Board of Education Meeting June 4, 2025

001Welcome, welcome everyone to the Wednesday, June 4th, 2025 board of education special meeting, which I'll call to order. If you're watching online, we've got a packed house today. So, welcome to all of our visitors. Um, I will lead us in the pledge, so please join me. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you and welcome again. Um, the next item on our agenda for this evening is our superintendent's update. So, I will turn things over to Superintendent Mary Fox Alter. Right. All right. So, good evening um and welcome to the month of June. Um the month of June is a wonderful month in um where you spend your life professionally

002in schools and then before that when you were a student. June is all about capstone activities, transition activities and celebrations. So, um I know those of you who might be joining us um live, uh you you won't be able to see, but we're packed filled with people because part of tonight's agenda is the awarding of tenure to um many of our staff um um teaching assistants, teachers, and administrators. So, it's a very very very exciting night. Just a couple of um shoutouts that I'd like to give this evening. Um, if you get a chance to run over to Brookside, our Brookside school garden has officially bloomed. I understood from our retirey reception that it was uh lettuce and radishes. Lucia, I forget. There were two veggies that came out of the garden. Okay. Thank you.

003Um, so um it's a wonderful, wonderful thing. Um, I want you to please take a look at the OLAS for the new summer calendar. I want to give a shout out to Nicole Reese who put together a very quick nice little summary uh one pager for everyone to have and she's got some QR codes and quick links to calendars that are deeper such as our camps, our sports camps, everything that's taking place. So, we hope our families find that incredibly useful. Um, Monday night of this week, we had our 42nd annual senior sports awards. It was a fantastic evening held at the high school. Um, so many accolades. I want to give a huge thanks to our athletic department and to our booster club for organizing such a memorial memorable evening that same night. Then

004after that I had the pleasure of attending the annual Westchester Putinham School Boards Association and um we got to hear right Melissa speaker talk about why school boards are important particularly during this time this moment in history. So um last night um we attended the absolutely fantastic science research awards and if you have not attended it when you get to look at the videos first of all the research projects from our students were fantastic and the ceremony it itself it it it reminded me in many ways of a Saturday Night Live skit. um quick, witty, funny, and lots of incredible work and incredible students. The keynote speaker, just to give a little highlight of it, um I I couldn't stop thinking about it all night. The keynote speaker is a graduate of the class of

0052013 who went on to study cancer uh research because he had two family members who were stricken with this horrible disease. developed an interest in the field when he was 16 years of age and um managed to get a mentor whose company moved to Cleveland, Ohio with the lab. this young man um headed out to Cleveland, Ohio with at 16 years of age, if you could imagine, worked his internship all summer and Daniel um he the guest the um great speaker we had was Daniel Mcuade. He then um got accepted into Yale, but he took a gap year from Yale because he was fascinated by the cancer research work he was doing. Yale gave him a scholarship to do the work. He is a medical doctor and a PhD researcher and his work led to

006a patent for a drug to solve uh lung cancer that is in clinical trials with one of the largest drug companies. It's an incredible an incredible story, but we heard so many of those last night. So, if you get a chance to check the v videos um when it they do get released, please do. Um we want to um just give a huge shout out that um and I know some of our parents and um staff here in the audience know this um the college drive collection donations by O prime is taking place. So, if you are have any new items that can help for a dorm move in for O prime, uh making it a little easier, please drop them off at the O prime center at the district office. Um over the um

007since the last board meeting, we had um Austining High School sophomores involved in science research receive an impressive 17 awards at the Smer Science Fair. Absolutely incredible. Uh AMD's eighth grade band, chorus, and orchestra received excellent ratings and for winning the coveted spear decor award at the music in the parks festival. And our over the weekend, our Claremont school first in math team, they secured an impressive third place in the New York State finalists. So isn't that fantastic? We're also super proud to share that the board of education uh communication committee have been honored with several awards including a gold award from the national schools public relations association regarding um communication efforts and information regarding our bond. So congrats to the board and to Nicole for that level of work. um our students who attended

008BASH uh won top honors at that and a lot of other awards and events are taking place. Um a real happy note that we're going to include in our testing report is um Austining High School had 57 students who earned the seal of biiteracy. So I know that was something that we were encouraging for. So I think that's absolutely wonderful. Right. and a and a lovely as symbolic and it can like pull your tears out of your eyes moment. 30 senior leaders from the class of 2025 pass the baton to 30 kindergarten leaders from the class of 2037 at aing high school day. It precious and bring tears to your eyes absolutely precious. So, um, those are just a highlight of some of the wonderful events that are taking place. So, I was happy to

009be able to share that with the board and our community. Uh, I think should we jump to our Yes, I'd like Yeah. As part of my update as Yeah, let's do that as part of your update and then I was going to make a motion. You did make a motion to move the item. Okay. All right. So, All right. So, the awarding of tenure, which is going to take place later on on the board agenda this evening, is an incredible moment in an educator's life and a career. It does not come easy. You have to go through four years of observations, uh, pre-conferences, postconferences, drop in, unannounced observations, formal observations, goals, meetings, and many layers of conversations towards professional growth. Once a year the board of education meets with the administration and we go through

010all teachers who are firstear teachers, secondyear third teachers and all teachers and individuals who are up for tenure this evening have been discussed with the board of education in depth at meetings throughout the year. We look at many layers of evidence before this moment occurs. So, I want to congratulate all of the educators in this room who have achieved this milestone. It's an incredible step in your careers. So, we are going to start uh with our schools and end with our administrators. So, I am going to ask Emily and Ellie to come on up to talk about park. Take your time, Emily. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. It is with great pride that we recommend Miss Anna Urena and Miss Elizabeth the lawyer for tenure. Please come [Applause] up. Okay. As a dual language educator

011who has looped with her students from pre kindergarten to kindergarten, Miss Urena has demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to both academic excellence and the biliterate development of our youngest students. Miss Urena has not only fostered early bilingualism in her students, but also cultivated deep trusting relationships with both children and their families. Her ability to seamlessly continue with the same cohort has allowed her to build upon prior learning, tailor her teaching to individual student needs, and create a stable, nurturing environment that promotes risk-taking and growth in two languages. Miss Aloy's dedication in honing her skills as a special education teacher and her ability to meet every child where they are advocate fiercely for their needs and create inclusive, supportive learning environments is truly remarkable. Elizabeth, your patience and expertise have left a lasting impact on our students.

012You bring out the strengths in every learner and inspire those around you to do the same. Whether you're collaborating with colleagues, communicating with families, or supporting individual student growth, you consistently demonstrate the heart and professionalism that define what it means to be a special educator. Emphasize special. We are so proud to have you both as part of our team and deeply grateful for the work you do every single day at Park School. Your tenure is not just a recognition of your accomplishments. It's a celebration of the difference you continue to make in the life of our students. Congratulations to you both. Okay. All right. Brookside, Lucia, and Andrea. [Applause] [Music] Good evening. At this time, we'd like to call up our tenure recipients from Brookside. We have Miss Rosanna Canela, Miss Paola Salama, Miss Beneatha

013Gonzalez, we have Miss Marcela Leven, we have Mr. Chris Pedra and last but not least, Miss Bella Maggales. Magalas. Good evening. Today we come together not just to mark a milestone, but to celebrate the people behind it. Tenure is not simply a status. It's a recognition of dedication, consistency, resilience, and above all impact. It is also a promise to continue growing, giving, and guiding. And each of our honores does just that, contributing daily to the growth of students and the soul of our school. The common thread uniting this exceptional group is their unwavering commitment to belonging, to ensuring that students feel seen, heard, and supported, and their deep belief in the power of education to transform lives. Marcela Lean is running for mayor of Austining. She's not, but she should. She exemplifies this beautifully. A

014proud Austining mother and steadfast advocate for family rights, especially for immigrant families. Marcela reminds us that education doesn't begin and end in the classroom. It thrives when families are engaged and empowered, and she has worked tirelessly to build bridges of trust, understanding, and opportunity between school and home. Rosanna Canela Rosanna stepped into the teaching world in one of its most uncertain times during the height of the pandemic. But Rosanna did not falter. She learned the power of reflection and the strength of her colleagues. Her hard work speaks volumes not only about her own journey but about what she offers her students each day. The lesson of resilience. Paola Sarama. Bala brings to her work a powerful message. The education is a right for all. Her advocacy is not abstract. It is deeply personal. Bala has

015o overcome challenges with quiet strength and deep conviction. And she uses her voice to make sure every student has a chance to to thrive regardless of circumstance. Pa embodies perseverance. She shows us that every obstacle can be turned into a stepping stone. [Applause] Chris Pedra. Chris Pedra may be best known to some as our igno Brookside B, but to many more, he is a proud Brookside former student who came full circle, returning not just to give back, but to lift up. He embodies the idea that our schools are not just places we pass through, but places that become part of who we are. Benita Gonzalez. Benita is fearless in her love for her students. Each day she shows up with an open heart, an unshakable belief in their potential. Nurturing, strong, and steadfast, Bonita reminds

016us that showing up for students day after day, even when it's hard, is itself a revolutionary act of care. And and finally, Bella Maggales. Once a PT once a PTA mom, always a proud mother, and now a fierce champion for struggling readers and students who need that extra push to believe in themselves. with one child already graduated from FIT, a validictorian at [Applause] OS, and another still making their way through the Austining schools. Bella's legacy is rooted in both family and community. She brings the same passion she poured into her own children to every student that she encounters at Brookside. Together, these six individuals have given our students not just lessons and curriculum, but the sense of belonging. They have built classrooms that say, "You matter here. You are capable." Today, we tell the six

017of you. You matter here. You are capable. And you definitely are not alone. Congratulations to each one of you. Your tenure is well earned. Time for pictures. Yeah. Congratulations [Applause] [Music] Claremont, Brazine and Louie. Great. Good evening. Congratulations to Park and Brookside. And now we're ready for Claremont. So, I'd like to call our three incredible Claremont teachers. Jared Nash, come on up. Jeff Zone, come on up. And Michelle Guaz, come on up. [Applause] I don't know if you realize these are such proud moments for principles. We get so excited. I couldn't sleep last night and I woke up at 3:00 in the morning. That's how excited I was. I did write a full speech for each of them because they are so incredible that they deserved lengthy speeches. But with 30 tenurs tonight, I'm going

018to gift them their lengthy speech and I've condensed just for you. So let me start. It's an absolute joy and honor to celebrate these three incredible educators, Jared Nash, Jeff Zone, and Michelle on the occasion of their well-earned tenure at Claremont School. Each of them brings a unique strength to our community. But what they share is an unwavering dedication to their students, their craft, and to the spirit of collaboration that defines our school. If you walk into Jared's classroom, Jared, wave your hand. If you walk into Jared's classroom, you are instantly transported to a glow-lit Dogman decorated, bookfilled haven where kids feel excited to learn and safe to be themselves. Jared's energy is infectious, his structure intentional, and his connection with students undeniable. He is the kind of teacher children want to visit even when

019they're not in his class. And yes, they've even dressed up as Mr. Nash on spirit days. Whether he's mentoring through My Brother's Keeper or hyping up our school because he is our PBIS MC, Jared leads with heart, humor, and a deep belief in every child. Jeff Zone brings years of experience. Jeff, wave to wave your hand. He brings years of experience and a deep passion for language instruction to our fourth grade Spanish dual language program. He teaches Spanish all day, every day, with incredible care, precision, and authenticity. His students describe him as caring, kind, and chill. And one of his students says, "Gosh, I hope he gets to stay." Jeff's classroom is a space where students feel supported and seen. He masterfully uses scaffolds and trans languaging to ensure access for all learners. And he

020is a trusted, generous partner to his colleagues. Outside of the classroom, he leads our after-school intramural basketball program, organizing every single detail himself so students have meaningful ways to connect and grow. And finally, Michelle Iguaz. She doesn't have to wave her hand because you know who she is up there. She's the definition of quiet excellence. From her very first demo lesson, we knew she was special. An educator whose calm demeanor is paired with extraordinary skill and fierce dedication. Her classroom is warm and multilingual. She brings every lesson to life through song, games, and creativity. One of her students shared, "She teaches us with songs or with games, and if you're stuck, well, she helps you get the point of it." and another one said, "She's the best teacher I ever knew. She always has something

021for us that we like, and she's so very nice." Michelle's impact goes beyond the classroom. From developing key Spanish instructional resources to leading science training for her team next year. As her student wisely put it, "If I were the principal, I would definitely hire Miss Agu because she's amazing and she answers all of our questions. Jared, Jeff, and Michelle, thank you for the heart, the talent, and dedication you pour into our school every single day. Claremont is a better place because of you, and it is with deep pride that Louis and I celebrate your tenure tonight. Congratulations, [Applause] Come on. Okay, team AMD, are you in the house? Right, Dr. Nover. Good evening everyone. Tonight is a night of celebration when we get to honor eight incredible educators from AMD who will receive tenure. I'd

022like to invite Katrina Holmes, Nicole Murphy. Yeah. Nicole [Applause] Murphy, Nate Satin, Ryan Lic, Matt [Music] Kenny, Melissa McKe, Connor Caukins, [Applause] and Cindy Otto Soraniano to come join me. Words cannot fully express the pride I have in honoring these individuals tonight. Each of them has a special place in my heart. And perhaps even more importantly, each of them continue to leave an indelible mark upon our students. Katrina, I am not sure that anyone else brings me greater joy to be around. I treasure the moments we spend together strategizing on how to continue to bring powerful, equitable, and student centered programs to life. You have breathed life into every aspect of the curriculum you have instructed. Watching you excel in our social studies curriculum and challenging students to engage in their highest levels of thinking

023is inspiring to watch. The future of our sixth graders is bright and I am even more excited for our next chapter in collaborating to bring the AVID elective to our eighth grade students. I know that under your guidance, our students will continue to shine. I cannot wait to see what the future holds for our partnership and our learners. Nicole, your grit, power, perseverance, and heart make you an exceptional educator. I don't know that there is anyone in this building, sorry team, that cares for me as a human as much as you do. I don't know if you will ever fully understand how much it means to me that despite your own personal matters, you always find a moment to check on my family. These sentiments are echoed by your colleagues who articulated your deep care

024for both our students and our staff. Your commitment to all learners is apparent in the way you push yourself to incorporate strategies to support our ENL students and reach out to those around you for support. And girl, those late nights paid off. You passed calculus and you're receiving tenure. Our school is stronger, kinder, and more grounded because of you. And generations of Austining students will be lucky to call you their math teacher. [Applause] Nate, you embody creativity and passion in your classroom. From your innovative instructional practices like your self-guided videos to the creative projects that push student thinking and application of content, you breathe life into social studies. One standout example is your roaring 20s experience where students didn't just learn about the decade, they lived it. They dressed the part, stepped into character, and

025debated issues from the time inside of a mock speak easy. That level of engagement isn't easy to pull off, but you do it consistently. You create opportunities for students to connect to history in man in meaningful and memorable ways. [Applause] Ryan, watching you grow as an educator this year has been a highlight of my career. Ryan embodies what it means to have a growth mindset and to challenge himself to continuously improve. Your knowledge of the Italian language and culture is infectious. I find myself traveling back in time to my own middle school Italian class when I'm in and around your instructional spaces. I would be remiss if I did not mention your growth supporting our ENL students this year. Your partnership with PAM has been a model of academic excellence and we are so proud

026of your hard work and the students achievement with your guidance and support. Congratulo I think I'm out of practice. [Applause] Melissa, science comes alive in 206. I even get excited to analyze fossil records and explore the age of stars under your guidance. You have developed an incredible partnership with K with Carla, which we have aptly named their class McCau. And this partnership has a significant impact on student learning. Melissa, you bring science to life in a powerful and meaningful way for our students and they are so lucky to have you as their teacher. Matt, your dedication to your craft is unparalleled. You're committed to supporting the overall development of all learners and approach your work with consistency, purpose, and heart. You don't just teach physical education and health. You create an environment where students feel

027encouraged, capable, and seen. You go above and beyond to seek out ways to support students, whether that means checking in on them, reinforcing positive habits, or simply being a steady presence throughout their day. You care for students beyond the gym. And it's clear how they benefit from your guidance. [Music] Connor, you have helped breathe new life into our PE department. Your fabulous hats, fun and engaging lessons, and positive energy have made a real difference in supporting our students on their journey towards health and wellness. You go above and beyond, not just for your students, but your colleagues. Whether it's helping admin order extra equipment for recess or jumping in wherever needed, your reliability and initiative never go unnoticed. We'll miss your voice on the walkie, but your impact will stick with us. Thank you for

028everything you've brought to the team. Cindy, I feel like I should just always shout Cindy out my door. I love having you by my side through this work. You bring a heart, perspective, care, and depth of knowledge that is unparalleled. Our kids love and trust you, and some of our most vulnerable students can be found in your office seeking counsel or maybe just snacks. But regardless, they know that you are there for them. You are always looking out for our students and our community, and we are deeply grateful. It is an honor to award each of you tenure this evening. Your future in Austining is bright and our future is bright as a team. I am so excited on behalf of myself and our assistant principles to continue our journey towards academic excellence together. Congratulations

029everyone. All right. This is a big picture because it's a big group to make sure the assistant the three come up. Come on up. Let's do it. Yeah. Just watch all the wires. Sorry. I start. Great job. [Applause] All right, Miss Langley and team Austining High [Applause] School. Congratulations to the tenure recipients in Park School, Brookside, Claremont, and AMD. And I'd like to call up our recipients from OS. I invite up Miss Zyra Barahas, Mr. Michael Herren, Miss Fra Sed, Miss Nicole Sabiski, Miss [Applause] Diaz, and Miss Pavik. It is with joy that we celebrate and recognize our tenure recipients. Each of them has brought innovation and commitment to our students and continues to shape the future of our school community in many powerful ways. As I share their names and accomplishments, I want you

030to know that I know that none of them have come to just sit idly by. they have already begun to make their impact in our building. I'll start out with Miss Barahas even though she's not here this evening in case she's watching. Miss Barahas has been a standout member of our social studies department. From Spanish speaker courses, two electives, and most recently our ed prep program, Miss Barahas has shown dedication in every role. Her work with the changemakers program chaperoning students on immersive travel experiences shows her belief in education beyond the classroom. She is not just shaping learners but leaders and we are lucky to have her. Mr. Michael Harren. [Applause] He has shown us what it means to grow within a community. From his early days as a teaching assistant to his current role

031in the social studies department, he's consistently demonstrated teamwork, professionalism, and heart. Whether co-eing, helping to launch the high school school bowling team, or supporting My Brother's Keepers initiative, Mr. Heron has made a deep impact through every relationship he's built. He brings energy and encouragement to everything that he does. Next, we honor Miss Sied, a dynamic force in our English department. Whether teaching American literature or film and literature, Miss Sied crafts lessons that inspire critical thought and creativity. Her classroom is a place where students thrive and feel empowered. She's always growing, always learning, and committed to refining her craft and deepening her connection to our Austining community. Her students are fortunate to learn from someone so intentional and reflective. [Applause] We are also proud to recognize Miss Nicole Sabiski who has brought who has brought her

032energy and passion from the elementary level to the halls of OS. This is Mrs. Sabisk's second time being tenured in Oening. A true testament to her dedication and impact across grade levels. at the high school. She works closely with our seniors in topics of English and has been instrumental in launching our ENL film and literature courses. Her care for students show up in the way she lifts them up, especially those who need extra boost an extra boost across the finish line. As an equity fellow and a member of our culture of care committee, she not only reaches students but also the adults in our building. She brings both compassion and creativity to her work each and every day. Miss Gerilyn Diaz. Miss Diaz has made her mark as both a math and special education teacher.

033Her classroom is full of warmth, humor, and high expectations. She is not just an educator but an advocate. Always centering students, pushing for equity and nurturing confidence in every learner. Her impact goes far beyond the numbers she teaches. She builds relationships and inspires to inspire students to believe in themselves. And finally, Miss Mariana Pavik, who brings business to life at OS. She's expanded our department with exciting new courses like fashion marketing and is always pres proposing innovative realworld ideas, most recently a course in real estate. Whether she's guiding students in the business club to state and international competitions or helping the community file taxes, Miss Pavik is a true standout. Her creative use of games in the classrooms in the classroom provides that rigor and joy proves that rigor and joy can absolutely coexist. She

034is also the proud recipient of the prestigious Marsha W. Iverson New Business Education Educator Award and an an honor that speaks volume about her excellence and impact in the field. To each of our tenure recipients, thank you for the time and dedication you've invested in our students. Your commitment to their growth and well-being is deeply appreciated. Earlier this evening, we celebrated our retirees. And now we look ahead with excitement, knowing that each of you will continue to shape and strengthen our school community for years to come. Here's to the next 25, I hope, or 30 years of impact, inspiration, and commitment. Congratulations, [Applause] Congratulations. [Music] Okay. So, uh just to add uh to Miss Langley's comments, uh I know I saw I heard some 25 years. I will speak from experience and Miss Scalott's experience.

035It goes by very very quickly when you have a job that gives you joy, which gives you pure joy. It goes by in a blink. All right. So, we're moving on to our administrators. We have two administrators. The way the administrative piece will go, I'm going to ask those who supervise the administrators to come up and speak about them. So, first up from Claremont, I'm going to ask Miss Frisine Shamzy come up and speak about Louie Shave. Louis Shard is coming up. That's another reason I couldn't sleep last night. I was so excited. So, it is a true honor to stand here today and recognize Mr. Louisie Charvet on the occasion of his tenure. Although Louie and I have only worked together Claremont this one year, our paths have crossed many times over the years.

036We live just two miles apart. Our children have even attended the same schools. In fact, Leandro's here in the back. He goes to Felix Vesta with my daughter Zara. So when Louiesie chose to come across the street from AMD to Claremont, I was elated. I knew without a doubt he would be the perfect co-principal. And I have not been wrong. Having worked with many assistant principles throughout my time at Claremont, I often say that a great AP is the yin to the principal yang. That together their differences create a beautiful harmonious balance. And that perfectly describes Louie. His calm strength, unwavering positivity, and ability to connect with everyone around him make our partnership something I'm truly grateful for. Louie is the first smiling face many of our teachers and students see each morning. His music

037playing, you always know the mood Lou's in by the music he plays. His suit pressed. He truly dresses to the nines every single day. I've often joked that I'd love to peek into his closet. He seems to have a suit for every occasion. And very often he asked me what I'm wearing so he could match my clothes. So much so that students have started to keep track of his ties and they call them out if he repeats one. And they don't just notice, they emulate. On picture day and opposite day, we had students showing up dressed like Mr. Shvet. Now that is an influence. How many APS do you know who willingly get pied in the face or dress as the Grinch and hang off the front of the building at dismissal while I stand

038below silently praying I will not have to hire a new assistant principal if he falls. Louie is loved by our staff, cherished by our families, and most importantly sought out by our students. One student said it best. He helps a lot of people and he takes time out of his day to make sure kids feel safe and feel good at school. I would give him an award for the best school in Austining. Louie, you're a team player, a phenomenal leader, and a continuous learner. You've led our equity in our PBIS team and supported instructional growth in mathematics with dedication and insight. I'm proud, truly proud to stand beside you today and every day as your partner in this work. Congratulations, Louie. [Applause] Okay. Um, Maria Meyer, come on up, Maria. Good evening. It is a

039true pleasure and honor to stand here this evening and recognize the work of two amazing individuals that I have the pleasure of working with on a day in and dayout basis. Um I would like to call Dr. Ann [Applause] de back to the mic. Sorry. Tonight we honor Dr. Anne Dilly, a visionary leader, a dedicated educator, and an unwavering advocate for student success. Anne has served our district for many, many, many years. First, as a beloved assistant principal, actually teacher, beloved assistant principal, principal of two schools, Park School and Brookside. and over the last three years has served as our director of student success. In her current role, Anne has led with insight, compassion, and a fierce commitment to equity and excellence from strengthening our MTSS systems and facilitating datadriven action plan reviews to championing

040restorative practices and increasing satisfactory attendance. Her work has made a lasting difference. She has inspired civic readiness in our students, elevated our equity initiatives through powerful fellowships and committee work and opened doors through MBK Girls Inc. and countless community partnerships. And it has been a true pleasure to work alongside you these past three years, especially in this important work, especially now when it matters more than ever. Your wisdom, big heart, has helped shape a stronger, more just and embracing learning community. On behalf of the entire committee community, thank you. Thank you for showing us what it means to stand up for every student, every family, and every voice. You are not only built, you have not only built systems of support, you have built trust, hope, and belonging. It has been an honor to walk

041alongside you in this work, and your impact will continue to resonate through our schools for years to come. We are better because of you. Congratulations on your tenure. again. [Applause] One more individual this evening who could not be here this evening with us. However, bec because of her work, it is truly an honor to recognize her extraordinary leadership and the impact of her work. Kate Matthews has served as for the past three years as our director of cultural arts and many more years before that as assistant principal and principal. Kate has infu in infused her schools our schools with energy, creativity, and deep commitment to student expression. From launching OS noticas and new courses in fashion, dance, media production to expanding our drama clubs and afterchool arts programming, Kate has elevated cultural arts across our

042district and region. Her efforts have opened doors for student voice, creativity, and confidence with recognitions from Scholastic Arts, NAM, Metro Awards, and the Bash Awards, just to name a few. Notably through her leadership, we have once again been named as a best community for music education for the 17th time. A testament to her tireless advocacy and commitment to the arts. Definitely deserves an applause. Through powerful community partnerships and thoughtful curriculum design, Kate ensures every student sees themselves reflected and celebrated in the arts. It is a true pleasure to partner and work with Kate on a daily basis. We are so proud of her earning her tenure again here in Austin. Kim Mauricio [Applause] Good evening. I would like to call up Dr. [Music] Mcan. It is my absolute pleasure to introduce and honor one of

043our most dedicated and passionate leaders as she receives tenure this evening, Dr. Mcan. Dr. Man has made a lasting impact in our district, not only through her leadership as director of elementary special education, but through her unwavering commitment to students who require personalized, supportive, and responsive learning environments. She was the driving force behind the creation of our 813 RISE program. A model built on compassion, structure, and high expectations. It's a program that reflects who she is. Thoughtful, courageous, and a deeply student centered individual. Dr. man always is a teacher at heart, mentoring and supporting staff through meaningful professional development that enhances instructional practices and strengthens our special education programs districtwide. She believes that when educators grow, students thrive. And she models that belief every day through providing continuous support to all of our educators. Outside

044of work, she's a proud mom of Jaden, Maddox, and Bella, and wife to Brian. Somehow while raising her family and leading in the special education department, she also completed her doctorate. That alone tells you everything you need to know about her drive and resilience. But what truly defines her is a motto that she lives by. Fight hard and love hard. She fights hard for what's right for students, for families, for equity. She loves hard bringing warmth, human humanity and fierce advocacy for everything she does. I am internally grateful to call Dr. Mcan a partner and visionary in our work to enhance opportunities for our students in Austin. Please join me in congratulating and celebrating our colleague, leader and friend, Dr. again on this welldeserved achievement of Tanya. Okay. All right. The last three are are

045mine. So, uh, one of, uh, one of my, um, interesting um, professional um, responsibilities that I do, I I've been trained by the state of New York to give workshops for superintendent of schools who evaluate principles. I've done it all the way up from New York City up to the Canadian border and out through Western New York. Um I uh go through the research and we talk about many different models and roles. If I had to ask you everyone in the off in according to the research everybody here tonight, what is the one most important position in a school district? The one position that the research has pro proven to move instruction and to change a school for the better. There's one position. It is not the superintendent of schools. It's the principal. Hiring principles

046that understand what situational awareness not is. Principles that understand what curricular initiatives look like, but also how are they operationalized and how they connect in different ways and forms. Principles that understand how you can look into a classroom and know through questioning of teachers what Bloom's taxonomy is. principles who understand that silos of innovation in classrooms while celebrated and great are not necessarily the best approach. It's how do you spread that across an entire school culture that can move the needle for for all staff for all kids and for all families. It's the most important hire that a school district can have. the recommendation for tenure. I, you know, like I I had to there are some things I recognize about myself that I'm not good at and I would forget flowers and I would

047forget sometimes like pleasantries on some levels because sometimes when I arrive in a building I go, "Hi, how are you? Great. Okay, now we need to talk about the work." And um um the two candidates that are up for tenure tonight are individuals that when I have done that in their offices, we launch into conversations that have the depth and breadth of every aspect of teaching and learning. and I feel inspired when I leave their offices and I look forward to my next conversation on what does teaching and learning look like and how do we make that the work of all things for all kids here in Austin. It gives me great pleasure to recommend to the board of education that Lucia Ordus the principal of Brookside [Applause] Come here. Lucia. Lucia. Pick up. Pick

048back. pick up here. Lucia has a keen eye on what instruction looks like. She understands when we speak about ARC and we speak about reading and we speak about how kids are to learn and how teachers are to teach. She has a firm grasp on every single piece of research there. And she does it with a heart and understanding for her building. She walks through that building when I go and I do my tours and lookies and kids run up to her and when she's not in the building, I know the teachers are asking me, "Uh, Mary, could you not ask Lucia to leave the building to attend your meetings because we miss her when she's not with us." Lucia, it is my profound pleasure and privilege to work with you as an educator. You

049come from New York City with a wealth of knowledge. Their loss is Austining's gain. This year and last year, we created a model where we all learn together. And sitting in my meetings where I'm speaking all things elementary education, I learn from you every single time and I thank you for that because and so do your colleagues. Um, congratulations. Lucia is also a proud mom of a little one. Oh, is she here to there? Oh, okay. That's something the two tenure recipients have in common. A new moms and new chapters in their lives. So, Lucia, congratulations. You're an outstanding leader and I'm so proud to recommend you for tenure today. [Music] Okay. Dr. Nicole Novver. Nicole here. So, uh, Nicole and I knew each other before I arrived here in Austining. Uh, for a period

050of my career, I worked as the assistant director for doctoral programs at Manhattanville College, now university. And uh one of our superstars was is continues to be Dr. Nicole Nover. So I I have to add a little humor to this as we all know it. We we probably should give her a hat. She's Dr. Systems and Structures Nova. Correct everybody? All right. Uh but the beauty of that is that when you take a look at Moslov's order of hierarchal needs and skills, the ability to maintain safe and appropriate systems and structures that support teaching and learning in a classroom is essential in a middle school. It's an absolutely necessary skill and Nicole, you are terrific at that. your understanding of teaching and learning, your understanding of relationships, your understanding of the different needs of a

051sixth grade student, and then you got to put up with me because I got a secondary hat when we talk about seventh and eighth graders is outstanding. Um, I am just proud to recommend you for tenure. I'm proud to celebrate your work here with your assistant principles, your entire team. AMD is a wonderful school. Congratulations on the recommendation. And again, congratulations to your family and to your little one too who like I think he's right here. There he is. Okay. So, congratulations. Okay. And last but not least, um, Maria Meyer. Maria, our assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction. So, um, um, the I know Kim knows this, Don knows this, Maria says that when we meet Alita, right, we we basically once a week we talk about what's our role in central office. Our role

052in central office to make sure that the systems and structures of what our principles need to make it work for our students happen to be there. They have to be there and all of us in the executive cabinet play a pivotal role in that work. Probably one of the hardest and the most difficult and the one that is probably the most complicated to explain to people is this vast area of curriculum and instruction. Everything from prek all the way up to the levels of AP studies and science at the high school level. It's a vast breath of teaching, learning courses and pathways to do that. Maria comes to us with extensive knowledge from Long Island where she started as a teacher. She worked her way up to be a coordinator, a director, an assistant superintendent.

053She was um she went to Yoners where she was part of the pivotal cabinet there and believe it or not we were managed to steal her up here to come work in the Austining schools. It she's probably a daily talk partner, thought partner with me early in the morning and then on the way home uh we unpack many things together. Maria, thank you for your dedication, your hard work. She's always positive. Uh even like when I'm being like Maria will be like um and which I do appreciate. And Maria, you're also um your heart and your soul goes into everything. Everyone knows that. Um and you always speak lovingly as being a mom of three beautiful girls and and to your loving husband who are here and I know they support and to your mom.

054So we all feel like we know you all like on a regular basis. I don't know if you like that or not, but it's the truth, right? But Maria, congratulations. I'm proud to recommend you for tenure and being part of an executive cabinet team that helps support the great work of this school district. All right. Congratulations everybody. All right. So now this is the official part, right? I'll take a motion to move up items 6.2 and 6.3. So moved. Second. Uh any discussion? All in favor? I opposed. Abstensions. And now I'll take a motion on item 6.2 and 6.3. So move. Uh yeah, I need a motion. Second. She Annie. So moved. Okay. Thank you. I didn't quite hear that. Uh 6.2 resolution regarding administrative staff tenure appointments and 6.3 resolution regarding professional staff tenure

055appointments. Any discussion? I do have something that I would like to discuss. Um, normally when we do these tenure appointments, the room is not quite so packed. And so I couldn't really understand why it was so packed tonight. And then I realized where we were in the state of education in the world going back 3 and four years from this moment, which was we had an unprecedented amount of retirements. We were struggling with COVID. It seemed like we would never recover and be able to function the way that we were. And I am thrilled that we have so many wonderful, amazing people that are being awarded tenure tonight. [Applause] Any further discussion? All in favor? I I opposed absentions. All right, that was the official vote. Let's give a big cheer. Congratulations everyone. Uh the

056receipt of tenure is a vote of confidence in the quality of your work. Congratulations to these outstanding educators uh for this honor and thank you for your contributed for your continued contributions to the education and well-being of our students. I normally say, "You're welcome to stay, but you're welcome to leave." But I think we're picking up that message right now. Give him five minutes. Should we take like a brief Should we take like a five minute recess? I think I need to take a I'll take a motion for a fivem minute recess. So moved. Second. Uh any discussion? All in favor? I opposed. of sentence. All right. If you are still here, you're welcome to sit and enjoy the continuation of our meeting. But if you'd like to continue your conversation, I invite you into

057the lobby to take your photos and meet with your family and celebrate. At this time, I'll take a motion to reconvene the meeting. So moved. Second. Um, any discussion? All in favor? I opposed. Abstensions. I'll give it a minute. At this time, I'd like to take a motion to move up item 6.9. So move second. Uh any discussion? All in favor? I opposed abstensions. And now I'll take a vote on resolution 6.9 or I'll take a motion for resolution 6.9. So moved. Second. Uh 6.9 resolution regarding administrative staff appointments. Uh any discussion? All in favor? I I opposed. Abstensions. And I'll let All right. Dr. Dr. Mayor or um Miss Langley, if you would like to introduce the appointment that we just made or Don or whoever whoever would whoever wants to do it. Okay.

058Okay. You're on. We didn't practice this piece. Good evening. I am really excited. The OS team is really excited. We spent, I would say, at least four or so rounds of interviews, uh, looking at many different applicants, um, having an opportunity to screen different applicants and then the administrative team met with some, um, candidates. We then moved on to a committee interview and really took our time in making sure that we had a candidate that was going to meet the needs of OS and to be able to support our schools commun. So we are really excited to present to the board Latina Khalil Haristen. Mr. Mara, she wants to say a few Latina wants to say a few words just to introduce herself and and uh to the community. So I I did put her

059on the spot, but um she's fully capable of doing it. She had a wonderful um candidacy. Thank you, Miss Langley. And one thing I want to point out to the community is after um our superintendent Mary and I uh spoke with um Latina and interviewed her um directly maybe 20 minutes after that I went to OS day and Latina was there and she stopped by Oian High School and really was able to um meet with some of the students and um and talk to some of the administrators and even though she wasn't fully uh on board yet she wanted to make sure that not on board with the offer but on board literally on the board agenda. She wanted to um uh you know check out what was going on at OS day and um

060I thought that was such a cool a really cool thing that you did and um uh I just thought it was um signified how how special that you were as a candidate. Miss Langley, you want to say something else? I'm sorry because you put me on the spot and I just I wasn't ready and now I just want to say another thing without with every single round. There is one person every time I put out the email to say we've opened up our next round of c of interviews there's one person every time that selected the very first appointment to make sure that we saw her first in every single round and again that is Miss Haristen. Thank you so much. Good evening everyone. Um again my name is Latina Khil Haristen. I'm just so

061so happy to be here tonight. Um I don't know how to express how grateful I am for this opportunity. Um and just how excited I am to be part of the Austining community. Um I'm a little nervous because I didn't I wasn't prepared for this. Um but um I I it truly the rounds that I went through each time there was something that stood out you know about Austining and I went home and I told my spouse you know it just felt like a warm blanket for me. Um and you know I'm all about the people and that's the thing that stands out for me when I accept an offer somewhere and it really was truly the people of Austining the community that made me say yes. Um, and I'm just really excited to start

062in July. Um, get to know everyone. I want to be of service to the community. That's my big thing. And I always say that I'm here to be interested, not interesting. Um, because that's really what I want to do. I want to know the community as much as I can to be able to serve it in the way that everyone deserve. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for the opportunity and I can't wait to get to know all of you. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you. Congratulations and welcome to the Austining community, Miss Khalil Haristen. And I think that means we're ready for item two on our agenda for the evening. So, I'd like to um invite up our elementary administrative staff for item 2.1 on the equity item, our longrange plan update

063from our elementary schools. So this evening as we welcome our um elementary administrative teams basically to provide a brief update on their long range plan work um so far this year as we head towards the end of the school year. Just a a brief overview and again it's something that we as a superintendent board can talk about as we plan our meetings for next year. So um tonight's update includes um information around the four pillars, the strategic long range plan and certain aspects of their work that they committed to at the beginning of the word year and it speaks to their commitment to the work that took place along the four pillars um and and or progress along those lines. The principles will review their share of work and evidence, their points, quant and qual

064and they uh the work they use to basically see the work that they committed to beginning of this year and how it aligns with the long range plan and its four pillars. Um earlier when I met with the board president to talk about our in our regular agenda review meetings um um Christine asked if we could include you know a brief slide just do a a temp a temperature test on where we are with with ARC. So, she does have we did include and Maria will speak to that what um just a temperature te test like a a signal check if you will about a 30,000 ft view on that. Right now um we have we will be starting at the retreat this summer and the board is invited to uh one of those afternoons.

065Uh we will be spending our entire time looking at comprehensive looks at data including where we were three years ago, where we are now. We will have finished our um all our assessments. We'd have finished the NWA and the last round of ARC information. So tonight isn't that level of review. We we will include it in the um testing report obviously, but it becomes the work. We don't have all the data at this moment and we will be working on that in the summer at our retreats, but they do have snapshots along those lines. Okay. So, so again, just as uh Maria just quickly, those slides of the fabulous long range plan that the board of education adopted before I arrived here becomes the centerpiece of our work right there. It it basically echoes our

066core, our foundation. Um and it is the lens through which we look through our goals and our commitments for each of the work. And just to reiterate, these are the four pillars that you will see this evening our leaders uh speak to. Um so at the beginning of the year or a couple of months ago uh data was requested or asked how did um our first cohort of students how are they doing so far through their trajectory in using ARC and using the ERA and anal. So the next slide what you'll see is an o an overview of the cohort that started in 2223. The first column is what grade they started in. And as you know we implemented the program uh across all grades at the same time. So in 22 23 you see

067our kindergarten um and you'll see the data progress across where they are today. So our first column was where they started when we first implemented in kindergarten first, second and third. Our second column is the pro same cohort and their progression in ERA, their growth in ERA for the next year. And then where they currently stand is the 2425 school year. We are this data is a was I believe taken May 3rd. Um so we have not completed our conferencing and the data is not uh as to the end of the year yet. So this is where we are as a snapshot uh currently. Um the impact that you see in the last column is that our children have who started in kindergarten in 22 23 who are currently sitting in our second grade class

068have made uh quite a bit of increase as far as their reading based on their ERA which is a progress monitoring tool that we use on an ongoing basis. And as you can see the trajectory from first to third, second through fourth and our current fifth graders um as far as the ERA longitudinal analysis. The next slide is our ENIL longitudinal analysis and the same thing. These are our children who are currently sitting in our dual language programs who are being uh taught in both their languages. Um and this is a reflection of their progression uh using the ENIL. And again, this like um our superintendent just shared, this is just a quick overview um to see the longitudinal study of the impact from when of this particular core of each particular cohort um from

069when we started the implementation and across at the at this moment in time. During our July uh retreat, we will go into a more comprehensive uh analysis and sharing of data across most of the of the tools that we have that we use to gather data regarding our children uh growth. So right now, as Maria mentioned, and this was just to address a question that I was asked um to include in this, we still have another round of ERA and anal testing to do. So 2425 is not complete yet. This was just a snapshot from a balcony to kind of say you know what does it look like? Are we heading in the right direction? And this is one way of looking at it. The board knows that that we have multiple ways of doing

070this. This is basically a progress monitoring tool. We when we look at the NWA MAP test that's a growth assessment and you can take a look at the state assessments too and realize look at that through the lens of an achievement goal and you can also use your NWA testing in terms of an achievement aspect as well and then align all of the above and see where there will be gaps and dips along the way. It is work that they're all very familiar with and very aware of but um and that is something we are be happy to provide a comprehensive review to the board and to the community um once the year is completed. And what you'll hear this evening is that what Mary was just uh speaking to is our work in really

071enriching ourselves in data literacy. And you'll hear a lot this evening about professional learning communities which is the space within which we review the data on an ongoing basis. Thank you. I have one just very brief clarifying question because I want to make sure while the slide is up I ask it. Um the percentages that we see does that represent the percentage of students in the proficient range? Yes. Good. Thank you. Yeah. And again, difficult like there are many data reports we could give, but again, it's just just a snapshot to show where where we are, a temperature check, if you will. Okay. Okay. Okay. Park. Hi everyone. Good evening. Um, it is with great pleasure and pride that I share with you some of the beautiful work that has taken place and is taking

072place at Park School this school year. Teaching and learning at Park School is a beautiful thing. This year, we centered our instructional work on in both preK and kindergarten in all domains. Really continuing to hone our delivery of instruction in reading, writing, and mathematics. So, our PLC's, as Maria mentioned, included learning more about oral language development and also about trans languaging. And as you can see in the photos here behind me, you see students who are looking at their butterflies that just came out of their crysalis. So, a lot of the work that we're doing in our early grades is really building background knowledge and really developing core content even before students go off and write. So, to the left of that picture is an example of a kindergartner Kevin who in Spanish is writing

073about what he learned about bees. Our work is we're able to do this kind of level of work with our students and our teachers because we've been given the opportunity to really bring in consultants who are experts in both literacy and math. And through our work with these consultancies, we've been able to really dive deep into our instruction in our younger grades. One of the biggest components that has really supported this level of work and integration is the work that we do alongside our literacy leaders and our math leaders because of their collaboration with our ELLL staff and our AIS team. The work is infused in all classrooms within our tier one instruction. One of the things that we were also able to do this year at Park School is work with a math consultant

074who came in to um demonstrate best practices around the areas of counting, counting strategies and she was at Park School yesterday, just yesterday, talking about number of the day. So again, getting back to those authentic learning experiences, you can see our prek students are counting watermelon seeds. So, it's a it's an authentic approach to learning counting, but also by the time they get to kindergarten, you can see uh the student in the other picture doing what we call uh counting collections. So, she's given a bag of different items to count and she's demonstrating her learning through writing the number, organizing her math, and uh representing the amount, the quantity in in multiple ways. Okay. So, these PLC's had have led to very targeted outcomes in our school. One of the things that we've been able

075to do is create in our day instructional routines and practices as a school building. So, I'll give you an example. To the right, there's a picture taken from one of our decodables anthologies that we're using in kindergarten. There was a framework and a protocol that we used with our extended day group and our students and teachers practiced and piloted using the decodables. It was so profound the impact that the decodables had on students reading during extended day and you can see one of our teaching assistants to the left working in small groups really targeting her teaching to those particular students needs. We found that the decodable work that the teachers were doing in extended day couldn't just live in extended day. So during one of our PLC's, we had our teacher leaders share and turnkey

076the protocol and the structure for using decodables and now it is part of our daily instructional practices in kindergarten. So that's an example. The same thing with math. Currently um we are implementing a math problem of the week that is communitywide. So in our school we have a practice where teachers receive a math problem in both grades and then students all of them problem solve approach the problem in their own way and demonstrate a flexibility of strategies in problem solving. One of the other areas that we also focused on this year is the integration of more fiction writing in in our writing. Because many of our ARC units are really content non-fictionbased, we felt there was a need for us to infuse more fiction writing. And you can see at the in the picture below,

077one of our literacy leaders really incorporating small groupoup conference during writing to support her students writing infection. So as we talk about the next year, next year what are some of the areas that we want to focus or continue to grow in? We feel that oral language development in both prek and kindergarten continues to be a really big area of need. So that is something we would like to focus on next year. We'd like to continue to grow our math schoolwide approach to learning problems and we're incorporating a math morning or a Monday math morning and we started recently to share how students are problem solving these math problems. So we're videotaping students in action and actually sharing with our with our staff the different approaches that students are taking. So it doesn't just support

078the teacher's instruction, but it's also celebrating students efficacy and students effort around math. And one last thing that we want to do is also continue to work and hone our skills within the science of reading. With regards to data informed instruction, some of the things that we want to do is continue to look at our school-based data, our ARC data to really determine what next steps need to be taken. So, the way that we use the data, as Mary mentioned, it's a formative assessment, meaning that it's um ongoing and fluid, and we're regularly looking at that data to make decisions about the instruction, but also for me as the building leader to make decisions about the professional learning for teachers. We found so much success with our decodables that we would like to continue to

079build in those decodables in Spanish. So, we are looking to purchase new books to um enhance our independent reading in ARC. We've been very fortunate to have teacher leaders in kindergarten and one math teacher leader in preK. So, next year, our hope is to continue to grow our leadership within our staff and to have two preK teacher leaders. And we'll continue to review, of course, our math benchmark data to determine next steps for professional development. And because we are working so hard on making sure that kids are writing both fiction and non-fiction, one of the things that we would like to do next year is really begin to create exemplar writing or looking at what pieces of writing is an exemplar writing for kindergarten and what is an exemplar piece for prek. Okay. So I'm

080going to transition to talk a little bit about equity at Park School. So many of you might know that uh two years ago we started to think about how to really help develop students voice in kindergarten and how to really hear from from students and how do we uh describe and create experiences for our youngest students to see themselves as leaders. So we created the kinder leaders and the kinder leaders in essence is one student representative from each class in kindergarten and the work that they do is really led by our equity uh teaching staff and they support and really work with them on really creating experiences where they have to demonstrate what it means to be a kind student, friend and collaborator. And so the students really at this point in the year really

081understand the attributes of being a kinder leader. So I'm proud to share that Park School has been designated as a no place for hate school that came from the work that our kinder leaders did this year. And to celebrate that nomination or that recognition, um our students along with their parents and our equity uh leaders, teachers went to NYU for the No Place for Hate recognition ceremony. And you heard Mary talk a little bit about um our passing of the baton, which is one of the biggest highlights that our kinder leaders experience this year. And in essence, it was 30 kindergarteners who went to Austining High School where 30 seniors were waiting for them. Our kinder leaders wrote about what it means to be a kinder leader. So they describe themselves and put in writing

082and I had a picture in the previous slide of a student who actually wrote what she wanted to be when she grows up. And the seniors were inspired by that that they created a little version of that for the students, the kindergarteners. But the passing of the baton moment was actually when the seniors rolled up a t-shirt, passed it to the kindergartenner, and then I asked them to open it up and put it on. And it had their graduation year 2037. And I share this because none of this can happen without the collaboration and the devotion and dedication of our staff, but also our families. And I'm happy to see that Joe Malikica is here, our PTA president sitting here. Without the support of our families, none of this is possible. They have to trust

083in our schools. They have to understand the work that we're doing so that they too can go home and help celebrate that work with their students. And that's exactly what our park families do. Um, so behind me are two pictures. One of them is a parent cafe led by our social worker and our family engagement specialist. And the sweetheart dance that was so popular. I mean we had a DJ, we had parents dancing, we had a parent who was actually organizing the choreography. It was such a huge success. Our PTA does help collaborate not just enrichment and fun activities but also partake in educational events with us as well. So speaking of equity, our next steps for next year is to grow our kinder leader group to think more deeply about what the work will

084be like for them. We're going to also debrief on the passing of the baton experience because it became more than what we ever imagined it would be. So how do we grow and learn from that experience and extend it within OS? Yes, like Mary said, we will be reviewing data. One of the points of data that we'll be looking at is our panorama data and staff panorama data as well to determine next steps for next year. And as always, continue to do the work of aligning our literacy, our math and content work with equity with family and community partnerships. One of the things that we want to do better is to continue to survey parents to provide more family engagement opportunities that meet their needs and interest. We're going to be looking again, as I

085mentioned, our panorama data within our school community so that we can create next steps. And something that I haven't told Lucia yet is we would like to partner with Brookside to create a transition experience for our kindergarteners going up to Brookside. Love that. We're ready. Thank you. Thank you, Emily. We're excited. Uh I think I Yeah, we were at um Park for an ARC uh leadership session about three weeks ago, I think it was, and we were just so impressed with the level of writing at Park. Um, and so we are so excited to be receiving the kindergarteners. Um, and can't wait to continue that learning and great teaching that's happening at Park. So, thank you. Thank you. We have been busy bees at Brookside this past year, but don't worry, we will be slowly

086morphing into lions. We have not made a decision about Cubs. We have our fingers crossed about that. Hint hint. Uh when we presented to you back in the fall, we shared that much of our work this year would be made possible because of collective teacher efficacy. The belief that a group of individuals can overcome challenges together through unified efforts and positively impact student outcomes. And I'm proud to say that I believe this was the lever that was most used by us at Brookside and at our other elementary schools to have a successful year for our kids and staff. And while our work is never really done, the end of the year provides us a perfect opportunity to stop and celebrate what we have accomplished and to reflect and make adjustments already in preparation for the

087next school year. As you know, we believe in the importance of coherence across the four elementary schools. And this year, one of our undertakings was to how do we support how do we support uh the standard of focus chosen at Claremont based on student performance at grade grades one and two. So with the facilitation of our ELA lead teachers, our classroom teachers engaged in an inquirybased approach to identify the root cause of why students are underperforming on this particular standard of focus. This was really exciting work that our teachers engaged in during their Monday PLC time, which is Monday afternoon usually. Once determining all of the possible reasons why, they identified one area in their control and came up with possible solutions also in their control to help improve student outcomes in this particular area.

088The end result of this inquiry process was a daily 15minute instructional systematic approach to teaching vocabularies that classes engaged in this five-day approach. And so what you're seeing now, these slides show actually the the root cause analysis work that teachers engaged in. They first unpack the standard. They look to see, okay, what is it that kids need to be able to do in order to meet that standard? what are all the possible reasons that kids aren't performing in that prof in that um in that standard of focus and then teachers determined what are possible areas um to cluster these reasons uh what are the possible areas that are that are making this negative impact on student performance and how could we possibly come up with a solution. So, our teachers um decided that one thing

089that could be positively one thing that could be affecting student performance on that uh standard of focus was vocabulary and the lack of children's vocabulary and how that has a negative correlation to students being able to access a text and understand main idea and comprehension. So, we set out to infuse this vocabulary protocol, something very simple and manageable. That's a 15 minute daily approach to teaching vocabulary. And this 5-day approach to teaching pre-selected vocabulary words was couched within a readaloud. Some of the titles that you probably um are familiar with and these are very common picture books. So, our teachers would pre-select the tier 2 vocabulary words. Some of those words were uh words like murmured, obstacle, extraordinary, uh clutch, triumphant, just to name a few. And our kids went home sharing these words because

090they had named them that week. Uh they had learned them that week. The result was a majority of the students who not only improved in their ability to recognize def uh define and properly use the word in correct context but also a renewed enjoyment for reading and having read alouds with enjoyment at the end of the day. Um they they demonstrated a high level of enthusiasm to use the vocabulary words in daily conversations and writing pieces. We saw kids integrating those writing words intentionally into their writing, transferring that knowledge. Uh we received emails from parents saying you guys are doing a great job with teaching the vocabulary. Uh my child is coming home and using the word looming. My child is coming home and using the word drifting. Um so it took off and and

091had uh great momentum and this really again was um something that the teachers accomplished together. Um, also in thinking about Claremont and our students transitioning to Claremont, we wanted to see how we could continue to support our kids in math and making sure that they are as prepared as possible uh to confront the third grade math standards and to be able to tackle them. So, in mathematics, um, we continue to use the three reads Thursday routine to support problem comprehension and visual modeling was a pillar of our work. Um our learning in this area was shared with Claremont teachers who came to visit Brookside and they adapted um the model in their classrooms as well. Participation of both schools during the professional learning community time resulted in an increase in teacher collaboration and discourse around

092this topic uh while ensuring cohesion between the two schools. Additionally, this year our teachers participated in professional development on how to select uh students to present their work during the problem solving protocol. So, they're not only solving the problem, but they're talking about how they're solving um and they're sharing their approaches. And the focus isn't really did they get the answer right, but do students demonstrate fluency in in applying strategies in how to solve a problem and children learning from one another based on the strategies that their peers used. Uh teachers also came together in math again in teacher teams during professional learning community time to unpack standards and le lesson objectives. and as important to align strategies across classrooms and instruction. So, similar to ELA, much of this work was facilitated by our math

093lead teachers who under the guidance of Dr. Wlesz, our assistant principal, modeled instruction, shared resources, and promoted professional uh reflection. So some of our goals for the following school year in terms of teaching and learning is to continue to analyze student work to inform small group instruction. Uh we want to also continue to implement uh structured teaching models like the vocabulary approach as well as the three reads problem solving protocol. Both protocols have shown us results and we see the majority of our students are performing positively and we show a difference in our results based on these strategies from pre and post assessments and benchmark assessments. So we want to continue to implement this while adjusting and tweaking along the way. We are constantly sorry. Thank you. We're constantly working to increase um our staff's

094data literacy skills, their level of comfort with data analysis, and to use it to adjust instruction in the hopes of impacting those student outcomes that we're talking about. So this year we set out to do this by weaving into our professional learning time um opportunities for teachers to norming of student work uh using two and three-point rubrics in math. So this provided teachers an additional opportunity and time to discuss uh student work, discuss student misconceptions, and identify next steps for instruction. The analysis then would inform small um group lesson planning. As a matter of fact, this week's uh professional learning meetings, our team meetings tomorrow and Friday, teachers are going to be engaged in looking at NWA MAP data and looking specifically at how students performed in uh certain strands not only just um of

095achievement but in growth and then based on how they performed in those strands informing the small group instruction that can take place in the remaining time of the school year. In literacy, our teachers had the opportunity to um also analyze student writing along with uh the art consultant as well as to analyze the progression of student uh reading data. And this also helps to inform conferencing schedules. It helps to inform inform small group instruction and also whole group lessons. So our intentions across teaching and learning and data is to continue to leverage our teacher teams and to provide more opportunities for teachers to engage in student work analysis. Because when teachers can come together as a team and look across classrooms and see how students are performing in writing or how they are performing in

096math, it allows for teachers to engage in discourse that then informs their instruction in in the classroom on a day-to-day basis. I'm so excited to see the equity work that has happened at Brookside this year. Um, also much in part due to our wonderful equity teacher facilitators. Um, on the one hand, you have the teachers who did work on how to embed meaningful heritage celebrations into instruction through readalouds. Uh they also took the work that we were doing in math the three reads problems um and they looked at those word problems and they said how can we make these problems more culturally relevant. Um so you'll see just a word problem in which the students then the the topic or the context of the problem became Ramadan and then teachers providing layered text for students

097so that it was math time and they were engaged in solving the math problem but students at the same time were seeing either themselves reflected in the problem or they had an opportunity to learn about a different heritage or culture uh cultural context um just again through math. So this was a way of bringing our work around cultural relevance uh to math and tying the two initiatives together. The work that we're doing in equity and the work that we're doing in math. Our student equity leaders engaged in an inquiry approach themselves. Um they were the most adorable 50 kids who walked the building um to determine and identify what are some inequities that exist at Brookside. And after walking the building, investigating, interviewing, going into classrooms, they determined that the facilities is an issue at

098Brookside. And they're 100% correct. U specifically, they said that some of the that their study yielded that some of the spaces for instruction at Brookside um are not the most comfortable spaces for children to learn in. And they're referencing the smaller rooms in the basement area that are used for reading AIS. They're referencing the tables at the end of hallways that are used again for reading AIS. Uh they've referenced that some teachers have to share spaces, which means that children have to share spaces. And while the children found that students were saying positive things about Brookside, they also found that children would love to have more comfortable spaces. So in understanding this work, they also set out or as part as part of understanding it, they also set out to contribute some possible solutions and

099they met with the head custodian and myself and they suggested some really plausible ideas. They said, "Why can't a teacher with a large room share their space? Or if they're not using the room, why can't we have children go into that room with their provider?" They said that they we should do a fundraiser and get more money to build additional classrooms. Uh they came up with with, you know, really good ideas for first and second grader and some of them are actually plausible. We spoke about outdoor learning space and how could we enhance some of those spaces to provide um additional classroom environments for our kids. So within equity, we want to continue to um have our give our teachers opportunities to plan for those layer texts um inclusive of the three reads work and

100making sure that our word problems are culturally relevant and that children can identify themselves in those problems uh which continues to bring excitement to them and excitement to solving a math problem. Uh, we also want to use our panorama survey as Emily mentioned with Park School to determine next steps for our next school year and cultural environment. Um, and then bring our student equity leaders ideas to life because some of the things that they did suggest are definitely doable. So, how can we make it happen for them and build that confidence uh in their leadership? Um, our last uh pillar is the family and community partnerships. Uh we are proud to continue to celebrate our partnership with the afterchool program the United Way uh afterchool program which provides opportunity for enrichment and additional academic instruction

101as well to students. Uh this past year our children engaged in ballet in after school. They engaged in African drumming and displayed um the all their talent at a showcase actually for parents uh in May or at the very end of April. Um and our teachers also got to see the children perform at a faculty meeting. So we were able to share the talent um that exists within our building through the afterschool program. We also took the afterschool program to a whole different level this year by piloting a small groupoup reading instruction model with a targeted group of students and our educational liaison who's also a Brookside teacher during the day trained the counselors in the afterchool program on the reading instruction who then implemented the small groupoup guided reading or small groupoup reading instruction

102or shared reading experience with the students. Um these students therefore received additional reading instruction with the majority of the first graders who did receive it showing positive gains of meeting or exceeding the reading level expectation. Now of course we know that this was also um is also attributed to the work that the classroom teacher does during the school day. But at the end of the day these children were able to receive reinforcement of reading skills through that afterchool program. And it's another way to show how we can use our partners to offer wraparound services to our kids while bridging the day and after school learning times. We had the happiest of times with this year's PTA and I'm also very happy to see Joe sitting in the audience. Uh tremendous support to both Park and

103Brookside this year and we're very grateful for that. Uh but because of the PTA, we've been able to um like I mentioned earlier this evening uh revitalize our garden area. we've been able to provide families with resources. Um we've also leveraged our family engagement specialist in our building uh so that she is meeting with families of newcomers or families of of new registrants in our schools supporting families in need. We were able to have a dual capacity parent workshop in mathematics back in March and we have another one tomorrow night. Um, our goal next year, Joe, we put you in this slide because I absolutely love this picture of all of that's Joe behind 300 gifts uh that they collected for Brookside students. Um, you can barely see him, but he's there. And then, uh,

104finally, we had our introduction of a therapy dog, Summer, who was a big hit at Brookside, not only for kids, but for the adults in the building as well. So um it's just has brought so much joy to our school building and has become part of our PBIS incentive as well. Uh so next school year we want to continue to lift these initiatives that are already in place uh building on them. Um and so for example our dual capacity parent workshops. Is there opportunity to not only have a parent workshop in mathematics but could we also introduce a parent workshop in science? Can we also introduce a parent workshop in ELA or make it a night where parents go from work from session to session across the different discipline uh areas. We want to continue

105to build our um the capacity in our family engagement specialist who's relatively new to the position uh but doing very well and supporting us also with attendance initiatives. And then we also want to establish additional partnerships just as we have with the United Way and we're hopeful that we'll be able to do that this coming school year. Thank you. Thank you. I'm so excited to share with you what Claremont has been working on this year. And I think you'll notice that there's definitely a thread that flows through from Park School through Brookside and into Claremont. We're going to share some things that are are similar. So, I combined uh teaching and learning with data literacy because to me they're intertwined. You can't have one without the other. And so, you're going to see my my

106slides combined here. We started the year as we start every year and that is delving deeply into data with our teachers. Multiple sources of data. We look at student work. We looked at the New York State data. We looked at NWEA, ERA and anneal and we really looked at it through the standards. This year we went through it with a fine tooth comb. We looked at individual questions for certain standards. Um we looked at the percentage of students that answered questions correctly. We also looked at the types of questions student answered students answered incorrectly to try to understand where students might need some growth and where our strengths are. We used um the district was really wonderful in providing some professional development for administrators this year and one of the things they um they provided

107for us was some training in something called the PLC plus protocol and I really enjoyed using this protocol. In fact, I'm hoping that we continue our learning through this because it was a real deliberate way of working with your staff on how to dissect um data so you can really pick a focus for the year. And so we worked um in small groups. This is not a an immediate process. This takes time. Uh we started in September and we worked through October, November almost into December. We worked with Kathy Connelly who came in um and provided us with some depth into our data. Um we looked at data over time. How did students score on certain standards over the last five years? And then teachers I asked teachers choose a standard to focus on. Sometimes

108we pick goals that are very lofty and it's hard to find a way to tackle that focus or that goal. this year teachers um it was almost unanimous on the areas that they felt they needed to work on. There's a standard that's called um and you could see the picture behind me before I move on to the standard of teachers working together in our cafeteria. Um I'm trying to to work through the standards and see what it is that we need to to pick as a focus this year. And this is what we decided to to work on. Now, we actually ended up picking two standards because they go hand in hand. And so, the standard is RL, meaning reading for literature and reading for information. They're almost identical. And they state uh and this

109is what Lucia just talked about for Brookside is how can we determine a theme, a main idea or a central idea? What are the key details you can find in your text to support that? And how do you summarize? Now, what you may not know is that children in third grade start learning how to summarize. Prior to that, they retell a story. And a retell is very different than a summary. A retell, you really can tell it in chronological order, first, next, then, last. But a summary is very different. And this connected directly with our writing. And this happens in every unit of instruction, whether you're reading fiction or non-fiction. In fiction, you might talk about a theme, whereas in non-fiction, you're talking about the central idea of a non-fiction text. And so, we asked

110teachers, how do you teach this now? And it was surprising. I'm going to admit as a principal, I was surprised. There were many different ways this was being taught in the classroom. Um, and it was hard for teachers to think of letting go of a practice that they've been using for an extended period of time. So we had I asked teachers to choose one protocol we could try as a building and the teacher leaders came back to me. They were instrumental and I want to thank the board so greatly for allowing us to have teacher leaders to guide our work in literacy and math. The teacher leaders came back to me and said you know Roosevelt is using a particular protocol for this standard. It's called the RAD protocol. And RAD means um restate the

111question, answer it, but then you have to find key details. Oftentimes children will give you any detail, but which detail really connects with what your answer was? That's challenging. And so we started this probably about January or February, so not too long ago. And this was unanimously across the building. We use this in classrooms um literacy classrooms in our teameing model. Our math and science and social studies teachers used this because again that connected with um uh non-fiction text AIS teachers used it. In fact, the picture that you're seeing is actually in an AIS classroom and um our teacher leaders supported the faculty in understanding how to teach this protocol. Moving on, what we did see is we saw students writing started starting to improve. Where I don't have concrete data on this is we

112chose a particular standard based off a New York State exam. We gave a preassessment, we gave post assessments. We have seen evidence through student writing of this improvement, but it's we've only been using it for a short time. We will continue this into next year. We will monitor using our NWA and our state assessment data. And what I know we will have to do is we will have to refine this protocol based on the student outcomes that we see and um feedback from teachers. Already the feedback I'm hearing is that um after they restate, answer and give details, students have to kind of sum it off with a conclusion statement. This protocol doesn't give us that. So we'll have to figure out how to add that in. But it's a wonderful start. Now in mathematics,

113it was a little more complicated. We couldn't choose just one math standard because math is taught very different than literacy. In math, the way that we teach our math and focus units is that we might teach place value. And although place value will come up cycllically through other forms of instruction, uh a particular standard may not come up directly. Again, if I teach addition, subtraction, I'll then leave it to then work on multiplication, division, and then I leave it for fractions for an extended period of time. So, we weren't comfortable just choosing one uh particular standard. But we did recognize that we wanted students to be reading about math. A lot of our math is reading and through problem solving. I think early in the fall, I told you we had looked at Brookside's data

114coming in. we saw some promise and when I talked to um Lucia and Andrea about uh what they were doing they shared with me that they had started something called the three reads protocol and so through the leadership of um Mr. Charvet through the leadership of Mr. Charveet uh we took our math uh leaders to Brookside to spend a day with uh Dr. and they visited classrooms and we got to see how the three protocol runs at Brookside School. We then came back to Claremont and I offered time for teachers to work on how does this evolve now for third and fourth graders. Now we're intensifying with deeper word problems, doublestep problems, triplestep problems, numbers to the millions. What will we do to support students through that? And this is the protocol that we ended

115up coming up with. But again, we um had a late start about February, March because it took us some time to develop this and to write the problems. Of course, we were using problems very similar to those chunky two and three-step word problems that are part of the New York State exam. Um and our students are really having success success with this. We've now written this for almost every unit and we want to continue next year uh to develop this protocol. We want to as we did for literacy, we want to monitor um through performance on the NWA. This connects very closely with number and algebraic thinking that particular domain of mathematics. So that's the data we've been monitoring and tracking. And again, we're going to um look at our student outcomes and our teacher

116feedback to see how we can continue to grow this process. Equity Equity, as you know, is the the core of what we need to do for everything we do, including instruction. This is a picture of our equity team. We've run our student equity leaders for a very very long time now. Um, our focus this year or their focus that they chose uh is uh recycling and integration. Um, and so they've been writing me letters about why do we not have recycling bins in our school and and we need to start having them. So, uh, they have contacted Jared Mance and I'm sure that we will be having recycling bins very soon in our school setting. But a a chunk of our work this year, uh, was equity through instruction. And we decided to delve into

117Goldie Muhammad's work. We've we've done this before. We've talked to you about this before. And she has some domains that we wanted to think about through the lessons we already teach. So for example, we would meet together for our PLC's, our professional learning communities, and we would take the lesson we were going to teach next in ARC, for example. So if I was going to be reading a story, I might ask, who is the story about? That's the identity. What skill do I want students to learn through this story? Is it going to be comprehension or inferencing? Uh what do I know and think? That's what you want students to say. What do you what inquiry do you want to happen? That's the intellect piece of it. And so it might be everyone has a

118story or a differences should be embraced. The hard part for teachers was criticality. That's very difficult. And really what that means is students questioning is this fair? Where does fairness or inclusion come into what I'm doing right here? And then the final thing is joy. So how can I form this lesson to bring joy to my students? And we'll continue this work. This is deep work. It's hard work. We could spend an entire hour and a half meeting on just one lesson. Uh so we we'll have to continue to delve into that. Um there's so many ways that we celebrated our students this year. We have um multiple partnerships that support the equity that we do. So I'll talk about it here, but it really comes into family partnerships as well. Uh we have uh

119a partnership with Jacob Burns that allows our students to go learn about um film and we have this year a new partnership with Historic Hudson Valley which was really exciting. All of our fourth grade students had a chance to go to Philipsburg Manor. We learned about the Pinksters and um slavery. It tied into our our unit on colonial times. We visited um Fort Montgomery this year. We are continuing to partner with ENU Bills um for our amazing garden that I think you are aware uh feeds the food pantry in Austining. All of the produce goes towards our community. Manhattanville um afforded us wonderful field trips to visit a college and we continue to run the intergenerational reading after school program with the family engagement center of Yoners. And that's a one-to-one reading program and we

120found some success with that over the years. and that all supports the work that we're doing through equity. We'll continue um we'll continue in our curriculum planning next year. We really want to understand Goldie Muhammad's work better and so we'll do that through instruction um and lesson design. And then finally, I've talked about the community partnerships already, but I just wanted to share that this year we had such an exciting um year with um some of the family p uh PDs that we did. Uh we had a recent one. Jake Joe came to it for um navigating technology and Yeah. And um we ran an amazing community read this year. I'm glad we were able to bring it back. Uh we chose the book The Wild Robot because kids were just going crazy after the

121movie came out. Everyone wanted to read the book and so we we decided we would purchase the book for the whole school if they chose to read it with us. We had teachers volunteer to read every single chapter, record it in English and Spanish. It was offered to children at home so they could if they didn't have a part a parent to read with, they can read along with us. It was really exciting. Children were excited to see who was going to read the next chapter. Sometimes it was Mr. Charveet or me or one of their teachers. We had some district directors support us in this. And then we had our community event. The PTA has been instrumental in all of our partnerships. We cannot do this work without them. And we're so grateful. We're

122so lucky. I have two amazing PTA leaders this year. Um and they are going to continue their work right through field day with us because there's so much that they support us with. We'll um next in next year we're going to expand our offerings based on family interests and um as always we want to increase our opportunity for two-way communication between families. All right. Now we have the unique opportunity to have a fifth grade school in our district and that enables us to really pull together all of the leadership skills and the learning and the lessons that our students have gotten from my colleagues that they've shared and synthesize it into our motto which is Ruse grows leaders and we take that very very seriously even to the point at the orientation last week. I

123already have fourth graders petitioning ideas for clubs and starting to draft proposals for next year because they're so excited to be a part of the decisionmaking at Roosevelt School. Students have voice and students have agency and power. So, here's just a few examples. I want to bring you into the classrooms of Roosevelt School so you can just get a glimpse of a day in the life of a student. So here for example, you'll see in a math classroom dual language students are using the cubes protocol to annotate and better understand deeply a word problem because no matter what math, science, social studies require reading and writing. And that's been our laserlike focus this year. As you see, our goal at Roosevelt was to increase our literacy proficiency to 70% in both English and in Spanish.

124And we have already reached that in Spanish. And we are just a few percentage points behind that in English. And we're continuing to assess our students. But that did not happen overnight. that happened through the hard work of our teachers, our teaching assistants, all of our staff, AIS teachers, ENL teachers, and the students themselves, and making sure that the students themselves could teach everything that they're learning at school to their peers or when they go home. As you can see in this picture here with the math cubes, they were actually teaching me how to do that last week. We also see stream projects where the students are using engineering, creating 3D models, working collaboratively together and through every single opportunity there's reading, writing and discourse happening. You can also see Messiah here working on his

125power goal and he is reading and he cannot stop reading. He's so into his book. He's annotating, he's thinking, he's working on his power goal here. Just last just this week actually, I did a focus group about independent reading and I interviewed students and teachers and I asked them how they are using the independent reading time, how they were able to increase their reading proficiency, what advice they give to students that might not have made as much growth of them as them. And some of the findings were that the students themselves are even linking reading and writing. A student Leighton said to me, "When I'm reading, I'm taking in words that I can use when I'm writing that are higher than the words I know." And she described to us how much she loved reading

126the book False Prince. We also heard from Sam Abrao, who is currently writing her own chapter book. Um, on my Power card, it says to try different genres. And I learned that I like the classics. I like reading books from the olden times. They have more complex language. This is what she said to me this week. Right. The students are attending to what they're reading. They don't want to stop. They are reading in window sills. They're reading on the floor. They're reading on bean bags. They're reading on buses. They're reading every opportunity. They have so much that our reading school store where we give points for the reading steps for students. I had to replenish and replenish and literally take my daughter's stuffies and prizes from home um to make sure that we have store

127items for our students. So, there's just such a focus on literacy and even the teachers themselves are starting their own book clubs, working together, and really remembering that even if I'm a math teacher at Roosevelt, I'm also a literacy teacher. So if we go to September, one of the parts of our action item that I'm so proud of is our professional learning communities. We called them collective wisdom Wednesdays. So together teams of teachers would get together. We would analyze data. We looked closely at elementary um elementary growth analysis, state test release test items similar to what my colleagues have described. We looked at last year's students test scores. We created strengths and opportunities analysis. We shared resources with each other and we were able to really determine who of our students have made progress but

128maybe haven't grown enough or are plateaued or who are our proficient students but they still are not growing enough. So every day when we talk about data, we're not just talking about proficiency levels. We're also looking at the conference activity that our teachers are doing with students. We're looking closely at writing rubrics as well. So, in the beginning of the year, all of our teachers did a crosswalk of the ELA state writing rubrics, the ARC writing rubrics, and we also looked at the NISLT writing rubrics with a lens on multilingual learners. and we use that noticing that our students are struggling in writing across the board. If a student has to write on the math state test, many of our students were leaving items blank. So, we had to zoom in on writing as a

129schoolwide focus and it truly helped improve our data. Listening to the teachers voices, empowering our students in their leadership really truly helped us get a better understanding of our students strengths, their needs, and how to group them. Not just to have students in groups, but to group them strategically even based on their writing strengths and their writing needs. Looking closely at the areas of growth for math and being very very deliberate with our instruction. So the data literacy is just a normal part of day-to-day life at Roosevelt. And next year, I'll share our goal for next year is actually that we are going to have teachers themselves apply everything that they've learned from the data literacy that we've done in Teams. And they will each create their own action research project focusing on a subgroup

130of students. And that helps us build on our teacher strengths and build more collective efficacy so teachers can cross-pollinate share those best strategies similarly to what my colleagues have spoken about but with a true emphasis on elevating learning outcomes for our students. I do believe that our focus on literac data literacy this year was what enabled us to double our literacy proficiency in both English and Spanish this year. But it is still a process and we want to always make sure that our students voices are a part of these discussions. So you'll notice too that we do a lot of student surveys. In fact, we've been collecting student data qualitative and quantitative throughout the year like the focus group that I mentioned today about independent reading. Our students are leaders. They also use the power

131of writing to help make Roosevelt a better place. For example, our student equity leaders started a Google survey and they have collected over 240 responses um in terms of reporting issues at the school that they want to help improve or making sure that they're advocating for each other to put an end to bullying. We're using journaling and we also have photos all throughout the building where students can write captions so that there's every opportunity for writing across our school. I will also share that a highlight of all of this work has been the support of our literacy leaders and our math leaders. And we're so excited that now we're starting to see crosspollination too with Claremont school. So our teachers actually got to go and visit Miss Rehost's classroom and see them doing that classroom

132doing the three reads protocol for math. And we're excited to have more opportunities for collaboration across the schools in the coming year. That is absolutely one of our next steps because in a Princeton plan district, we absolutely have to think about our students not just in that current grade, but what's happening before, what's happening after, and really tying that thread. So, I'll leave it at that, but I would like to actually close with a video that I would like to share with you that really summarizes um just what it means to be an elementary student in a reflection of all of our elementary students trajectories. For example, from Park, we heard about kinder leaders writing letters to their future selves and high school students passing the baton. We heard at Brookside students going home and

133teaching their family about vocabulary that they had learned that day. We heard at Claremont about advocacy, critical thinking, and recycling and how they can make Claremont a better place. So, fast forward and when you get to Roosevelt School, I want you to see this video that Angela here helped put together for us to really show that collective leadership journey from preK to fifth grade. And I'm hopeful because the future of Austining is absolutely filled with so much student empowerment and leadership. So, thank you to all of you. Thank you to the board of ed. Thank you to our superintendent and all of our staff for your support. Roosevelt is like this place that you have many opportunities to learn new stuff and also sure. Thank you. And just while we're pulling that up too, I

134just want to acknowledge I know it's very late and I know that everyone has access to the slides and there will be plenty of opportunity if you have any specific questions about the slides, we'll make sure that we have the opportunity to answer them. Roosevelt is like this place that you haven't been and I just want to add a clarifying point because on all the slides throughout all of your you did have your smart goals as of right this moment you all have met or exceeded and you're just about there in one particular area and that compared to last year is d so it's just a snapshot and it's really important to kind of PLC plus is coming back for our summer retreat this year. But the structured po protocols because you have teaching and

135learning and data literacy. What does it look like? What's a real granular structural approach towards analyzing testing data, the state testing data, implementing it and then taking it to the what do you want to commit to next year based upon what you have learned. So that was the theme behind there. We could g give a a very detailed comprehensive but just as an overview um it's about how we approach our work based upon information we gain from multiple places and bringing in experts. So I want to thank the board for providing the funding and resources to make that happen. Thank you. But Rosal is like this place that you have many opportunities to learn new stuff and also it helps motivates you. It's like you not it helps you not be ashamed of who you

136are. It help you feel more like a leader. It means to me like growing and helping me get be a better person and like expressing myself. Be an example for Thank you. leadership in the context of Roosevelt is pretty endless. Um there are so many opportunities here for students to learn and to have the opportunity to lead which makes for a really exciting experience. We're one grade. We're fifth grade only here and what we can do inside these doors is is really tremendous and we really create a great space so that our students are ready to go on and lead into middle school. Being a leader at Roosevelt makes me feel like happy, like I'm proud of myself. Roosevelt has helped shape my leadership skills by making me be more confident in myself. I find

137that student interest is really important in the engagement piece. Um the children are always willing to help one another and that's another good strategy with the peer support. What inspired me is to help other people and be a benefit to my community. I wanted to be involved in different things. I wanted to help people, you know, do stuff. I wanted to just to be involved in something with a team. So, we have a program called Kids Helping Pause. I would say that's been one of the biggest spaces that I've directly seen leadership influenced because I've had the opportunity to be a part of this program since it began with our best friend Peaches right here which this whole dog who is sitting next to me right now doing tremendous things in this school was all

138here because of student leadership and students asked the question why not and our school considered the question and just let the students unfold the possibilities. And it is a program that has a a very long waiting list. It's a program that's before school. It's a program that gets people to come to school early so that they can lead in support of something bigger than themselves. There's nothing there's really nothing that that's impossible. So just try your hardest to do it. you would rather um rather try something and maybe be able to do it than not try at all and definitely not do it. If you if a student is determined to be a leader in Roosevelt, they're going to go after what they want to make happen. You should always be yourself and express like

139your own feelings. You belong as a leader and nobody can take that away from you. Whether you're a a leader on a sports team or in a group or in an afterchool program or just in your classroom, you belong as a leader. And you don't have to be the loudest voice in the in the place to be that leader. You don't have to be the person who's the best at something to be the leader. You have to be the person who's the best at getting back up when you get knocked down. You have to be the person who believes in yourself when you believe when you have those beliefs inside of you that may doubt you. And I want you to know that you belong as a leader because everybody here belongs as a leader.

140And that's why we grow leaders at Roosevelt School. So I I I know Katie Katie mentioned that she felt it was long, but you heard from four schools and if there were separate reports, they would be 15 minutes each, but in theory um your four wonderful elementary schools um moment to talk about their year, right? Yes. All right. Thank you so much. And you guys, I mean, these administrators have been putting in a day because this is, you know, I saw them at our um retiree reception and then they sat through this whole meeting and honored our uh tenure recipients and here they are after um and our tenure recipients in some cases, right? Um so I thank you for this at this time, right? like this is a big ask at this time of

141year, especially uh June feels like I think just chaos as we as we wind down at the end of the year. Um I'd like to open up the question for questions from the board. Um I'd love to start on the other side of the table, but if we can start over here, nobody's ready over there. Anybody have questions? Um I don't expect you to have the answer to this right now. I know that you're still collecting the data, but I was curious about um the ERA and the anal the dip from the 20 20 the 22 to 23 second to third grades in both of them and just if there's like a reason for that that you can see some kind of trend. Um, and okay, I'll just go in order. Park, uh, congratulations on

142being a no place for hate school. What is involved in that? Like are kids involved? What what do you have to meet to get the designation? So, it's really about the the kinder leaders took the lead on this and uh, as a school, we had to pledge kindness. So we took a day, a world kindness day at Park School and everybody had to pledge um that they understand the attributes of kindness. Every student had to put their fingerprint on the pledge or sign their name. Um and it is a designation that gives us the opportunity to learn and get resources um and allows our equity team leaders to really bring in more experiences with our students. So, we hope to grow it next year. Maybe Brookside. Yeah, it's very cool. It was like student le.

143Yes. Um Brookside, I am happy that you showed that video because one of my questions since we saw summer was where did peaches go? I really loved seeing the culturally relevant instruction. We've talked about that before with how it helps our ENL kids and like I'm 35 and I was still very excited to see myself represented in that and I would love to expand it even more. This may be something you've already thought of, but I was talking to a friend recently who was diagnosed with autism as an adult. And she was just expressing how hard it is to not be allowed to be herself because people don't understand her or the things that she needs to do to feel good and safe. So even something like a child has trouble making eye contact but

144tries to for 10 seconds talks to however many kids how many seconds of eye contact have they made or a child is fed through a G ttube they need this many grams how many more do they need? How many have they already had? That kind of thing. Um, and then for Clara, I really like that you are continuing the three reads protocol. It is so much to go from school to school and I always talk about how I appreciate the continuity and just the kids know what to expect. They have already learned this. They can grow on it and yeah, I just really appreciate it. That's it. So, not really very many questions. Melissa, did you want to go next or I can come back the other way? Sure. Um I guess I'll go in

145order to I did have I know we'll dive deeper have opportunity to dive deeper into you know the data and also just kind of cross referencing it um to these great initiatives and seeing how um the areas that are improving um either directly or indirectly because of the work that you all are doing. So thank you uh for the presentations. Um, starting with um, Park School, um, the kinder leaders, other than them being so cute, I um, I had a chance, I think some of them were at the the um, Saturday explore and learn the equity symposium and they were just showing their confidence um, their just comfortability uh, and just this pride in being students of and learners of Austining. And so it was really good to see that up close and personal and

146just across the board. I think you all know this, but just the having all of these opportunities at every grade level to be a leader and what that does and the self-esteem and how that builds your confidence and capacity to learn, right? Um it's just uh I think it's underrated, but I really appreciate the efforts that are being put forth. I mean, um, you know, even at the youngest level, um, for Brookside, I really like, um, you know, just like the intricate detail, especially around the literacy, right? Even addressing things like, you know, the vocabulary gap or what was once termed like the 30 million word gap or whatever, right? And just looking at how u influential that is to learning, right? And especially around reading, right? when we see just it seems like you

147all are being really creative of how can you can identify other areas to help um our youngest uh readers kind of just grow and develop inside of the you know these curriculum initiatives that we've adopted. So I really commend you all for that creativity um with Claremont. You know, I think again just the intricate detail that you're giving to to everything um in the school and the way that you also are um still using Goldie Muhammad's, you know, uh principles in the learning process, uh cultivating um genius, right? I really like to see that still be um you know just an intricate detail in the work you're doing there and um for Roosevelt you know all these opportunities again not just for leadership but just enhancing even the afterchool programs and how robust those are.

148Um, and also I think I got to see some of the um, students. I was there at an event OPAC had one night and there was stuff going on throughout the whole school, right? And it it loo hours, but it looked like a regular school day. Everyone was just hustling and bustling and so happy. Families were there and it just showed how, you know, what a a comfortable learning environment you cultivated there. Um, and how kids are really, you know, really want to be at school even when they don't have to be at school. Um so it was really um comforting to see that. So I just commend all the work you all are doing to create um safe and conducive learning spaces for our youngest learners. So thank you. I'll keep um headed around

149in a clockwise way. Katherine, do you have any comments? Um yeah, I just this is probably something that um is up for sort of brainstorming um when we all get together in the summer, but um I was recently talking with a student in the schools that I may or may not be related to um about this particular student's performance on NWA and why it went from 90th percentile down to 50th percentile and then recently back up to 90th percentile And the the teacher was very proud of the student for making 40% improvement. And I pointed out that it really wasn't a 40% improvement. Like what happened in the winter? And the student basically said, "Well, we're told that it doesn't count." So got all this stuff going on and that is reflected in that data

150point. And it sort of got me thinking how what systems do we have in place to sort of ensure that there is fidelity in some of these exams. I would imagine it's probably easier to have more fidelity third grade and below. Um once the students sort of start picking up on the fact that these aren't factored into their, you know, grade that they're they're the motivation is not necessarily where it needs to be for every single one of them. And I'm just curious how to sort of combat that because if we want to have a datadriven approach, you know, even things like the panorama survey, we need to I don't know. I don't know how you would possibly do it. Um to make sure that that that's there. I don't know if it's a matter

151of do we have a statistitian looking at it and saying some of these are real big outliers and so we throw them out some of them are like a consistent trajectory so that implies that they're solid and I'm just throwing this out there into the universe because it got me thinking all right oh yeah you can absolutely I've been thinking a lot in the last few weeks about the NWA as well and just had a family conversation um with a parent this morning that you know also had some concerns about it. Um in in one way we know it's not the same as the state tests where you know we we feel it so much but it's also it matters. It's important and it's a kid racing against themselves and the NWA can help give

152us so many indications of a child's level whether they're above grade level, below grade level, on grade level and break down the specific areas that they are excelling in or might need more support in. And there's so much great reporting in this tool. One thing that we are trying right now at Roosevelt is we are actually showing our each student before they took it this time their graph. so they could see where they are in comparison to themsel and we want to see if that actually helps increase how they approach it and if they do better. So I will definitely share with you how that goes. I'm very curious about that. But that is also something I'm reflecting deeply on as a principal of how to better communicate the role of the NWA with families

153and with students and with teachers to make sure that we're really using it to its full functionality that is extremely helpful as a tool. I just want to add to that as well. I think that's a great point, uh, Miss Crossling, and I wonder if now that we're moving in the direction of being more intentional with that map data and having our teachers engage with it more and interact with it, like the work that we're going to do tomorrow and Friday, I think that might help as well. It might contribute, right? When teachers um see themselves actually using that data and how it's informing their lesson planning perhaps when administering the test, the messaging might come from themselves saying this is very important. Boys and girls, this is this it may not decide your promotion

154to the next grade level. Uh but it definitely tells us um how we can best support you in this classroom setting. Well, I'll just let you know I did my part. I did explain that this is data that guides the board and then we decide what to fund, where to move things around and that we take it seriously. So the expectation is they should as well. But I think what's important though in that example that you gave is it's not the only data set that we use, right? We use multiple sources because that can happen. A child could have an off day. Um, we also don't get to see the types of questions that come up on NWA differently than if we give a classroom test or on the um, ERA and Neil. We we

155know exactly what's being asked on the state test. We know exactly what's being asked. So, it's a little easier to manipulate that data and understand NWA. It's it's really, as Katie said, a child really against themselves. Um, and so there could be a number of factors why that score dipped. Generally, winter does dip for most children and I'm not really sure why that happens. Um, but that seems to be a trend that we've seen historically and then, you know, they they kind of come back up after. But I think you're you're wise in saying the messaging is very important. Um, and I like Katie's suggestion of having children own that score so they they know that there is some level of importance to it. Yes. Yeah. And it's something at a district level, your point's

156very well taken that we've been talking about. Why does it traditionally dip in the winter? What's our messaging? Can we can we get a better handle on layman's terms to explain this to a parent? And then what's the analysis of it, the crosswalk to the state tests, right? So, we're looking forward to looking at that. Now, NWA will say, "We're not measuring the New York State standards." So, the New York State standards will say, "I'm going to give an assessment in April on what we believe should be the um what you have taught in English in New York at this point." And they'll give you an achievement score that and they can make it into a growth piece for you. NWA doesn't look at it that way. They're not going to say we're not bound

157to the state standards. Um, you know, that would that's why we often way back when the state test came out put them at the end of the year because instead of earlier in the year as to when you're assessing the standards. So, but because we give all three local Erland and Neil NWA and the state standards, we need to have a better explanation as to how they all intersect. Y to explain it all to families. We absolutely that's been a a a conversation quite frequently. um actually probably two or three hours last week, another hour this week, and to the point where I get what the company is saying, but again, we needed to be more meaningful on things. What I what I appreciated here tonight was I hopefully that I think I'm hearing that

158you all heard was that the work looking at all of this information to come up with I see a weakness in writing. I see a weakness in main idea. I see a weakness here. what is a researchbased approach that we're going to implement with Fidelity every single day across buildings and across classrooms to move the needle on that and that's what's happening. We are curious to see what the state test will say when we look at our kids scores on that. So that's the approach. Can I ask a clarifying question about what you're just saying Mary? Um, so I know when we rolled out these programs that we or and still do in in many regards have like these kind of mentoring or just kind of um advising from whether it be the company or

159whatever on the implementation of it. But I'm wondering do we do the same when it comes to the mapping of it or um how we track it especially given the fact that we acknowledge it's not the only data point that drives instruction. So, is are we just trying to figure it out, I guess, from from scrap, or are there other points of kind of feedback or input that we're getting from other maybe even other districts that have used this these programs um for longer periods of time or with, you know, have just, you know, I'm just wondering are there other points that are kind of feeding our ability to grow our how we, you know, map this data, Right. Well, well asked and yes, I I would agree that that's the point that that was

160part of the reason why we brought in an independent Kathy Connelly to take a look at it all and come up with a an approach towards that. NWA is even if you just a quick look at their website will basically say it is a predictor of a sense of a standard that you can say will come at cross on the state test. So they say it does give powerful information and it can predict but they don't like it when you try to analyze it according to when we test the state standards. So um we have to have easier language for our teachers and for our community to understand that. All right go ahead Rob. All right I'm up and I'm back. So, Katherine, first of all, thank you for the compliment because you said statistician

161aka data person and I remember sitting at this board table saying I think we need a data person to look at this stuff. So, I would if there's money in the budget we approved even on a project basis and this is no disrespect to any administrator to people here but a data person can sit and do this all day long and look at it. All of you and all of us have other things to do. It is very hard to do this off a side of a desk and this is absolutely vital work exactly what you just said Mary to take the ERA which we're showing this improvement crosswalk that against the NWA and the ELA for New York. Why? Because the ELA for New York and has been standardized to say this is what

162New York State thinks is proficient. NWA in theory has done that on a national level. Well, we think this is what's proficient. Earla has come up with their own standards, but it's proprietary. So, they're saying it's proficient. So, you got to crunch all of that. Look at and then classroom score subjective, objective, right? Qualitative quant and come out whether we are proficient or not. And it's very very hard to do that without having someone literally dedicated to look at that and provide that back. So again, I would encourage the board to consider that so we can do that. So thank you Captain Bill for mentioning it again statistition. Um but yes uh I I agree with you Mary and others who have said that Eler's Earler is saying it's Earl but we got to check

163that against everything else to make sure we got we got all of you know that because you could but over time you can have some testing bias right you can have sort of okay the kids and I'm not suggesting this but those administering the test kind of know what to get at for proficiency so we have to keep an eye on that and again the data will will tell us um phonics and grammar. So ear one of ARK's critiques like Lucy Caulkins right our friend Lucy Caulkins was that we don't have enough phonics grammar built into these things so you know right that program uh what was it called Columbia's teachers right a lot of places dumped that including us because you didn't have that are we going to and are we measuring phonics and

164grammar in elementary and all the way through do we have enough resourcing there to supplement because That's absolutely vital. The kids can read, but if they can't do the pronunciation, they don't know that they are theirs and the apostrophes and all that. You'll see that show up and candidly, it's showing up in our son. He's he's possessives. He's not great on sit down with there and there. And that's our responsibility as parents. So, it's only one data point. But what are we doing for phonics and grammar going forward? In terms of assessments, you're asking in terms of how we're measuring that teaching it. make sure it's it's built in as part of that because I don't think it's there's a lot of it in ARC if unless I'm mistaken there's not so you kind of

165need to supplement foundations whatever you add or like this is not my expertise but point is yes on the assessment piece but what are we doing that the kids can do grammar and phonics which is absolutely vital to literacy in addition to the reading comprehension and ability yeah and I think um part of the work that we did this year was looking at the decodable texts and infusing that phmic awareness and that phonics infrastructure in their reading um and supporting students through uh that reading fluency. So it is taught explicitly. Right now we are using foundations and that is the way that we are teaching it. But of course we're learning even more about the science of reading and how to incorporate more targeted word work in our early grades. And that as I shared

166before is one of the big areas that we are going to focus on more next year. But we are doing it and and I think the science of reading just globally for everybody I mean you all could there are five components to it right yeah it doesn't just include word work it's the fluency the comprehension the vocabulary the writing it's with awareness and phonics and so it's all together so when you when you work with a a product that is the science of reading you're buying a product you're involved with a product or something that's published that involves all five components because that is the those are the components of the science of reading. ARK is currently uh they've revised the framework or the manual basically to have more explicit instruction around phonics and foundational

167skills. So we should see that boosted in our tier one curriculum which is uh incorporated into our morning meeting now. So that fluency and the phmic awareness is now being integrated into that with the codables. That's right. Right now it's for it's for kindergarten and first grade which is where the foundational skills and we do see it um we see evidence of students growth in reading and writing simultaneously. Our teachers model explicit writing and reading through morning message through shared reading through independent reading. Um so there are many opportunities for students to engage with phonics and phmic awareness. But you know you're absolutely right that is the foundation of everything that happens in reading. It's something we're very attuned to, very aware of. Right now that they've adjusted K and one, I think the hope

168is that they're going to continue to add to two and possibly three. Um, but we will continue, I think, in this coming year working with Dr. Mson something for maybe grade four. Uh, we also incorporate it into AIS where we're looking for some phonics based programs through that. uh and our toolkits as you know have heavy heavy phonics focus through the toolkits. I also want to say with regards to assessments um in the lower grades we do have an fluency assessment component to NWA. It's separate from the reading map our students do a fluency decoding phonics vocabulary picture vocabulary as well and that's kindergarten through two. Yeah. So I I also think to add to this it to be able Rob to highlight what you're saying what count actually what everyone has said tonight there

169has to be a really digestible understanding of the difference between achievement and growth and the difference between what what comes out as a progress monitoring tool and how we use that versus an achievement assessment and then what does growth mean for some kids or all kids when they're managing a either a more comprehensive task or an easier task. So, it's it's being able to help people understand all the above. I will also just say that it's definitely an area of a lot of interest amongst our ELA teachers. I attended and several of my ELA teachers have been attending a workshop at Boseis called the science of reading through writing. And so it's taking the science of reading and it's pushing us to really think about how we apply it to writing and that writing piece

170includes focus on grammar through syntax which is really really important distinction because I I will not ever support like grammar for grammar sake which often becomes like wrote worksheets completely disconnected from content and often would water down a curriculum. What I am seeing is the brilliance of our teachers because programs don't teach children, teachers teach children and ARC is a framework and so there's many nuggets of brilliance in writing that we're finding that we're using strategically analyzing writing samples of our students in each unit and looking for things. For example, September we noticed run-on sentences were rampant across Roosevelt school. that became a focus and it became explicit teaching and for the kids that didn't need that anymore, it became a small group focus. So, I agree and this is definitely an area that I

171want to go so much deeper into and be a part of the professional learning. Thank you. I did want to say I noticed that there was an acknowledgement that um uh I don't know if it was um creative writing or fictional writing um was sort of a missing piece from ARC and so that was being added in and I know that that was one of the consider the concerns I think that we had expressed a few years ago. So I was happy to see that at Park School in kindergarten. So we um just like actually just like Roosevelt did, we analyzed the rubric for the nicest latt. We also analyzed the rubric for the Kinsey scale comparing developmental writing in kindergarten to what the expectation was for the nicest latt as well. And we realized

172that our students were doing fur further more like so much more. But there was a missing link and that was their narrative writing, their story writing. And so we did a complete 180 and started to infuse more fiction writing in our in our work during our literacy block. Um so that students see when there is a purpose for writing non-fiction and when there's purpose for writing fiction. So yeah and we'll continue to work on that. I want to also say looking at student writing is a great way to assess their phmic and phonics infrastructure too. So that's why next year we want to pay attention to exemplars. where are kindergarteners leaving as writers and readers and analyzing that phonics work that they that knowledge base that they have in their writing is a way to

173do that as well and Fris you mentioned the fiction piece as well in your report so yeah I mean the data is clear that if you want to increase comprehension it's non-fiction but then most children love to engage with reading through fiction so we want to make sure we balance all of that right Katherine did you have I know you you had a Do you have any? No, I I was only going to just say that um I I have to be somewhere at 4:30 in the morning. So, I had let the board know that I'm have a hard stop at 10:30. I don't mean any disrespect, but so I'm going to take off. So, I So, so my point was, and there's other board members here, but from my end, whatever you need for

174those two pieces, phonics and grammar, if you need more things, hopefully I think we approved support for it, so financially. So, if you need more in it, please ask for it. um two other and I I'll punch these through pretty quickly. So um this is broader than this presentation, Mary, and to the rest of the board. And I I certainly appreciate this was like phase one on smart goals. I don't I don't think we've ever done them like this before prior to your arrival and last year. So right, smart goals are measurable. That's great. Um, I do think it gets a little bit challenging sometimes if they're all kind of different in each building. 5% there, 4% there, this there. So, I think maybe as at the board retreat, we look to like, can we

175ladder up to a few big ones, put some numbers on it, but give your admin the ability to get there individually by building. So what might work for one building may not work for another and that's okay but the goals all ladder up because then it's hard to sort of measure like where we are in a building by building but that I think that's a retreat thing. So again not specific to you guys that's great I love that we have them and they're all actionable and time bound and and all that. So thank you. Last quick Maria this is for you. Just on the um on the cohorting I want to make sure I understand this. The cohorting is a true longitudinal meeting. The kids that were, as one example, in kindergarten, those same exact

176kids are measured in first and the same exact kids are measured in second and then all all grades all the way through. It's the same. It's not a sample. It's every single child from here and here and here by cohort. Yes. Great. And the grade and then how do you get to that percentage? You just basically take the total amount of kids and and how many are proficient and you're just taking that proficiency score. Yes, school pace provides that for us longitudinally. So we just pulled that data as it's presented in school in school pace. But if a if a child moves to another district or moves out, you're you're accounting for that. So that's more disagregated data and that's when we look at it uh more detailed. This was just an overview of the

177data that's provided. It's it wasn't done by student to student to student to student. It was the year. So the children that were in kindergarten, some may have left, some may may have come in new, but the cohort itself of the students, the bulk of the students that started in kindergarten in 22 23 moved over to first grade. And that was the um that was the data that we then the data point that was gathered from school pace. Okay. So and then the work that we do on a daily basis is looking now at that disagregated data by student getting more granular with the data. Okay. So it is a cohort, exact same cohort, but um I guess not for this meeting, but if you see something that changes those percentages as you disagregate because

178kids come in, kids come out, I think it would be good to share with the the board. If it's statistically insignificant, then that's great. But if it there is a dramatic like it went from 82 to 62 because five of those kids moved out and they they were proficient or they were not, that might be helpful to know. Absolutely. Good. Thank you, sir. Um Rob, if if there's time, um I just wanted to give you like anecdote anecdotal data. I only have experience with ARC. Um we've only done early elementary, so I I don't know what it's like in the older grades, but what I saw was a lot of phonics instruction that my kids were coming home with. Um I listened to Sold a Story and got very nervous. And then my child came

179home, was reading a book, looked at the picture, guessed the word, and I freaked out and bought a set of Bob books at Costco. So like that was my initial reaction. Um, but from there they were coming home with more and more phonics. They were telling me things. I had like carpool kids in the back seat going, "Oh, my name has this diagraph. Yours has this diagraph." So at the younger grades, it is happening. and hopefully will, you know, trickle up as it goes. So, I just wanted to reassure you of that. I'm not saying that the older grades don't need phonics, just it is happening at the younger grades. No, thank you. And I'm not suggest not I'm just looking to the experts on the ground like if you guys think like this thing

180needs more phonics, ask the board for more phonics or ask your I really appreciate that support because again, I'm not an expert in this, but I know if you don't have that plus the all the other stuff, it just it doesn't quite work. That's that again at a high level. So it's also important to notice we're looking for gaps too. If a child for example is a student who's coming to the country for the first time and hasn't had three years of ARC instruction in an awesomeing school, we notice that we're able to discover what this child's strengths in literacy are and what there what gaps there might be in any language. Um and also the different style of schooling and approach to literacy instruction. And I will say that I feel more empowered this

181year as a principal because I also better understand the curriculum that's happening even in kindergarten with ARC, the tools that are available at my fingertips too. So I can make sure that I am matching resources to students needs even as a fifth grade principal and literacy leader. So again, I want to thank the board of education because what Katie just ended this continuity, it's been part of our work last year and this year. No, no siloing, just meeting together, talking, putting it together. It's very important. So, thank the board for the support to do that work. All right. Um, I appreciate, and I think I said this before, the goals, how aligned the goals are to our long-range plan and our pillars, they really do slot right in, and that's so clear. And I I

182want to appreciate that, you know, the the verdict is still out on some of this stuff, right? like we don't know what the NWA scores are for the spring cuz the kids are still taking their N you know like we're still in progress in June and um there's a lot of assessments there's there will be a lot of data available because we got these you know these fifth graders are taking state math state science state ELA and they're taking NWA and they're maybe taking Nislat and you know like there's just it's just kind of a barrage of of tests at this point. And um right, I I will say at least anecdotally, at least my third grader who took the um ERA came home because there's a reading component where they have to read a

183passage out loud came home and at least asked for the book. She was like, "Oh, I read a passage from Bud, not Buddy. Can we get that from the library?" I'm like, "Absolutely. There's, you know, like there's at least like something that comes out of that in the immediate." Um right. And also that I just want to let you know that parents definitely know the difference between a retell and a summary because I tell you, you ask a kid like, "Oh, tell me about the book you're reading." I'm getting it's 15 minutes later and then and then Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I want the blurb. Just tell me the blurb. You know, so you I can see that it's a skill that is actually requires so much higher level thinking that I take I don't remember being

184explicitly taught. I think I take for granted as an adult, but is so hard to learn and so important for, you know, you got to be able to summarize the things that you hear in order to find the important bits. It applies to literally everything that you do in every class that you take down the road. You know, it's the prerequisite to literary essay. That's what it is. Yes. Um, so I appreciate that we're honing in on that at the right time. Um and I I see in my own home when we are not there yet and it is frustrating. Um I appreciate all the work that's gone into this the late evening. I'm hoping you know because we do have those smart goals that are uh databased and we know that the um that's

185the work of the summer right for you all is kind of digesting that. Um so when we're setting goals for next year that we can look back more thoroughly um on you know some of these goals are not they're more qualitative right and then some of them are are really based in the data and so I really appreciate I know it was my ask but it was based on kind of feedback from the board and anticipated questions from the board about kind of a I think I told Mary to tell us which way the wind was blowing on ARC only because if the numbers were tanking like we need to know right um but they looked looks so promising. I'm actually really excited to see if the other data points that we're collecting now um

186confirm what we're seeing there. That'll be really interesting to see um in the future. So, thank you so much. Does anybody else have any final thoughts before we let these poor administrators go home to their families? Thank you all for all the work you do. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Item three. Okay. Stay home everybody. Item three. Item three. Here we are. What a night. We knew it was going to be We knew it was going to be one of these. Okay. Um coming to our first public comment period um which is not to exceed 10 minutes. Is there anybody present who wishes to speak online? All right, then I will forego reading our public comment period guidelines at this juncture. We'll move on to the

187consent agenda. Uh um on four, does anybody have anything they wish to break out? Okay, I'll take a motion on 4.1 through 4.3. So moved. Second. 4.1 Resolution to affirm the results of the annual district budget vote and board of education elections held on May 20th, 2025. 4.2 Resolution to appoint a consultant. 4.3 Resolution to approve the merger of gymnastics, girls ice hockey, boys ice hockey, and boys lacrosse. Any discussion? All in favor? I I I opposed abstensions. Does anybody have anything from 5.1 through 5.7 that they wish to break out? Okay, I'll take a motion for 5.1 through 5.7. So moved. Second. 5.1 Resolution regarding cersiary refund payment CWBP section number 2 LLC. 5.2 Resolution regarding insurance of tax warrant. 5.3 Resolution regarding disposal of classroom equipment, Claremont. 5.4 Resolution regarding disposable disposal of

188gymnasium equipment. 5.5 Resolution regarding disposal of classroom equipment and textbooks AMD. 5.6 Resolution to transfer funds from the student council club to the class of 2025. 5.7 Resolution regarding interfund transfers. Any discussion? All in favor? I I opposed abstensions. All right. Does anyone have anything in section six they wish to break out? All right. I'll take a motion for 6.1 and 6.4 through 6.8 and 6.10 through 6.18. So moved. Second. It's going to be easy to do the minutes freely. Um 6.1 resolution regarding professional staff appointments. 6.4 resolution regarding rescending professional staff appointment. 6.5 resolution regarding rescending professional staff appointment. 6.6 Resolution regarding rescending support staff appointment. 6.7 Resolution regarding professional staff resignations. 6.8 Resolution regarding support staff resignations. 6.10 10 Resolution regarding professional staff appointments. 6.11 Resolution regarding civil service staff appointments. 6.12 Resolution

189regarding civil ser civil staff requests for a leave of absence. 6.13 Resolution regarding professional staff appointments before after school programs. 6.14 Resolution regarding professional staff appointments summer programs. 6.15 Resolution regarding civil service staff appointments summer school programs. 6.16 Resolution regarding support staff appointments, summer school programs. 6.17 Resolution regarding PDM substitute appointments. 6.18 Resolution regarding approval of school vouchers. Any discussion? What? Oh, school volunteers. I misspoke. I said vouchers and said thank you, Illy. I'm reading too fast. It's too late. Any further discussion? All in favor? I I opposed abstensions. All right. Um I'm looking at 7.1 and 7.2. Um or we could take these as a as a set. They're not on a consent agenda. So we could take them one at a time or if we all feel good about all of them, we

190can vote on them as a batch for seven items. We do have um we have a few that are second reading or a first reading. I don't know if we want to Right. I was thinking I was thinking the same. But if we all feel good about all of them, we can just vote for that. I'm one person. I don't have any questions. Okay. I'll take it as a batch. Then I'll take a motion for 7.1 through 7.5. So moved. Second. Uh 7.1 resolution to adopt new policy number 8113 extreme heat condition days as a first reading. 7.2 2 Resolution to adopt new policy number 4201 cycle of curriculum review as a first reading. 7.3 Resolution to approve policy regulation 5150R school admissions policy regulation as a second reading. 7.4 Resolution to adopt policy number

1918210.1 use of surveillance cameras on school property as a second reading. 7.5 resolution to approve policy number 5314 corporal punishment complaints as a second reading. Any discussion? Just one question on the curriculum one which is 72. I think it was answered Mary but so this this committee will um have the ability to have board members on it. And so how would we select that? like just normally as we go around the table and say, "Okay, who wants to be on?" Yeah. Rework meeting. Okay. On that it would just be another committee on that list. Cool. All right. It would just be like any other committee where it's liaison, right? Yeah. Yeah. Got it. Basically just Cool. That's all. Yeah. Um and then 7.1 is as mandated by New York State. So I think that was

192correct me if I'm wrong. Just basically out of the box. Correct. Okay. Any further discussion? Uh, all in favor? I opposed. Absentions. All right. Next on our list is our second public comment period. Seeing no one in the audience here. I'm looking at Angela. She's seeing nobody online. So, we'll move along from there. Next up is board reports and dialogue. Does anybody have any committee updates that they want to share? I don't have committee. I have one dial. We'll do committee updates first and then we'll go around. Oh, I guess technically this is a committee update. I went um because I'm on the library committee. I went the library. We were invited to a stakeholder um meeting for the uh OPPL bond work that they plan on doing uh which we may discuss further. But

193I did grab they had folders with like presentations that were slightly different from what we saw at the board table here. I grabbed three folders. I didn't feel comfortable grabbing six cuz I don't think I was supposed to grab any extra in the first place. Um, but if anybody wants to see what was presented there, um, I will give you a folder. There's three of you here right now. I have three folders. You're welcome to them. Um, with they had a meeting with lots of they're probably like 30 people there and they had their bond people like we have our bond people there to answer questions. Um, and it was just kind of an introductory meeting. They plan on having more that are more open to the community. Um, but there wasn't there wasn't too

194much information there that wasn't presented to us directly at the board table. So, that's that. Does anybody have any other committee updates? And then we'll open it up to other discussions. I have one more thing for just in general that I wanted to discuss. Um, so we have executive sessions and retreats coming up. I just want to make sure we're on the same page. June 11th is an executive session to discuss Mary's evaluation. Now, I have been in contact with Super Evale and now I finally have access to like change the dates and actually kind of go in there a little bit. Um I spoke with Mary today. We can't evaluate Mary on super evale until she has completed her own self evaluation um which she hasn't done yet because we've had these supervail issues.

195So Mary assures me she's going to have that completed um on Sunday and then I will open it up then we will be able to open it up to us so that we can complete that evaluation of her ahead of Wednesday's meeting. That's that and I will email this to everybody. Um then we have our July retreat that is going to overlap uh directly with admin where we can talk about district goal setting. And I'm going over this with right with you right now because I'm not 100% in my memory of how we this was going to shake out. So if I'm saying something that does not jive with your memory of what we discussed, please let me know. And then we talked about having our own retreat on uh August 20th. Now Illie asked

196me where do you want that to be and when do you want like what time of day would you like that to be? Um I don't think we need to have it at Boseies if it's just us. I think we can fit at um district office with our new spaces downstairs. I think we should be able to make that work. Um, but in my head on the agenda for that meeting is uh reviewing board norms, our board self-evaluation, setting our board goals, and um perhaps finalizing district goals. If that's not accomplished in July, to me, that's more than an it sounds to me like more than an evening's worth of work. Like, if we start at seven, I I don't think that we will be able to accomplish what we need to accomplish. So, I'm

197wondering if we want to do like a half a day. I don't think it's a whole day either. What are our thoughts as a board? I'm flexible. Um, all right. All right. So, I just want to understand the first one is I thought we were just being invited to participate in the admin's retreat, the administration's retreat to if like as an optional thing to be there, but you're saying that July 8th, right? That was the date. The July 8th is when the board plus admin are going to look at the district goals like some of the stuff we just discussed and come out of that and then and I'm not sure if it will be finalized at that time or if we'll just be a beginning of a discussion. Right. They do two days they

198then go back to their teams in the building and then they come back again in August. Yeah. Right. Okay. So from my personal end, I'm not I won't be able to take PT like that. have taken a PT a full PTO day potentially on the 8th um for this but I definitely want to be involved and I think the board should be involved in talking through admin goals and then if the if at least they won't be finalized then by the time they get to us on the 20th officially will we be able to still work through them? Um that's a key question. And then on the 20th for my end again like I'm not I don't really be dis I don't want to take another PTO day. So we're asking people who have to

199take vacation potentially two PTO days or a half. So my vote on the 20th, so I don't think I would go to the ETH and take a day, but I hope I would still be able to have input on the 20th towards bore goals. And then for the 20th, yes, I would request is it the 20th? August 20th. August August 20th. Yeah. Which would just be us. So, I would personally kindly request again I rather even see it over two days and do it at night. So, I don't have to take a vacation day because I'm going to probably be taking vacation days at the end of August anyway because that's where I usually go. So, I would respectfully ask that we take that under advisement and I'd personally be willing to give two nights

200versus taking an actual day off because I don't have a lot of time to take off. She said it wouldn't be an all day thing probably. Like do you think if we started at like two we could get through it all? I do. I don't think it's going to be like a whole day thing. So, but I mean I don't want to rush through our board self eval because it's late at night. You know, I really want to take the time that that requires especially if we're doing the work of filling out all of the stuff. Right. So, it sounds like we're pretty much on the same page as at least two breaking it up into two nights. Seems like that's the we can do like an 8 and especially if we're doing it here,

201we don't have to reserve Boseies. We don't have to drive all the way out there. We have more control over our own space. I can split that up into two nights that are near to each other. Um, if that's better for everybody. and we'll just assume that we can do either like the night before like sometime I'll instead of pulling kind of the whole board as far as which nights we'll just pick a night that's like really close to that so it can kind of feel like a continuation does that my preference is not to do two nights are harder for me but if that's what needs to happen that's fine um I mean from my end I could probably if we did a late afternoon I might be able right? Massage a little bit,

202for lack of a better way of putting it. But like, you know, if it was like, you know, a half full true half day, you know, to choose whether to come or take the time off. I think if we if we choose to start at a time that's like 3 p.m., we could, you know, take a break, do some work, take a break for dinner. So, start earlier, but not too early so we can knock it out in one day. Yeah. Okay. I'm on vote for that, too. Okay. Yeah, I just wanted to because I asked me and I'm like, well, I don't know. I got to see what the board thinks. I do ask that if anything changes with availability for the retreat that that be shared with the rest of us ahead of

203time so we can reschedule if needed instead of only having like three of us there or whatever it is. Right. So, um I'm gonna I'm gonna send an email out that summarizes this so that we're kind of all on the same page about what to expect. We have the dates in one email. Um and then make sure I I'm like my most favorite thing in the world now is scheduling emails and then I will schedule emails to send to remind us um so that we're all on the same page about it. Okay. Thank you. That's that's what I had to discuss that I had to get out of the way. Rob, you had Oh, just really quickly. So, I I did go to the October 8th movie presentation that was sent to the board. Everyone

204was invited. Um I, you know, responded and I let the board know. I went I just wanted to quickly give about a 35 90 second readout of that. Um the October 8 movie, yeah, it was very very moving. It was very very well done. For those who don't know, it it is about it touches upon the terrible terrorist attacks on Israel on October 7th of 2023, but it really focuses on that day after. The day after was well, okay, well, what was happening in the streets, what was happening on college campuses, and it goes all the way up to like November 2024. And frankly, it was very very hard to watch obviously the October 7 stuff, but like you know seeing as we some of you may know like schools your Harvards, your MITs, your

205Colombia, your Penn and many many others where Jewish students forget the politics but Jewish students were stopped from going to class attacked because they were going to kosher kitchens. It was very very troubling to see. had validated some of the things with seed and frankly and I have no problem saying this the schools a lot of these schools failed and to control it it's still happening now it's got to stop by whatever means carrot and stick like hey we want to work with you on education or yeah some people need to be thrown out so um I would encourage all of you to see it because it did not touch on political stuff it was very very well done from that but it was very hard to watch and I hope you know it affect

206affect some change. So, I I went on behalf of myself, but I was invited as a board member and I would encourage everyone to to to see it. Thank you. I would like to say that this is a school and our job is to make sure that all kids feel safe and welcome and this is a very charged thing. I don't necessarily feel it was appropriate to talk about this. I would not talk about another type of documentary that I would have seen at the board table even if we were invited. And I just want to know that it can like be very hurtful to students, families if this kind of thing is brought up at the board table. I was invited as a board member. I understand. I told I told Excuse me. I

207was invited as a board member. I responded to everyone. I think I was in my right to go and I and I did not go representing the board and I'm just reporting back on what it what my assessment of the movie. I didn't give a review of it. Um but you just said it was a great movie and that we should I never said it was a great movie. I said we should all watch it. I said I would encourage everyone to watch it and and form their own opinions. Annie. Okay. Well, my statement stands that this is a school and we are here for all of the students to keep them safe and I think we've done a very good job of keeping that out of our district and I would like I didn't

208mention anything about I didn't mention anything about our district. I really want to make sure our conversation is staying productive right now. It was from my end. I reported out on it. I didn't talk anything about our district, what our district does or doesn't do. And I have no problem and handing it out. bring it up again and again and again if I have to, but I was reporting right in dialogue what we've done. That's all I was doing and I'm just reminding that this is a school for all students. I agree with you. And out of respect to others on this board and to the school and the kids, I have kept my feelings, anything that I've watched completely separate at the board table. And I would really respect that. I would really like

209that respect back. didn't disrespect you, Annie. If you go see a movie as invited as a board member or a screening or a library event, you are more than welcome to bring it back. So, if someone was to if we were all invited to a very hardcore Republican movie, one of us went and reported back, that would be appropriate because this also feels very politically charged. I know you don't think it does, but that's not everyone's perception. you can perceive whatever you want but again I I didn't make any political I think it's a good I think it's a a good retreat discussion to talk about as far as board norms because I think I see um I see two different perspectives at the table right and I'd also see about you know the context

210of things that we usually share out um versus you know just the general right to share out what you want which are both valid perspectives to have but I think as a board I think us coming to an agreement of what this period of of time is intended for. I think with a mutual understanding I think would helpful. I think there's more to discuss in executive session about what we can come to a consensus on is this appropriate and and not and and that I I agree with you on that. There were statements made that were not factually accurate about what I just said. I went to a movie. I reported back. If we as a board feel we should not be reporting back on events and things because we have, right? We've gone to

211health breakfast and other things. I am on board with that. I'm just not gonna accept another board member putting words into my mouth. We're gonna and I and I will continue to push back strongly on anyone that does, board admin or anyone. Period. Stop. Understood. Hope you don't feel a need to get defensive. I'm simply stating that agree with you. We I think there's space for us to further dialogue on this when we have more of our colleagues. Yes, certainly it's not anything we want to come to a decision with only four of us. Anyways, it's clear that we can discuss this further in a retreat about what our expectations are at the board table. Already on my agenda, as I say, is going over board norms. I'm speaking right now, so we can't be

212have too much cross talk at the table, please. Oh, man. Um, Mary, do we need executive session tonight? No, we don't. We're on that long. I just wanted to also add to the board dialogue by Sorry. Thank you, Melissa. I went to the W um the W the Westp dinner, annual dinner um which was great. Mary was there as well. Um and I really appreciated hearing from the um keynote speaker Scott Levy who has a book coming out um called Why School Boards Matter. And I think it was very timely um for many reasons and even things that we're discussing right now at this board table about the context of school boards in relation to other governing bodies and what makes school boards unique and integral um to our communities. um and how um unique

213they are to be be able to provide um a certain perspective when it comes to shaping the futures um and just the environments that our um you know youngest members of society are spending most of their time in. So I really liked hearing for that. I can't wait for the book to come out so I can read more of it. But what he shared was very captivating. um and the attention, you know, the work that he put into that book, the research and how far back he went and, you know, everything old is new again type stuff that he discovered through that process. So, um that was very intriguing to me. Um and um yeah, why school boards matter. All right. I think he presented on the same topic last August. I got to see

214him in kind of pre-promote the book, too, right? Um, and he's such a talented presenter um, and speaker. And I'm going again, by the way, I know I asked the board last time if anybody was going to Albany um, for the NISSBA leadership and education event, I think is what they call it. I am going again, by the way. So, if anybody wants to join in. Offer still stands um for travel buddy. Um, the other last little thing I wanted to mention was if you haven't already emailed Nicole Ree about your attendance for graduation to please respond to that email if you have not yet. Um, anything else? What's the time of the graduation? Do you know? Do we know time and how long it lasts? All day. We do know it's but there's eighth

215grade. What is it? One I want to say one o'clock, but don't quote me on it. It's in the email. Oh, okay. Um, I'll just check the email. Yeah, it's middle school. Then we have lunch. eighth grade in the morning face all day. Yeah. So, I just put it in my calendar as like all day. Um, but they got to know for parking and stuff like that. You said we're not doing exact. We're not doing. No, we're not. Okay. So in that case, I will take a motion to end the special meeting of Wednesday, June 4th. So moved. Second. Any discussion?