001All right, welcome and good evening. I'd like to call to order the Wednesday, October 8th, 2025 board of education regular meeting. And I apologize for the delay while we navigate some technical challenges that you may still see us navigating as the uh meeting continues. Uh in the meantime, uh we will say the pledge of allegiance and our uh assistant principal from Claremont, Mr. Luis Shar, is going to lead us. I aliance 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. >> Thanks, Mr. Shereave. Uh at this time we're going to turn it over to uh our superintendent which is item 1.3 our superintendent's update. >> All right. Um I'm very fortunate and lucky this evening to
002share my update with uh Mary Katherine Hillman and a very special project. It's called the thousand book project. So, Mary Katherine, if you don't mind coming up, >> thank you to the board. Thank you to the board for this opportunity to share some wonderful news this evening. My name is Mary Katherman and I'm the director of the African Development Center and a reading teacher at Brook School. Tonight we are recognizing six outstanding young readers who have each read,000 books as part of an initiative at the Austin Public Library which was started years ago by the Austin staff development and remains active now through the great efforts of the library. This program is designed to foster a love of reading from an early age, build strong literacy skills and create joyful connections between children and books.
003But these students have done more than just meet a goal. They've developed a lifelong habit that will support their education for years to come. We know that reading is one of the most important tools we can give our children. These children, with the support of their families, have shown great commitment to completing a big goal, and we are proud to honor them tonight. I encourage anyone who has not heard about the program or is interested to head over to the children's section of the library and inquire about how to get started. Tonight, on behalf of the Austining Staff Development Center, I'm thrilled to present each reader with a special book and a thousand books t-shirt. A small way to celebrate a big achievement that they have earned. Please join me in congratulating Avery Barrows Lucas
004Jimbo. Avery, Nate Gomez, Nicodemus, Dakota Gua, and Marcy Mayor. Oh, congratulations. >> We're so proud of you. >> Yes. Oh, YAY. YAY! You've each opened, read, and listened to 1,000 books. You've used your imagination over 1,000 times and taken so many steps towards becoming even stronger and more curious learners. That's something to be very proud of. So, congratulations to you all and keep reading. I I I think you've got some principles that want to say a big congratulations to everybody. >> CONGRATULATIONS. >> Keep on reading. Keep on reading. And I want to thank the parents also because it is a family activity. So, thank you all for everything you do for uh our schools and for encouraging reading in your homes. It's a wonderful gift to give children. So, thank you all. Thank you, Mary
005Catherine. Okay, so um first of all, I just have a couple of prouds to um shout out to everybody. Um uh today I got to start my day at uh Claremont School with um our beautiful team Claremont here um Louis and Frisine because we had the Rotary Club of Austining visit Claremont school and they handed out um dictionaries and thesauruses both in Spanish and then in English. They're scheduled to go to >> Roosevelt. They did and they LEFT ME BEHIND. OKAY. >> I THOUGHT I was heading over there tomorrow. Okay. Um I was a former Rotarian. So to me, service above self, I spent 20 plus years as a Rotarian. So I had a lot of fun uh connecting with the Rotary members here in Austin. And uh one of them was a graduate of
006Claremont school. She remembered the days when there was a pool and Claremont was a K5 school. So we had a great visit with the Rotary Club and they dropped into all the classrooms. So, did it go as well at Roosevelt? >> It absolutely did and the kids were so excited and it just aligned so perfectly with the work we're trying to do around amplifying our vocabulary as a school. So, it was such a wonderful gift. Thank you. >> Thank you. Um, for those of you who are interested, the Rotary Club um um before CO was quite active, but afterwards because of CO it dwindled off. But I um Karen from the public library um and a a group of um Rotarians who want to bring it all back again. They meet now on Thursdays around
007five o'clock uh twice a month and um I'm excited to see more. I thought it was wonderful that they were able to raise money for very important causes and initiatives. So congratulations to the Rotary Club and I'm sorry I missed Roosevelt. Right. Um yesterday, last night, um we attended a Hispanic Heritage Month uh celebration at Park School. Um it featured the Funk Sala Urban Band as a precude to um Ian Lite, but I will say I have to give Emily and Louie a lot of credit. They danced really well. They actually got me up dancing and Maria was dancing. Everybody, I really was not that good, but I tried. I tried. I tried. It was a wonderful deal. >> I want to congratulate our girls tennis team. They are now league champions. That is a
008huge accolade for students. Um, boys soccer had a big win against Yorktown and their record improved to 3, four, and three. Um, they had a game tonight um with Harrison, but >> There's always tomorrow. Okay, >> I play hard. >> Okay. Um, our park teachers are um diving into math benchmark data focusing on numbers and operations in base 10 standards to ensure consistency and coherent instruction across the classrooms. um at Claremont today when I dropped into Jill Anderson's class, I did um see pieces of the Magic Treehouse there and um they're exploring The Night Before Dawn from the Magic Treehouse series with a fun castle themed activity filled with creativity and imagination. A huge shout out by the way to six Aening High School students uh Hunat Flor um Sai Mutulu Aiden Rosas Kora Bronwell
009and Teddy Alo for being selected to the prestigious prestigious I'm sorry area allstate ensemble that is a huge accolade very competitive highly competitive actually so congratulations to our six students O Prime is hosting a costume drive. Please make Halloween special by donating gently used costumes to O Prime at 400 Executive Boulevard between now and October 31st. And I did see today a number of people drop by and drop off costumes, which I thought was great. So, thank you for everyone for helping make Halloween special for all. I want to thank all the students, staff, and families who attended the recent Brookside Bash. I think it broke records, I think, of attendance. I think um shout out to the incredible early elementary PTA, Mike, um Risco Music and Wana Empanada. Right. Right. I say that correctly.
010So anyway, what great shoutouts that have been occurring. October is a very, very busy month. It is down syndrome awareness month promoting inclusion, understanding, and acceptance across all of our schools. I have to say I had a wonderful meeting with our new SEPTA um co-presidents. Um I'm excited for their leadership and look forward to a great partnership with our SEPTA or PTA organization. Um this is also and we celebrated it yesterday, National Principles Month. So congratulations to our principles. and thank you for your leadership, dedication and um all the care that you give each and every day. And it's also um suicide a prevention month. The hosening high school students came together to share resources, raise awareness. They were spreading hope and support throughout our entire school community. Um that's my report and I think
011at this point we turn it over to our student rep, Owen. Good evening everyone. Uh I would also like to start off with some crowds. Um today at the high school was PSAT day for our sophomores and juniors and all freshman all freshmen were in the building and participated in various events. Uh they listened to presentations on healthy relationships and substance abuse. Um, in addition, we had a new event uh this year where all freshmen were in attendance for a senior talkback uh where seniors spoke about their high school experiences to freshmen and really gave them some advice for their for their high school journey and their high school career. And uh many of those students uh seniors who volunteered also participated in some college readiness activities that we had. Um there was a college
012essay workshop uh a presentation from the Sunni chancellor and I want to shout out trustee Bacheria. He came uh this morning and presented to about 25 of our seniors on how to um had to submit to uh pre prestigious schools and universities. So that was that was a really good event. Um the c I want to shout out the counseling department and the high school administrators. Um they worked really hard to make sure everything ran smoothly and all events all grade levels were supported in all these events. Um in athletics, our September Pride Award winners were announced. They included Malachai Ddale, Sienna Lopes, Alex Tapia, and Autumn Joseph's. Our seniors, our senior nights for fall varsity sports are also fast approaching um with the majority of them coming in the coming weeks. Um and um
013we had girls soccer last week and uh girls tennis last week as well. And then the majority of the tonight's report or the remainder of tonight's report is going to focus on the internet enabled device demand at uh particularly at our high school. Um so during the past uh three weeks I've met with administrators around the around the building together uh two things. One the initial response toward the ban from students and two how we can mitigate uh student frustration toward the ban. And uh based on some preliminary data we've gotten um student uh from students, there's a lot of positive feedback toward the ban, which is um something good. And some students are believe they're socializing more and they're more focused um during class. And the reports are similar from teachers. Um they report
014students socializing more during classroom instruction. and they're excited about the increase in classroom participation and how well students uh uh appear to be collaborating with each other um for an extended period of time with their classmates. And then through conversations with the dean, it seems that students are adjusting to the ban. There are a lot less phones collected now than there were at the beginning of the year. And um both the administration and I plan on conducting some surveys throughout the year to see how um the these attitudes are progressing throughout the year and making sure that there's a positive progression. Um that said there is still a number of students who um have expressed some frustration towards the ban which is understandable since it's a drastic change and one way we're planning to address
015this is by making sure uh students understand the reasoning behind the ban. And uh one way we come up we've come up with doing this is by presenting research to our to our high school students. So um the reasoning behind the ban at the state level was um from Jonathan Height's research and book the anxious generation. And the book shows that since 2010 there's been a a major spike in adolescence self-reporting depression, anxiety and other mental health struggles. And this has led to research organizations like the An Casey Foundation reporting one in five adolescence having at least one major depressive symptom. Um while that is extremely eye opening for students and for everybody else, it may not resonate with students because it doesn't seem relatable, it seems that something is it's not affecting them. So
016um what we've proposed and what we're thinking is um to present research that comes from students and from their classmates. So uh many students at the in the Austin High School science research program have investigated the adverse effects of social media which are associated with the internet enabled device spam. My own research specifically focused primarily on negative language on social media and its frequency and how the algorithm within social media amplifies problematic content to adolescence. And uh my findings showed that adolescence, especially younger and female adolescence, are intentionally uh shown content that is mentally distressing and enforces gender stereotypes by the algorithm. And it reveals that adolescence are exposed to negative language on social media on a daily basis um if they're an active user. And it shows that some of the most popular social
017media platforms contain less than 10% positive language. >> And you know, even even though social media is more specific than the internet enabled device band as a whole, it's all still interconnected. uh the influence of the algorithm is evident in uh social media and in technology altogether and leads to harmful trends especially towards young adults um in the high school and and in all grade levels. Um so social media is a large part of the ban and contributes to that distraction that the ban attempts to eliminate. Overall, the internet enabled device band is a way to support students and there is a multitude of research supporting it including from our own program and in future discussions with administrators and teachers, I plan on finding the best way to convey this research to our students and
018try to explain why this ban can help them and is a positive thing. And it may not change everyone's opinion toward the band, but it will make a moment it will make the moment an opportunity uh for education and show respect for the student perspective. And um I think throughout the school year, we will have surveys going out to students to make sure like I said that this progression is positive, but the early signs are positive and with continued effort, this initiative can foster a stronger culture of learning in both the high school and I think the district buildings. So thank you. Thank you, Owen. Um, this is the part that I like about having a student exeicio board member is that Owen can give us those insights that we can't really have as adults
019in the community. >> Um, moving along, I can see that we are still experiencing some technical difficulties. However, it is time for us to go through our presentation. So, I just want to make everybody aware that um if you are accessing this meeting, you can go on to our district's website and um find our agenda for tonight's meeting there. Um this presentation is linked and is publicly available there. And um anybody who's here and wants to follow along, we usually have some printed copies. Um any trustees if you need to go up and grab prefer to look at a physical copy um I'll ask that maybe our presenters if it's however it's most comfortable for you if you want to tell us which slide you're on or if you just want to speak and we'll
020put two and two together uh you know I don't I don't want anybody to feel thrown off by the uh technical snafu but and I want to make sure everybody's aware that um the slides are available >> right >> all right and I'll turn it over to Mary and Mary turn it over to everybody else. >> Um the way we're going to be and again everyone has the presentation. People have copies of it and again um the projector did work when I was here 45 minutes ago. So we'll hopefully figure it out. But in the meantime and we can slice in the presentation in the video afterwards so when the archive people can see it. So um Maria if you want to just give a brief overview of our work right a quick minute overview.
021>> Good evening. Good evening, present mani, board members, community colleagues, um, and our superintendent. This evening, we are so proud that our elementary building leaders are here to present and share the impactful work that actually encompasses our vision, beliefs, and core values and brings it to life on a daily basis. and it's guided every single day by our mission of ensuring excellence for all students through equity that encompass the first uh two slides of our presentation. Um you will hear tonight how our daily work is grounded on our four pillars. Slide number four uh relevant learning which is focused on tier one and everything that happens within our learning spaces, our data literacy, our equity and family engagement. each of the action plans that you will hear tonight. Um the details of actionable steps towards
022achieving the established uh goals grounded on data that we have deeply reviewed over the past couple of months. This analysis has identified trends of strength and areas of growth. These plans turn our pillars into meaningful outcomes for our learners. From our ongoing review of student data, a clear trend emerged that you will be hearing a common thread across all plans and it's the importance of embedding oracy in instruction. Orisy is a fostering of languageenriched environments that ensures that each student not only hears key vocabulary but is able to apply it, understands it, is able to read it and write it with the goal of building thoughtful responses, improving reading comprehension, strengthening writing, and reflecting on their thinking. You may ask why? Why is this important? Just know as we all know every single assessment is
023reading is now a reading assessment where a child truly needs to think about and really understand what he or she is being asked. So it is truly important that our children read, write and speak and think every single day in our classrooms with the ex expectation of now upcoming New York inspires with the portrait of a graduate our own portrait of a learner. We are expected to align in the that we are expected to align within the coming coming years. Developing oracy is critical. By intentionally incorporating all language modalities into our teaching, listening, speaking, reading, and writing, our students will gain the tools they need to express themselves in both speaking and writing, and engage deeply with the content they are being taught. I leave you this evening with these amazing principles and assistant principles
024to share their action plans and how we are making this work come alive. Thank you. >> Just a quick clarification for whatever reason it must be the room. Everyone who's watching on Zoom can see the slides. >> Oh great. >> It just doesn't like that. >> Well that's that's good. So just so you know then we are on slide eight which introduces Park School. >> So Emily and Ellie it's yours. >> Good evening everyone. It is our pleasure to share with you our action plan for the 2526 school year. just to give you um a little bit of an introduction to the format of how we're going to introduce our work with you today. We've chosen to really focus on one key lever action step that really encompasses the work that we'll be doing this
025year. Um each of us have listed our goal number one and goal number two under the same pillar for example teaching and learning. So I'll start with our goal number one and it reads by June 2026 we will develop student oracy and disciplinary literacy through explicit instruction in vocabulary and language structures. Evidence of impact will be measured by growth in NWA map reading and language usage domains with a 2% decrease in the below expectations components and a 2% increase in proficiency levels. That is our academic goal for the year. Our goal number two is more of our SEAL and school climate goal and it reads by 2026 we will decrease the number of minor behavior referrals by 5% from last year as evidenced by level one referral data. And the key action step or the
026action step that we've chosen to share with you tonight is about a vocabulary protocol that we are going to be using. And I think you're going to hear this throughout the presentation tonight. Park School will have a vocabulary protocol that actually has been modeled already um as a buildingwide approach. So every week we deliver a new word to students. The word is embedded in some kind of real relevant authentic learning experience. So for example, we learned the word heritage uh this past week because we are celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month. So the protocol is very simple. We define the word as an entire school community. We say the word in a sentence. We show an application and when possible, we give a visual representation. This work then becomes memorialized and charted in the building. Teachers will
027continue to do this process as the curriculum unfolds throughout the year. They will um they would administer a very similar protocol in their classrooms, but the choice of words will be pulled from tier 2 or tier three lists. the difference between the two. Tier one are very basic words that um are spoken children use in their everyday language. Tier 2 words are more um academic words. These words are taught explicitly. Um and tier three words are very connected to a discipline or a content. For the purpose of modeling, I've chosen tier three words. for example, the word heritage. In terms of our seal and school climate, we are going to continue to partner with WJCS, the West Westchester Jewish Community Center to support the work that our social workers have done um at Park School.
028We are continuing to work with our secondstep curriculum and our social workers from WJCS will be providing ongoing support to our preK teachers specifically and our teaching assistants and specialists. And again, vocabulary embedded in our secondstep curriculum will also be highlighted and taught. Good evening everyone. Some of the evidence of teaching and learning and social emotional learning in school culture that we are gathering are closely monitoring student progress through the NWA assessment. Sharing artifacts from our morning message to highlight instructional practices and student engagement. Students sharing their work as as part of our effort to build confident and ownership. We also review lesson planning and conduct classroom visits to ensure alignments to our goals. Our grade level meetings provide opportunities for collaboration reflection on student progress. In addition, we have seen a strong participation on
029our parent workshops which is supporting our home and school partnership. also closely monitoring our second step completion data to ensure consistency in social emotional learning. And finally, our special area teachers are holding regular check-in meeting with our students to support the overall well-being and connection to school. Thanks, Ellie. Okay, I'm going to move on to our data informed practices which is our second pillar and the action step here is really looking at our data. So um as you all know we are using our NWA map growth and fluency data to to monitor students funological awareness and their vocabulary development specifically. And we use the results to identify patterns, but also more importantly to inform our instruction. The great part about this is that not only will it inform our classroom instruction now that we have
030a buildingwide protocol, we are also going to be using the data to inform our work when we introduce new vocabulary each week. So when we start to see patterns in their work and uh areas that need to be addressed, whether it be a tier two or tier three word, we will use the data to really present it as a school. One of the things that we're going to do this year is continue to invite our literacy and math consultants to come in and work at Park School. Teachers have already decided if they want to partake in a literacy or a math. Together they will work with our consultants to go through our professional learning community cycle with teachers. They will together as grade level colleagues identify a problem of practice within either their literacy or
031their math work and together we will come together to work on action planning around uh that that problem area. The great thing about having our consultants is that part of our PLC work is also about improving our learning and honing our practices. So, it's not just making decisions based on the data, but it's actually growing as educators and growing professionally in our in our pedigogy and our action steps with children. So, we will lean on the work that our consultants will bring to our to our teachers, but also more importantly and how that impacts our students. In terms of our SEAL and school climate data, our PBIS/CAL committee will continue to analyze our tier one referral data. And what we do with this data is analyze, look for consistencies, look for patterns and also identify
032where we need to either push in for more support with our social workers. Sometimes it's at a classroom level and sometimes we even look for patterns that we can address as a school building. And again with our assemblies and the work that our PBIS team is going to do, we can respond to some of that data that we see or some of the challenges that we see in the building via our school assemblies as well. for our data informed practices. We are having ongoing professional learning communities for our teachers and also our teaching assistants and they meet regularly to focus on improving student learning. We also hold professional learning communities with our literacy and math consultants to deepen the instructional practices. We also gather teacher and teaching assistant no problem um teacher and teaching assistant
033feedback and surveys to reflect on the effectiveness of our professional learning communities for the social emotional learning and school culture. We are regularly reviewing the referral data from teachers to monitor student needs and trends. We're also using the panorama survey data to understand student and staff perception of the school climate and reviewing the DESA data to help guide our SEO supports and interventions. Okay, I don't know what slide number this is, but this is the equity slide. Thank you, Maria. It's slide number 11. Ensuring that students have equitable opportunities to demonstrate their learning as Maria pointed out earlier, but this includes using all modalities is the work that we do with equity. Our equity work this year is deeply connected to the work we do to the work we're going to be doing with Oricsy.
034It's important to note that while we are going to be teaching explicit vocabulary through a protocol, the work that we do with that is really in in service of comprehension. Or better yet, it's really the impact that the the work that we do with Orisy will have on comprehension. How students hear a story, how students respond to when a teacher asks a question about what they've read. It's all about how they demonstrate their learning and making sure that students have various modalities to demonstrate their thinking to their teachers but also to their peers is critical. This is what's going to deepen their understanding because we're going to provide students with multiple ways of expressing themselves through listening, through reading and writing, and through speaking. Our students are not only going to have the the ability
035to explain their thinking further, it actually provides students with scaffolds because students then are able to utilize different motalities to demonstrate their thinking. It reduces the barriers as I just mentioned and again it honors the strengths that students have. In terms of our K uh SEAL and school climate, we will continue to do the work that we started last year with our kinder leaders. Our kinder leaders are going to continue to model and promote the attributes of the Park School Scholar, including the attributes of kindness, leadership, joy, and curiosity. Evidence for equity. We are going to continue conducting classroom walkthroughs to ensure equitable instruction. Our director and administrative team will continue to do the walks to provide observations, feedback and support. We will also be gathering feedback from evident and e efficacy meetings visit to
036guide our improvement for the seal and school culture of care. We track part participation in kinder leader meetings to engage student learning. We're collecting feedback from students from assemblies to understand their experiences. Review the PBIS goals to monitor schoolwide behavior and gather service from PBIS committee members to assess the effectiveness of all our initiatives. Okay. The last the last pillar is family and community engagement. So my goal this year as the building leader is to be more transparent with our family members about the learning that students are doing in the classrooms. And by that I mean sharing the work, the vocabulary protocol, but also sharing the words that students are going to be learning throughout the school year. making sure that parents are able to bring that protocol back home or even ask their child
037questions about words that they're learning in school. So this week in our Oblast, you'll see a picture of the chart that we have hanging in the school building describing the meaning of the word kindness, which was this week's word. In terms of our seal and school climate, um we're going to continue to collaborate with WJCS again to provide family groups and workshops. For example, we have one on Friday um starting this Friday where the social worker will be presenting on uh just typical four and 5year-old uh situational uh discipline and behavior positive re positive ways to reinforce positive behaviors at home. So that will be the work that we'll do and again we are looking for a parent member to join our PBISEL committee. So that is also um a goal of ours this year
038and the evidence that we will be gathering for the family and community engagement is tracking the OLAS that we're sending to families and monitoring the school announcement to keep families informed. We also will be gathering feedback from our math and literacy teacher leaders to on family engagement. We will be reviewing feedback to capture parent and family reflections and guard our future planning to ensure minimal engagement. Now we're going to move with um our next school, Brookside. Thank you. Good evening everyone. Dr. WZ and I are happy to be able to present our school goals for this year as well as our action steps. And it seems like fairly recently that we were here presenting our progress at the end of last school year and we're back. Um, and I think it has a lot to
039do with the fact that our summers, uh, while we we appreciate the summer, of course, um, we as school leaders are anxiously awaiting that opportunity to have less distractions and time to really look at our data. And that summer is so pivotal. And I know some of you were able to make our summer admin retreat and we thank you for that. You got a glimpse into how we look at our data, begin to craft the goal, and then that's just the beginning because then we tweak it, we come back, we talk about it, we adjust, we refine it, and we want to make sure that it's meaningful, that it's achievable, that's a high leverage goal in school improvement efforts. It's also important to us that our goals are not out of uh left field, but
040that rather they build on the work that we already started the previous school year and what has proven to give us results. So we hope that you see in tonight's presentation and I think this is across all four of our schools continuation from past year's work as well as well. Our first goal is rooted strongly in the correlation between oracy and reading comprehension. We believe that we can increase students reading performance by developing children's oral language proficiency and academic vocabulary. And the action step we'd like to talk to about tonight, even though we know that there are a number of action steps that will help us to reach that goal, is really professional development and equipping our teachers with knowledge of content and of pedagogy. Specifically, we want to make sure that teachers first know
041about the connection between oracy and reading. We want to make sure that they know how building orice in students will help to strengthen children's access to text and understanding of that text and that they know how vocabulary acquisition accelerate is accelerated when it's taught explicitly. We also want to make sure that we're equipping our teachers with how to design explicit instruction of vocabulary of tier 2 words, which is what Emily was speaking about prior from how to differentiate between the different tiers of vocabulary to how to select the words that we're going to teach to how to teach teach them in a systemized way. So, it's important to emphasize that the more intentional we are about how we are teaching vocabulary, the more results we will get from our students. Evidence of this work will
042live predominantly in our professional learning communities in which teachers collaborate in learning the content and working on their craft. Applying the new learning from those professional learning communities in the classrooms and most importantly coming back to work as a team to share how it went to solve problems of practice to refine that instructional strategy and go back in and give it another shot. The proof is in the pudding and the evidence of this work will also live in student writing in students use of vocabulary orally and in the student data. Now professional development is a very strong lever and it's not only respective to an academic goal but we're also tying it to our second goal which is that climate goal that Emily was explaining at Brookside. Our goal that second goal will be focused
043on attendance. And while we're proud of maintaining our percentage of severely chronically absent students to less to 3% over the past three years, we recognize that almost 30% of students at Brookside have at risk attendance. This year, we will be focused on decreasing that at risk attendance percentage. Now, how does professional development play a role in improving attendance? We can help to improve attendance especially of students who have at risk attendance by providing continued training to teachers on how to design engaging and meaningful instruction for students so that instruction is differentiated for students with learning activities that represent cognitive challenge and provide choice for kids. This then hopefully drives the kids to come to school, to finish that project, to work on a writing piece, to borrow new books, to beat the buzzer in a
044math game, and so on. So when we view the school day through a student's eyes, we're more likely to see how deliberately we are engaging them in school experiences that are of interest to them. Dr. Veles will now speak to our datainformed practices. Good evening. >> As part of our capacity building efforts, we are focusing on two key areas. Oral language development and student attendance. For oral language, lead teachers will establish clear routi clear rubrics for student discourse. These rubrics will make expectations for speaking visible to students, providing equitable access for learners from diverse backgrounds, including English language learners. Evidence shows that when students have structured opportunities to practice talk, they improve not only in speaking and listening, but also in reading comprehension, writing clarity, and problem solving skills. By applying these rubrics across contexts
045such as math explanations, literature circles, and classroom debates, teachers can give precise, consistent feedback while students gain the ability to selfassess and set personal goals. This creates a shared language for what effective oral participation looks like, ensuring alignment and continuity as stu students move through Brookside. In the area of attendance, we are implementing evidence-based practices grounded in the success mentors model. Mentors will meet with atrisisk students on six week cycles, providing regular check-ins, goal settings, and celebrations to build relationships and keep students engaged. Research confirms that consistent mentoring and relationship centered approaches reduce chronic absenteeism, which is a key predictor of academic achievement. At the same time, our family engagement specialists will communicate attendance directly to families in a clear and a supportive way, providing strategies for improvement. These conversation will focus on removing barriers
046and connecting families to resources, not on punitive measures. By reaching out early when patterns of absence first appear, we are more likely to prevent chronic absenteeism from taking hold. Celebrating progress at the end of each cycle reinforces positive habits and underscores the importance of consistent school attendance. These initiatives build both engagement and the foundation for learning. Students are present, supported, and given the tools to express their thinking effectively. Rubrics for oral language and structured attendance supports are not standalone actions. They are complimentary strategies that create equitable access, strengthen relationships, and ultimately lead to higher levels of student achievement. Moving on to the next slide, we're moving on to our goal on equity. Our next set of action steps highlight our district's ongoing commitment to inclusivity and equity. In oral language, the emphasis is on creative
047creating learning environments where students voices and identities are affirmed. Teachers will foster inclusion by integrating discourse practices that honor cultural identity and provide multiple entry points for participation. This not only helps students feel seen and valued, but also builds their confidence to engage meaningfully with peers. Research on culturally responsive pedagogy shows that when students linguistic and cultural backgrounds are incorporated into classroom discourse, participation increases and achievement gaps narrow. To deepen this work, we will also continue to incorporate layered text from our equity leaders and integrate culturally relevant math tasks during our three reads time. This will ensure that oracy development and content instruction are aligned with our broader commitment to equity and representation across the curriculum. In the area of attendance, inclusivity means that all students, regardless of their current absentee percentage, will have access
048to improvement initiatives. Attendance supports are not reserved for those already struggling, but extend to all students in ways that promote belonging and collective responsibility. Success mentors and family engagement staff will ensure that students feel supported rather than singled out, which research shows is critical to sustaining attendance gains over time. To measure progress, we will collect evidence at multiple levels for oral language. This includes agendas from equity focused professional learning, classroom observations, the use of studentfriendly rubrics during classroom discussions, and targeted instructional walkthroughs. These artifacts will demonstrate how inclusive discourse practices are embedded in daily instruction. For attendance evidence will include team meeting agendas, comparative attendance data across cycles. Panorama data results capturing student perceptions of belonging and engagement. Taken together, these data points provide a holistic view of progress showing both how inclusive practices and
049being implemented are being implemented and how they are impacting students in outcomes in tangible ways. And our last pillar within family and community engagement, an action step that encomp encompasses our work towards achieving both goals is partnerships to accelerate oral language proficiency in children. It's just as important to provide training not only for our teachers but for our parents as well. And parents should be given the practical research-based strategies in creating a languagerich environment and engaging in meaningful conversations at home. The link between the school and home and reinforcing the vocabulary being taught in school at home can be very powerful in developing the oral language proficiency. And I promise to practice anything that we learn this year in parent workshops at home with my 18-month-old son. We'll know that we're implementing this action step
050when we have parent workshops on the specific topic, when we receive free feedback from our parents and our wonderful PTA on changes they hear in their child's oral language at home and of course in our panorama data which captures parents feedback on workshops too and how inclusive they feel in our school community and the learning experiences we offer. In terms of the attendance goal, we will continue our partnership with the United Way program, which is already servicing 150 students at Brookside and counting. And we're also excited to partner with the Rose Institute for Learning and Literacy this year. This initiative is going to provide additional reading support during the school day to a subgroup of students. And we know that unique opportunities like this in which students are building one-on-one relationships that are safe and
051reassuring with educators can help to strengthen their self-con confidence and of course boost engagement and another driver for them to want to be in school. Thank you. We're going to pass it on to our colleagues at Claremont. >> I think they're good. >> So, good evening. Uh Louie and I are so excited to share the work that we are doing at Claremont School. First, I want to thank the board of education for your support, for working with us this summer, for really dissecting um what we are doing well and the areas that we potentially need to look at um to make some growth. I also want to recognize that the goals that we have set um today to share with you as consistent as we are, we know that uh we cannot achieve any of
052these goals without the work of our teachers. Um they have the expertise, they have the wisdom um and the experience to bring this work to life for us and with us. And so, as Miss Ordo said, a lot of what I'm going to share is a continuation of work that Claremont started last year, but I'd like to share some updates on our instructional priorities and some new initiatives as well. If you recall, last year, our teachers reviewed uh student data. We then targeted and identified areas where we wanted to focus our improvement efforts and we worked through our PLC's um to develop two particular strategies that I shared with you last year. One was the RAD strategy uh for literacy which is to restate answer find a detail and another detail and the second strategy
053was for mathematics which we um call the three reads protocol which was introduced to us by Dr. Valz and is working really well. So we want to continue those two efforts and but building on last year's work there were some enhancements. Um, I should note that fourth grade teachers shared with us already that they've observed students entering this year familiar with these strategies, ready to use these strategies, and that prior exposure has helped teaching and learning be and feel more cohesive and consistent across our classrooms. That's really positive. Now, in terms of Orisy, it was described so beautifully um by Maria Meyers and by all of uh my colleagues before me. But you might be wondering, so what does that mean for third and fourth grade students? For us this year, the it's going to
054mean explicitly teaching students how to have accountable talk conversations with their peers. It's going to be using high leveraged words to use in discourse which then will also support their writing. So through our PLC work, we're going to work with teachers to develop what we're going to call structured talk protocols and comprehension protocols that will connect not just to all areas of our curriculum, reading, math, science, social studies, art, music, PE, all parts of our day, but especially into the two focus areas of RAD and the three reads math protocol. So that's one part of Orisy which is all really language use. But the second part we're going to work on is vocabulary instruction. That's really important. We have always taught vocabulary on a daily basis. That's not new. However, in recent years, we did
055seem to lose a consistent protocol. And as Miss Ordo stated, um, we want to be really explicit and intentional with our instruction. Now, um, my colleague, um, Miss Msias told you that there were revisions recently to the units of instruction at Park and Brookside, and now there is a protocol that is being used in early elementary. And so we thought at Claremont, although it hasn't made its way through uh revisions uh to our units yet, that we probably should use this same protocol and and this would help us collaborate across the grades. So how do you use this protocol? We're going to identify what we call tier 2 words that was already explained to you, but I want to just share another word with you and that's high utility words. So what we notice about
056students reading is that the way that we speak on a daily basis is not the way books are written. So it's we we could do a lot of oral language speaking with children and it's very helpful. But the types of words we use in our daily speech are not necessarily the types of words that children will encounter in book language which is a different type of language. And so what high utility words are are words that we see frequently coming up in their books and their texts. Words like conclude or describe or consider or dashed. Children don't really speak like that when they're eight and nine years old, but the books that they're reading, those words come up frequently. And so what we want to do is make a list of these terms and be
057um intentional and explicit with when we teach them, how we use them, create vocabulary word walls in our classroom, and then make sure that after children learn a word, we're now going to use it not just in speech, but in our writing. So I wanted to try this with you. Are you interested in in me trying this protocol with you? Yes, you totally are. I I do I do want to apologize to Claremont teachers because you would do this so much better than I'm going to do it right now. But I'm gonna try. I'm gonna give it a try. So, the word that I just saw recently that came out of the Magic Treehouse books that our third graders are reading where the characters are Jack and Annie, the word was dashed. So, here I
058go, boys and girls. The word is dashed. Can you say dashed? >> Dashed. Jack and Annie dashed down the hill towards the treehouse. Dash means to run quickly or suddenly. What means to run quickly or suddenly? >> Another sentence we could say is the puppy dashed across the yard. Or Maria dashed across the room when she heard her name. Can you think of a way you could use the word dashed? Raise your hand if you can think of a way. Melissa, >> I dashed tonight's meeting. So, >> and I saw Melissa dash in the room to attend this meeting. So, boys and girls, today we learned the word dashed. What does it mean to run quickly and suddenly? >> Dash. >> Okay, quick, right? That didn't take 15 whole minutes to teach, but it was
059quick. You could teach it even before you get to that word in the text or after you've read the word in the text. That word goes up on the word wall. And now as we're getting to write our own Jack and Annie books that may not take place in the time of dinosaurs, but it might take place in the Bronx Zoo, which is what Miss Patrice's class wants to take place in. I'm sure that if the alligator escaped from the zoo, you will find Jack and Annie dashing across the zoo. That was fun for me, BY THE WAY. BUT IN addition to uh academic growth, our second uh focus this year is going to be around uh social emotional growth as well. And we're going to continue our focus this year on schoolwide behavior. And
060so we've already started to renew our PBIS program. We're deepening our ex implementation of the secondstep program and working with our PBIS uh student ambassadors to ensure that we are really supporting schoolwide behavior and expectations. And we believe that together these initiatives will ensure academic growth, consistent instructional practices, and a strong positive school culture. And we're excited to see this impact on our students and staff. Mr. Charvet will now share with you how we're using our data to inform our practices. >> Thank you for seeing. Good evening. I'm going to make sure that I don't dash through my part of the presentation. Okay. Um we would like to share how we are using data at Claremont School to continue to guide instruction, support student growth, and make strategic decisions. Our continue goal this year is
061to use data to identify areas of growth as well as areas that we may need to revise. We wanted our instruction to be responsive and targeted to student needs regardless of their setting or language. In order to achieve this, we will continue to use NWA map growth results as a key tool. These results will help us plan differentiated groups to meet individual students needs. In addition to map data, we will review student work samples on a regular basis. This will include student work from RAD and ELA through its protocol in math and daily vocabulary instruction. We will also like to examine overall student performance and growth trends to compare previous testing cycles. By breaking down this data by strand or domain such as language usage, information tax, operations and algebra will help us identify specific
062skill gaps. We will also identify students who are above, at or below benchmark and discuss strategies to for targeting instruction or interventions. Finally, we will like to apply the same analytical approach to school culture and behavior. Our culture of care team reviews infinite campus referrals in minor reporting forms to identify trends and patterns by time, location, and type. This inform strategies to better support positive behavior and student well-being. By using a combination of assessment data, student work, and behavior patterns, we can make informed decisions that support every student's growth and create a strong, positive school culture. Thank you. Uh we're now going to talk about our third pillar, which is equity. To support our goals this year, we're going to ensure that every student feels heard and supported, which means that one of the key
063goals is to ensure that every student has a voice in these accountable class talk discussions that we're going to support with. We will embed scaffolds and visuals and sentence stems and language supports which will make our discussions more accessible to our multilingual learners and our students with disabilities. We will monitor this through classroom observations, partner talk, reflection sheets. We will track student participation over time to know who is speaking and how are students discussions evolving. Finally, we'll ask teachers to reflect on how effective these supports are, thereby giving us ongoing feedback to refine our approaches. On the behavioral side, we're going to expand our PBIS checkin checkout program. We're going to continue working with our student ambassadors and in training our support staff. As you know, data only tells a portion of the story and
064progress reports, referral trends, feedback surveys, everything will show us if our supports are fair and effective. Together, these efforts will create classrooms and a school culture where every student will participate, grow, and feel seen. Because equity is not just a goal. It's a part of how we teach and care for our students each and every day. In terms of family and community engagement, one key area this year is to continue to grow our academic partnerships with our families. We know that when families are engaged in supporting literacy, oracy, and math practices at home, student growth accelerates. To support this, we provide families with resources such as uh conversation starters strategies like RAD through rich protocol and also through workshops and newsletters. We will monitor this area via attendance and participation, family workshops, newsletter engagement and
065feedback from families as well as examples of student work at home shared with teachers. This approach will help families extend the learning at home, build confidence in supporting their their children, and reinforce classroom practices in a consistent and meaningful way. Now, on to family engagement and behavior. Equally important is supporting positive behavior through strong family partnerships. At Claremont School, we review PBIS expectations with families and provide strategies they can use back home, ensuring consistency between school and families. We will monitor this area of success by reviewing infinite campus major or minor referrals to track reductions in behavioral incidents. Whole post assemblies where we reinforce leadership skills with students. Poll points awarded to students for demonstrating schoolwide expectations as an increase in points will indicate reinforcement of positive behavior. also comparing referrals and pull points data
066over time to measure the effect effectiveness of PBIS strategies and interventions. Through these academic and behavioral partnerships with families, we are creating a connected learning community that reinforces growth, engagement, and positive development both in school and at home. I would like to pass it along to my colleagues at Roosevelt. >> I would like to say Mr. Charveet brought his Pawpoint tickets for everyone that was actively listening this evening. And you can cash them in at the school store. >> You're going to give them out right now? Should I? No one's going to listen. They're going to be waiting to get their motivators. Okay, fair. Hopefully, you'll be actively listening to to Roosevelt. We are a Princeton plan district. Everything that happens at Roosevelt is just as important what's happening in prek classrooms and across all
067of our schools. So, um, first of all, I just want to thank the board for your support. I want to also thank you for supporting us having a full-time dedicated assistant principal at Roosevelt, Mr. Derek D. Renzo, who has been working around the clock to help us launch our clubs that are coming next week and increase our attendance and just equitable access to our enrichment clubs both before and after school. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you for helping us as a district elevate our expectations for our students. And in just the conversations right now that we're having, I hear it in everyone's presentation that we are driving more equitable outcomes for all of our students no matter what across all grades. And it's so exciting to be a part of this
068work. Um so I just want to start um by saying that again if you know about Roosevelt, you know Roosevelt is about student leadership. It's about student voice. It's about empowerment, choice, and even service learning. Even just today, it was so exciting to hear our students make presentations to students in Mexico and Ecuador as we celebrated Hispanic Heritage Month and see that they were able to share their own research, their own passions, their families, their stories through this beautiful cultural exchange that was such um an application of their literacy and language development. and in both languages. Um, so we're going to everything that I'm going to share, if you want to turn your attention to slide 24, is a continuation of what you've heard from my colleagues in terms of our emphasis on vocabulary and
069language structures. And of course, with the Princeton plan model, there has to be cohesion across all of our district. And so I'm going to walk you through what you would see in our classrooms right now with the hope that what is one best practice in one classroom becomes a best practice in every single classroom across Roosevelt School. So let's talk about teaching and learning first and how we're approaching vocabulary in all of our classrooms. So, just in the last week, you walk into a self-contained classroom and the day starts with students all taking turns talking and sharing about their own lives, their own families, and embedding the vocabulary of the week orally. step into an ICT classroom and before you even get into the classroom, there's vocabulary with visuals outside of the classroom with tally
070marks so that the students can get excited about their own use of vocabulary both orally and in writing. step into a dual language classroom this week and you would have actually seen how kids are using their independent reading block now and identifying unknown vocabulary words and then coding the vocabulary words into tier tier 2 and tier three and then being able to explain and justify how they knew that the word orbit for example was a tier three word because it's not something you might use every day. It's more of a scientific vocabulary word. Step into a GenEd math classroom and see math vocabulary posted around the room with spec specific examples of equations. And then the three reads protocol which is now across all of our schools being used by our students so that they
071can break down what is this math problem really asking for. And there might not be just one answer. There might be four different mathematical questions that could arise from that math story and students are generating their own questions about the math story. What might this math problem be asking? Students are taking on the role of mathematicians and thinking like the creators of the curriculum which truly helps. Learning is done socially. We are seeing more and more students helping each other learn the vocabulary and the language structures. We know that whether you're a multilingual learner or you've been in the United States of America your entire life, all of our students benefit from the explicit vocabulary instruction, learning from each other and that positive social peer pressure to level up. And now that would bring me
072to our next slide. You can turn your attention to slide 26. I'm sorry, slide 25. Taking the teaching and learning that's already happening in our classrooms. How are we going to ensure now that our teachers are reaching every single student and not one student is at a plateau across all subject areas including our specials areas. It is about data literacy. It's not just about the principles or the APS or the directors understanding data trends in our district. It is bringing it down to the classroom level. That is the most important work that we are doing. And so in fifth grade, we have no shortage of data. As you can see from the list of evidence here, we are using everything from NWA NISLAT data, state exam data over time since our kids have that multi-year
073data, benchmark assessments, formative assessments from the classroom, and even conference notes that we can look at from when the students were even in prior grades. So, there's no shortage of data, but how are we using that data? And what you're seeing at Roosevelt now is that every single teacher has developed their own data literacy so they can have a better understanding of well okay yes we collected this data but what do we do with it and thanks to our team our MTSS team and our structures in place we're now able to have meaningful conversations about what our students need to be challenged and make sure that every single student is getting what they need in each content area. For example, um last week we were in math PLC's and ELA PLC's and we were analyzing
074all of these different data sets and one teacher just had an aha moment and shared, well, now that I have this data, I know that I can pull a small group in math and I can support that small group that has similar needs for four weeks and I can look at the growth that they're making. I will be the AIS teacher during when period the what I need block in math. So it was very exciting to see that all the aha moments that the data is not just collected to say oh yes we did this we collected this data it's being used to drive strategic small groupoup instruction in our classrooms and I want to give a huge shout out too as we move into equity because the data literacy now the next slide 26
075data literacy is what enables us to actually get have equitable access and equitable outcomes for every single student, including subgroups like students that are duly classified as multilingual learners and with an IEP. And what's happening with our equity work is we're looking closely at the data and we're not shying away. We're looking at the data from when they even at Claremont and at Brookside and Park School so that we can see which in this cohort of students have already had AIS cycles and maybe are not exiting out. Which groups of students did maybe these interventions not yield the results that we had anticipated and what do we need to do to change our approach for the specific students? How do we enlist their families? How do we enlist ENL teachers? How do we enlist specialist
076teachers, clinicians, and all work together to support our students? And something new this year that I would um ask my colleague, Mr. Denzo, to talk about is how he's supporting PBIS so that we actually have a structure where I can work with our teacher teams and do these data literacy based PLC's, professional learning communities, while Mr. Durenzo is working with our students on the culture building and the climate and the student empowerment piece. >> Thank you, Katie. I just want to take this opportunity to thank the board and our wonderful superintendent and the entire administrative team and of course my building level leadership colleagues for welcoming me so openly and warmly. It has been an amazing experience and I'm so happy to be here and I I feel the love all the time. So, I
077just want to thank all of you. Um, so I'm so happy to have the opportunity to talk about this. It's something that has been passionate to me for a long time as an educator. I believe strongly in fronting positive character education in an attempt to decrease minor behavior incidents. Um, so what we did was we put together a plan where I would work with our students on positive character education while Katie takes the opportunity to run PLC's with our teachers and our teacher leaders. Um I we created a system where each month we have a focus something that you know lends itself to positive character education. This month happens to be anti-bullying. Um and for that entire month we try to focus everything that we do throughout the building and throughout our school community um
078around that one focus. We have a schoolwide readaloud. We have a schoolwide activity. our teachers have opportunities during their culture of care time in the morning to dedicate toward kind of like bringing this focus into their classrooms. Um, I really think that having the presence of a very strong positive behavior system open in our building allows our students to become as involved in it as possible. If you're in Roosevelt, you will most likely hear some of our students running around using the term PBIS, talking about anti-bullying or whatever the month's focus is. They're very engaged in it. They're very um involved in it and they're very invested in it. We are giving out um positive leadership and character education awards to students who are exemplifying the qualities that we are hoping that they will. Um,
079and I do want to say that, you know, one of the things that I was most excited about to come and work in Austining was how much you we value our our students. And as a new building leader in Austining, I am really getting an opportunity to see in action what those values are and how they look. And it really is amazing. We really do have some amazing students. Um, we also are very dedicated to providing our students with a voice and agency to speak up for themselves and to advocate for themselves through student reporting forms, through student council, through opportunities like Katie mentioned earlier when our students today had the opportunity to present their research projects to uh students in other countries about Hispanic heritage. Um, we really try to give our students as
080much voice as possible so that they really feel present and valued within our community. Um, we also are do um facilitating a check-in and checkout um protocol for some students who are identified as needing some extra support um whether they're coming into school or leaving school. Again, giving them um the agency to kind of advocate for themsel and giving them the opportunities to speak up when they need to. We also have some excellent uh before and after school clubs which we are just about to launch next Tuesday. Um they are we've given our students an opportunity to voice what clubs they would be interested in as well as um some activities that they would be interested in during the school day. Um we have also come up with a way to offer additional enrichments throughout
081the school day to students who are exemplifying the qualities that I mentioned earlier. We are did I don't want to miss anything. Um, yep. I think that one more thing is having um front-loading positive behavior and character education I think really sets expectations for our students and having an effective and open PBIS system lets students know that they're going to be held accountable and it gives them the opportunity to take education and enact it and the hope is that it leads to kind of like positive behavior all around and I do think that we are seeing the effect of that. I know it's a little early, but I am very confident that it's going to be successful. >> And finally, we know that no matter what we're doing at home, we have to break down
082the barriers between the homeschool and we have to make sure that our families are partners in this work. So we will be generating studentled videos and studentled scripts and guides so that they themselves go home and actually teach their families and their cousins and their aos and their aas and their neighbors all about using RAD and using the three reads protocol and the mathematical vocabulary and the science sentence starters and the conversation starters to really make sure that our students are so proud of what it is that they're learning and that their families can also learn and reinforce and support because I truly believe that every single family wants to help their child grow and learn but sometimes there are barriers in the way. So we are constantly reflecting on how we remove those barriers
083to ensure that our families know that they are valued. They are their children's first teachers and we have so much to learn from them. So that two-way communication piece is key and we will continue to ensure that we're not just using Oblast but we're also using text message platforms and um backpack mail and the students themselves, right? Anyone in here who's a parent knows if we get our an invitation that our student our child brings home and says, "Mommy, I want you there. please come to this, then there's going to be more of an effort to do it. So, we really want to leverage this piece at Roosevelt of student leadership, student voice, student agency to really work more closely with our families. Thank you. First of all, thank you so much. Um, this is
084a lot, right? And you all >> schools, >> I know you all do so much and you did such a nice job of I'm sure we could have any of you up here and you could talk even more at length about your own buildings and your own goals. So, I appreciate how tidy that was and I'm going to we're going to try to return a favor on the board. Even though we're very interested in in everything that you do, we're trying to respect everybody's time because this could go on all day. >> And I do want to repeat something our principles mentioned. I want to thank the board and we encourage you next summer if you have a time. You came by one of our and spent about three to four hours with us. They
085looked over at a hundred different slides of data of all kinds of information and the collective level of appreceptive knowledge in that room was um highly professional, highly motivated and came up with very solid impactful strategies based on that. So thank you. >> Yes. And I would say, you know, before we even kick off for questions, I want to thank you all for um welcoming us into that setting, which I know is >> puts you in an inherently kind of vulnerable position. And um so I could appreciate that there may be some protectiveness about that information, right? Because especially if not everything looks great, then now it's all out there, but it's important that it's all kind of out there so you can sip through it. So I just really appreciate that level of trust
086and vulnerability. Um, I think for those of us who were there, it was um, a really enriching experience. It has been able to kind of inform our work so that we can better support you. Um, that being said, uh, I want to open it up to questions around the board. Whoever wants to start and then I'll go in a circle. Melissa. >> All right. So, as um Christine said, we I'll try to sum it up with just a couple of things that I really stood out to me in a couple of questions. First things first, I'll be remiss if I didn't point out, I don't know if it was conscious or subconscious, but e schools color coordinating. >> Oh my god. Talk about noticing patterns, right? Um >> I like how the equity work continues
087to evolve across schools. um and how you're always wanting to improve yourself and how you approach that. Um and you're not complacent in the work or snagged it in the work and you're very intentional around that. So I just want to always highlight that. Um I also like the fact that um I think it was noted in Roosevelt how there's also an intentionality around IEP usage in the equity work as well, right? to make sure that it's kind of like a well-rounded approach. But I would assume, you know, every school has some iteration of that as well. But I did like seeing that highlighted. Um, I have a question around just a clarification. I saw Blackboard Connect as something under parent connectedness. Um, is that something you could speak a little more about? >> Sure.
088Um I I find that and after serving our families last few years, they have shared that they love text messages >> and it's quick, it's concise. I am constantly using it to send important messages to our families and even I have to edit it down because you only have a certain amount of characters. So it's very concise, right? So that is important. And I find as a parent too, when I get those quick messages, I can digest it a little bit more than the lengthier memos, which are wonderful and celebrate our schools. And we work so hard on our weekly OB blasts. Yet, Oblast Blackboard Connect has been very effective and it's improved our percentage of click rates on our Oblast 2. when we say in a text message, please refer to the club information
089in the Oblast, okay, >> via text. So, a lot of times what we do with the Blackboard Connect is driving traffic toward the OBLAST content. At least that's how we're using it at Roosevelt. >> Thank you. Just lastly, I have two um questions that kind of intersect and that's where I'll leave off. >> Um anyone can answer this. I'm just curious about how the use of data is refined, like if there's how do you self-reflect on how you might need to approach how you're either gathering data, applying data to your strategies, things like that. And then also around the attendance strategies, it seems to understandably be a persistent across schools, you know, concern that's trying to be addressed. I'm wondering how any of these um measures and even consulting agencies that were listed are helping
090I guess outside of traditional motivators for students some that might be more clinical in nature if there's any approaches around that for school avoidance that is coming from some a place that's a bit more clinical in nature than just you know I don't really have any friends or something like that right um so those are just two my last questions anyone who feels those inclined can answer that. >> To answer your first question, I think uh something that we did unique this year that has already uh given us a different perspective in the classrooms is specific to math. We started the year off with a beginning of year assessment um which we hadn't previously done. And uh to be very transparent, the feedback that we got from some teachers were before we gave the assessment,
091we're going to give this assessment to children and they're not going to do well on it because they're they haven't learned this content yet. But to our um wonderful surprise, I mean, some classes you had students getting 60% of the questions correct, 70, 80, 90%. And yes, you did have students that were falling below that, but it's not so much how many questions the child got right, but more importantly, what are they already bringing with them um to the new grade level that we don't have to waste time on? Uh over the summer during our one of our admin meetings, there was a slide that said that 40 to 60% of instructional time in schools is spent on teaching content that kids already know. And we started off with that statistic at our beginning of
092year address with staff at Brookside. So, it was very enlightening to see the data and to give teachers already an opportunity to start to bucket students based on what they already know. But thinking about that also in terms of mindfulness and and instilling confidence in kids, they're coming into a new grade level. Wow, you you were able to do this already. You don't need to work on that. We can work on something else with you. So, that's something we did across our schools this year and we're looking forward to continuing that practice. That's an assessment that's going to be administered three times in the year. Um, so we'll be able to see students growth, but it's an internal assessment and more importantly, it's driving instruction immediately for our teachers. >> Kenny, you had a second
093part of the question. >> I'm so sorry. More. Let's hear more. >> I was actually going to add to that and just layer what um, Miss Orduce just shared. I think we also lean in on our staff and the resources, the human resources that we have. For example, our AIS teachers are constantly looking at data. Our specialed team is constantly looking at data because we're progress monitoring students every single day. So they're able to shift and and sift through the data, if you will, and can bring to the table a different perspective and maybe have analyzed it to a different level so that when we come together in grade level teams, they bring that insight as well. Otherwise, looking at data can be a daunting task and can be overwhelming. So it's important to chunk.
094Um, with regards to attendance, your question about how we target and maybe do some differentiated approaches with families, we do that exactly. We sort of meet parents where they are in my particular school at Park School because our children are so young. It's really the work that we do with families, not so much with the children, but it's celebrating uh those small victories, calling parents like, "Hey, I was in so and so's classroom today. I love that he was in school today. Let me just tell you what he did." Right? And you'd be surprised how that even motivates and changes behavior. Um, but we also have amazing social workers who work directly with individual families. Our family engagement specialists is like that is her number one thing that she does is really do the parent
095outreach to support attendance. Um, I think in all of our buildings. >> Yes. >> Thank you. >> Sorry, I was a deliberate shift in the role of a family engagement specialist. So want to thank Megan again also for her support for that. >> Annie, >> um I really appreciated seeing how you promote equity in all these different areas. Like for example, Clare, I think you said you use visuals to help children who maybe aren't verbal or can't necessarily read at that level yet. And then um Brookside just the non-punitive methods of helping with absenteeism. >> I think Emily kind of answered this already, but I I'm going to ask again just in case like there's a little bit more to it. So, um the games and projects to promote children to come to school. Um
096that is great. I think that's really clever. And um even at Claremont, I noticed that there's an afterchool basketball program. So if the kid goes to school, then they can also go to the basketball after. And that's really enticing. Um do you find that it is more often the student who is holding back or the family can't get the student there because all the kids are so young. I'm wondering where it's really driven because sure the child might be excited to go to school, but if they're needing their adult to get them there, then how is that working? And you already mentioned the family engagement specialist, but I'm kind of wondering more where that where you're seeing that push come from when kids are excited to go to school. >> Especially at at our age
097level, it it unfortunately is the children are subject to some extent to whether the parent is for some reason can't get them to school. So we do have a community schools approach in Austining which I think is very unique to this district. Um specifically we have um open door in our schools which is the medical clinic and that's u a support that's put in place precisely with that reasoning to try and alleviate any barrier medical barrier that a child may have in making it to school. Um, our after-school programs are also away because sometimes because of lack of afterare or someone being able to pick up a student at on time, parents will resort to keeping the child at home. Research shows though that even in the lower grades, um, I think this is to
098the point that um, was it uh, it might have been Katie, children are the most convincing >> power to going to school. So if they are in it, they will tell their parents, we want to go to school, we want to go to school and this is studied based so they have that power of persuasion over their parent. Uh but we we look to see what are the barriers that are keeping families from sending their children to school. Now when we talk about at risk attendance that only really and part of it is just raising awareness in parents at risk means that the child has an absence uh uh percentage of 10 to 19%. Which over 180 school days um I don't know that parents realize that just over 10 school days means that you
099potentially could fall into that category. So, it's really just raising awareness in parents um so that children are at school as consistently as possible. Uh but also in students so that we're building healthy habits and promoting consistent um attendance each day. I I just want to reinforce the work of our um our social workers in conjunction with our family engagement specialists because sometimes very often it is the family that will need support in in figuring out how to get their child to school in a timely manner. Sometimes you're going to run across a student that really um doesn't want to come to school for for any number of reasons. Um, and then we'll work with the family to uh give them a phone call in the morning, make sure they we get them alarm clock
100to try to wake them up, go to their house and say, "I'm here. Come on, we're eating breakfast together. Let's let's now go to school." Uh, so we'll find ways to support students reinforcing, of course, if a student um feels like they're unwilling to come to school. But I think this year where I saw some really critical work was um in a single parent at Claremont school who had a shift in their job schedule and they don't have a car. So their job was in Elmsford. And I didn't realize that if you have to take public transportation from Austining to Elmsford, it takes over an hour to get there. And if your job starts at 7 a.m., you have to leave at 6:00 am, which means there's nobody to watch your child because our beginning
101um of the morning programs don't open at 6:00 a.m. Nobody's program opens at 6:00 a.m. And so this parent was taking his child to work with him at 6:00 in the morning. and the parent um wasn't coming home from work until 11 pm and there was no support to to care for this child even if we had put this child in an afterchool program. The programs close at 6 and so what would happen after that? But we were able to work with our social workers and our family engagement specialist. We found an agency to support and help. Found child care from 6:00 in the morning. Um to the time it's ready to start school where we're now getting our little Tikeke there. And um and after school now um dad was able to shift his
102his schedule to be home at 8, but still their child care is there feeding dinner. And this child has not missed a single single day of school >> since we've started that level of support. And so it is so individual for our children, but but we're just ready to roll up our sleeves and everybody pitches in because we know that children need to be in school and none of this work can happen if they're not there to receive it. >> Thank you so much. Things like that make me really love our district. You really care about the kids. >> I I have to thank um Dr. Lopez and um Kim Mauricio for putting together that mental health grant because the six of our clinical staff are funded through that grant and their work is so
103needed. >> So again, I know the board has on the agenda tonight, you know, the audit which includes funding that will help us in a in a reserve to move forward with this work for the next two years because we lost that grant. Frank. >> Sure. I'm sorry it's me. Um, outstanding presentation. I was really impressed with the building up through the presentation. So, my my question when I started listening to Park and Brookside was how do you accelerate vocabulary through explicit instruction and by the time we got to Claremont, you answered it very well. And by the time we got to Roosevelt, you brought it to a next level. And I just that kind of building was what we saw at the summer and through the retreat and the planning that you were doing
104and the and the power of social learning is really it's great to hear about in the classrooms. It's great to see it, you know, at the summer retreats and it's it's great to be part of it here with the board and and with all of our admins. So just really appreciate the the level that the presentation went. I I didn't get the sense of where you were going, but you were three steps ahead of me the whole way. So thank you. um question around my my question I guess in just with all of this is are there ways through the homework packet to sort of make those touch points with the families and so you know and I heard a little bit about the text messages and the oblasts and all that thing but really
105are there ways to empower kids because they're very persuasive to I don't know if it's a tear off for a parent to to do an example like was done tonight of the explicit instruction but like that was the question that if I waited to the family kind of engagement night that I would miss throughout the course of the year. And I'm not trying to make a huge work thing here, but what I'm wondering is are there kind of some regular touch points that we can empower the kids to engage a family member to work through with them that would help to raise the uh you know the uh insights of all of us because it's really powerful work and the more we share it the better the the more effective. There there absolutely is. Um
106we developed actually just this week accountable talk prompts for families at home. >> Um the first place we're going to roll it out is we have a tech workshop that's taking place or no tech workshop that's taking place at OS next Thursday. One of our teachers, Jill Anderson, is going to be delivering that um and talking about the benefits of not encouraging tech usage at home and what you can do instead with your child. And one of the things we're going to be rolling out that night is some accountable talk prompts. So, how do you teach your child how to clarify? How do you teach your child how to synthesize? What can you say to them to spur that oral vocabulary? And then in terms of the words, what we have, we're haven't started this
107work yet on choosing which high utility words we're going to be using for each unit of instruction or each subject area. But once we do, that will be shared through homeworks, through um notifications at home because we're not going to choose 10 words a day. Um throughout a unit, you might choose maybe three words a week. And even that, you need at least 15 to 20 repetitions of a word in different ways for a child to um absorb it into muscle memory. But if you're a multilingual learner or a student with disabilities, you will need 30 plus repetitions of that one word to store it in muscle memory. So we're not going to give an exorbitant number of words, but we're going to choose wisely, choose carefully. And I think with our work in the
108buildings, we will have to tear the words we're using from building to building. So, some are repeated so we could review them, but others are new um that we want to see in age appropriate vocabulary and writing. Um, and then hopefully we will start to build this bank of words for our students and our families can engage in in that too. So, if the word is dashed, I hope I hear it all over your house, you know, on the weekends when you're out dashing for groceries or to a soccer game or something like that. >> That's great. Thank you for that. And and just a last comment that the positive behavior work we're doing really is so powerful. And the way I see it like on the fields with the kids and when they're either
109engaging online, this the word the words and the vocabulary it's being used is coming back in spades. And I just want you to know that. I see it. I hear it. It's been kind of consistent as the kids go through the district. So keep the great work up. I think not everything in the moment sinks in. But I got to tell you, when they're on their own and they're talking amongst each other and doing this, they're really reflecting a lot of the great work that's going on. So, thank you, >> Ow. And you don't have to have a question if you don't you don't have to >> come up with one if you don't have one, but if you have one, you can ask it. >> Yeah. >> I don't I never want people to
110feel feel put on the spot is all. No, I I have I have a couple comments just like on some of the trends that um I heard like for for example um I I I forget if it was Claremont or or the other school, but the book language verse the the speaking language like that's something so important and we even say that the high school high school level like my I give an example my English class last year we had a juicy jargon uh uh list from our from our book. So, it's something that doesn't stop at um that level and it's important to have it right away. And then also just um like the continuation of the PBIS throughout the schools and um the committees, the equity committees and the things like that. That's
111so important. I think that students have that at Park and then they have it at Roosevelt and then they have it at AMD and then they have it at the high school. like they're able to continue that throughout it and it develops over time. I know the middle school does digital citizenship and the high school does so much other work as well. So they're able to develop as the schools develop which I thought was really important. And then this the same thing the cohesion between um the student councils and the clubs the afterchool clubs like it's important that students are able to participate in the same clubs as they move through the schools and and you know that's something that we're working on at the high school to bring to some of the elementary schools
112and I I think it's really it's really important. So that's that's all >> thanks. Um yeah please keep in touch with us about that. We're always looking for potential partnerships and opportunities to collaborate across schools as well. So Owen, we should set up a meeting. >> So Owen actually will be setting up a meeting because he he met with AMD and Claremont today. And that's exactly what Owen's mission is, is to ensure that we have um secondary and elementary immersing ourselves together so our young children can see the role amazing role models like Owen that we have in our secondary schools. I really look forward to uh what the year brings with Owen at the helm. >> Uh Rob. >> Yeah. So thanks um Maria, this these actually might be for you unless they go
113to the panel. Just two quick questions around the data. So there were goals 2% 5% up and down. Will we be tracking the uh I guess it's the disagregation among different groups to see if you know 2% with certain groups 5% another will that will that be kind of done in the data collection? >> Yes, absolutely. We've already started that. >> Great. >> In all um data sources. >> Great. And the other thing around it, it looks like a lot of the the data are anchored to the NWA math test. I do realize that the e um the New York State tests don't come in till well, right now, right where we're about to talk about soon last year's results. But I do wonder looking forward when this presentation happens next year if we can
114maybe know look to potentially bring that in because then we could see whether the NWA aligns with you know we triangulated that against the NWA the New York state and then the ERA. So it just might be something for the board and you know your your team to consider to see how >> Thank you. So even though the data is not is un is embargoed at the moment we do have access. So we have been able to look at our state data. We looked at our NWA data and um we've done that triangulation as well. Um we chose the NWA because it's normed reference um and it was more aligned to our state assessment. >> Okay. >> That's why Rob, actually you bring up a good point. If you remember, I used state data last
115year as a measurement point, and you guys asked me a lot of questions about it. Um, but this year, using the NWA, I think it gives us a more frequent um data measure, but we're looking at very similar subcategories. So with with the embargo data that's come in, we already can see the subcategories for ELA and how every student did within those subcate categories. So vocabulary or main idea um yeah and then for math it's number and operations and measurement geometry algebraic thinking. So, NWA can also give us those same categories um with the help of Tim Sculton who is a psychologist that um is doing some amazing data work for us. He is able to use student numbers through NWA to give us historical data on even those subcategories. So I recently asked specifically
116for vocabulary to start a baseline is how did our students do last year in this vocabulary subset but then I wanted to drill down even more. How did my students with disabilities now do? How did my multilingual learners do? So I can start to see if there's going to be an upward trend within that subcategory. And of course, I'd have to compare it to what the state set uh test does, which is just a once a year data point, and then we have to just wait months for that to come. But I think what's really going to give us much more relevant information is um the products we're going to see in the classroom. Everything from your exit tickets to your writing samples that we're going to analyze, use rubrics um to see, is the
117vocabulary showing up there? Is it being used effectively? and our student sentences growing. Um, you know, instead of just writing he went to the park, you know, he went to the park on his scooter wearing his red sneakers while, you know, holding an ice pop. So phrasing, which is how book language is like, is not really how we talk in real life, but we want to just encourage that to come out through the products we see. And to build on that, our hope is that you see that we are looking at duh different data points to really create a comprehensive story uh for each of our children so that we can really target specific needs and support their strengths and build on that. >> I think it's also important, I'm so glad you brought up
118like why the shift from your Anneil to now seeing a lot more with the NWA. It is because you can't wait a a year to get results. You really need more immediate feedback for the students themselves too. Even with NWA now, we have students looking at how they performed at Claremont and then setting their own goal to race against themselves and improve their proficiency scores on the NWA. We want them to see their graphs. We want them to see an upward trend. Then they're taking more ownership and investment. And then at the class level we have already begun the work of looking at the subgroups too whether it's based around male females performance in algebraic thinking looking at even main idea which was a huge focus third through fifth grade last year and we were
119actually surprised to find out based on the data that we actually need to review characters and sequencing in narrative text. I would not have guessed that. I wouldn't have, but the data showed us that. And so now we can look at our curriculum tier one and we can analyze where we need to put more attention to make sure that our students and in certain subgroups are getting their needs met. So I'm really glad you asked that question. >> I just want to thank um I want to thank Katherine. I don't know if you remember but when we met last year you had mentioned an experience that um I think one of your children had with the NWA and a comment that they made to you and I really remembered that. So this year we actually
120um restructured how we give the assessments to students not to make them nervous or anxious about the test but it is um a a focus of that particular week. So instead of I think the window is very wide for NWA like a month to take that test and teachers were giving it at different points and and so maybe to children it felt like ah it's not that important I really shouldn't try that hard on this. Now we say everybody in this school is pausing for you know an hour on this day and everybody administered the ELA. um we talked to children about the importance of really trying your best and what to do if you don't know an answer but that this is important and we will be sharing this data with them and then
121everybody gave the math on a certain day and then the Spanish um ELA on a certain day and then makeups were within a window and I think that we saw you know less children rushing because we could see the time that uh students can took and if they were happy clickers um and we we saw a more renewed focus on this on this exam So maybe that'll give us some more information. But I want to just thank you because I remembered your comment from last year. >> Yeah. >> Thanks. I think you can thank Ryan for that one. >> And just to build on that, it was just not for Claremont across the board. It was a more structured type of >> this year. >> Very intentional. >> It'll be interesting to see what happens.
122Um, well, I was actually going to touch on the the language piece and sort of being deliberately teaching language. And um, it's interesting that you brought that up because we saw that a few years ago when we were running DI and we had the kids doing instant challenges where they would go into a room, they didn't know what they would be asked to do, right? And they would get told right there and then on the spot. And they weren't doing well and we couldn't quite figure out why. So, we sat down with like 20 to 30 old challenges and we went through them and we realized that they were using the same types of language that kids don't use. So, they didn't understand when it says you can use the pencil but you can't damage
123the pencil. They were thinking, well, by writing with the pencil, I'm damaging it because I'm using the graphite. So, like we better not touch that pencil, right? or something like they didn't know what a pun was but they could tell you what a dad joke was, right? And they didn't know what construct meant but they knew what create meant and they didn't know what a skit was but they knew what a little play was. >> So um when we really deliberately explained all of that and they said why do they use these languages like this was created by people in the 1900s nobody talks this way and I go what do you mean like what do you mean 1900s? They go, you know, like like your age, like born in the 1900s, >> any event.
124Once we deliberately taught, look, we can't change the way that these are written. It is what it is, but we can teach you the buzzwords, then they scored the highest in the state. So, it wasn't a matter that they didn't understand, that they couldn't do it, that they didn't have the skills, that that that they weren't like innately intelligent. They had all of that. they just didn't understand the vocabulary that other people were using because they didn't see it in their books and they didn't use it every day. So, I'm very glad that you're doing that kind of deliberate um language work because look, do we want to teach to tests? No, of course not. Right? But the reality is that language is going to find its way into the PSATs, into the SATs, into
125the AP exams, and and it is an extra barrier for our ENL students. And that barrier, it compounds over time and the divisions can get greater if we don't intentionally tackle it. Um, so kudos to you for for working on that and it'll be interesting to see how it all plays out. >> Try to make mine brief, but I just wanted to um just make some comments. So, first of all, thank you. This is just my my opinion really great to see this all kind of go all the way across all these buildings. the impact that you guys are going to have and everything that you're doing here is just going to be so profound that it's it's just something I can only imagine what it might be like a year from now, two years
126from now because of all of what's going on here. Um, I think I'm going to talk a little bit about the profoundness in just a second, but I love the fact that this is really working to improve vocabulary is what I heard. I heard it's subject comprehension, improved oral reading and writing skills. That's amazing. I love the fact of how this is going to help help us to really build upon the equity that we've been talking about for a long time, not talking about it, doing something about it, which is really awesome. Love the um the fact that it's going to help build that confidence. This here is the part that I think is really amazing. The confidence and the self-esteem building. And if you think about the continuity and just kind of like what
127Owen said and having that level of continuity throughout the schools and I think about the this where kids will be as they go through this entire program all the way through the high school where it increases their participation in things, increases their sense of belonging. It increases their ability to be able to be engaged in a profound way because of where it started and how it went consistently throughout the schools. So, this is what I think is going to be amazing. I cannot wait to see how this manifests itself over time. But this to me is just like it it's like amazing that I can't find any other word for it, but I'm sure you'll teach me. Um, So, yeah, we'll we'll figure this one out. Um, but I think I do really commend you
128guys. I'm looking forward to hearing more of this a year from now, more of this a year after that. Um and then you know whatever comes from there and progress in that and then maybe when there's whoever takes over for Owen in the years coming hearing from them and or maybe we might come back here somehow and sit in our chair one day but it just to hear how it's changed their life right hear how it's impacted the way that they've learned and developed and grown. So thank you. Thank you. >> We look forward to having them back in late spring to tell you about how well the goals worked. Great. >> I'm I'm glad to see this focus on Orisy. I think um like as I'm reflecting on my own teaching, like it's definitely
129something I do very explicitly. And you want kids answering like these higher level thinking questions, but before you can get there, you have to be speaking the same language. Um, and I mean that as in a technical way, but you know, for example, I'm teaching somebody how to play an instrument, like they're going to have to learn the word amisher, and they're definitely not coming across it any place else. Their parents probably don't know what it means either, but we need to be speaking the same language here. And um, so it's nice to see that, but I have a question related to our ELLL students because I want to have a better understanding of this skill more broadly. Um, is it is ory the kind of thing where a student who has strong ory skills
130in a home language once that new language acquisition comes it translates very nicely or is it um kind of a starting from scratch when you're starting with a new language? Um, I I'm curious about where the intersection is between what uh maybe added challenges or maybe even advantages that um knowing another language and learning English can can present. And I don't know if this question is best directed at anybody here or maybe Maria might be the best to answer it. I don't I'm putting it out there. I mean, it's it's a really good question because I think I know there's because we actually did look very closely at NISS law data and um the way that Nancy Dela Cruz uh described it to us is they looked at it through subsets and normally you would
131expect that by third and fourth grade students would be very strong in the speaking and the listening component and really working more in the reading and the writing. And what we learned, and this is fascinating, is that um students across actually most of elementary were weak in listening first and foremost. >> And we really had to think about why, right? Um is it because, you know, outside of school, they might be on their iPad so much and they don't need to really have conversations and listen to peers. Is it because they might have parents like me that when it's time to brush your teeth, I say it 50 times and they don't really have to listen the first time uh a teacher or an adult says something because I know it's going to be repeated
132so many times. Um the the oracy piece also comes about in lengthening the sentences that we speak. So very often if I ask my daughter and she's 12 at this point so quite old that um you know how is school today fine one word but that's not responding back in you know in a conversation with you so I'll ask again tell it to me like give me more detail it was fine is what I'll probably get right so what we want to tell students to do is like stretch it give me one more heard it was fine in math today. Okay, give me more. Right. It was fine in math today because I raised my hand and I was able to get, you know, a a question right. So that it starts first with stretching
133language. So we can we can have discourse in more complete sentences instead of very short one word or phrases. And then we now support students with accountable talk prompts. So when you're discoursing about math, how do you do that? What's the right words and vocabulary to use? What do you do if you disagree with someone that you're talking to? Can I put words into their mouth? What do you do if you agree? What if you do if you have a counter, you know, feeling? How do you encounter that? And then you move then into those higher words that Katherine was talking about, which was such a perfect example. It was, okay, now in that speech, let's incorporate some of these high leverage words or even as you're learning about hurricanes coming up in third grade,
134those tier three words like tsunami and hurricane, that's not really going to come up in every novel you read, but it might if you read an I survive book about a storm or something, right? So there's so many layers to your question, but I think the answer is if you don't really speak in complete sentences in your own language, you're not going to really do it in English either. So I think your home language needs to start with stretching um and and even speaking more in phrases and then you'll be reading more in phrases and writing more in phrases. I did just want to say one thing about actual the assets of our multilingual learners, particularly those of our students who speak Spanish as their home language. They actually have so much beautiful rich foundational
135vocabulary in Spanish that so easily helps transfer into English. If you look at even the SATs, the prefixes, the suffixes, the Latin roots, there is a real opportunity if if we are able to be very very explicit about the strengths that our Spanish-speaking students and their families already have that we can tap into. But the awareness needs to be brought to it by using the cognates that are similar in both language and ensuring that we have opportunities for our students to really build in their home language. That's why I am so proud my own children went through dual language program. I'm in Austining because we have dual language programming here. And even today as I saw both Spanish language learners and English language learners reading presentations in English and in Spanish in their target language
136and being able to make meaning of it. It definitely shows me that our dual language students may and often end up outperforming non-dual language peers over time. So that's something just to to think about is the opportunity for really looking at them as an a with an assetsbased mindset and making the explicit connections and even sharing cognate list with their families too because that's empowering and the vocabulary that's built and how they'll even do on things like PSATs, ELSATs, MCATs, that's powerful. Thank you. Um, thank you so much for again for uh sharing with us your work. Um, I think I can speak for the board, but I say we're very appreciative for how much you all do as related to these goals specifically, but broadly in your day-to-day. Um, we know you're very busy.
137Um, and as are all of your staff taking care of, you know, who we're all here to serve, which is our kids here. Um, so thank you so much. Um, and I think you're you're dismissed. >> You'll dash if you're here. You're dashing off. >> Dash. I'll dash home. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> All right. >> You're so nice. You take such good care of me. >> Thanks again. Um, moving along. More to do. Always more to do. All right. The next item on our agenda is our public comment that's related to agenda items. I um not seeing anybody here who I believe will wish to speak. Is there anybody online? Okay, we will move along. Uh the next thing on our agenda is our consent agenda, business of the board. Um, and before
138we even go into it, our 4.1 is our resolutions regarding New York State School Boards Assoc Association proposed bylaw amendments and resolutions. So, um, I'm not going to put it on the floor yet because we have to go through the packet. Hope everybody did their homework here. So, I'm going to explain what this is for the public so that uh they know what we're about to discuss. But uh as schoolboard members, our district is a member of NISSBA, New York State School Boards Association. They have a legislative um advocacy arm of their uh organization and uh we can choose as a board uh items that have been proposed to um give to NISBA to support and advocate for in Albany and nationally when it comes up. So, these are all proposed legislations. Um, I'm looking
139at the one and I think I has put out a sheet that uh states where uh Westpot fell as far as what they support and oppose. I think the best way to go through this will be to look at it page by page and if anybody dis I'll assume an agreement with Westpot and if anybody has anything that they want to discuss from our perspective and I know there were some non-decisions from Westpot on some of these we'll have to discuss for ourselves as well okay so looking at um just point of order can I ask when do we have to have this in by >> um the vote is I I'm attending and Melissa is our backup person next Thursday, I want to say. Let me look. Yeah, it's uh the 16th. So, this
140is it. >> This is it. All right. >> This is it. Um does anybody see anything on the first page that's one through eight? Knowing that we'll have to discuss eight on its own. Eight. Eight would be one. But did you say we're going to discuss? >> Yeah. Well, we'll have to discuss it on our own because uh Wes left us no decision on that one. >> Um >> Number three. Okay. Um let's discuss number three. Uh that's NISBA supports proposals aimed at addressing the costs and administrative burdens of legal actions related to special educ uh special education placements and services. Uh, Westpet supports the DEI committee notably had no consensus on that, which means they discussed it and did not they could take a neutral position, but they didn't. It just says no consensus.
141Um, Annie, did you have anything? >> Um, yeah. So, I would worry that this would take away some of the parents ability to advocate for their child. I understand that sometimes it can be abused, but that shouldn't punish the the people who don't abuse it and that's like my main concern. I know for myself, I left it blank because I feel the same way that, you know, unfortunate reality is that sometimes parents do have to sue the school district in order to get um an appropriate access to education. I don't want to limit that access. So, I'm open to what the rest of the board feels and I'm I'm of the opinion that I'll go with the majority here. Um I could be convinced either way. >> I'm a no. >> Annie opposes. >> Anybody
142else? I guess I don't know what legal actions related to special education placements and services is. I don't know if that's parent initiated legal actions. Is that the district trying to take legal action to find an out of district placement? It's >> Do you have this or do only I have this? >> I don't have that information. >> Okay. Um it's the voter guide. I can read the rationale. Do you want to hear the rationale? >> Sure. >> Okay. Uh this is a rationale. It's submitted by uh this was submitted by NISBA board of directors. Uh special education related lawsuits have become increasingly common in recent years. Many of these suits stem from due process hearings in which parents request re-evaluation of their child's IEP or from the special education placement process. Frequent and frivolous
143lawsuits have been on the rise in recent years, costing districts unnecessary time and money. The complexity of the cases that come under the opaces of the Individuals with Disabilities Act leaves open to manipulation the system intended to protect the due process rights of the most vulnerable. Too often, attorneys involved in IEP setting or other stages of the special education placement process take advantage of its complexity. These attorneys will submit multitudes of FURPA and foil requests, ask for excessive unusual additions to student IEPs, appeal any decision they deem unsatisfactory regardless of merit, or demand exhaustive compensatory damages and high attorneys fees. Even if the school district has a strong case, it is often more cost-effective to simply settle out of court rather than risk the continued accumulation of costs associated with the case. The cost is
144not only financial. Equally as taxing are the hundreds of hours spent by administrative, clerical, and instructional staff working on these cases and the utterly demoralizing effect it has. Legislative action is needed to repair the broken I uh idea system in such a way that allows schools to provide necessary services to students while protecting districts and families alike from the abuse of a system designed to protect our most vulnerable. >> If I can highlight and I think King can share that New York State is one where the burden of proof um is um on the school district as opposed to the burden of proof on the families. So a cottage industry coming out of New York City of law firms and attorneys basically have created a situation where they very strategically know when to plant a
145lawsuit and then what happens is they people will parentally place for a year. Come back and now you've got a private school that costs anywhere from $150 to $200,000 who has staff there. They can collect data and then the next year the burden of proof is on the school district. But it's in their best interest to show uh growth on that end. And they often land those lawsuits right at the end of the summer school session, right before school starts. There's a whole formula set up to do this. And um >> that's the manipulation part. >> And at the end of the day, the data from New York based on this system is no different nor better than that coming out of states where it doesn't occur that way. >> Right. Um it is just
146it it is a system that needs I think their general comment of a total revamp of IDA is would be hugely >> is there data that supports these the frivolous lawsuits that they are increasing or that they are outweighing the legitimate lawsuits like where is that where's the data that supports that rationale? Yeah, I think Nisbet does have it. It's huge. Bob Lowry from um lower uh from the New York State Council of School Superintendent. We have the largest in all 50 states >> very very high. >> The largest what number of frivolous the amount of cost spent on this, right? >> And and in the in the um fixing the the law itself, is that do we know anything about whether that's on the floor? And Kim, what year was the burden of proof
147shifted? I can't remember. >> I would have to look. >> Yeah. >> So, just to clarify, we have the highest number of lawsuits or the highest number of frivolous lawsuits. >> I think it's very difficult for anyone to say what is frivolous, what isn't. I would I wouldn't think that that data really exists. It's probably up for interpretation. Yeah, that's my Yeah, >> that's the highest level of lawsuits that tend to I mean, just having >> been in a district that challenged every single one of them and won every single case that we challenged, sometimes it was a quarter of a million to a half a million dollars in fees just and law firms um pass all the costs onto the district. >> Okay. >> Right. That that's another little layer to the whole thing.
148>> Yeah, I'm in support of this. >> You're in support? >> I am. Does it make sense that New York has the highest number since New York City is so densely populated? >> It could be any. I mean, having the largest public school system, if not in the United States, in the world is there and a city that necessarily didn't do it. But you ended up with this huge cottage industry of law firms who highly specialize on this. And um it it can Kim's department could be taken up in testimony for days and weeks on things too. And the state doesn't reimburse. You know, IDA was intentionality was supposed to be 40%. It's basically 11% to the state and then coming back to this to the schools, it's um next to nothing. And many many
149of your private placement schools no longer want to be state approved. If you're state approved, you can apply for highcost aid through the state for money reimbursement back. But many of them do not want to do that. >> It's a whole needs a whole study in my opinion, a whole revamp. >> For that reason, I kind of uh agree with uh Annie that I mean it's ironic because even in the statement it admits that IDA is needs to be improved. So, I think by totally pulling back some of these advocacy um or just measures that parents have in an unstable system puts, you know, those vulnerable populations in a position where they're even more vulnerable. Um, I think it was a good point Annie brought up about is it is possible that New York City
150is adding to the number of lawsuits overall across the state and that know there's been plenty of cases that have been founded um for just systemicwide improvements that have been needed um in that district alone. So, I would be opposed to support this. Um, so >> sorry, just as a point of order, I want to mention that I did just email everybody a link to the document that NISSBA sent out that has um all the rationale and that we can choose to support. We can choose to oppose. You can also ask me to not vote um and I can simply abstain if um that's where we come as well. Go ahead. >> I support it. It's written in a way that it seems pretty broad to Mary's point. There definitely seems to need to be
151a look at it. It doesn't overtly say, you know, we're gonna we're gonna cut back on the ability of parents to sue, but it seems like we need it needs a look. I don't know if the board consensus is to support if that nets out. I don't know if Christine, you're able to vote and make a comment, say, "Yes, we supported it." But in general, we want to make sure parents still have their rights, etc., etc., But I'm I'm in support as written for the fact that it seems like we need to look at it um based on what's going on. >> I'm in support of it. It's it's aimed at reducing the costs and the administrative burdens. I I can support that. Uh >> yeah, >> for you know, it's not aimed at reducing
152the protections to the students, but I do the cost and the administrative burdens. I mean I I deal in frivolous well what I think are frivolous lawsuits for quite a large part of my job and it it it defined in certain circumstances and to the extent even just the being able to punitively shift all of the legal fees back onto the school district even something like fixing that I think would have a huge beneficial impact. So, I'm supportive of it for that reason. >> Frank, >> I mean, I want to be clear. I support meeting students needs and giving them out the placements they deserve. At the end of the day, you know, I tend to look at this and say there are like if you could, you know, I was on West putt for
153many years. You hear lots and lots of comments and districts that have really kind of difficult situations through this. And you know to be practical the tweaks here politically would be tough and basically and if we were able and if there was small gains here made to address some of the abuses that go on that would be a benefit to I think the whole of the system at the end of the day. So this isn't an eitheror of wanting to deny students. I think it's wanting to address like as Mary said this there's cottage industry. There is a formula. if it gets onto the radar of your district, it can happen. Families moving in in the summertime and all of a sudden you have a half million dollar placement at the end of the day.
154Um, to me, there's so much balance in the system as it is right now. I would support some advocacy on this. >> So, I support. >> All right. Would the board entertain abstaining from this one? >> I'm still in support. >> Still in support. >> I'm just concerned because it is so vague. It just says support proposals aimed at addressing the cost. That could be anything, right? So, I mean, I think some people are in favor of because it is so broad, but I think it's opening up a door to be whatever it wants to be once those actions take place. Maybe not. Maybe so. But I just think the way it's worded as well is not really finite. But that's just my my position. >> Just to be clear, it's a it's been a
155resolution that's been on the books since suns setting, right? So this has been in place for as long as probably I've been on the board and there's been not much change here at the end of the day. So >> I hear everything that everyone's saying, >> but I continue to support work in this area. I think it would be tough. The broadness of it is probably what NISSBA does most because it's hard to get prescriptive. So >> okay, I'm hearing a majority in support. So, um, anything else uh before 8. All right, let's talk eight. Nisma shall advocate the number of lock or shall advocate for the number of lockdown drills to be reduced from four to two each year. Um, I can start. I'm opposed to this. Um, I don't love lockdown drills, but
156we already have mandates that some of them must take place during um, you know, uh, unstructured times like lunch and recess. And I think um, the more you do them, the quicker they get. Like if you're only doing two a year, they're going to be 45 minute uh, shenanigans. But if you have to do more, people get into the I think groove more quickly and they can be um they can be done pretty quick if if if it's a welloiled machine, which is what we want. So that's my opinion. Uh let me see. Uh the comments from Westp were a debate over the importance of drills for safety and preparedness versus the time required in the anxiety and stress for students. Also noted that current New York State law requires eight evacuation drills and four
157lockdown drills. >> I also oppose it. At the NISSBA conference last year, I did attend um a lecture based on this specifically and the woman who was presenting talked about how efficient she makes lockdown drills for schools and there is so little control over what we have. Like we can only do what's in our purview for keeping our kids safe. So maybe it needs to be done better, but I don't think it should be reduced. >> Opposed as well. >> Opposed. >> All right. Uh let's turn it over 9 through 21. Um if we can go from the top if anybody has anything nine or 10 then we have to um look at 11 11 it is 11 says NISBA uh support the state to safely incorporate AI into curriculum and district operations. Um, I'll
158start by saying I don't love the way that it's written. It presupposes that we would like AI incorporated directly into the curriculum. And I um, some of the notes I think Westp kind of nailed it me. First of all, we adopt these are for 5 years. So, I'm not sure I'm ready to make any commitment to a statement that lasts 5 years when it comes to AI. Um, what was it? Um, the sentence that jumped out to me that I agree with from Westcut was a more targeted resolution calling for guidance from NIETID on the use of AI in classrooms and district operations was more positively received and that's something that I would prefer to have instead of a resolution calling directly for its inclusion. That's how I feel. Anybody else? >> I mean, I'll
159jump in. I think the they left it vague saying the state and I think the curriculum in the constitution in the states falls under the border regions not the legislature and we get into real problems when legislators start mandating curriculum at the end of the day. So that's one reason why if they had said we support you know getting guidance from SED I would be more inclined to support this. The other thing that concerns me with NISBA is they don't publish who gives the money at the end of the day. We've had this issue in the past and so there was issues in the past where talking points from NISBO were actually the same talking points coming from private education um um you know lobbyists at the end of the day. So, if there's a
160lack of transparency and we're not sure who this is going to, this should really fall to the to the to the regents and we have the ability as school boards to put levers there versus having a lobbyist trying to push legislation from people whose they accept money from that we have no visibility into. And I'll say they refuse to provide uh visibility into when asked. So, for me, I'm going to oppose on this one. >> I mean, I will say again, I don't even find the resolution itself to be very clear. Does incorporating AI into the curriculum mean we're teaching students about AI or are we asking students to use AI? It's it it actually the way I'm reading this right it's saying here that it could help to spur learning in ways not possible
161before due to individualized nature but there are grave concerns about this right um about the concerns on the impact of whether it plays bias in the systems and interplay between AI usage and data privacy right there's a lot that's in here that gives me pause for concern on this one that I I I really think this I I I'm with you I do not like the wording on this one. I don't feel like this makes a tremendous amount of sense the way it's written. Um, and I'm not sure what safely incorporate really looks like with all of this because it's kind of like you got benefits and you got huge risks here. Um, and at the end of the day, we have to make sure great learning takes place within the school, creative learning, not
162stuff that's repetitive in AI, um, for the purpose of learning because AI will spit out the same exact things, you know, slightly different variations. Um, and then it becomes a dependency on that. So, I don't think it, you know, I I don't know what all that means. So, I'm not comfortable voting in favor of this, but, you know, I'm just a voice of one here. So I'm I'm opposed. >> I'm opposed. >> Opposed. >> Did you say opposed? All right. That's a plurality of us here. >> Can we just discuss 13? >> Yes. >> I also want to discuss 13. Go ahead. >> I'm in support of this. >> I'm as well. I I I I I'm going to add to that as well. >> Oh, I wrote down I oppose it. It's just not
163where I want NSBA spending their time on what kind of milk everybody's drinking. >> I I I'll read the resolution aloud for transparency sake. We're talking about 13, right? >> 13. >> Yeah. Nisba shall advocate to the New York State Education Department, the United States Department of Agriculture, and federal legislators for one, the reinstatement of whole milk as an allowable option in school breakfast and lunch programs. in addition to existing low-fat offerings to the recognition of updated nutritional science supporting the safety and benefits of whole milk in the diets of children and adolescents. I mean, I think the issue is they're already involved, right? They already are publishing a list. They're already excluding this from it. I know that there are students who for many reasons are encouraged still to be drinking whole milk and
164it to have that as an option. I think I don't think the science supports excluding it. support. >> Support. >> Sounds like we support. Okay. >> I would like them to look at the sugar content of the chocolate milk, but that's a different story. >> We we can submit our own next year. >> Move on. Move on. Move on. >> Um >> can we talk about 14? Sure. >> This year about the recess. So, uh I believe this was up last year, too, and um did not receive the support necessary. It feels familiar. NISMBA Michelle advocate for um amendments to New York State Education Department regulations to allow a set amount of daily recess time up to 30 minutes per day to count toward required instructional hours for elementary students. >> Uh what are your
165thoughts? >> So, I just a question on this one. Is this I is there a particular, you know, reason why this couldn't be a support from I'm I'm trying to understand this and it's kind of perplexing to me that it's that that there should be you know at least that but to count toward is the issue that to count towards instructional hours or is the issue I I'm just trying to understand what is the issue here and that that somebody would oppose Is it >> in the comments? It says that New York State is already doing a statewide survey on recess. Calendar days are currently more of an issue. >> Is it that it would allow you to shorten your school day? >> Well, that's what I'm trying to understand because that's not clear to
166me. >> So, um, listen, having been the point person for the lower Hudson Council of School Superintendent, Frank knows this very well and I had memorized the regulations and sat as close to the commissioner on this one topic itself. It's when they changed the weekly requirements to this 900 hours for elementary and 990. >> So, we literally got that close to having >> the conversation got so contentious that they wouldn't allow passing time in the high school to be counted towards the day. So, I challenged them and said, "We'll get rid of bells. Everyone will just have a late bell." So, I will get because the secondary is 990. And then in the elementary setting, um, I wanted recess to count towards the 900 because if you make recess structured as according to activities that
167align with your PE standards, you can actually count it in your PE plan. Now, the deputy commissioner at the time, Joan, pulled me aside and she said, "But Mary," she goes, "I go I'm in places where people just do this with kids." I said, "What does that mean? Do this." She says, "Well, they just let them outside and run around." I said, "Unstructured play actually has a place when it's supervised, but it became a sticking point over this issue." So, they did not allow unless you declare recess as part of your physical education plan, then you can count it towards your school day. So, there is already on the books a way to get around this. To me, the calendar day itself in these 990 and holidays are bigger of an issue. I don't know
168why this has come up because the answer is make it part of your PE plan. >> You have the choice already today. >> There you go. And you're done. >> So, we don't need them to spend their time on this then. >> Yeah. So, then this is one that it's just kind of like they're we should just abstain from it for that reason, right? Because it's like it's not doing anything. >> Apparently, there's a bill in the assembly about this. I'm like I don't think they >> I oppose it. I just I I don't want to abstain. I want to oppose. I don't like it. I think kids need unstructured time. I think that's really important. It's okay for kids to take a break. >> They're saying, >> but they're saying if Yes. I mean,
169at the end of the day, you can't count recess and passing time at the secondary level towards a student's day. >> To me, that's ludicrous. >> Yeah, I I think so, too. And so, in this case here, we we it's just I thought we there was something already about this. So that's why it seems a little like redundant. Is it not >> ridiculous? I mean >> it it is just I don't know. >> You have the flexibility now. I mean I'm opposed. >> Okay. >> Well, who else said they were? I'm opposed. >> Yeah, I'm opposed, too. I just want to understand that. >> Okay. I'm hearing I'm I'm opposed as well. So, I'm hearing four people opposed. That was Hold on. I just circled the wrong one. Um they had no decision on 15
170which was NISBBA shall advocate for the following policy changes. Substantial increases in state reimbursement rates for out of district special education placements to reflect true and current costs including uh transportation and related services by way of reform of the excess cost aid formula to ensure more equitable and timely distribution of funding particularly to districts facing a high proportion of costly mandated placements relative to total enrollment. Um, >> I'll support that. >> Support. >> I also support it. >> Um, >> I oppose. >> Okay. It's Well, tell us why. I can be convinced. Okay. This may not be how it works. Mary will probably know, but it feels to me like a way of rewarding districts that already that like often place students out of district because they supposedly don't have the supports in place, but
171it could be that they don't want to have the supports in place. That's just my that was my line of thinking. So, so if I'm reading this correctly, it's a substantial increase in like so if we had to put more money, we're asking for more money to support if we had a an out of district placement >> to reflect what the real cost is and that's kind of not what we're getting today. So, we're underfunded, right, if I'm reading this correctly. So, we're saying reimburse us to what we need otherwise we're being short changed. I mean, Kim Kim can actually speak to this as well, but if you if you take a look at a student, most of the cases they're talking about, I haven't been at many a discussion, are really the very high
172cost residential programs that we can't submit or programs that require medical needs. Um, and some of the uh state approved residential programs are full. So you might need a private residential program for for kids, >> which you only get reimbured so much. >> So you only get reimbured so much and then they put a cap on it. >> Yes. Right. That and that's kind of where I'm I'm advocating support for the fact that we should because we do have quite a few of those and we should get reimbured for it. I mean, I think it's the state's responsibility to and working in partnership with school districts to educate all kids and find the best appropriate placement. And it changes sometimes in some cases some children, especially as they get older. And um and it's these
173cases, the the the very high cost residential treatment placement programs which public schools don't offer that are the cases that make people say the state should be reimbursing people for those costs. >> So are you of the opinion that for example districts are known some districts are known for busing kids out of district elsewhere and you don't think that they would be taking advantage of this? Do you think it's more for these situations where there is this like very great need? Yeah, I mean I only know Westchester County and Kim can say almost every school school districts that we care about care about educating kids within district and um you know building rooms and classrooms like we're doing in this plan in order to do that to have that happen. But it's the highcost residential
174programs that are the ones that people feel the state should be reimbursing. >> Right. So, I think the best way to think about it is if it was to cost a district, say, $100,000 to um send a student out of district to an out of district placement um including related services. And um we would only get back say 60,000 of that $100,000. So, if I'm hearing this correctly and I don't have the document in front of me, um it seems that they are trying to equitably reimburse the district appropriately. Um so, um that would allow us to um not only pay but then be reimbursed at the at the full amount if I'm hearing that correctly. >> And including transportation. So, if you think about this, there is a law that says a special education
175uh placement can be um you can transport a student up to 50 miles outside and out of state, >> but and that's I know Mary's going to say and that's absolutely correct. what ends up happening for us in those circumstances. Um, we would be responsible for the transportation, but if we don't have a route going in that direction, that's where we acquire um adding a bus and a route, which can cost the district up to $80,000 in some instances. >> Right. Which we don't get which we're capped at, and that's why I would advocate for supporting. >> Correct. >> Yeah. So that would be on top of the cost to send a child to an out of district placement. >> I like the financial aspects for Austining. My concern is just other districts using this
176as a way to not keep their students in district, but I don't feel strongly enough about it. So >> all right. So where are we at? Who do we support this? >> Support board. Okay, I'll support it. That's just I'm I like asking for more money. I can support that pretty much no matter what. Um 16. Uh Westb had no decision on NISB seeks to promote legislation to reform current legal notice publication requirements. >> Um >> I don't have a position. >> They they make a good point in there, right? because it's >> um so it was it's about um >> legal notices and publishing them in papers and papers can if there's only one paper they can set whatever cost they want and it's not even necessarily an effective communication tool for notifying. So
177that's where the concern is coming from in the rationale. >> Um >> I don't have a strong feeling on this either way. Westput says they understand the difficulty of finding local papers, but older community members and non-parents are more likely to see school information uh in newspapers. Um to me, I'm I don't know. I don't know if there is a better alternative. I can't suggest a better alternative either. And um >> if there are policy changes and maybe Mary you might know about this that's that open it up to being print and online or something like that that is that do you know anything whether or not that that's what they're any word that you might have that they're that's what they're looking at expanding the definition. Not that I'm aware of, but I attended
178a recent clerk's meeting, so maybe she might have any more light, but we I to me we've never had issues with the notification process. >> No, actually But this is right now just saying we're going to that you have to do print. You can do all the other stuff, but you have to do print. >> I think I I don't know if the the the the reform is saying you can do either or. >> Yeah. >> Sounds like Orchard Park's getting bamboozled. >> Yep. Exactly. Um, so >> I I would support this because again it just says I read it as take a look at it and I agree like and I yes I would turn to all the clerks because this falls on them. I mean so if there was a discussion like and
179again this is like this is to me not necessarily a priority but it feels like yeah let's take a look newspaper this this was like the law was set years when there were ago when there was only newspaper. Does it make sense to continue it? Does it make sense to tweak it? Probably worth a look. So, I would support it. >> Yeah, I would as well. >> You would support it. Anybody else have any feelings? >> I don't know. It's strong feelings either way. I I would I probably lean towards opposing. We have papers. I think it's a transparent way of putting it out there. The cost isn't exorbitant. I would say do both, you know, as we're doing now. >> I agree with that. And their rationale seems to assume that everyone has access
180to the internet. Mhm. >> Yep. >> It's true. Melissa, >> do you have any strong feelings? >> I support, you know, as much I think it's a good idea. Not everybody is relying on electronic correspondence. So, I think it's a good idea. >> So, so you oppose? >> You oppose it? >> No, she you said oppose or support. >> Support. >> You oppose getting rid of this. >> Her description was opposed. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> But right >> the wording on these things gets tough. So I guess we'll let you clarify. Melissa, >> thank you. >> I wrote that I opposed it, but I'm open. But I feel like we're teetering towards I'm hearing oppose. Oppose oppose support. Support whatever. >> So >> I kind of feel >> so the So the opposing are
181opposing. >> You're you want to keep it in the paper, >> right? Yes. >> Thank you. Good point. Okay. All right. I should have done it that way. It's okay. >> Um or I can just abstain if we really >> I don't think we have a consensus. So I think we should abstain. I mean to be honest like I think our time is much better spent on advocating for things like like um 19 and 20 as opposed to things like that where we don't have a clear consensus. >> Well, I'm not sure. I do. We have we didn't I thought we had four. We don't have four. Not that it really >> I'm I I could I could really go either way. I wrote I wrote a pose. So that's for but I'm >> Oh,
182okay. I'm sorry. >> I wrote I didn't I don't sure if I even said that out loud. That's what the note that I made to myself. Okay. >> But um so we'll pose it. >> Um >> save the newspapers. >> I know. Uh 17 is >> your copy. >> Uh I I kind of wanted to discuss because I had no opinion on this. Um, NISMBA supports limiting a district's potential annual hold harmless phase out to no more than 2% of the district's budget, even if doing so extends that district's overall phase out period. Um, I wrote that to support this would be to negotiate against ourselves because we I think already NISSBA has taken a position against hold harmless. Um, so it seemed to me to feel inconsistent with other resolutions. Can I get an
183explanation of what save harmless is versus hold harmless? >> Did I say save harmless? >> No, you did not. Their um r their rationale or not says >> it's used a lot interchangeably, but they should be pushing to keep safe harmless rather than offering alternatives. >> I think they're using it interchangeably. Yes. >> Okay. And and it's basically for uh state aid that comes based on student population. when that population declines um perhaps even suddenly that districts need a predictable source of revenue. And so what can happen is students schools that have had a decline in enrollment can end up with a disproportionately higher number of uh dollars from the state. So um we have >> so this is like we're the textbook for this one right at the end of the day and this
184was the advocate you receive for many years right the whole harmless provision means people get kept at the same level forever right >> and we were basically our student population went up and we were being held at a level so we were being damaged by that process. The challenge here with this is that most of the districts in our region in particular are support are supporting their programs and to lose those funds would have an adverse effect on them across the board. My philosophy is the state should be maintaining its level of investment in districts at the end of the day and that you should be making up the difference for the places where enrollments are going up and but you should keep people at the same level. There's an argument that that's what the
185constitution says too. But so the the issue I have with this is NISBA is basically saying let us go at this so we can get rid of hold harmless and I think that's a bad approach and certainly like as we're trying to get people to support things like foundation aid and other things it just puts us in a tough spot against the overwhelming majority that is doesn't benefit from basically foundation aid being fully funded. So it's a long-winded answer. There's a lot of history to this one, but I just basically would oppose this one at the end of the day because I think hold harmless helps across the board for everybody, but there should be adjustments made for districts with the increasing enrollments. >> Yeah, I was getting tripped up by save harmless and thinking
186it was a different Yeah. >> thing, but yeah. >> Opposed. >> Okay. >> Opposed. >> Okay. Opposed. It is. Um, so does anybody have anything else? They Oh, I have to ask you about 20. Um, because there's actually quite a lengthy list of amendments uh that were submitted and 20 has an amendment. Um, and it's a quick amendment, but I need to know how to vote if an amendment is proposed, assuming for the moment that you support this. Um, initially, >> sorry, Christine, did we do 18, though? >> No, but I just I don't want to forget to do this. Don't worry, we can do it. Um, >> so where where are we now? I'm sorry. >> Sorry. I I needed I wanted to make sure I said this that um NISBA supports and uh
18720 is NISBA supports an amendment to New York State law that would authorize public school districts to establish and fund health insurance reserve funds through the board approved resolutions. And there's a submitted amendment by of Boseies that says basically and us too like includes language to include Boseies in that. Um so if when we get to that we have to decide on that amendment as well if that assuming that that somebody puts it to the on the floor. Um but we can talk about 18 if you want to talk about 18. Uh Rob. Yeah, I guess because NISBA said of DEI committee there said affirm, Westp says opposed and I don't know if it's for the same general reason. I think the New NISBA's DEI committee review says support and I guess this reads at
188basically protecting rural districts with low enrollment. Mhm. >> So, I guess a budget threat thresholds, if I'm reading that correctly, even if they have a low enrollment and in theory might should be eligible to lose funding, keep it at a certain level. That was my interpretation of what they're asking for. And if that's accurate, do we oppose that or do we support that? >> Um, I read it also as like advocating basically for a a floor, >> like no matter what. Well, that's I think that the hold harmless provision would hold you and that's part of the reason. >> Look, this isn't an issue that impacts us. This is, you know, in Aderandac, you have some districts that have 80 students and they lose 20 and they lose funding. Hold harmless would keep them at
189that level at the end of the day. To try and raise their reimbursement rates at the end of the day just would mean money outside from other things at the end of the day. And so this is a small rural district versus the rest of the kind of the state thing. Financially, it wouldn't be in our best interest to advocate that at the end of the day unless we really wanted to support sending more money to rural districts. >> This is asking for an additional variable in the foundation. >> Yeah, they want Yes. They want to put a multiplier in like >> Long Island gets reimbursed in New York City like you know and so they get more money just by virtue of being on Long Island. I'm opposed. I I wrote that I'm opposed
190for for kind of that reason, right? I kind of look at the state. the state sets aside x number of dollars and it feels like a zero sum game to get that money to our kids >> and I have to we got to look I want everybody in the state to receive a high quality education but my ultimate responsibility is to us and I can't ne support something that I feel like will could potentially hurt us in service of another set of students elsewhere >> I I think hold harmless is a more politically a viable way to do the same thing that they're asking to do and that's what I would do >> right in the same way that the other one I felt like is us negotiating against oursel if we're already asking for
191hold harmless why then also ask for these other things assuming that we'll leave out that we'll lose on hold harmless you know >> you you could make an argument that excess aid cost is the same but let's I wouldn't go into at the end of the day but yeah >> um did I catch me up did we How many people opposed to this? >> Opposed opposed. >> Okay. Um, can I get does anybody have anything 1920 21 that they disagree with Westpon? >> And would we support I would support the amendment to include Boseies? >> Same. >> I can read it if you need to hear it. It's in there. It's in the towards the end of that PDF that I sent with that had um >> which one are you talking about? >> 21.
19220 20 >> No, 21 was in Boseies. That's one >> 20 was I thought 20 was the Boseies. >> No, 20 does not include the word Boseies, right? That's the problem. >> That's the amendment. That's the amendment. >> The amendment says this. >> Yeah. >> Uh resolved that the New York State Schoolboard Association supports the amendment to New York State law that would authorize public school districts and boards of cooperative educational services, boseies, to establish and fund health insurance reserve funds through board approved resolutions. So it just it literally includes Boseies. I have no problem with that. Does anybody else Okay, let me find my next page. Um 24. And now we're into resolutions and bylaws not recommended for adoption. Um, so 24 reads, "Nisba support legislation that would expand the application of reorganization aid
193to not only include full merger of school districts, but to also include significant regionalizations of educational programs by several schools in a region." Now, there was an amendment. >> Can I just ask a point of order on this one? >> Sure. >> Did we ask everybody if we needed to review these or not? Were there any that stuck out or I'm just in the interest of time, I'm wondering, do we need to go through all of these or are you just bringing up one that you want? >> I'm I'm bringing up this one because there's an amendment that might >> Okay. >> impact. I got it. >> So, I got to get I got to get our >> thoughts on an amendment and then um Okay. So, I'm starting off with that one. >> Gotcha.
194>> And that just happens to be at the top here. Um, let me find it at the end. Sorry, it's I put a star here and then I I wrote that I I supported it with the amendment. >> Yeah, there is there is page 39 39. So um the rationale for the opposition um is included but basically there's a strike through. So, as amended, it would say the New York State School Boards Association supports legislation that would uh expand the application of regionalization aid to not only include full merger uh school districts, but to also include and then a strikeout uh regional schools, regional collaborations, and other methods districts choose to reorganize their school systems. >> Yeah. So, so basically what's everything in the for the sake of transparency for from significant regionalization >> right
195they had the reason >> to several schools in a region that's crossed out >> right um and the rationale for not the explanation of the resolutions committee uh felt the term significant reason regionalization could be too broadly interpreted and did not provide clear directive to support the assoc the association's advocacy advocacy excuse me the Committee also recognized the existence of Boseies and agreed that regionalization efforts and sharing of resources yield financial benefits without the need for additional funding. So um if we agree with um assuming for the moment that we agree with Westp that we oppose this would we support it as amended and that's page >> 39 >> the resol the amended resolution is on page 39 of the PDF. Yeah, >> I think this opens a can of worms. I I oppose it.
196>> Both versions, Frank. >> Yeah, both versions. >> I >> They should do something. If they really want to do something, do it more prescriptively next year. That would be my recommendation. But >> yeah. >> Um, anybody else? Any other strong? >> I oppose it, too. >> Okay. Um, does anybody have anything from 25 through 34 that they where they disagree with Westchester School Board Association? >> So, we're back to the resolutions now. >> Yes. >> Um, okay. >> And there's two that I need to discuss that have amendments as well on this page. >> I would say look at 32. >> 32 is one of them that has an amendment. So before we um so someone at the meeting will have to propose this amendment. So I had have to be prepared to vote
197on it both versions. Um NISB shall advocate for the removal of all GMOs uh bio-engineered food ingredients heavy metals including but not limited to cadmium, arsenic and lead and dangerous chemicals including but not limited to uh glyphosate from all student served meals to protect children's health. Um, so it's amended. As it's amended, it says New York State School Board Association shall advocate four steps to remove instead of the removal of um, and then it crosses out the word all from all student served meals. Um, it just says from student served meals to protect our children's health. I I think that that kind of loosens the language from my perspective. I I think that the the what their amendment is currently I I'm actually if I want to have make sure our kids are getting healthy
198foods and taking out all the the stuff that is that should not be in our foods. I would keep it um keep it as is, but I don't oppose the removal of this stuff. >> Yeah, that's the they're the Hicksville put in the resolutions with four or five other districts. Then it proposed then only Hicksfell supported an amendment to the word and then the rationale it doesn't say why they wanted to tweak the words at all. >> No. >> So I don't understand that. But so are we saying we we have to vote on both of them? >> Well, yeah, you can tell me. Well, what's going to happen is I'm going to go into this meeting, right? And they're going to say, let's vote on this. And then somebody presumably from one of these
199districts is going to propose an amendment and then I need to know, okay, does that amendment impact our vote as a school district? >> Okay. So, I like the first one better. To me, it's cleaner. advocate for the removal and yes as all student I don't know why they would have taken out all because I agree I think Roger what you're getting at is student meals well I don't know the sushi it can stay in but the hot dogs it can stay out like to me it it bundles it but either way I would support either one it's better than not having it but I like the first one better unless again there was a reason why they wanted to tweak the language >> they but they still oppose it altogether >> so food science
200can get very people can disagree a lot. Um, as a first-time mom, when my baby started eating, all the heavy metal stuff came out and I did talk to my pediatrician about it and he said, you know, it's naturally occurring in the ground. You can't even if I grow my own food and made my own baby food, I would not be able to avoid it. What he recommended was a very diet. That's the way to get around it. So, I think this is getting into territory where I don't necessarily know that we should be as school boards because GMOs again, they're all like debatable topics and food science is one thing and I guess other food science is something else. But it I'm just saying just as formerly being in that side that side of
201the industry, the food science there is paid food science through the companies that have their products there. >> I'm not talking about products. >> No, but I'm saying with the GMOs and everything else that's in there, right? So, bio-engineered food ingredients, GMOs, you know, there there might be naturally occurring cadmium or whatever it is, but I'm talking about the rest of that. >> I think the problem you're going to run into is coming up with vendors to service something like this without additional funding from the state. >> But this is just advocating this. But it's not advocating steps to do it and increased funding for student lunches, which I think we would need that. Like it just says advocate to remove it. So I think you're setting yourself up for a position where you could
202potentially have a legislature that says you cannot serve XYZ. We don't care. You can't find anyone who can serve the alternative. And we don't care if the alternative is five times more expensive. We're not going to help you out with that. we're just putting a law that is essentially something that is impossible for you to comply with. Similar to the green bus initiative, we all want the green buses, right? But when they're putting the the the totally tight language and the deadlines on us and they're not giving any additional funding, that's where we've seen these well-meaning resolutions play out in a way that's not sustainable. That's what I worry about is happening happening here. I think that this is a great goal. I think but I think the way that this is written and I
203imagine it's why they tried to soften it with the steps too and stuff like that is to let's advocate for what we believe is to be healthier food for our kids but let's not make it so um black and white line here because we might not be able to comply with it. >> Right. Right. So steps two in essence is essentially some identifying some sort of pathway versus it being like a hard line. >> Yes. Versus the hard line that okay might be impossible to comply with. >> That that that's that's logical and and and I I I agree with that. I'm thinking here just in terms of you know I I do agree in terms of there needs to be some level of championing clear cleaner food and if we take steps towards that
204you know and part of that would have to in involve some advocacy in that. So it seems like with their amendment it's saying that >> right >> ask we ask you to support this resolution to advocate for the removal of GMOs and bio-engineering foods from meals. >> To be frank I'm I'm not even sure I agree with >> the the >> the whole thing like you know obviously I don't want kids eating lead at school but I also want them to be able to eat a watermelon that's been bred to have no seeds instead of no watermelon at all. >> That's what I'm thinking. Like how practical is it? Most fruits and vegetables are under that classification of GMO, right? Corn itself is no longer >> like you can't go to the grocery store and
205not buy fruit that's not been genetically modified or or you know bred for a specific strain. And of course that definition isn't even like what a GMO even is is not even universally agreed upon. So >> I oppose it. >> I also oppose it. I actually also oppose it. >> I support either. Okay, >> I support fine. >> All right. Well, I'm hearing a consensus for opposition. >> Um 30 Oh, sorry. >> I um am curious of two two resolutions. 31. Um just given that you know the opposition to support that in relation to some discussions that we've had as a board. I'm just wondering is there consensus consensus to go with the opposition on that? Unless I'm misinterpreting their >> state to eliminate the regent's exams. That's one. >> Sorry, Melissa. I didn't hear
206what your question was. Are you wanting to support it or are you curious? >> I mean, based on conversations we've had as a board, I'm curious. Is there consensus to go along with the opposition as recommended? >> But be careful here, and this is where I get caught up in NISPA is not supporting this. It's not on their proposals. This is a district that's basically asking put it out for consideration. NISBA said no. >> Isn't this >> I think I think the issue with this one which I'll come back to is legislation. That's a key word. I think this is really a this is in the purview of the board of regents. It's not a law. It shouldn't go to the uh it shouldn't go to the legislature. So for that reason I would alone
207I would I would oppose it. You don't want politicians making a decision about secondary education requirements. That's >> No, definitely not. >> That's one of the benefits of New York's constitution. >> Yep. Definitely not. >> Now, Melissa, I understand the other side of it is is like, you know, do you you know, do we want to not have these exams at the end of the day? I think that again we're better off advocating for that with state ed than we are trying to work with the legislature to come up with something that's rapidly done and not well thought out most of the time. I >> is this um isn't this in discussion to eliminate the regent exams altogether? >> Well, the portrait of a graduate has a whole pathway. So I think leave it to
208state ed and let us figure it out which the law allows us to do. Yeah. >> I I don't >> My concern with this is it says replace the regent's exam with the state final exam. How is that any different than the regent exam? >> I don't I I don't understand. >> It's subbing one for the other. It seems like a little bit. >> I mean, I'm in favor of the changes that are coming via the portrait of a graduate and this feels to be in conflict with that. >> Yeah. >> Because it it's okay with me if kids want to take the regent path and take the regents and graduate that way. Why would we take that option off the table as long as we're adding other paths for graduation? >> Right. Right. As
209opposed to ESSA comply making up your own local exams. I don't >> Yeah, I I I I post >> opposed. >> Um 34 has an amendment. So it was opposed um by the um NISBA resolution committee because uh it said that you know elementary grade levels was too um unclear. The language was unclear. So um let me find what page am I on here? There's an amendment that is meant to clear that up. So the uh a proposed amendment says New York State School Boards Association advocates for the mandatory implementation of daily recess for all students in and then there's a strikeout um and it says kindergarten through fifth grade and for students in sixth grade who attend an elementary school or are sectioned with elementary grade levels in addition to scheduled physical education classes.
210So you're Does this mean like a recess in elementary throughout New York State is not mandatory? Is that accurate? Because that otherwise why would you need this? >> No, this is because they don't they're asking for don't have fifth grade with sixth grade or fourth grade with third grade with fourth grade. >> This is a local control issue. This is not a state mandate in my mind. Like you could districts can decide how they do that. If the community came and said they didn't want the third graders being with the fourth graders at recess, they would do that. I wouldn't want the state to mandate. We might need to have some sections where we have a class of fourth graders having recess with third graders or who knows, you know, but that's really what this
211is coming down to, right? >> I Well, I didn't read it as that. I you're saying your interpretation of this, Frank, is that they're asking to not pair off kids with certain grades. My my interpretation was they're saying there should be a recess for kindergarten through fifth and for students in six who attend a elementary school. So yeah, that was my question. Like >> it's it's you're right. It's elementary versus middle school. So fifth further six holds. Yeah. >> Right. But I guess my question is in New York State, can a school decide not to have recess on the books for elementary school kids? Is that accurate or inaccurate? >> Every school, it's a it's a great question, Rob, but it's a complicated answer because the every school district is required to adopt a wellness
212policy and NISBA's well yours does everyone has recess in there. So I I I you know like I don't I I don't know a single school district whose wellness policy doesn't include recess. So I I can't imagine a community allowing that to happen, >> right? I mean the implication is if Patchock put it up. I mean you know it's you know they put some data here. I would presume they're putting it up because yeah some schools don't have it which would be a shock. So I would say it seems innocuous to me with the amendment now that because the the NISBA said, "Well, we don't like it without the amendment." They've clarified it. So therefore, I support it with the amendment then. >> How do people how do others feel? >> I think this is
213a local issue, not a state mandate. >> Okay. So you oppose both versions? >> Both versions. Yeah. Anybody else want to speak on this? I'll do whatever anybody else says. My my thought is that it might be about um rescending recess as a punishment, you know, keeping kids in from recess as as part of that. But >> your wellness policy should outline that that you can't do that. I mean there's strong models from NISBA and from um um Eerie Wambosis that actually give you models of ideal wellness policies that include recess and include that statement >> right >> um and I worry that supporting this would create a situation where for example let's say your class is at a field trip for most of the day they come back and like what the thing that
214they have to have mandated is recess left instead of anything else. You know what I mean? Like because the re recess has to be there. So, um I agree with Frank. This can be a local control issue. >> Yeah, agreed. >> That's three. >> Agreed. >> Okay. Um uh there's only two left on the back. Does anybody disagree with NISB? I thought 23 was an interesting one. >> Are you looking at the same thing? >> The very 37. >> Oh, sorry. No, I'm not 20. Yeah. >> 5 through 37. >> Yeah. No, I'm on the back. >> You're right. Hold on. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Sorry. Did I accidentally skip 22 and 23? >> Went over. We went We finished 34. Now we're going 35 through 37. >> I don't think we did 22 and
21523, though. >> Yeah, I think I missed that. Do we Hold on. Yeah, I accidentally did the 24. Can we go back and hit 22 and 23? I don't know why. Oh, and these are ones that are supported by NISBA. That's why, >> right? It's the first list. >> Sorry, I apologize. That's a me problem. Um, does anybody disagree with NISBON 22 or 23? Is this just the legislation aspect of these? >> Yeah. Okay. Okay. Um, make sure I got it all 223 up to 34. 35 36 37. Anybody have anything they want to discuss in opposition to uh Westpotes? We're going to oppose them all. >> Yeah, I'm I'm I'm in favor of opposing. >> Okay. >> See what others think. Just make sure. >> Anybody? We'll say this is the last call here.
216>> Sounds good. >> All right. Let me just get my There we go. Papers in order. And not lose that. All right. Thank you everybody for patience and your attention. I'm going to go back to the consent agenda now. I told I knew I knew it. Okay. 4.1. Does anybody have anything they wish to break out from 4.1 through 4.5? All right. Any dis further I should say discussion? All in favor? >> I I >> I opposed abstensions and I forgot to read it so I'm going to read it now. Resolution one regarding the New York State School Boards Association 2025 proposed bylaw amendments and resolutions. 4.2 resolution to appoint additional consultants for the 2025 2026 school year. Resolution to approve a stipulation of settlement. 4.4 4 resolution to approve the minutes of the regular
217meeting of August 13th, 2025. 4.5 resolution to approve the minutes of the regular meeting of August 27th, 2025. Um, does anybody have anything they wish to break out between 5.1 and 58? All right. 5.1 resolution regarding establishment of club at OHS class of 2029. 5.2 2. Resolution to transfer funds from the class of 2025 club to the class of 2026 club. 5.3 Resolution to transfer funds from the class of 2024 club to the class of 2027 club. 5.4 Resolution to transfer funds from the outdoor track club to the indoor track club. 5.5 Resolution regarding award of bid 2025 2026 food service management consultant. 5.6 Resolution regarding appropriating funds to the liability reserve. 5.7 Resolution regarding acceptance of the external audit report and extra classroom activities for the year ending in June 30th, 2025. 5.8 Resolution
218to accept management's response letter to the corrective action plan for the external audit report of June 30th, 2025. 5.9 Resolution to accept the internal risk audit of June 30th, 2025. 5.10 10 Resolution to accept management's response letter to the corrective action plan for the internal risk assessment for the year ending in June 30th, 2025. 5.11 Resolution regarding acceptance of the internal risk assessment accounts payable concentration for June 30th, 2025. 5.12 Resolution to accept management's response letter to the corrective action plan for the internal risk assessment accounts payable concentration for June 30th, 2025. uh 5.13 resolution regarding resend application to the join to join the Putnham Northern Westchester Health Benefit Consortium Cooperative Health Benefit Plan PNWHBC 5.14 Resolution to accept funds for driver education program fall 2025 2026 5.15 Resolution regarding change order 1 UNIMAC LLC
219Brookside CR edition 5.16 Resolution regarding change order two Jennings Co. Inc. Park second floor uh classroom edition. 5.17 resolution regarding change order 3 Jennings Co. Inc. Park second floor classroom edition. 5.18 resolution regarding interfund transfers. >> Um any discussion? >> Just a quick you need to put it up as a motion. >> Oh, sorry. >> You could just I read for so long, Frank. I know. >> Um >> take a motion for 51 through 518. Um, I'll take a motion for 5.1 through 58. >> So, move some. >> Second. >> Uh, now any discussion? >> Yeah, just a quick question on 5.5 just for um I'm sorry, did not have a chance to go into this one particularly in detail. Um could just a little uh explanation on the um on the need for the
220for HMBB >> for >> consultants for 5.5 this food management consult food service management consultant. Your question is for me, >> Alita. >> Yeah. Um, HMBB has been with the district since I've been here and u most school districts that um contract out have a consultant that are experts in um food service administration. So, they're like our our eyes and our ears. We've had them uh for quite some time, but we had to do another bid, another RFP actually. Um, and they were the only ones that responded. Most school districts in the state use uses HMV >> and and they just for clarification, they they're they're kind of overseeing what's going on by >> Yeah. So, they'll they'll go in um to our um they do like audits of the uh food service program. So,
221they go to different schools throughout the year. Um our food service management company doesn't know that they're coming. Um so they're aware of all the rules and regulations associated with um the state's requirements. >> So they're kind of like a DO in in advance of a DO. >> Yeah. So and they assist us in interpreting um different rules and regulations and um they help us with our reporting. >> Thank you. Great. That's all I have. >> Um before we vote on it, I wanted to highlight 5.15 through 5.17 are change orders. Th those are facilities related and the result here is that we have projects that are coming in under budget as I understand them. So >> yes, >> it's just nice to have some good news. >> Yes. >> Um all right, any further
222discussion? All in favor? >> I >> opposed abstensions. All right. Does anybody have anything they wish to break out from 6.1 through 6.18? Okay. I'll take a motion for 6.1 through 6.18. >> So moved. >> Second. >> 6.1 Resolution regarding rescending professional staff appointments. 6.2 Resolution regarding rescending professional staff appointments. 6.3 Resolution regarding rescending professional staff appointments. 6.4 Resolution regarding rescending support staff appointments. 6.5 Resolution regarding civil service staff resignations. 6.6 Resolution regarding support staff resignations. 6.7 Resolution regarding professional staff appointments. 6.8 Resolution regarding confidential staff appointments. 6.9 Resolution regarding civil service staff appointments. 6.10 Resolution regarding support staff appointments. 6.11 Resolution regarding bus attendant appointments. 6.12 Resolution regarding professional staff appointments before after school programs. 6.13 Resolution regarding civil service staff appointments before after school programs. 6.14 Resolution regarding support staff appointments before after
223school programs. 6.15 Resolution regarding PDDM substitute removals. 6.16 Resolution regarding PDM substitute appointments. 6.17 Resolution regarding support staff request for a leave of absence. 6.18 Resolution regarding approval of school volunteers. Any discussion? All in favor? >> Opposed? Abstensions. All right, we're at our next public comment period. Seeing none in person, I is there anybody online who wishes to speak? Okay. All right, then we'll continue along to uh board reports and dialogue. Uh have any committees met? We can start with committee updates. >> Audit committee met yesterday. >> Yes, thank you. I was not able to attend so I appreciate that you were our for presence. >> Um I mean a general overview is that it was good news and the auditor um applauded our treasurer. Is that his role? Treasurer >> Anthony for doing a
224great job. >> Um, have any other committees met? Is there any other stuff we want to bring up? >> Um, I think the advocacy committee met >> so I don't know if they wanted to say that and then I'll give an update on the meeting. >> So there was two things. There was some guidance. I think you were meeting with Congress, sorry, Congressman Lawler and so this was about the um remind me the topic again >> the grants. So they would the advocacy committee >> just to discuss with Mary and kind of get some guidance and talking points around the grants and sort of the and the evidence we have the of the success with the grants. And so Mary was working on that. A letter for the leg legislators which was kind of a
225higher level there would be some discussion around whether you know whether it made sense to meet with individual legislators which we thought there may be some merit to and then there was talking points for meeting with our federal officials as Katherine dealt with in the meeting and maybe you could talk a little bit about the meeting that you attended. >> Sure. So just by way of background um we here on in Austin and on our board of ed we are apolitical but that doesn't mean that we are immune to politics and I think this is an example of that and how politics on the federal level have come really close to home here in Austining and resulted in the loss of several million dollars to our district. So after the school shooting in Yuvaldi, there
226was a bipartisan group of um congressmen and women that got together in response and proposed a mental health grant program for schools that they could apply to. And the overall goal of this was to try to put support services in place so that we could have um just and not limited to just preventing school shootings because I don't want that to really be the framework that this is is viewed through, but that was the impetus for this. But the goal really is to improve overall mental health and wellness for all students. And um the application process which was under the Biden administration, the requirement was that you had to show how it would be applied equitably and fairly in your district that is is a diverse set of there's a diverse district with a diverse
227set of needs. Right? So those are those are the buzzwords that our grant writer utilized in order to apply for this grant which we won and it is $6 million over I think five years. um something along those lines. And this grant money is used to hire social workers, um supplement guidance, the psychologists, train all staff in DBT therapy so that they are able to deescalate or appropriately guide students when they need extra guidance. And that is really what this was designed to do. and it had full bipartisan support. We received a letter recently that said that the priorities of the current administration do not align with the prior administration and because the application included words such as equity and diversity, they were deciding that um in their opinion it may be illegal, something along
228those lines. So, they were pulling the grant and we had an opportunity to appeal, which we did, and the appeal was denied on the same grounds. Mary, you'll let me know if I have any of this wrong. >> Right. >> Um, so essentially, too bad, so sad. You are out millions of dollars. There's no plan from the federal department of education to either reissue the grant or replace these funds or open a reapplication window that revises the requirements of the grant that would more align with the current administration. It's just the money will no longer go to you. Um, so Congressman Lawler had a essentially a NISBA mediated meeting where representatives from local school districts to could go and say, "Well, here's here's what we're seeing. Here's what we're concerned about." Um, and we sent
229the advocacy committee. Um, I'm the alternative on the committee, so and I was the one who could make the meeting. So, they gave me the talking points and um, I went to the meeting. He sent a staffer prior to the meeting. There was a premeating um with NISBA and there was a Westp representatives and there are a handful of school districts and they were sort of talking about how they've been affected by some of the recent goings on in um with the federal department of education and then I said what we were facing here in Austining because not only have we lost this millions of dollars in mental health grant we've lost the gear up grant for similar reasons and that is a grant that was intended to help prepare our entire 10th grade class
230for college and career readiness. And that has also been rescended for the same reasons and appealed and the appeal denied. So, we're talking huge amounts of dollars here. So, I explained all of this to um the NISBA representative and she seemed very shocked. She said, "I'm very glad you're here and with everyone's permission, I'm wanting to go first." and to take as much time as they need and everybody agreed. So, um the staffer came on, she was aware of the gear up grant, but she was completely unaware of the mental health grant and that that had been lost and she actually advised me to go back and tell us to appeal. To which I responded, well, we have appealed and let me read you the denial letter from the appeal. So, she initially said, well,
231I'm not sure what there is left to do. um I'm sorry that you lost this grant. So I explained to her that it was our expectation that she would go back to the congressman and ask the congressman to go back to his colleagues in Congress, bipartisan colleagues, remind them what this grant was initially designed to do, that we were given specific criteria to meet, which we met, and that the criteria was changed after the grant was doled out. and that our request specifically was that they reopen the grant application process and if they want to change whatever they want to change about it, give us another shot to reapply for this. But simply just saying it's been revoked and we're upholding your appeal and no one's going to look into it further was unacceptable as
232as far as our district was concerned. So, she asked if we could put everything very clearly in a letter. Um, and I advised Mary on that. And so, um, she said, "I need you to as soon as you can put all of this in a letter because this is the first time we're hearing about this. Put not only the fact pattern of how this came to be and how it was denied and how you appealed and the exact dates and the language and put the grant application number, but also put what your ask is of the congressman and be very clear." So I, you know, we'll see what happens with it, but I advocated as hard as I could. Oh, thank you. >> What was the total lost dollars? >> Well, we were halfway through
233both. It's a little over $6 million, but the mental health grant was five and the Gear Up grant roughly is one. But to be honest, um since Katherine updated me, I um wrote now I wrote individual letters. I used a template but to Christian Jillbrand Chuck Schumer all they will all be certified handd delivered there were there's an official you know um letter and then I'm writing a handwritten note on top of each one so I've included all lawers actually will include um that um a board trustee Katherryn Crossley met with your staffer yada yada yada so I included that in there and then for every person depending upon on their office. I have a different ask at the end. Obviously, it's very important to me here in New York State that there we're entering
234a tight budget season. Austining is in the hole right now by $6 million. You know, don't take any more money from us. So, I appreciated the feedback I got from the advocacy committee from what Katherine gave me and I used that to inform the letters. You will all I have one more tweak to do tomorrow when I meet with Nicole and you will all get PDFs of it in your update this weekend. >> So it was a five-year grant and what how far into it were we again? >> Halfway through both. >> So two and a half years in. Okay. halfway through with excellent good data that it was working and and as you pointed out earlier this evening um you know some of the work that that we're doing regarding family engagement like that's
235we're spending that money >> in all the right ways. You want kids to be engaged in school and feel warm and welcoming in the school buildings. What better way to use the money, >> right? And to the point, you know, that speaking of data, it's actually saves money to have preventative measures in place to address correct just about anything, but especially mental health. Um so the irony is that in the long run not addressing these issu these issues proactively actually puts more strain on the just the the whole system as you know financial system when it comes to supporting um individuals who are who may at some point be struggling. Um the data shows like at least one in six youth will at some point experience a mental health challenge. Right. And it's just, you
236know, the the the the longer it takes someone to get access to care, the more acute the needs become and the more acute the needs become, the more costly they become. And eventually these individuals start utilizing um the the um emergency services as their go-to or end up in, you know, the carceral system. Um you know, going on and on. It just doesn't structurally make sense. uh fiduciary wise to even go this route regardless of all the other reasons that might have been thrown in there to rescend it is just not a fiscally responsive approach to um the structure of our economy. >> Right. Well stated >> I think it's just such a shame that we are making children the pawns of adults semantic argument. It's just so silly and it's shameful. That's my honest
237opinion. I think it's just shameful. >> Was the denial like the the administration just cut this thing for all districts or did Austin say you were denied specifically? >> There were specific districts and we were one of them and it's because of the language and the positions that we hold around um equitable you know care and concern for our student. >> Could you share that denial with the board? Yeah, it it was done at the state level. >> It was done at the state level and I think >> California, New York, >> yes, >> states that are primarily Democratic lost the funding. >> Okay. So, it didn't say Austinine was denied because X and Lakeland was denied because of Y. Like >> it said, our grant application was reviewed and it was denied for these
238reasons. The reasons were requirements of the grant, >> right? So, the effectively eliminated for anybody that got the grant. >> Yes. the the me the mental health grant the the letter the non-ontinuation letter is a link in in the last two updates of mine so you can you can take a look and read it specifically and then the New York Gear Up Grant we applied through New York State it was New York State that lost the money >> but the link is we could see the denial it could see it >> right the letter just says like current administration doesn't support this program it doesn't well and on the pages in the hundred some odd application the words we used right equity um um diversity and they it's in the preamble of who we are
239as a mission vision but not in the grant itself and then they actually because I wrote an appeal that all four of their points their next letter I got back saying if I continued to appeal it I was responsible for their legal costs that's in the letter that you can all read the link. >> So I did have the pleasure though to end this um at Niscus uh Shelley Mayor had a huge open forum for everyone was a packed room so I was second to speak and I started with Austining lost $6 million grants so there was silence in the house and I was able to make a very strong point with our senator so she said Mary send that to me. I said, "Of course I will." Anyway, >> all right. Um, so to
240be continued at budget season. >> Yes. Yes. >> Correct. >> Well, I think to be continued before budget season, right? Because I think to Mary's point, like if you're talking to Shelley and to others at the end of the day, Senator Mayor, you know, you're looking for the state to help support where the federal government is likely maybe not to to do and come back. And so, you know, we lose this grant, the adults that are there helping for all those difficult situations that happen in the schools, you know, students that need additional supports. This is the state that we were at before where basically all districts could do which was basically refer out to a social services system that was underfunded and students just were not getting services at the end of the day.
241That's the net result of this at the end of the day. So, >> we have to fight this one. So I guess to that end in terms of the advocacy committee um is it is it fair to ask I guess the advocacy committee to meet again and put together you know like a multi-step or multi-layered plan as to what they would recommend they do for the district. >> Yeah, we talked about that at the meeting about I mean this definitely is something that is just not a we going to put all our eggs in the basket of begging and pleading for the grant to come back. It's definitely multi-acceted and I think we talked about some approaches to how that might look and definitely need to revisit the conversation as the efforts continue. >> Yeah,
242part of the lead was Mary finishing up the letters for the legislators which is going to go to a certain level of depth and we and there likely will need to be meetings with certain legislators to try and move forward because you want to look at this before New York State sets its budget. So, you've got to do some work between now and Thanksgiving. you're on a fast track. >> So, I know when we were in this position with foundation aid, we I you'll tell me if I'm misremembering, but I feel like we um asked for proclamation or letters from our local elected officials in the village and the town to also send letters just for an extra layer of support. I'm just throwing that out there as something the committee can discuss. >> Yeah,
243we we did discuss that already. We're we're trying to look at the timing between let's say now and Thanksgiving and when that some of those might be the right time. It's you don't want to start that before you've started a level of engagement which would start with the letters, right? But >> yeah, no, the the committee will need once we get the letters from Mary, we'll meet again and you know, we'll be talking about it with the board at the next meeting for sure. And then just following on to that, if you'll permit me, you know, I don't know if if this is the same level of the community community advocacy around foundation a but it seems very similar and we're going to be in a position where we're going to have a tight budget
244season coming up and this is we want our community to be very aware of what's going on. So just throwing that out there is the another layer to all this. Yeah, I think it's first getting your arguments together, getting your stuff in together, and then kind of laying out the plan. So, to be continued and certainly over the next next month here, we've got to make some decisions like those lines. Yeah. >> Well, we can agree that we are going to do as much as we can in order to get as many dollars to our kids from the federal government, from our grants in whatever way we can. So again like everyone said to be continued. Um just a quick note that um it had come out in our word selfie veil there were board
245members who realized that they did not have uh their code of ethics. So uh Illy if you were missing it should have left it out at your seat. So I'm not going to name names but they're there. >> Um so if you uh wish to sign it and return it to Billy >> you can. >> Um Unfortunately, we need to have an executive session tonight. So, um I'm going to take a motion >> to enter into executive session. >> So, move second. >> Um and this is to consult with legal by the way. Uh any discussion? All in favor? I opposed abstensions.