Miss Prior Groch, our science research co-director and Mr. Shikapia have been working on for the past month and a half and it's expanding our science research and in some form to Roosevelt and then the long form AMD. So just some background uh our science research program is

039well decorated. It is has 101 Regeneron science tal town talent search scholars. It has nine science town search finalists including a second place finish overall and an eighth place eighth place finish overall and 102 international science and engineering nearing fair finalist. Uh we are among one of the most decorated public school science research programs in the country. YES. WITH that being said, there are still some freshman and some younger students who are unaware of the program and miss out on the amazing opportunity. And even at the senior to freshman talkback earlier this year, we had students who only vaguely heard about it or didn't know it at all. So our essential question for this program is to what extent do our current offerings at AMD and Roosevelt ensure every student has the opportunities to develop

040scientific inquiry skills and feel empowered to investigate their own research questions. Now before moving forward to the goals for this initiative, I want to emphasize the work the district is already doing uh with developing scientific inquiry and intellectual independence in students uh in AMD specifically. They have implemented AVID reading write and writing strategies in their curriculum uh to promote critical thinking in students. They have also better prepared eighth grade students for rigorous curriculum with their AVID offering. And next year they'll expand their project lead the way curriculum to better promote STEM learning in students. And districtwide our robotics program has expanded tremendously through outreach and summer programming. These opportunities already promote scientific inquiry and intellectual independence in students and are just one of the reasons our science research program is already so strong. um an

041expansion of science research in this way is just another avenue for students to develop a researchoriented mindset and doing so with these two goals in mind. So goal one is to leverage our award-winning science research program to support science opportunities in AMD and Roosevelt through student mentorship and staff professional development which will allow our students to gain knowledge on how to research from a young age. uh not only growing them as a learner but encouraging them to pursue research in the future. And the more scientifically prepared students are uh the better they are prepared for future opportunities and high school science research as a whole. And then goal two provide Austining students in grades 5 through eight with opportunities to develop their scientific inquiry research and communication skills to develop a diverse pipeline of students

042interested in scientific research. uh science research teachers science research teaches students how to learn effectively and encourage intellectual curiosity. Um both these skills are not only applicable in STEM fields but all fields. Thus expanding this research opportunities will set students up for success in the future no matter what they pursue. >> And a subset of this goal is to ensure we're providing uh a diverse group of students scientific knowledge which is a main pillar of this initiative which is mentorship. So we believe that mentorship is the most effective way to instill intellectual curiosity and independence in students. Um and this program will offer cross-age school-based mentorship through our OS science research juniors and seniors. So the high school students will support the younger students by identifying and narrowing their interests, generating research questions, designing an

043experiment, creating a culminating project, and communicating their research findings. Through this mentorship, every one of our younger students will be able to connect with OS students they can that they can look up to and see themselves in. And this aligns perfectly with the goal in mind to promote building cohesion and school belongingness. Another important uh part of this initiative is the staff professional development piece which will be led by Miss Prior Goch, our co-director of the science research program. These sessions will provide PD to staff in lower buildings who are interested in supporting students in science research. The PD will focus on strategies for guiding in grade guiding students in grades 5 through eight through authentic scientific research, managing the work throw workflow of research projects and opportunities for students to share their research. Science

044research requires independence, but there will be obstacles for students. So educators will help better guide students around these roadblocks, making students better scientific thinkers and more effective learners in general. Additionally, educ educators will create a community similar to the one present in the Austining high school science research program. And this community aspect is vital because students are not will not only be experts on their topic and their own project, but have interests beyond and in other fields. And this community and environment will boost students self-confidence in their abilities and hopefully empower them to apply to the OS science research program when they get to the high school. >> And I think Owen and I think Miss Meyers, correct me if I I'm wrong here, but Miss Prior Gro is going for national board certification. >>

045Yeah. >> So yeah, which is absolutely amazing. Thank you, Katie. Yes. Um, and I think by that what it basically states is that this will be something that she's employing in her research for a national board certified teacher. So, >> correct. >> It's working towards her. >> Y. >> So, with this in mind, my role is a liaison between the schools including coordinating events, uh, me mentor meetups, planning our culminating events, and always thinking about how we can expand our initiative. Um, and so far we have made tremendous progress, especially with Roosevelt. So I have met with Miss Casiano and Mr. Durenzio at Roosevelt and we are planning on incorporating the program into their existing STEM after school club. So I'm in the process of scheduling a get together between our high school juniors and

046seniors and the Roosevelt students and it's shaping up shaping up nicely right there. Right now we have 16 students in our STEM after school club. So, we're already building on that interest and um we're we're simply capitalizing on that interest and we're we're helping students connect with these these high school students. And then for AMD, I'm going to meet soon with Dr. Novver and uh we're looking at long-term implementing this program in some way and being able to create a symposium for both schools. And I think Owen too that first of all um if what happened at Claremont for um enrichment day is any indicator of your ability to rally the troops to help out with our younger students. I am confident that you'll be able to do this here which is great and I

047would give a shout out to any student who of middle school age or and any of the elementary schools who really want a great afternoon in March is to attend one of the engineering fairs. outstanding events, the ones in um Westf, the one in Elen White Plain, there there are a number of them, but it just is a great place to wet your appetite, right? >> And uh they could also attend a DI session too because that would lead to problem solving and the inquiry method. So there's a lot of synergies here. >> Yeah, definitely. >> And I also want to emphasize um the why behind this uh because I think that's important. And this slide is kind of based on my own personal experience through science research and my perspective. So science research for

048me has built critical thinking, writing and reading skills and it has grown my own communication skills and bolstered my academic creativity and confidence and has not only been beneficial to science and math but it helps my my academic standing as a whole. uh my project for instance examines social media and human behavior which is not traditional science and when I look back on my science time in science research I will definitely take away the research skills but more importantly I will take away the communication the reading the writing and the thinking and general life skills that the program has taught me and I'll be able to implement them throughout after high school and throughout life. So the idea with this expansion is not necessarily about the project itself but ideally it would lay the framework

049for intellectual curiosity and those other skills that OHS science research or has instilled in me and my peers. And the expansion is about giving students another avenue to be academically creative and explore their interests whether it be in STEM or not. And then to relate this back to the board's educational equity policy, it states that the district shall foster an environment of rigor where diverse talents are acknowledged and culturally responsive curriculum is highlighted. This program would allow for academic creativity and let students utilize their strongest talents. It also states that all students should have the access to opportunities and achievements targeting disproportionalities as early as possible. This program introduces students to an amazing opportunity at a young age while providing mentors that students can see themselves in. And this is an attempt to disrupt the

050disproportionalities we see in the high school of students who apply to science research and participate in the science research. And this aspect would only be a supplement to the work the counseling center and Mr. Ducos is already doing >> which means we can have more science research students which is the goal. Exactly. Right. Okay. >> Yeah. So in the long term, we believe that every student deserves to be exposed to educational opportunities, intellectual independence, and a chance to succeed. And the most effective way to do this is by exposing them to these opportunities at a young age. And our long-term goal with this is to expand science research in some form to every school in the district. Um, this will tremendously benefit our students, making them learners and more prepared professionals. And it is important

051to note that the buck does not stop with me and does not stop here. Uh this past Monday, I put a form out to our OS program to gauge interest for mentorship. And I'm happy to say we already have enough mentors to provide the Roosevelt students a 1:1 ratio. >> Yay. >> And we're also in the process of selecting our next science research liaison who will work with me this year and carry the program next year. This is definitely just the beginning of expanding our science research foundation. And lastly, from the whole science research program, I would like to thank the board for their continued support for this initiative will de help develop future change makers um for years to come. So, we're really excited about what's to come and thank you. >> I love

052the picture, too. >> Thank you. So I I think Owen uh and when you started um you started with a question that I offered to the curriculum review committee to what extent do our you start uh all um problem solving starts with a great question right >> thank you so much Owen it's nice to hear the sc deep dive into the science research program and all your goals for >> thank you >> the future and all the hard work you're doing thank you so much Owen Um, let's hear it again. Moving along. Um, we're into our work session. >> Okay. >> So, I'm going to turn it back over to Mary Fox Alter to discuss ouring by the numbers presentation. >> All right. So, um I'm going to invite our um assistant superintendent for curriculum

053and instruction, Maria Meyers, to our presentation table and our data guru, consultant, the um a former executive director of one of the 11 Ricks in New York State. I'm just so happy she decided to work with us, Kathy Connley, to the table. >> Thank you for inviting me this evening. Okay. Um for just for our audiences while we're putting together this presentation, the state of New York does require um superintendent and boards of education to annually pre present a testing report based on the state assessments. And um we have decided based on feedback from the board, based upon what um when I first came here, what I saw in previous presentations to use this also as a full data report, meaning by the numbers, the other areas that the board um wanted information on, data

054on, as well as the state assessment. So we put together quite a comprehensive report. I think the board uh for those of you who dropped by over the summer saw pieces of this information, 111 slides of this information. So, um we're um and I will give feedback to Kathy here at a board meeting. Our principles have found and our team have found your information invaluable. >> Thank you so much. >> You have great gift of language. I think that's the former math teacher in you. and um make it making things easy, understandable, and um just doing a great job. So, we really appreciate you working with us, >> and it's a pleasure to work with them. It truly is. >> Thank you, Mary. And good evening. Good evening, President Manelli, members of the board, colleagues,

055and ouring community tonight. Kathy Connley, this young lady to my left, our data consultant from the lyric and a valued partner in this work, and I are honored to share Austining UFSDs, setting the course for excellence, graduation, and beyond, innovating and transforming the future. I would like to frame our presentation for this evening highlighting that every number that you will see this evening represents a child, a journey and a story. Our data is not just about performance. It is about the potential progress and the lived experiences of our students and our and the families that we have the honor to serve. You will see a district-wide view tonight of where Austining has been, where we are, and where we are heading. I also want to preface tonight's presentation by emphasizing that our progress and our

056impact are the result of the daily commitment of our extraordinary principles, our assistant principles, our directors, our educators who whose dedication and teamwork and belief in our children make this journey possible day in and day out. And here we start. And I promise we do not have 110 slides. There are only 53. Um our first uh this slide as you can see is enrollment asening by the numbers. Uh enrollment grounds our work and this slide reflects the number of children that we serve across each of our grade levels and each of our schools. It also has the data helps us plan staffing resources and programs to meet the needs of our students and and we are currently engaged in our budget. So that it also has budgetary implications. I'm maneuvering two things so please bear

057with me. The next two slides are focused you've seen them before. They are focused on our vision, belief, core values, and mission. They ground every decision we make, guide how we respond to what our data tells us. This is the foundation of our work, our commitment to our children, and the lens through which we approach continuous improvement across the district. This is something you are also familiar with, our portrait of a learner. And obviously this is our why. What you'll see to your right is what Mary mentioned before, the portrait of a graduate which was is part of the New York Inspires initiative that the um the state has is in the process of adopting the portrait of a graduate has already been adopted and I'll speak a little bit later uh a little bit

058deeper into that. This slide highlights the core pillars of our long range plan. What I'm doing right now is just setting the stage. Um these are our f foundational priorities which you are familiar with. We had our principles uh present their action plans and their smart goals all grounded on our priorities and our long range plan. This is what guides our work. In addition to that, um our last board meeting, uh Miss Maicio and her team presented their um their action plan again aligned to our priorities. And as you can see, we have our long range plan buckets. However, we have under those it's data literacy, teaching and learning, tier one, equity, and family engagement. So that is the stage and here we go with aing by the numbers and I pass it over to

059my partner to my left. >> Absolutely. Thank you. >> Okay. So we go to the next slide because this is not presentation >> one way. Okay. >> Technical difficulties. >> There we go. >> So, just a small. >> Okay. So the first thing I would like to speak about is the New York um state education um accountability plan. It's the ESSA, the federal government's ESSA accountability um report and ESSA stands for elementary and secondary school act. um early in the winter. In fact, we just got the preliminary determinations released for our schools and we'll show you those in a moment. But we are um since the pandemic, we had stopped the accountability and then rebuilt it. So we are now we we began a restart after we came back from um the pandemic and then

060we went into a rebuild phase and now we are in the re-imagine phase and the reimagine phase will continue for several years until something other big thing happens. So um the um the basis of the accountability is um indicators and elementary and middle school have a set of indicators and the high school has a set of indicators. I just need the thing here. Um so the elementary, middle, and high school share some indicators and some that they don't. Where'd we go? >> Okay, so the elementary and the middle school um and high school, all three of them have two performance indicators based on the 3 through eight assessments at the elementary and middle school and the regions at the high school and they are the weighted average achievement and core subject performance um indicators. There's

061a new indicator for all schools. It's replacing the excessive absence indicator. They're now flipping it to a positive attendance indicator. And that will apply to all students attending our schools. And um all schools share the English language proficiency indicator. Only elementary and middle schools have a growth indicator and that had been paused because of inconsistent data after the pandemic and now it is being reintroduced this year. At the high school, they have a graduation rate indicator and we are reintroducing again the college career and civic readiness indicator which is an indicator for um challenging program. The more challenging the program that the students participate in, the more points that the school, the high school and the district get. So, okay. So this is what Kathy just mentioned is the accountability status. This is something again

062that you are familiar with. We we presented it last year that the New York State Education Department classifies us into categories. The categories are there. Um the uh the acronyms LSI, local support and improvement which is formally good standing. Uh TSI is targeted school support and improvement. Uh those two are the ones that we are most familiar with. Are we have been for the past uh four four or five years we have been under TSI. Um whether when I first got here it was our middle school and then our middle school met and was um designated into an LSI school and then Park Avenue became TSI. When a school becomes TSI, uh the district also becomes designated as TSI. Um if you notice the bottom there it is. I apologize. If you notice the bottom

063row has a plus. What that indicates is the fact that a school has to self assess because they do not have a state assessment connected to them. And that is Park. Brookside does have a state assessment even though it does they don't take a state assessment but they call it back mapping because they feed into a school into third grade that actually takes the assessment. So Kathy just alluded to the fact that we have just been um it was shared with us what our designation is for this year. Are you ready? I think it's time to celebrate. We are in completely LSI. All our student all our all our schools are in local support and improvement which means that we are in good standing not only as our schools but as a district. >> In

064years been years. Yes. >> It's been years. >> Yes. Again a testament to consistency. a testament to the work and a testament to the dedication and the collaboration that is um that ising. So um and this slide uh indicates or shows us our participation rate. Why is that important? Because the federal government actually uses this um as part of their algorithm to determine whether school district and schools are in good standing or in local support and improvement. Um if you can know if you notice please uh the trajectory of increase over the past years the past three years um we were in 86% in ELA and 82% participation rate in um in mathematics and last year we accomplished a goal that we set we are at n we were at 98% participation rate so again

065a testament to to uh the focus on ensuring that our students are engaging in the assessments. >> Okay. So, um we're looking at the actual um performance levels now and I'll try the numbers are small but I'll try to highlight what uh we need to see. This is two years and we're comparing um Austining to the lower Hudson region and there's 62 school districts in um the lower Hudson region and it includes all of them um from the struggling districts all the way through the high performing districts. They are um displayed in the green and the light green is 22 um 24 and a 2024 and the dark green is excuse me the light green is 2023 no >> 2024 and the dark green is 2025 the current data it's the 24 25 school year

066all of this data is based on last year's performance so um as we look at the first set of bars The light blue is Austining's 20 uh and the dark blue is the 2425. And you can see that overall through 3 through8 there was we went from 32% to 38% in the first that's three through eight combined and then across the screen you'll see third grade fourth grade all the way through eighth grade. And I want to point out that while the eighth grade looks like it went down, this time last year, we were celebrating a huge leap in the eighth grade performance. So I went back and looked at that data. And if you look at the seventh grade light blue, that's 26%. That's the same students that got 40% in the eighth grade

067this year. So when you look at the cohort, >> so when you look at it through the cohort, you can see the growth, but looking at it just yeartoear, it's confounded by the fact that last year's eighth grade had this great growth, and it looks like there's an issue, but there there was not. This is the same data for those of you that like line graphs. The first one was a bar graph and the second one is line graphs. I particularly like line graphs myself. >> And the one on the left is the 23 24 data and the one on the right is the 2425 data. And you can see that the variability from grade to grade at oing kind of mimics what's going on in the entire region. Okay. Now, we're looking at a

068two-year comparison of ELA by level, state performance level. The state assessments have four performance levels. Level one, two, three, and four. Um, level one is the lowest, level four is the highest, and the combination of level three and level four are your proficiency um data. So those combined um are the numbers where you would say the number of students are that are proficient. So in 2024 I want to point out that we have really been focusing um with the principles and the teachers on lowering the percentage of level ones. that had been something that came to our attention the first year that I uh was working with the district and we have steadily been working on that and the analogy I use is squeezing the toothpaste that you squeeze it from the bottom and you

069get more and more up at the top and so now we're squeezed them we've squeezed 7% from the bottom and we captured 6% at the top so that's exactly the journey we want to beyond and we want to continue that each year and we actually had more students um being assessed as well. >> Okay, this is a little busy and I'll try to um give you a a way to make sense of it. Along the left side, you have your level one, two, and then proficiency. And going across the screen, you have your grade levels. And the um purple is the latest data, the 2425 school year, and the gray is the 232 24 school year. And you can see that at level one, we squeezed at every grade level. And up at the level,

070at the proficiency level, we captured additional percentages. And keep in mind that eighth grade um looking at the 26% from at level one by cohort you're moved up to 40%. There was a lot of squeezing there. I'd like to point out that um in our analysis we do very deep dives into the data and the lyric has wonderful tools which I'm very proud because I'm so old that I was um part of the development of these reports. So um I have shared my love of these reports with the teachers and the administrators because they are so rich with information. Kathy, I do have to highlight because we go back. >> This was critical. We did some people remember the advocacy getting the item analysis out. This is the information that in, you know, in other

071life I spent a ton of time in and I was thrilled. Kathy would say, Mary, it's got you're getting more, you're getting more. So, it's spending time on all of these. So, um, you're being modest in that approach, Kathy. A lot of these reports I was doing I had been a corporate data analyst and um I was doing them by hand and um finally I got my hooks into the lyric and and they automated them all >> right >> and was able to share it with everybody. So >> those of us who say Kathy >> I know I know so many phone calls. So these reports um this is the report that I said if I was ever stranded on an island and only could have one report, this is the one I want. >>

072So on the left side it gives you a standard and then it tells you the percentage of questions on that standard. So it can tell you um the importance that um the state is putting on that particular standard. the more um questions on a given standard, the more important the state feels it is. So that's important for us to know. And then it tells you the strand. Is it reading for literature? Is it reading forformational text? Is it um vocabulary? So, um, it tells you, you know, the general strand and it gives you the questions and anything that's blue, if you click on it, it brings the question up, gives you the student responses, um, gives you a great analysis, gives you um the the text that the student had to read. So, it's all

073right there. and we didn't, you know, my day we were going through the booklets and looking through them and now it's all a click away. >> If it's MC, it's a multiplechoice question. If it just has a number, it's an extended response question. And then it gives you the success of your building, all the students at that grade level. And there's filters. You could look at just the special ed students. You can look at just uh the males. You could look at just um Hispanic students um L's. You could you could filter and look at the performance of different subgroups and then it compares to different benchmarks. So the benchmark is we're we're a Princeton plan so we only have one school with grade five, but in other districts they may have three elementary schools.

074And so you can compare the school to the district. Then you can compare the schools to your Boseies which in our case here is northern Westchester um Boseies. You can compare it to the success rate of the Lyric region, the 62 districts. You can compare to high level two students, those students that are just about making it over that hump. um lowlevel three uh level three students, high level three students and level four students. So there's something there to offer for any district, any school, any group of students there. I love this report >> and our principles, >> They love it. They had never seen it before. They were really thrilled this year. >> Mary, I was going to add and Kathy that if you go back to that slide, I'm sorry. You can click

075on each one of those questions and it pops up and you can see the language. >> Yeah, you read you read the passage. >> Just so the board knows, you can actually if you see us if you see a um >> link. Yeah, if you see a percentage that you want that looks like an outlier, you can click on the question itself. Well, the if they're not highlighted, they're not released by the state, right? >> If it's black, if it's not blue, >> right? >> Does it look Oh, you can't see the color. >> You can see the underline though, but it's not released. >> And in the past, they only released 50%. And I think now they've released 75, right? So that's really >> and they had released maybe 20. I mean it was

076a long Oh, that was a brutal time. >> This is really I mean then teachers can incorporate language that they see on some of those questions into their into you know that they know students can be strugg and and I think Dr. Mary remembers in another time we get these in the summer. We would take the books and do exactly what Kathy said and do this. >> This is really really excellent. >> Right. And just to put it into context, these are the reports that we used in order to create our action plans, what you saw our principles uh present. >> I have a quick clarifying question. I still don't understand what the last four columns mean. Can you just say that again or explain it differently? >> So they um the magic of the

077lyric computers grab all students with the actual cut point for a high level two. So, you have scale scores that um determine what level you're in. And it's like, okay, I get up to this scale score, chunk off the ones, get to the next scale score, chunk off your twos. And so, every every student actually gets a scale score. And that scale score, depending on where it is on the range, gives you your level one, two, three, or four. So the cut point for uh high level two they take just those students and run this report with just those students in the region. >> Okay. >> So now um if we are performing like a highle two we can compare against the high level twos. Um, then the level three is the students that just

078made it into proficiency, that exact cut point. And then the highle threes are 2thirds of the way through on the three range. And then level four is those students that just got that level four. >> Right? So, for that rightmost box, for example, >> yeah, >> what I'm looking at is 94% of the students who scored a four um at that point level got this specific question correct. Okay. >> Yeah. So, so um our students I got 65%. So, we performed similar to a high level two on that question. So that would be one of the questions that we want to dig into because we weren't proficient. >> And this one right here, >> which one? >> I can't see. >> Which one are you looking at? >> So another that one there 36% the

079district. So we we had 36% and again we performed like a high level two there. But the percentage the success rate of the of the region also tells you how difficult the question was. Right? >> So you might have only 25% success rate but your level threes may have only had 20% success rate. That was a very hard question. So it helps you decide. Don't chase the hard questions. Let's look at the easier and mid-range questions first >> and see why they didn't get those right. >> And here's an example. The 47% on level four. >> Yeah, that was a tough >> a very Yeah, I mean that that was a really hard question. >> Can I can I just ask really quickly? Sorry. In the question column just so I understand this because I'm

080looking at this as really good data. Is there a degree of difficulty that's assigned to each of those different questions? >> So, there is. >> And do is there just because I'm trying to let this stick in my head because it seems like if I'm not misreading this your MC that's I guess it's multiple choice 28 questions that were there. I think >> um that those were multiple question 28. >> Oh, it's question Oh, question 28. question. So, it's multiple choice question number 20. >> Okay. Multiple choice. Okay. Got it. And then 24 is a multiple choice, too. >> That's an extended response. >> Yes. >> Ah, okay. All right. All right. I'm just trying to understand what that means. Okay. >> Writing >> that. So, writing multiple choice. Okay. So, the multiple choice was

081perhaps much more challenging, but that I guess it doesn't really tell you degree of difficulty. >> So, it the Rick has it and there's other reports that are called the PI. Okay. >> So, um the degree of difficult there is a range of difficulty levels so that you can discriminate who your fours are. You want to be able to say, okay, this is a four student. You got a really hard question correct. >> And the way it is built, the more questions you get correct, you have to start getting the hard ones correct. >> So, so it's an algorithm. Yeah. Yeah. In there. Okay. Okay. Now, here's another favorite report. Um, the this is an individual student. That one we just looked at was the grade level or the subgroup that we filtered on. And

082this is an individual student report. And it shows you that this particular student got a level two on the assessment. They got a scale score of 447. The cut point for level three was 450. So they were very close. >> And um we've got six questions here. This report shows you the questions that were easy that this student got wrong. Had they gotten them correct, they probably would have been proficient. So you give this report. We spit out all of these. it's only only created for level one and level two um scores on the test. And we printed them all out and we gave them to the AIS providers and said, "All right, here here's a road map of you know standards and skills that these students need to start with. We know that they

083are lacking in these. How do we fill it now?" So those were the two big reports. There's other reports that we use but these are the fan favorites >> and I'm sorry how you picked those particular questions in that report. >> Those questions if you look at the third column it's proficiency level cut point. So here's the difficulty level of the question because it determined proficiency. 85% of the students in the region, which is 15,000 students at a grade level, 85% of them got that correct. That student should have gotten that correct and did not. And 63, so this these questions are selected because 50% or more of the region got them correct and this student did not. And it's informative because it gives us the standard right there. So we can see the vocabulary.

084What what is it that the challenge? >> And over at the right side, the one, two, three tells you um one is the literature strand, two is the reading for information strand, and three is the reading for literary response. So you can see just quickly that this student is struggling with theformational text. Okay. So now switch gears and we're looking at math. So it's the same um the same reports, the same views as we looked at in ELA. The green is the lyric, the 62 school districts. The blue is Austining and the dark blue is last year's data. And three through eight, we went up 4% overall grades. And you can see that in some grades we had huge increases going from the light blue to the dark blue. And again, because last year's math

085was so had such a leap, it doesn't show it correctly. um seventh grade last year, the year before was 43% and last year was 44%. So it's pretty flat but um that that was good because we had made good strides in um in the seventh and eighth grade line graph. Same thing, same data shows how we um mimicked the lyric. We sagged a little bit in the fifth and sixth grade um last year, but not much. Now, we're looking at the two-year comparison, and we want to squeeze that toothpaste again. So, we have our levels one, two, and proficiency at the bottom. Looking at level one in 23, 24, we had 30% there. And when I started working with the district three years ago, that's pretty much where we were. We were in the mid

086to high 30%s in level one. And now last year we were down to 24% in level one. Not where we want to be, but we're getting there. And um at the proficiency level we increase 4%. Okay. Um now we're looking at both proficiency level on the left and grade levels going across to the right. The green bars are last year's data. And you want to see that the green bar is lower than the um gray bar. And let's see. And then up at the proficiency level at the top, let's see. We have that's where we want to show growth. We want the green bar to be higher. So, I know that's a busy picture, but you want the short bars up at the top at the level one and the taller bars at the bottom

087at the level three and four. Okay, same uh benchmark report for ELA and math. Um, and they have it for science as well. And this is the same remediation report. And now we're talking about NISLAT. So the New York the NISLT is the New York State uh English as a second language achievement test and all L's take uh the NISLAT from kindergarten all the way up through 12. Uh we have seven grade level bands K 1 2 and then we have 3 4 5 6 uh 78 and 912. It assesses all four modalities of language, listening, speaking, reading and writing. And it um results in levels of proficiency, five levels we currently have. It's entering, emerging, transitioning, expanding, and commanding. This information is what supports us in informing not only uh programming but also placement

088uh services, how many minutes a a student is entitled to for their services and so on. This is our L enrollment. Um as you know uh there's a lot of fluidity when it comes to our enrollment. I will be providing a net uh information uh as far as the data in my update and this is what the nicest slot looks like as far as the data. Again, like Kathy said, this is very, very busy. Uh what I'd like to point out here is that most of our children are living right now in the transitioning and expanding levels of proficiency. As you can see by the bars, the gray bars are our last uh two years, 2024, and our orange bars are 2025. Um, if you, like I said, if you notice, um, most of our

089children live in the expanding and transitioning levels, which are the two levels when you're looking at language development that take the most time to develop. Uh you will notice that the commanding bar is very short, very small but please know that uh commanding once a student scores commanding they exit L status. Um and obviously Miss Cruz uh de la roio will be uh sharing a lot more information and more details in her presentation in January. So what? Okay. Okay. So um switching gears now to the middle school regions. And at the middle school there were two regions administered algebra 1 and earth and space sciences which was a brand new regions. And um any time that we transition from one regions to another, there's always a lag in getting the curriculum and the assessment to

090match. There's always these guides that go out and say, "Here's what the curriculum is, but it takes a couple of years to get the assessment to match that." So um I I work with a number of districts in the region and um we are one of a few that g a very few that gave that region. So there's not too much to compare to but um the earth and space um sciences we had 54% pass rate and on the algebra one we had 100% pass rate which has been ongoing for a number of years. Okay. So we've been talking about New York State assessments which are benchmark assessments. They're given once a year and they're given to all students in New York State. Um, we also give local assessments and we have more control over

091local assessments. Local assessments are given more than once a year so that we can monitor not only achievement but growth as well. And I'll talk about the difference between growth and achievement later on in the slides. So the NWA is the assessment that we have chosen and it is given in grades K through 12 uh K through 11 and it measures reading and math and uh it is given three times a year so that we can have a dipst stick. We also give the ERA an enal which is uh progress monitoring and that's an ongoing assessment is repeatedly given. There's no schedule to it. It's um just built into the the weekly instruction that at this point we're going to monitor the progress of a student that is on the um roster for the ERA

092and the ANAL. Something to note about NWA which is unique to all of those other assessments and we also give teacher assessments as well unit tests. >> Um but what's unique to NWA is that it is um it it adjusts it's adaptive and it adjusts to the students responses. So if a student it's given an easy qu student's given an easy question they get that right they're given a harder question. they get that right, they're given another harder question. If they get that wrong, they back up in difficulty level and they keep going back and forth to try to get to the just right difficulty level for the student. So really, no two students get the same assessment. It is um a normed a nationally normed assessment. So we are compared to all of the

093other students at a grade level that took in the United States that took that assessment at that point in time of the year. Okay. So um something to note is that it's difficult to look at last year and um look at 2324 compared to 2425 because there were new norms administered in 2025 in the fall. So this data had the norms adjusted. So they could be a little bit different maybe, maybe not. We don't know yet. So um the NWA has five levels low average high average and high and they are based on percentiles. So the percentile range of one to 99 is chunked into five equal groups and that gives you your low, low average, average, high average and high. And we're looking at K8 data right now. The gray is the fall of

094the 2425 school year and the what color is up there? Orange is um the fall of the 2526 data. So we look at the low and go across the um the levels and what what I'm pleased to see is that we're out of that 30s% in that low level across the board. we've gotten out of that and we've moved now more into the 20 percentages. Um that that's that's a big again a big focus of getting um the students out of that low level. And uh looking at the high average and the high level, you you could combine those together and say that those are your um proficient students in um well above average students because it's done by percentiles. Anybody have any questions on that one? >> Just just a clarification. So reading the

095from what I'm hearing so far low, you want to try to squeeze that like what you're saying. So if I look at I want to pick a grade um let's pick second and third grade. >> Okay. >> Your 20% in fall of 2024 2025 becomes 24% in the in third grade. Yes. >> Correct. So that one uptick, but others that went from, let's pick another one, fifth grade, oh no, not that's perhaps not the best example, like fourth grade, um, 26% um, I don't know, but these are kind of maintaining roughly a steady average on that. They are right now, >> right? So whereas on the the high side because if the low has been squeezed we've moved a lot more of them towards the upper bands. Right? Is that am I interpreting that correct?

096Okay. >> Over this past several years. >> Y >> like three years ago we were 30s across the board. >> Right. So, so if you look at the seventh eighth on the high average y, >> you went from 21% because that cohort became the eighth grade that the next year from 21 into 28%. So that was a six point increase in from 7th to eighth grade. Is that correct? >> So which which level are you looking at? >> If you if you look at seventh grade high average >> high average. >> Yeah. You have 21%. >> Yep. that moved and that cohort became right that went that became eighth grade the next year to 27%. Okay. So that that so these are like the upticks. Yes. >> Just for >> understanding this and also for

097the community who's looking at this is a lot of good data just about making sure that we know >> what you see in seventh grade in the next year in the prior year becomes the next grade in the next year. Yeah. Okay. >> Correct. That's looking at cohorts. Exactly. >> Yep. Okay. >> Okay. So we all so the NWA is given in reading in English, reading in Spanish and math. So, this is your reading in Spanish um results and we're still working on that squeezing of the level ones at on this for the this subgroup of students >> and also all dual language students both English dominant and Spanish dominant take this assessment in both lang in both languages English and Spanish both groups. >> Yes. So now we're looking at math and it is

098the same pattern. We have our five um levels and going across we have our nine grade levels and let's see if we can pick one. Go to the high average again. Let's pick the high average for grade seven to eight. It's high average in grade seven was 21% and in grade eight that same cohort is 24%. So we we gained some percentage points there. Now this assessment is given three year three times a year. It's given in the fall, in the winter, and in the spring. We can't measure growth at this time of the year because we only have one data point. Once we get to the winter administration, then we can look at growth from the fall to the winter. So many times I'm asked is NWA an indicator of the state test performance

099and we would love to see say yes, it's a really strong indicator. It it does have a very positive correlation for both ELA and English and uh math, but it's not a onetoone correlation across the board. What we see is the vast majority of students getting a low score will also get a level one on the state assessment and almost all students with a high NWA reading score will get a proficient on the ELA. And I have a graph that shows it better. So you have your five levels of NWEA and then you have across level one, level two, level three, and level four. And remember, level three, and level four combined are your proficient students. So you can see that if a student scored a low on the NWA assessment, they're likely to get

100a level one. So those are the students that you really want to pump support into as you go through the school year. Um and you the low average and average is a mixed bag. I don't think they're very good at discriminating at that um level of um the NWA, but your high average and your high will show you that the vast majority of students at high average and high are going to be proficient. Can't tell you if they're three or four, but they can tell you that they're going to be proficient. So that's that's a pretty good indicator of how we're going to do on the state assessments. >> Can you explain this graph to me? I'm not quite understanding it. >> Sure. Let me go back to Are you back there? Okay. So the

101graph part going if I stand up it'll be easier. >> I talk with my hands. So these are the levels of the scores on NWA. These are level one on the state assessment, level two on the state assessment, level three and level four on the state assessments. Okay. If a student is scoring at the low on NWA, they're likely >> sorry people here at home. They're likely to get a level one on the state assessment. Really strong correlation there. >> Okay. But some of them who get a level one still get high average in some areas. >> some that get a low average and average or even a high average could get a level one. It's not a perfect correlation. It's not a perfect predictor. >> Okay, that answers my question. I understand this now.

102Thank you. >> I think I should. Okay. So now there's lots of confusion of when we talk about growth and achievement. What's the difference? Which one's more important? So, achievement is a specific point in time, one data point, one test score, and it tells you um how that student did. Now, I don't know how they compared to everybody else. I don't know if it's better than they took than they've been doing. Uh I don't know anything. I just know that that's their what they achieved. Now if there is a standard or a benchmark I could know if they made the benchmark or didn't make the benchmark but that's achievement one point one data point. It's usually measured by it can be measured by anything. You can measure by standardized tests, teachers grades, um any other

103kind of assessment, but there's usually a criteria, a pass, what what what is considered a pass or a fail or um you know a standard. You can measure um you can measure against other students and create a percentile. Um it focuses on um reaching mastery or proficiency. When you're looking at achievement, you want to say, did they get there? That's achievement. Lots of examples here. A unit test for given by a teacher. The fall NWA, we just know what they did. We don't know how they did before, how they did after, we just know how they did that time. Um, if a student got a level three on a New York State assessment, that's one point. In grade five, that's one point. what they got on in algebra regions. So those are all examples of

104achievement. And when we're doing testing, that's normally what we're talking about is achievement. Um in Earl and ENIAL, they're conferencing all the time. The achievement part is just their conference number two. Just the one point. Growth on the other hand takes into account a period of time and you need multiple test points. You can't measure growth on one point. You need at least two. More be is the better. Um I always say I need three because I don't know if one of them is an anomaly. So I always like three points um when I'm measuring growth. And it's um it's a comparison. It's comparing the students performance. It needs to be the same assessment. You can't take compare apples and oranges. You can't take, you know, an NWA and compare it directly to the state

105test and say, "Oh, they grew." They're different units of measure. Um, and when you're talking about growth, it could be growth within a month. growth within like like a month would be something for era and eneal because you're doing multiple checkpoints within a month. Um you could be within a term from one quarter to another within a school year for school you know over multiple school years you can measure growth any way and it's looking at progress. It's not looking at are they on grade level above grade level below grade level. It's looking at are they doing better? Is this their personal best? So, examples of growth is looking at ELA over time. Looking at um a student from what they did in third, fourth, and fifth grade to what they've done in the middle

106school. Um it's frequently measured in percentiles, not percentages. Um, pre and post spelling test would be an example of growth. You give um a student a pre-spelling test, how many did they get right? They study the words and then they give it again. Now, how many what progress did they make? Um, when you're looking at Earl and Enneil and tracking cohorts over time, that would be growth. And we were when we were just looking at the cohorts from grade to grade, we had two points and we looked at the growth there. And anytime you're looking across years, you're looking at growth. Neither one is is one is not more important than the other. Can I go to the next slide? >> You do. >> Oh, okay. That one is lagging this one. So, okay. So,

107making me crazy. I got you. Okay. So achievement, they're both important. They give a full picture when they're both there. So achievement provides you your baseline. Where did you start? And it gives you gives the teacher um the ability to set realistic and very specific goals for that student. Um it enables your AIS providers to determine what kind of support and interventions are needed. um it measures the effectiveness of the learning compared to the teacher strategies. Teacher could have wonderful strategies for most of the class and it's not working for this student. So we need to adjust strategies. Um and the combining academic achievement with growth gives you a comprehensive understanding of is this is this um journey working for this child or do we need to adjust um standard percentiles. So students when we're

108using percentiles, they're comparing the students um achievement their that score that they just got compared to other students. How did they do? So um did they do better than the average of the class, less than the average of the class? If a student or a class is at the 60th percentile, and that's what NWA reports in in percentiles. If um if you're at the 60th percentile, that means that that student scored better than 60% of the students that took that test. They didn't get 60% of the questions correct. they did better than 60% of the other students that took the test along with them. Okay. Good example everyday living of when you have an infant, you're taking the baby to the doctor every month. The doctor's measuring their height, their weight, and their head circumference,

109and they're charting the percentile of those measures over time. Now, this may be a short child. that's okay as long as they're growing from month to month. So, if they're at the 20th percentile for height, that's okay as long as they keep on that 20th percentile or better. But if they drop down to the 10th percentile, that's a message to the doctor that something could be wrong. Maybe the child's not thriving. So, um, we use percentiles in growth in achievement all the time. This is a graph of um growth and achievement. Each one of those little blocks is an achievement measure. But when you look at this, you have um grade one, grade two, >> grade three. So if you look at them across grade levels, you can see there's multiple data points within the

110school year. And looking at that over time, you can see the growth that that student is making. >> And we were very purposeful in this chart because this is actually ERA. So even though we use ERA as a progress monitoring tool, it has a combination of growth and achievement. >> Each one of the blocks is how that student achieved and that teacher is now going to react to that individual achievement point. But when you track it, you get a growth measure and now you've got a full picture of um where this student is. Okay. Now, these are NWA and I have to stand up again. >> Oh, yeah. >> Okay. It's got little. It got very small because I wanted to get a lot on there. Um, like I said, NWA is measured in percentiles

111because it's constantly comparing to all the other students in the United States that took the test. So, um, whenever you're using percentiles, 40th to 60th percentile is considered the normal range. So the first thing I want to point out is that all of our schools are in the normal range. They're at that average point. Okay. So that's the first thing that NWA tells us and that's the little yellow bo um ovals that we can't read on the screen. That's what they are over there. And then it gives you um the percent of each in the percent of your students in each one of their five levels. So what ideally you want is a lot more blue and a lot less red. And that's what we're working on, squeezing the red and increasing the green and

112the blue. >> Okay. >> And this column here is the number of tested number of number of >> Oh, all the way over here. Yes. Is the number of students tested >> and there's math. >> Okay. And this is math and it's the same chart. Um, in the winter we will have another line going across that gives us our growth. But over here you can see for math as for math as well we are well in that normal range of 40 to 60 percentile. Okay, Erla, this is the independent reading uh level assessment and obviously uh this is the assessment that is connected to our reading program, the ARC core. Um, and as we've explained before, this is our progress monitoring tool that measures the students uh readiness at the level that they're ready to

113learn in reading. uh it results in uh um power goals and it informs the teacher's uh practice, right? And how to best support the student again where they're ready to learn. Uh this chart right here, the ERA measures has three levels, emergency, at risk, and proficient or above. Um and again the goal is to have those short little bars at the top and the higher bars at the bottom um for the proficient and the above. So as you can see uh we are well on our way. Are we where we want to be yet? No. But we are well on our way when it comes to our ERA and all children are led. we use it as a verb. Uh they are erled and um the children who are in our dual language programs who

114are being instructed in the Spanish language uh take the ani. So as you can see through this chart uh again three profic uh three levels of proficiency and across the bottom are the comparison from uh the 2024 school year to last year of 2025. And you can see um again that we are um well on our way to supporting our our learners. And you can see that the shorter bars are at the top at the uh emergency. And you can see at the medium you have uh bars in the medium level which is are at risk and then proficiency uh in some grades you see them higher. there. >> It's you. Uh so again, this is just a repeat of what we just said. Uh it they are progress monitoring um tools. Student scoring at

115the emergency and at risk levels are not on track. Unfortunately uh we have shown that because this is a comparison or is it a predictor or an indicator uh we are showing just like the NWA if they are at risk or at the emergency levels most of them are scoring at the levels one and two the non-proficient and um we saw let me just go to the Here we go. It's so much easier. >> Do you want me to do that one? >> Yeah. the mic. >> As you can see here, again, these are the three levels of proficiency. These are the ELA levels, level one, two, three, and four. Um, most of our children that were at the emergency level for ERA scored most of them scored a level one at risk about 41%

116and proficient above. is you can see there was a little they're a little volatile there. Um but you can see that you know about 65% scored proficient uh but we still have a high number of level twos. So we're still working uh on that but again this is a a a progress monitoring tool that provides us in in um information on an ongoing basis. >> All right. you you may have covered this before but just for clarity this these are pro statistical probabilities here right saying so I'm reading this correctly if you are in that emergency band it's you have an 80 87% chance >> no >> 80% on last year's state assessments >> 87% of the students scored a level one who were in the emergency >> and they and they also were in

117the emergency level. >> Okay. So, it's just an intersection not necessarily probabilities. Correct. So, not even not necessarily it's just not pro it's just what the actual data says that >> but it's it correlates to >> correct. Yes. >> Okay. >> It was a cross-section. >> Okay. >> Any other questions on this? >> Okay. So, we're going on to the high school now and we're looking at graduation rates. And frequently, you know, at the end of the school year, I would get a call from uh superintendent, what's our graduation rate? And uh the first thing I would say is, which graduation rate do you want? So, there's the 12th grade students that walked across the stage and got a diploma. That's one graduation rate. And then there's the cohorts graduation rate, the fouryear, fiveyear, and

118sixyear graduation rates. Those are the students that entered ninth grade together. And sometimes somebody advances and graduates early, and sometimes they take another year or two to graduate. So the students that walked across the stage last June were not all from the same cohort. They're mostly the same cohort, but they're not entirely the same cohort. So, you always need to know what graduation rate you're talking about. So, this is your grade 12 students walking across the stage. Um the going across you have for six years the total number of seniors and then you have the total number of students graduated and then you have your total percent of graduation. Now, keep in mind that you have the pandemic mixed in here and um the pandemic was the 2020 school year. And between the 2020 and

1192021 school year, students were given um what was it? >> Yeah. Given exemptions um to enable them to graduate. they got credits for passing their courses and um they had to apply for it. There were criteria. It wasn't just granted to everybody, but there was a surge in graduation rates. So, you can see that going from 20 to 21 to 22, 2021 had more graduates than the other years because they benefited from that. So, that's that um that blip in 21. So pretty much you're at the 80 to 82% very stable going across. We're working on increasing that. I know that's one of the focuses at the high school. >> Right. And that's something um Miss Langley and her team identified as our action plan this year. Right. I know because they we've been working

120together >> and that's what we hope that now seeing this data it helps you also understand the the action plans that our principles presented and the and the data that they use. So here's the cohort graduation rates. So you have four year, fiveyear and sixyear. And that's not always been um they usually I maybe about six years ago well before the pandemic um there was just before ESSA actually there was just a four-year cohort that was um important but now um the state allows us to look at the fouryear fiveyear and sixyear and combine those as an average for your ESSA indicator and that's important. important to um two subgroups in particular. It's your L's and your special ed students. They truly benefit from the extra time. And not all districts were generous with that.

121I have to say Austining has always been very generous even when it wasn't um helpful to accountability like it is now. Um, Austin's always been very generous with giving the students the benefit of time. And I'm going to stand up again. Is that mic? >> Um, >> to see truly see the benefit here. Um, we labeled what cohort the students were in. So, here's a four-year cohort in 2425. This, um, it's cohort 2021. They entered ninth grade in September of 20, the 2021 school year. And it gets very confusing because we're looking at 24 25 data for performance, but then we look at 23 24 for graduation rate because we have to wait for the August graduates to get counted in. That's why it's a lag for the graduation rate. It's not the same year's

122data as the performance data. So let's take a look. So this is the fouryear, fiveyear, and sixyear. And they're different students. But let's look at a cohort. In 2223, cohort 2019 had an 82% graduation rate as their four-year graduation rate. That same group of students in 23 24 had their five-year check-in and they moved up to 86%. And then they went to a six-year and they were up to 90%. So you can see that the students took really took advantage of that time and they got over that um graduation criteria. >> What's that? I can't hear you. >> Want to do this one too? I mean, stay >> they think one. Oh, no. The next is that the next slide? >> Yep. >> Oh, okay. Yeah, I can do that. So, this is graduation rates

123for the English language learners and they went from 17% to 33% to 57%. So, the L students, this is the L students. And now we have um >> just want to highlight something. Yep. I just want to highlight something as well. Uh for the four-year, our students in 2023 2024, 22% and we had an increase of 8% graduation. We're not where we want to be, but we are definitely on the trajectory for a 4-year cohort. Also want to highlight that for our former multilingual learners, our former L's, 93% graduation rate of our former L's, which is something very good to celebrate. And same same pattern for our students with disabilities. Um, let's see, we have 68% to 70 I'm in the way. 73% to 80% for our special ed students. And those are the two

124subgroups where it really makes a difference. The other subgroups, not so much. Okay. Now, we're looking at annual dropout rates. And this is um not cohort. It's truly within a year. how many students dropped out. And I'd say um just knowing the data of the region, a 2% dropout rate is a very good dropout rate. So now we're looking at a regions and before we look at the data, there's some transitions going on here that I want to point out. um the earth science regions change to earth in space science which I mentioned at the when we talked about the middle school living environment is back to biology and um both of those assessments are in their first year and again most districts should you know usually wait it out until they have to so

125that the curriculum and the assessment get um synchronized and the US history and government. If you look over in the chart on the right, you'll see at the bottom that we had about 105 less students take the US history. And the reasoning for that is the students no longer have to take both the global and the US history. and our students are choosing a more rigorous um challenge in taking the AP US history. So you have those students that are likely the high scorers um opting for a different assessment which we used to see when you know the students were taking um the algebra regions in the middle school and not taking the math eight. Uh so as we look at the data, keep that in mind that we've got three transitions going on there.

126So in algebra 1, we've had that um we've had that assessment for I think two or three years now. It's a fairly new assessment. Uh we're at 55% passing. We're not happy with that. we're pulling that um test apart and trying to figure out um you know what's going on there and how we can raise those scores. Um we're not the only high school struggling with the new algebra 1 regions though. Uh earth and science earth space and earth and space science I keep getting confused with that name. We only had 32% past that at the high school level. I think we were 50 something at the middle school. 54 at the middle school. The ELA regions, we've had that for a few years now and we're up, we moved up 4% to 73% pass

127rate. Um geometry, did we did we change? We only have 22 students taking that. That's really not a fair um metric here. Um but we had 68% taking it. Last year in that gray bar, the 89, there were only nine students that took that. So, they were students that um really wanted to take that assessment. Global history, uh that's this that's the science uh social studies assessment that comes first and once the students pass that they can either choose to take the US history or not. Um, and we had 79. We're up 7% there. And the living environment, the old test. Last year we did 62% on this new biology test, we were 55% pass rate. And like I said, the US history and government, the drop there reflects a lot of students taking the

128US history AP assessment, which will count also towards um an advanced designation diploma for them. So there's no downside to them doing that. AP exam. Speaking of APS, um is that yours? You want that? Okay. So the AP piece assessment we can see going across that um in 22 2022 we had a big surge in 2021 also in 2022 a big surge in AP assessments because that was the only game in town those years that was after the pandemic the regions weren't being given or were optional but the AP assessments were being given and the students opted to take those so we had an increase in the AP assessments in those years and uh we're stabilizing now. Um we have 359 exams because students take multiple exams and the total number of three, four or

129five scores is up to 244. Those that's a great number there. Um the reason why we point out three, four or five is because that's the score that's necessary in order for the colleges to accept that U credit. So we're up to 68% of um three, four or five scores now. So we are reaching the end of our presentation and we just want to close um we want to close with New York inspires. Um we promised you at the beginning that we would uh share where we were, where we are and where we are going. So this is where we are going. Um as we shared and as Mary shared earlier um New York State is currently um they are proposing New York inspires as part of that. Um it is also looking at graduation

130measures, graduation requirements. Um there's a lot still being developed. We will be presenting it a little bit more detail. So there's more information to come. One thing that they have done and they have accomplished and they have adopted as of July of this year, they have adopted the new um the portrait of a graduate and the portrait of a graduate identifies specific um characteristics of what a graduate should uh embody. Uh and we are very fortunate because here in Asening we have the portrait of a learner. So at this moment in time, we are engaging in a crosswalk and what we're finding is that our portrait of a learner is completely aligned to the portrait of a graduate. So we're ahead of the game. Go aheading. Um so we'll have more information to come about

131that. Uh at this moment in time, we I just want to take a moment to say thank you. Thank you to our superintendent for her trust in us and for uh leading this important work. would love to uh thank the board of education for your support, your guidance and for your innovative vision and guiding us into the into this excellence. So, thank you very much. Thank you so much. This was a lot to dig into. Yeah. >> Um, I want to just start off the conversation by thanking you for diving this deeply into the data and then for sharing that with us so that we can see under the hood a little bit and so that the public can see under the hood a little bit. Um, I'm going to open it up to questions

132from the board if anybody has any and they'd like to start >> start down there. Does nobody have any questions or is it that nobody wants to start? >> You know what? I'm not there yet. >> Okay. A lot. It was a lot. It was a lot. >> It was a lot. >> It wasn't the 110 slides that we were >> We promised. We're stunned. Silent. We're just just so stunned in silence of your >> all the the information given to us. you a lot. But um the cool air, at least it's cool to me, coming out those vents definitely kept my brain um alert. >> Uh so that was a change for tonight, but it was it was timely. Um I think, you know, just from my own observation there since we've adopted this

133uh program and implemented, there's been a lot of like questions of course, right? but mainly questions around whether or not um we were like what is growth, what is achievement, what does it look like, do we have the the tools it takes to really discern that, right? Uh are we confident that we're able to really track that? Uh and tonight this presentation, I can see why it was so extensive because it really laid it all out in very intricate detail. So I personally really appreciate that um because I think it's really important to see how individualized it is right when you especially when you're looking at it through the lens I think of a teacher especially right is that that's what we want to see. Um I know you know you show the difference between

134the state testing and the um and the and the local testing. One thing I was curious about just generally speaking, but I think especially even with the state testing when you talked about on one of those slides about the percentage of the um passing rate for certain um questions, there was like an 85% and the student should have gotten it because it was 85%. U but I'm thinking about like what does it mean should have gotten it, right? And what does the 15% that that don't pass that should have gotten it right question mean as far as analysis, right? What are we really analyzing when it comes to what what do the does that 15% per se have in common that is making it difficult for them to pass that should have gotten right question.

135I asked that because I know you brought up uh that there's assessments for teachers, but I'm wondering if any of these assessments because we even talked about our own curriculum review policies, right? I'm wondering if any of these assessments go back to reviewing the content itself and the curriculum itself to see if there's any need to evolve it in any way. And does does this information also feed the greater system of the program or is it just evaluating students and teachers? So the two different reports, the first one, the benchmark report is a curriculum guide because that's all of the students together. So if we see that only 64% of our students got that question correct, next thing we want to know is how did everybody else do? Is it a very hard question or

136was it a question that was in our reach? If 85% of the region got it right, well then that's a curriculum issue somewhere. We're missing that. Maybe we're teaching it too early in the school year and the students are not ready for it. So it could be the sequencing of teaching it or it's the way we're teaching it that it is not engaging the students. Um so that's the curriculum part of it. And when we we get those reports in August, they're ready to come. Um I meet with the administrators and go over those reports and then it goes down to the coordinators of each of the subject areas and they p they dig into that and see how they can change their curriculum for the upcoming year. So it's learning how we did on

137this group of children and trying to improve it for the next group of children coming up. >> Perfect. >> And the second report was the individual student one. >> Okay. >> And Melissa very important is the standards. So in order for us, we've done the work of looking at the curriculum and actually reorganizing the standards of like Kathy mentioned of when they're thought taught because we saw that in the questions in the test that that standard had higher value of and so then we start shifting >> it was a greater portion of the test. >> So we start shifting how we teach it and what order we teach it. Okay, that's really refreshing to hear that, you know, this we're not just >> testing testing students and how are you doing? How are we doing?

138We're looking at the whole picture, right? And how it all fits together. >> Just one little sidebar, the hyperlinks are are are not active in our slides. I don't know if it maybe was a cut and paste, but just a a logistic for later. No problem. >> But just bringing that up. That's it for me. Melissa, I just if I can add, I loved your question and and particularly on this slide, I'd like to point out two things. I think Kathy showed before a student performance, but if you look, there's readingformational text and reading literature. So, um, we all do know that readingformational texts is a really important skill as students, you know, encounter a more rigorous curriculum um, in science and in math. So you will see here in particular that the another student

139who was a level two student loved the literature piece but struggle withformational text. So it does beg the question what what's the personal library? What is the student using? What are we doing? Because thatformational text moves to math, moves over to science and other areas. And they couple that with NWA because that tells you the correct reading level for instruction for the an individual student so that you can then match thatformational text to their independent reading level and >> which is the work that we engage in when we talk about triangulating data. It's bringing in all those multiple measuring point measure points that allow us to give us the whole picture of the student so that then we can design an action plan that's individualized for that student. >> Great. Thank you for that. >>

140Um we can go. Annie, do you have any >> Sorry. >> Um thank you for the presentation. I love all the data. I just wanted to give a shout out to the global history numbers. Like 240 more students took it and the percentage still went up. That's amazing. Yes. >> Thank you. >> Um since this is the equity item, I have a question that does not need to be answered tonight. It's just something that I was thinking about. During the district equity meeting, there were we did we broke up into groups and looked at studies over the years of the achievement gap and it was pretty consistently you know like one demographic of students did worse than others and I'm wondering what the data shows now especially with ARC implementation and everything and what we

141are doing to address those gaps. It's it's not always language and I know that's a big part of it but yeah that doesn't have to be answered tonight. >> No problem. What we can what I can do in in one in my update I can provide a breakdown um and through through our again our d diving deep into the data. We are identifying those cohorts and and those uh groups of students and then um targeting uh specific interventions for them and supports. >> Is that a lot of work for you to do that? Because I want to ask the board if they want that information as well before I have you do it. >> Um it is information you already have. >> Yes. Yes, we have that. Absolutely. >> A clarifying like piggyback the um

142the list of if you're listed for a well they changed all the terminology like school for improvement or you know TSI list you land on that list when there are dis I mean you can land on that list because of disparities demographics subact each subgroup has to jump the hoops >> right and we have in the past landed on those lists because because of specific demographics not performing in other demographics within our district. So I'm making a broad ass based on the fact that we are longer on that. >> Correct. >> Yeah. Part of why I'm curious to see it. And just to kind of intersect, that's where what the basis of my question really is is that are we evaluating the operating system and whether or not it's like skewed toward favoring the outcomes

143of certain students or is it really assessing what the common denominator is between the students that aren't performing well, especially among the students that we expect to be or the questions or the tests that we expect them to be performing well. >> Yeah. Every time we're looking at data, we're looking at it across subgroups. Did you have anything else? >> One more question. If I could have you clarify another chart for me. Um, it's the cohort graduation charts. >> Mhm. >> So, it says, for example, I'll do the L's 2021 22 cohort 2018 14 to 53 L's. Cohort 2018 and 2223 is 22 47. Can you just explain how those numbers change? >> Yeah, like it goes from 8 to 46 to 16 of 48 to 26 of 46. >> So, let's um go back

144to the definition of a cohort. So these students here um are L students that all started ninth grade in um 20 September 2018. So that's the 2018-19 school year. So they all started ninth grade in September of 2018. Four years later, when that cohort graduated, that group of students, the vast majority of students that started in September 2018, four years later, they graduated. Only 17% of the L's graduated with them. They kept they stayed enrolled. They did not graduate. And they do another checkpoint. >> But there's two more. I think that's your question. >> Yeah, that's my question. denominator changed. >> Oh, there might have been um you know students that transferred over. >> Oh, okay. So, those still count in the cohort. >> Yeah. Okay. Got it. Did that answer your question? >> Yes.

145>> Okay. >> Yeah, there's mobility, a lot of mobility in that particular subgroup. >> Okay. Thank you. That's all I have. >> Frank, >> um thank you for all the detail. Really, really great um information. I guess two things that I'd like to ask. One's about elementary K8 and one's about the high school. Um, I appreciate the squeezing of the ones into the uppers because that really, I think, moves their graduation rate down the road, right? If you look at this on a cohort by cohort basis, if you can move them in at the lower grades, the likelihood they'll graduate on time gets higher, right? Um, talk to me about the timing. So this this remediation report so student takes a test in the fall in the spring. Okay. And then this remediation report comes

146and I would say in my perfect world that would happen sometime at the end of the summer where the teachers would get this about the incoming co class that they're getting and be able to see okay this cohort struggled in these areas on the exam last year. our students have exited, struggled on these, and there would be sort of a plan to how do we course correct based on the new cohort coming in and the old cohort leaving and that would all happen before the first day of school. But talk to me what it's >> that part actually does. >> Okay. So, um, the students take the test and at the lyric they have they score it >> and they they have a scoring key, but we don't know what score the student got. We

147don't know if they're a level one, two, three, or four, but we know if they got a question right or wrong. So, we have the remediation report in August, and we did have them at the beginning of the school year before the reading groups were even formed. So um that remediation report is available and is very timely. What we what lags is the determination of is the student a level one, two, three or four based on how many they got wrong. >> Uh so we have the benchmark report also. I meet in the summer with the administrators and the coordinators and we go over those reports. We can't click on the questions yet because the state hasn't released the questions. So, um but we do know what strands um we're giving our students difficulty. So,

148we can get that work going and by late September we've got the rest of the information. And once kind of administration has that ad information, like what does that realistically take then to make it its way into the classroom? Like do the teachers know coming in, hey, I had this cohort. This is how they did on the study test last spring and they're coming in. I know these they need these strategies and so I'm kind of aligning my efforts throughout the year. Do I know that like in September? Am I really getting that? Like >> I would say October more. >> October. Okay. >> Beginning of October more. I know I did a presentation here at the middle school at um a staff day. >> Yes. >> Was that late September, early October? >> The

149first. No, I I mean, and you know this from being with the Rick, like one of the benefits of the online testing was supposed to be, we were supposed to get this much faster, so we could respond quicker. >> And it just feels like maybe a little bit better than what it was five years ago, but still room to improve on kind of getting the state to speed up their process. >> Yeah, it's the delay is in norming the data. they've got to get all the scores in and there's um I from being at the Rick I know that you know in August somebody will say hey I found a set of papers that never got handed in you know those things happen and so it's not until the end of August that's the cleanup

150to make sure you've got all the data >> gotcha >> and then they they norm it every year to make sure that everything's aligned and they go through that process us every single year. >> I know. And I I totally appreciate it's mountains of work. I totally get it. I'm I'm trying to see like >> it is a lot if if we were if we were trying to find ways to move this up to be responsive. Like what would you you know, it's a rhetorical question. What would you do to make it faster at the end of the day, not for an answer for tonight, but just so that we could move things along and not lose time? >> Yeah. So, we pull the data twice. We pull it when all we have is the

151right and wrong answers and then we pull it again >> when we know what score they got. >> Right. >> So, um that's the best we can do right now and we're at the be the end of September with it which is earliest that we've ever had. >> Yeah, that's earlier than typical. >> And I will add um I I just want to thank the board for the support for funding to have Kathy here. her role as a professional in in the professional field in the private sector, a data consultant, and then her expertise. We spend our administrative retreat. Um, you I go back to Annie's question. I remember a three-hour conversation on all those subgroups with every single administrator in the room. So, we save time to do that work before school opens. Kathy

152does a ton of work for that meeting. Um and and Maria and her team and the directors are doing a lot of strategic work and then it becomes how we roll it out to the buildings. Which meetings would do we use in September? You know, in theory, wouldn't it be nice to have like five superintendence conference days in the beginning of the year? As long as you have the data to use it, right? Otherwise you then have to you know find the time within department meetings um faculty meetings um other times to make sure people get this in in a in a appropriate and timely fashion >> and also the appreciation for the support of PLC plus. So we get our data and now we have to create spaces for our teachers to actually and

153our administrators to actually engage with it, analyze it so that then they can develop action plans to like you mentioned to really address the need. Um providing that framework is strengthening our data literacy for us to understand and be able to bring in those multiple points of measure so in order to make informed decisions. So it's very layered and little complicated but um definitely going in the right direction where the important um point is that teachers have their data and they own it >> and they're doing an amazing job of doing that. >> Yeah. No, I totally agree and it sounds like end of September is better than it's been. I guess the rhetorical question if we went to the state and said, "Hey, we want you to release, you know, July 1st after the

154test or sometime earlier." like is there a hold up at the state level that we really we could work our way through to try and get this out quicker to people? That's my rhetorical question by >> and I have to say that I've been doing a lot of role modeling on how I look at data on how um how we should approach it and that's really dissipated through the district that um great >> they're becoming more independent data analyzers now and that's been my goal. >> That's great. which has really had a great impact. Also, um this is state data. Uh now it's the ongoing data that um again that our teachers are engaging in that again Kathy supports us with. >> Great. Thank you. So, let me shift to the high school. And I've

155looked at it, you know, for my time on the board like we have a cohort that starts out in prek and works its way through. And like at the end of it, it's always like seems like it's a school bus worth of students that don't finish in the fourth year. And like that's our that's our 82% graduation rate. So those 60 plus students, not all of them started out in in in preK. So they they weren't on the trip all the way with us. But I guess as you look at this as a cohort, you see at the high school and you see where our graduation rates been staying at, the state average, the 82% usually hovers right above and below it. Are there any insights that you know or what what do we take

156and it's maybe not an answer for tonight but how do we what are the the the lowlying fruit lever points to really do something there and maybe it's because we have a a lot of students that transfer in and it's not a straight cohort you know all the way through maybe that's part of it but if the trends in the elementaryaries are going in the right direction in theory this the the graduation rates would is there anything in the interim where we say and I know a two years back we saw like a high number of students that were didn't have a gymnasium and a gym credit and so that was causing and so we were trying to make go for those easy sorts of things. It's just the number seems to be kind of

157the same and I'm wondering just from a data observer you have any sort of insights or hunches that you would share to say listen this might be something to look at. I know that um Latoya Langley is really working on that right now and that's her focus of the time that we spend together >> and um she just sent an email to me asking me to come over and help her work on something and that that is her um her action plan. That's her goal number one >> is that um you know we're really you know >> playing with that artich choke to try to find out what what's what's in there and where can we make a huge difference. >> Great. Thank you >> Kathy. Right. It's about another area we're looking at our

158labs for the um science regions because you have to complete your labs before you can even sit for your regent exams. Yeah. >> So, um, that would be I don't mean to say it's low hanging, but it's a structural important point like what you said about a PE credit. So, it's having early warning systems for those things. We should absolutely be doing those >> right off the bat. >> Great. Thank you. >> All right, Owen. >> I forgot. >> Got to get him in here before he goes home to sleep. School's homework. >> Yeah. I wanted to mention um about that the US history regents and the the students opting to take the AP exam. So I was part of that cohort last year and you know our teacher shared with us that it was

159actually one of the best AP scores on that AP exam that they've had in in that he's had in his time teaching. So not only are these students opting to take the harder exam, but they're succeeding in the harder exam. >> That's wonderful. >> Thank you. And the sad part about it is that if someone looked at our data, they would turn around and go, "What happened to your scores on the US history regions? They plummeted." You know, and that that would be an inaccurate interpretation, right? >> And that's why it's important to tell our story, right? >> Thank you. >> My one question was, you know, uh you emphasized the independent reading assessments and how they're um continuous throughout the school year. Is there any way that can be done with like math or

160another I know you put in unit tests as well. Is there something that can be done with that to have that continuence throughout and not the segmented times that you mentioned? >> Go ahead. >> So we currently um like you mentioned we currently um implemented benchmarks that are aligned to the standards that also measure a point in time of the standards that were taught. So we're doing that in a more cons uh consistent manner. Uh we implemented I believe four this year. Um we are also looking at resources to support us in an ongoing like you mentioned on an ongoing way to um continue measuring um progress monitoring how our children are um are progressing. Uh we also have our our unit tests. We have our lesson test that and um they're on an ongoing

161basis as well plus the teacher checklist, exit tickets. >> So there are there are multiple points that we are using but yes >> thank you for that question >> Catherine. Um I just in looking at this data it um and knowing what a complex puzzle piece it is in order to obtain a regent's diploma and how hard it is to recover from not passing that earth science one. I know that that has been something that we've looked at as a source and a driver of some of the um graduation rates and I just hope that we can continue to take a look at that one because I think what's concerning to me is our initial pass rate is very low and then when students are having the opportunity to if they're retaking it or it's

162just even lower in nth grade and I'm just wondering if that course is best positioned there. >> It's a great question too because it impacts >> uh staffing choices at the high school, >> right? Because stu students will need a regent exam and science and I mean it it the ripple effect of what you just said is something we're very aware of. Right. >> Thank you. >> I think we should go to Rob. See if Rob's >> I I Rob does have a question. He's going to go last. >> Okay. Got it. Um, so you can go first. >> Okay. >> Um, just a clarifying question. Um, I think you brought up something on the um, uh, I think it was on the ELLL and the dual language. Can you go to that slide just

163because I think I something in there. I just want to make sure I either heard right, understood right. What's going on >> for the Was that for the NWA or >> Yeah. Was it the nicest lab assessment? >> No, it it it was our data >> Spanish, right? >> Yeah. I think there's a comment that was made specifically around um Yeah, I think that that was it, right? I think that Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There was some I think there was a um comment and I just want to make sure I I I heard what the comment what was Could you just repeat what the comment was or the that this had to do with the dual language? You'd said something and I just >> I think I I missed it. >> All students that are

164in dual language programs that are being taught in the Spanish language um take this assessment. So both our English dominant and Spanish dominant children. >> Okay. And >> as well as the English, >> right? So what Kathy, what's what is your if you're looking at this information here, I know this is fall. I know you'd like to have some more data points and I get you on that. What you've seen historically, what's what what's some of your insight from it? So ju >> not just this but just historically and this. >> So from the data that I've been looking at for the past three years, the Spanish scores are lower than the the the reading in Spanish is lower than the reading in English. And um it seems that they still do better whether they're

165English dominant or Spanish dominant in the English test. >> Sorry, they do better. So, okay, let me make sure I got that. They are dual language potentially or that they can learn in both languages and then they get to the English part, but they they excel better on the English than they do on the Spanish. >> Compare them side by side. >> There are some children, yes, >> there are some children that excel on the Spanish such are multilingual learners that are excelling in in their home language. uh we use that to also inform the supports that we're giving them in their in their new language of English. So sometimes you'll see this this and you've advised in this area with with the the administrators and >> um so so this is group data that

166we're looking at. It's not the individual students. So if you've disagregated it, is there something that you see that you think it based upon this that might be an indicator of what could be opportunistic for the district? >> So we have not done that. We've not focused on that, but that is something that we could dig into. >> Yeah. I mean, I'm coming back to the basis that we do have a very large Spanish-speaking um student body. Um and the richness of all of that should lead to and especially if there's that learning in English, learning in Spanish that goes on throughout the entire um education journey leading to much more of that dual language literacy and that seal of biiteracy >> whether it's correlated to this or whether it's just there's not been that

167enrollment whatever the causality of that is I think it starts with the fact that there needs to be that literacy in both >> that's kind of what you get tested at the end anyway >> and you have to prove all of that through various types of >> hurdles that you have to meet to get that that >> that's not been an area of focus but we certainly can make it >> it's advantageous for us for that reason because of the because of the credential that that provides >> for students to move on to careers that that require that level of skill if that makes sense. >> So we have the information to do that look. >> Yeah. >> So we can >> Okay. I I'm just asking this just more so for information. I'm not

168making any directives. I really just want to understand is this something that can help that. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> One of the steps that we have taken um via the curriculum is looking at the language allocation and how two teachers the English dominant and the Spanish dominant uh allocate their literacy time. So we've re we have adjusted that in looking and and providing opportunities for the teachers to co-plan so that they can build off each other. We've created also a um uh we've actually created that the languages of instruction the language of instruction is done pretty much a six day cycle. So the children are taught literacy for six days in English. Let's suppose the next six days are in Spanish. So that transition and that is part of the planning and part of

169the curriculum work that we've been doing. So to ensure that there's like you mentioned that there's literacy being taught equally in both languages. >> Okay. I mean, if the data is there to help support what could be opportunistic for the district, >> I I'd love to hear in a future version of this, what kinds of things as you work think about Latoya and all the other building administrators, what are the things that come out of that that could be opportunistic for us that lead us to a greater degree of opportunity for various things inclusive of the seal of Bit Y >> one one of the things that you'll also hear from Miss Dea Cruz Royo is the proposal for next year to expand dual language uh up until the sec seventh grade because right now

170dual language um our dual language uh stops in sixth pretty much. So it's expanding that into our upper grades. So you'll hear that a little bit more details in >> Yeah. I mean from what I'm reading from this this is just your K through six. There's work that needs to be done there. >> Absolutely. >> I I don't know that expansion of continuing to do more of this is necessarily going to answer that. >> I think we have to get this right. >> Thank you. >> All right. Um, we've got Rob. We want to bring him in so that he can speak. So, let's do that. Hang on a second, Rob. We can't hear you. Go ahead, Rob. I can't I see him speaking. for your patience, Rob, and everyone watching from home. Give Shane

171just another second. Yeah, we still can't I see him speaking. I still can't hear him. Try again. No. Yeah, my phone's going to die, but we can Okay. >> Or Yeah. Yeah. Rob, we're going to put you on speaker and just You're gonna speak into >> You guys can hear me now at least through this way. >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Good. Uh you're you're better off not seeing me at this hour anyway. So, okay. So, first thank you again for the um deep dive. Uh lot to unpack but I'll try to keep it clear really quick. So first thank you to everyone for their hard work. It it's really appreciated that you're showing I guess the glows and grows the opportunities and challenges because you have to be honest with the d the

172data or the data and really appreciate all the frontline work by our teachers and others. So here's a just an overall question. I guess I'll hone in on the L's for a minute. As you can see, there's a lot of work to be done there. And I guess my first question is seeing as how we're still trailing around the state averages on L's graduation and L's scoring, are we going to go take a deeper look into like, okay, what are we doing kind of in the context maybe of the curriculum committee or something else to say of what we're doing that's per part 154? are there other things we can be doing other creative solutions to try because we need to help those kids but we're still kind of behind on that. So I just

173wanted to understand if that's what one thing takeaway one action we're we'll try to look at going forward specific to the LS. >> So when it comes to the curriculum thank you um Rob for the question. Um when it comes to the curriculum review committee uh we just started that process. So not >> this wouldn't come underneath this. This would definitely be part of our annual work. Right. Nancy overseeing it, working with the high school. Uh, it aligns a lot with what um the question that Frank had asked actually. So, and Annie had also touched upon it too. So, linking all those things together, the the goal of the graduation rate involves which is the high school goal this year is a deeper look into all of those things, right? And the action plans are

174also aligned to addressing the needs of our multilingual learners such as um I know uh Frisine in uh grades three and four. Uh there's a focus on um on our L's across the board. There's a focus on writing. when it comes to our L's, we're doing work right now of uh cross referencing the ELA and the NISLAT and see where they intersect and see the differences to inform practice. So there are multiple steps that we are taking um based on the data that we've disagregated specific to that cohort, >> right? And we can have Nancy clearly in January to do as as mentioned earlier, we'll have Nancy give more a deeper look to that. Um, also at the high school level, we do have kids and this will be good data for everyone to look

175at. We have kids that arrive who are overaged and underredited and um they they present a challenge. The state of New York doesn't have a way of our us giving credit for certain things. There are transcripts that come internationally. So, we do have and that would be a common theme with many health populations across the state. All right. So Nancy will break that data out. >> Okay. Thank you. So So just a quick follow up on that. One other quick question that's semi-related. >> So So basically for for L's, anything can be on the table from tweaks here and there, but you also fair to say could look at the overall model. Again, I know you have part 154 to follow, right? Those are the regulations, but it it it's it's a trend that's sort

176of been a trend. So, I just want to just clarify for for just my late brain here, like you know, you're looking at everything like yeah, we need to add this or subtract that, but also the larger model of how we we handle L's in the district. So one of the things that also we are um looking at for next year is looking at our ENL standalone and um creating and developing a consistent standalone curriculum K through 12. uh so strengthening our standalone that then is I'm going to use the word again triangulated triangulated with home language triangulated with the ENL ELA co-eing model as well as uh the ENL standalone so triangulating that um that curriculum aligned to the to the uh standards is another and then layering the um the linguistic component and

177the linguistic meeting the linguistic needs of our children. That's also something that we found that needed work and we are focusing on that for next year as far as ENL standalone which addressed the needs of our most vulnerable L's which are entering and emerging. >> Thank you. And the last quick one it's a similar related question around sort of the modeling. So it looks like if I understood the data correctly, the ear early literacy predictors are kind of showing that if K to three if if a student's in emergency are at risk, they kind of it's hard to get them out of that area. So are are would you be taking a look at again not asking the what but like how to strengthen that at that grade level so those students that need the

178help at those grade levels will have a better chance of getting out of emergency at risk. >> That's um actually through our MTSS process that is our focus at the moment um and strengthening our our manuals strengthening creating more of a consistent structure across all schools. um is part of the work that we're engaging now. Uh restructuring the tools that we're using for intervention at the tier 2 and tier three levels which are our most vulnerable students and uh bringing in um again uh appreciation of the of the support of the board. uh but bringing in a a tool that measures the specific interventions that are being um implemented at those different tiers uh to inform the practice to see if those interventions are really meeting the needs uh are all structures that we've put

179into place this year to continue to enhance our MTSS process at the different tiers. Also with the MTSS process, focusing on tier one has been a big shift for us. For the past couple of years, we've been focusing on the interventions at tier two and tier three, but now it's more of a focus on tier one. So, it's the entire process and the entire system. >> Great. Thank you. I just want to acknowledge that, you know, district does a lot. It obviously has to continue in the home too, right? It takes a village. So, whatever you, Maria, and the team are doing, the hope is folks at home who have students need more help are doing what they need to do with more reading or whatever it is. And I think you have direct, you

180know, connections to the home and that well, I just want to acknowledge that it's not just up to the school district to do it all. You need the parental support, especially those students who need it. So, thank you for that. Thank you. >> Thanks for your patience, Rob. Um, and for everybody, I guess everybody watching at home later can just fast forward through that part. That's the nice thing about watching those meetings later. They do get some views on YouTube. Um, I do I I I don't know if I have like a specific question to dive into right now. There was so much before us. The trend that I see is that we are moving along in the direction that we want to move to. Do I want, you know, more kids to be able

181to read right now on grade level? Absolutely. Um, do I want more kids, you know, passing that earth science regent right now? Absolutely. But I can appreciate that we're we're on a marathon. We're not in a sprint. And I see that we're moving in the direction that we want to move in across the board. Um, and there are some really cool, it was like I'm remembering there was this great second grade brookside jump and then you see it in the slide and it's gone before you know it in that presentation. But there are a lot of victories in in those slides and that was one that I remember uh spotting and then it's like, "Oh, there it is again. Look at that leap." And and to know that it was really um unearthed, uncovered and

182investigated and how you know examined. How are we going to take what we look look at turn that data point examine how we got there and then um bring spread that make that contagious right um I appreciate that even though this is a huge presentation with lots going on that it is the tip of the iceberg in a lot of ways right we're not looking at this was such such a even the the that um chart that you said like oh this would be the the >> one I want >> the one you want on the island Like even that was just like 10 questions on one test for one grade, you know, the the appreciation for how much information this is. Um and how finely we go through it. I just I want to

183share a gratitude for that. Um and I I want to reserve my right to save questions for later. I upon reflection. I may have more. I think um this was a big presentation. Other board members may have more questions now that the data has been um presented to us. So I may email Mary in the next few days if any other trustees find that they have questions later that they would like um you can email them to me so that I can batch send them if there are more once we sleep on this because it is quite a bit. >> Right. Right. >> Yeah. I would also um invite board members again ahead of time in the summer to come to one of our days where we're working and you can spend a few hours

184as we do that dive into it. The second piece is just coming back full circle is that um the district status which just got released today. Uh it's the first time in a good number of years where we are in good standing and that includes all subgroup performance. So uh we're moving it in the right direction. it it's not where we want to be, but it is certainly moving it in the way that we put plans in place to do so. >> So, yeah, I want to acknowledge that. That's great. >> Yeah, it is great. >> Yeah. >> Um All right. I think I think you're done. I think we're good. Thank you so much for your time. >> Thank you. >> What a marathon. >> All right. I don't know if that's fun or

185>> right. give it to >> 9:00 time for the consent agenda. All right. Um the next thing on our agenda is audience recognition. Um seeing none here in person. Are there any online? >> No. >> Okay. So, we'll move past that. Um Rob was pulled up here before as a participant and I could see him. Can we make that uh true >> again? Okay, thanks. So, um we talked last time we had somebody virtually virtually about um being accountable to to knowing how the person who is virtual is voting. So, um moving forward tonight, I'm going to try something different to make sure that we're all clear on who's voting for what and how everybody's voting. Um, and can I confirm, IEly, is Rob's image that's on my screen. I just click I'm clicking on

186the public link. So, this is what's up. So, the public is available to this too. And if you want to see it on your own screen, you can see it. I um let Rob know. So, when I take votes for this section of the meeting, I'm going to take a vote for those in person and then I'll take a separate vote for those attending virtually. I'm looking. I've asked Rob to raise his hand to vote so that um we don't have to deal with the sound going back and forth and us stepping on each other. It will be a little um bulky, I don't know, cumbersome, but I think it'll be less cumbersome than switching the audio back and forth and more transparent. So, um unless there's any huge concerns about that that you want

187to make me aware of right now, I'd like to vote that way so that we can all know how we're all voting. I guess I think it's great for tonight. I do think we should review open meetings law and what the requirements are. You know, there was a point in time where you had to be on a video screen that everybody could see and all that, right? At the end of the day, >> he he's on if you >> for all of us in the room. >> Yeah. Um >> I'm just turn I think it's worth it's worth a pass through open meetings law to see what we need to do just to check the box and maybe that's fine. >> I don't know, but I think we should make that effort to take a

188look and see. >> Okay. Are we not able? We used to project it on the screen. We're not able to do that anymore. >> I didn't realize you guys wanted >> on the screen. >> I I think it would be good to just get a sense of what's required by the law and then what do we do and I'm not I think your solution for tonight's fine. >> Yeah, >> I think we should just make sure >> um people who are watching online can see Rob and I will announce how he is voting as well. It's fine for tonight. I'm not done. But I do think >> we should find out what the when you're remote, what are the requirements under the law? >> Okay. Looking ahead now, uh the consent agenda. Does anybody have

189anything from 4.1 through 4.3 that they wish to break out? >> Seeing none, I'll take a resolution for 4.1 through 4.3. So moved. >> Second. >> 4.1 Resolution to appoint an additional consultant for the 2025 2026 school year. 4.2 Resolution to approve a memorandum of understanding with the New York State Council and Children and Families/N New York State Mentoring Program MBK at Oitting High School. 4.3 Resolution denying a grievance. Um any discussion? Um, those in person, all in favor, >> I opposed abstensions. Those virtual I are uh in favor. Rob raised his hand. Um, so let the record show that Rob voted in favor and that the motion passes. Uh, can I get a motion for 5.1? >> So moved. Second >> 5.1 resolution regarding acceptance of amendment to class of 1971 award scholarship. Any

190discussion? Uh those in person, all in favor? >> I >> opposed abstensions. Those virtual uh in favor let the record indicate that Rob votes in favor. Uh, does anybody have anything from 6.1 through 6.9 that they wish to break out? Seeing none, I'll take a motion for 6.1 through 6.9. >> So moved. >> Second. >> 6.1 Resolution regarding administrative administrative staff terminations. 6.2 Resolution regarding civil service staff resignations. 6.3 Resolution regarding support staff resignations. 6.4 4 Resolution regarding bus attendant resignations. 6.5 Resolution regarding professional staff appointments. 6.6 Resolution regarding civil service staff appointments. 6.7 Resolution regarding support staff appointments. 6.8 Resolution regarding professional staff appointments before after school programs. 6.9 Resolution regarding approval of school volunteers. Of those in person, all in favor? I >> opposed abstensions of those virtual all in uh all in

191favor. Let the record show that uh Rob indicated that he is in favor and that the motion passes. Uh I'll take well it's not consent agenda so we can discuss our board policy 7.1 the resolution to adopt policy 011 sexual harassment grievance uh under title 9 as a first reading. It was been a while since we met. I don't think the policy committee met between last meeting and this meeting. >> No. >> So this is >> Well, I wasn't at the last meeting. So was it? No, no, we did not. >> We We didn't meet. >> No. >> So, um, let me look at my notes here and see if there's anything to say from I think the Title N updates just Oh, we did discuss it. Um, and Stephanie was just working on it

192to add some clearer language specific to our district. Um, >> and I believe she said she was updating it based >> based on changing laws, >> right? The changing federal laws. >> What's that? >> Yeah. So, um, this comes hot off the presses from Stephanie directly >> and it's a first read. So, >> and it's a first read. >> We will vote on this again, right? >> Yes. >> And I don't have any other questions. I guess the summary is the attorney reviewed it and basically to be compliant with the law is recommending these changes at the end of the day. >> Okay. Any other discussion? Let's me make sure that I can see Rob. Okay. Um, I'll take a a motion for 7.1. >> So moved. >> Second. >> 7.1. Resolution to adopt policy

193011 sexual harassment grievance under title 9 as a first reading. Of those in person or I should say any further discussion of those in person. All in favor? >> I >> opposed. abstensions of those virtual. Uh in favor Rob's raised his in Let the record show Rob has raised his hand to indicate an in favor vote and the motion passes. We're at our audience recognition next. Uh seeing none in person. Is there anybody online? Okay, we'll move along. Sorry, excuse me. Um, next on our agenda is board reports and dialogue. >> This meeting is being recorded. >> Sorry, I was just was trying to get him on. >> We'll have to We'll try another time. >> I'm trying to get him in the meeting. >> Okay. Um, excuse me. Uh, have any Well, obviously the

194curriculum committee met today. We already got an extensive update on that. Um, have any other committees met between last meeting and this meeting that you'd like to update us on? >> Mary, did you want to talk about the legislative forum from? >> Um, you you could speak about a break. Right. >> Mary and I weren't at the last meeting. We attended a regional legislative forum with representatives from the Senate and the Assembly from the New York State Government. Lot well attended. Lots of school boards there at the end of the day and you know a lot of legislators, a lot of common themes, really good stuff. Um I will say this board, you know, we all have a sense of how great Mary is. I think in this room you would see how well she

195represented Austin and what a great job and what a leader she is and just the the rapport she has with the legislative committee across the state is just something that is unique and we're very lucky to have. So, >> thank you for a great meeting and uh it was nice to just sort of sit there and bear witness to uh Mary in action. >> Well, well, thank you. Thank you. And um we had great table conversations and it um it it pays just at anyway at the end of the day to have been around a while and to have done a lot of advocacy because um a number of them appreciate that. So, I I love representing Austining in in that arena. So, it was great and it was wonderful to have Frank there with

196that background. Um, excellent meeting. Thanks. I did want to bring up that now is around the time we should probably be picking winter retreat dates and a date to meet in executive session to um evaluate do a check-in with Mary uh for superintendent review. So, um I will be reaching out through Illy to find some dates. I think we've done January and February um in the past and if we can my hope is that if we can even though I know December is a whirlwind I'm everybody I feel like is just I'm just trying to make it through the next to the next day right now but if we can find a date in January, February um now that that might be the time now might be the time to do it. Um, so I

197just wanted to give you a heads up about that. Uh, I don't have anything else for board dialogue. Does anybody have anything else for board dialogue? >> Yes. Um, can we do the governance committee this next Monday? Um, like 600 7 p.m. Does that work? >> That's who you know, right? >> Yeah. >> All right. Monday. >> Yeah, I can do Monday. >> Is six o'clock. Okay. >> Yeah, I can do We're doing it virtually anyway, so >> Yeah. So >> All right. Anything else? All right. Give me one second here. We are going to have a brief executive session. Uh can what room should we be in? Okay. Um, I'll take a motion to enter into executive session uh for the purpose of discussing the medical, financial, credit, or employment history of a particular

198person or corporation or matters leading to the appointment, employment, promotion, discipline, suspension, dismissal, or removal of a particular person or corporation. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Um, any discussion? Those in person? All in favor? I I opposed abstensions uh virtually. Those in favor I or yes, Rob's voted an I. Let the record show. Thanks, Rob. Uh we'll have somebody call you so that you can be included in executive session.