Board of Education Meeting/ Statutory Budget Hearing May 7, 2025

001All right. Good evening. I'd like to call to order the Wednesday, May 7th, 2025 board of education special meeting statutory budget hearing. Uh, our high school principal, Latoya Langley, is going to lead us in the pledge. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. At this time I'll turn things over to Mary Fox Alter for our superintendent update. All right. Good evening everyone and welcome to the month of May. Um I want to first of all I want to start the evening by um um basically thanking our team here who's here with us this evening. Uh it's a very very busy time in schools and there's an extra layer of busyiness when

002you're at the secondary level for a lot of different reasons. So many capstone events at each grade level, so many events and activities. So, uh, thrilled to have this team with us here this evening. All right. This week we celebrated our teacher appreciation week and nurses and school nurse day. So, let's give a big round of applause. We've been doing it all week for our teachers. We thank our dedicated staff members for all that they do. Um, our Austining High School robotics team took a trip to Albany. They have been all over this country. I have to well at least this side of the Mississippi anyway um to represent at the Hudson Valley Steam Day. We're so proud of those kids. Congratulations to Park School kindergarten for being officially designated as a no place for

003a hate school for the 2425 school year. I want to thank Dr. Dilly too in particular for her leadership in this area. uh the AMD Solidarity Project. They held a ribbon cutting ceremony this week to unveil our Museum of Student Work to honor our students voices, stories, and growth. Congratulations, team AMD. Um, for those of you who I I was at a um a different um event that night, but I saw the posting of it and then when we were at the Austining Early uh childhood PTA meeting, they were talking about the high school band and orchestra concert with the Star Wars finale. What a buzz that concert had. Um I loved seeing the video. I packed and when you we were in the high school, you could hear them practicing and I was like,

004whoa. So congratulations. I want to say um congratulations to our MBK fellow Cahil Cadet who was a featured speaker at the New York State MBK symposium as well as the table facilitator for the fellow um uh with uh MBK fellow, senior fellow Joel Jennings. Give a huge shout out to our 2025 MBK fellows Aiden Menend Mendes and Alica Ddale. Did I say that correctly? All right. Thank you. Our Brookside students are budding gardeners. They've been hard at work at planting and caring for our school garden. And I would like to say it's kind of like a new school garden because for some strange reason a year and a half ago, little knotweed got into that garden. So, it had to be totally renovated, looked at. I want to thank Jared and his team and all

005the parents and the staff for helping it u move along. So, we can't wait to see our new garden at Brookside Bloom. Uh, Austining hosted Srs for the final pioneer basketball game at the end of the year. There was lots of great energy and fun. Thanks to DJ Johnny G for making it a fun experience for everyone. I want to congratulate our Austining High School Business Club students for earning third place at the two 2025 AfricanAmerican Men of Westchester Business Skills Olympics. That is a huge honor. That is huge. That the same group of kids that did tax returns for everybody, right? Over a hundred. Over a hundred, right? Unbelievable. Our AMD STEM students had an exciting visits to Westchester County Airport. I I love airports. I would have loved to have gone there. Like

006I love aeronautics and planes. That would have been a fun trip. Right. Right. A huge congratulations to Frank Murphy II who was recognized at the annual awards banquet um by the Westchester Chemical Society for his outstanding research on the development of anti-cancer drugs. Our amazing Claremont third graders filled the stage with music, energy, and joy at their concert and it took place here at And it it it filled the house. Filled the house. Um, Oprom hosted a wonderful, absolutely wonderful prom popup shop. I do want to thank everyone for all their donations. I love the fact that they moved it to the little gym. I love the dressing rooms. It was quite the event this year. So, I wonderful. So, thank you to the high school and to Megan and her team for just making

007that super special. Our district art show is up for viewing at the Austining Public Library. Please mark it on your calendar. Stop by, take a look. Um really incredible art artists and our artist voices. And I just want to remind everybody about the budget vote. It's going to take place um on May 20th from 7 to 9 at the Austining High School small gym. So mark your calendars. I know more information will be going out again this week. I want to thank Nicole Reek for all of her work along those lines. So that's um my update for today. Thank you all from all the way over here at the opposite side of the room today. Um uh for our work session this evening, our first item is these uh item 2.1, the statutory budget hearing.

008So, I have to read my little script here. Um, this segment of the board of education meeting has been designated as the official statutory budget hearing. So, I will now turn things over to back again to our superintendent, Mary Fox Alter. Okay. All right. So, just as a highlight on what a budget hearing is, right? Um, consistent with New York State law pertaining to school district budget votes, the board of education must provide a public presentation of the proposed school district budget at least 7 days, but not more than 14 days prior to the budget vote. This presentation is intended to provide the public with an opportunity to ask questions pertaining to the proposed budget. Now I know we call it a hearing and sometimes that can be confusing to people because the board already

009adopted the budget but this is meant if anyone had any questions. Uh this segment of the board of education meeting now has been designated as the official statutory budget hearing. So at the concl I'm going to turn it over to our assistant superintendent Alita McCoy to give the budget hearing presentation. Thank you everybody. Good evening. Um like uh our superintendent says this is a budget hearing. I just want to let everyone know um that this presentation is available in Spanish on our website. So I'm just going to give an over you quickly about the budget. Um, again, it's $178.6 million, which represents a $1.6 million decrease. Uh, the proposed tax levy is 1.67%, which is the actually the tax uh cap amount. Uh, we are using an appropriate fund balance of 6.7 million. Uh, we

010are um we have a contingency plan in place in the event that we lose uh federal um or state grants. Um so we estimate that amount in salaries to be 5.4 million. Um so we will be setting aside um undesated fund balance prior to June 30th. Uh for that purpose we are not using any reserves. Uh we are required to present the budget um in a breakdown that highlights capital administrative and program. Uh capital portion of the budget is 16.7 million. Administrative is 23.1 million and program um which is instructional and should be and is the biggest part of the budget at 139 million. Budget appropriate the budget is um was adopted in the past and again um the budget has been adopted and the um the state budget has been approved. We haven't received

011any updates to our um state aid runs. Um so we will be using the uh same projections that we had um at the time of Governor Hokll's budget proposal. Uh these are the grants that um have the potential of being cut. These are federal and state grants. If you look at this uh table, you'll see that um 5.5 million is represented in um benefits and salaries. And that's the amount that we're setting aside in our unappropriated fund balance prior to June 30 for this purpose. just in case in the event that we do have any mid-year cuts um in the 2526 school year it will prepare us um to deal with that in the 26 be in a better position to deal with it in 2627 school year. Uh the one that the one of

012the great things about this budget is the amount of um capital projects that are here. uh sometime last year, probably around this time, the board of education asked since we are using our 6.9 transfer to capital uh to pay for the the bond premiums once they come due um what happens to capital projects that may be needed. So at that time we looked at all of the projects that could be needed and the useful life of recent projects and we highlighted that um the uh AMD track as well as district cameras would become a priority. Um so we are in fact including that in our budget for 2526 along with all of these other items um which is uh a significant amount of work. So, we have some additional work for the new 78 building,

013clearing um clearing the beck behind the building and doing some earth work. We are including a cafeteria renovation and a kitchen addition at Claremont. Uh there's the AMD track that we talked about that's going to be included in this budget. We have work at Claremont. We have work at the high school at the gym. We have uh uh we have masonry work and uh stair repairs. We have um a second floor RTU replacement. Uh we have masonry work at Claremont and Brookside. And one of the most important things is even though it's not a capital project, we're purchasing the equipment is air conditioning uh equipment will be be provided to um make sure that all most instructional spaces are air conditioned. So that is also included in this budget. So, um, the next important timeline,

014the the next important date on this timeline is May 20th, which is the budget vote. And that's it. Thank you. All right. I don't know if any board members need to speak on this budget at all. We can open it up. Sure. So, on the um just I know this has been asked and answered, but just clarity for for every listening and everybody around here. Um the timing on once this gets um approved um the the actual work for the driveway and the air conditioning would that's begins in the 2526 year. You want to speak to the driveway project? Yeah. First of all, it's a great it's kind of like you read my mind, Roger, because it was a great segue to wet everyone's appetite for a meeting a week from today because we're going

015to have a real extensive capital project for everyone. But we we have done some preliminary work already and there is some site work in back of the grade seven and eight building that is included in this budget based upon the work we did last year when we tried when we made the bond zero. Okay. So, yeah. The driveway was in last year's budget and and but there's pieces of site work that merge into what's in this year's budget. Right. But that the actual physical work itself that that's where I was trying to go forward. Like the physical work itself actually begins in 2526 or is that late? The driveway has started this year. All the paperwork to state it all the site work surveying u people have been on site. Yes. Got it. Okay. And

016then the air AC work is is that 2526 as well? Yes. because we can we can just take the um buy equipment off a state contract to purchase that and we will do the electrical work. Remember the last piece for in order to air condition the rooms is that we have to run dedicated runs back to the panel and then back to switching gear. So yes, that will be as soon as we get approval on our budget, we can start issuing purchase orders. Great. Awesome. Thank you. That's all I have. All right. Um, at this time, I'd like to open up um our meeting to members of the community to raise questions pertaining to the budget. I see nobody here in person and I'll ask our there's nobody here online either. So, there is no

017action required by the board regarding the budget hearing and uh there being no further discussion, I declare the budget hearing to be closed. Next up on our agenda, we have item 2.2, equity, our equity item, uh the long range plan update from our secondary schools. So, I'll turn it over to all of our guests here at the table. Take it away. So, just as a a kickoff to frame the conversation, um and I want to thank the board of education for creating what I believe to be quite a robust um long range plan. Um we uh working with the board of education last year and this year the administration takes uh the work done at the end of a school year creates building level goals and they're all anchored in the long range plan we

018set out in the fall with a commitment uh to our work for the year. We set out certain goals under the four pillars of the long range plan and at the end of the year we report out on where are we, how did the year go, how did our commitment do do to that. Um currently right now because this is the secondary um group um we don't have assessment pieces because regions exams AP exams end of the year assessments are uh taking place and will continue into the month of June. But as soon as the teams get their final exams and all that work that informs the work that will be done during the summer retreats, they help create building level goals and they help set the goals of commitment to work that the community

019and the board will hear in the fall. Right? So um the long range plan has strong vision, mission and values and a mission statement of it all based on equity fostering high expectations for all. And we want to very importantly make sure that we foster respect for the appreciation of individual differences and cultural diversity and prepare kids for an informed and active participation in democracy. It's an outstanding mission statement and the vision and the mission statement highlight the values, but they're all anchored in what we call the four pillars. And these are the four pillars that anchor the goals that each building sets out to create. A goal a pillar, the pillar of teaching and learning in tier one, relevant learning and student choice, multiple literacies, um culture of care, and then family and community

020engagement. So tonight with that I will turn it over to AMD talk about their goals that they set for this year and where they are right now. Dr. Nover. All right. Good evening everyone. It is so um wonderful to be here tonight alongside our incredible team and our colleagues at OS. Uh so um as Mary had explained we are in the process of collecting further data but really wanted to share our qualitative observations um and experiences thus far. So I um have the reputation as I think my name is going to be Nicole systems and structures no um everyone knows and cohesion as mayor as Mary um systems and structures is the name of the game um and that really had started last year when we came on board as a team relationships safety systems

021and structures were the core and then moving into This year we uh as a team collectively designed two goals to align to the long range plan. Um goal number one is about sustaining these strong operational systems and structures in order to cultivate a culture of academics. When you're in the thick of the work, it's very easy to continue to revise a procedure. But you know when you have a good structure, it needs to live and then academic excellence grow within that. Some of our highlights from this year included taking the work of the long range plan and embedding it into our professional development uh plan that we include in what we call a guide to AMD which is essentially our entire all of our systems and structures um at a glance but professional learning really

022being a key within that. And then the the next key was once we had the structure in place to revisit that over and over again with our directors and our coordinators. For our directors, we review our um professional development action plan on a quarterly basis through our quarterly meetings and with our coordinators. We come back to those goals in our monthly meetings and as a team we live in those um professional development in our goals and in our plans on a weekly basis. So you kind of see the structures in which that lives. Um one of the other things that we did this year as a structure was we had our coordinators facilitate additional planning time for teachers. All of this is in service of our goal of building systems and structures that enhance teaching

023and learning specifically. Now these are things that we did this year but we are really thinking about what are our next steps for next year. I am so happy to share um that we um and with the support of the board and the district, we um pulled in consulting uh consuling consultant Michael Reig who I've had the privilege of working with in the past. And the middle school core academic schedule is actually already set for next year. Um and so that puts us about two months ahead of where we typically are at this time of the year. And the most exciting part of that schedule, I love scheduling. I'm sure that's a surprise. um is that there is common planning time for all core teachers on a daily basis in sixth and seventh grade and

024on an every other day basis because of the earth science labs at the eighth grade which is a gamecher because it ensures that our teachers have time to collaborate together to enhance instruction. We will also be focusing on tier one instruction through our team model. And in dual language, we are returning to a cohort model. Um, at the sixth grade level, which means if you're in section 61, you're in for ELA, you are in section 61 for math, for science, for social studies. And what that allows your teachers to do is provide instructional flexibility to then block time in a meaningful way to support instruction. And we're going to continue pulling away from uh technology in many ways um because we are seeing that we want to enhance the way our students are utilizing technology,

025not just as a device that's in front of you, but really following exceptional guidelines. Um, and one other area that we're going to continue to focus on, it's not listed here, but I think at the high school, um, Latoya and our colleagues have really started this work, um, and with Jeremy's support is in grading and really thinking about our grading policies and practices, looking at board policy, but also looking at our practices to ensure that our grades have meaning as it's connected to teaching and learning and they signify excellence in standards. Goal number two within the area of teaching and learning um the overarching goal was that we will utilize higher order thinking questions posed by teachers and students academic discourse and feedback that aligns to and enhances student understanding and application of the learning

026objective. That goal specifically tracks directly to the long range plan as well as our five instructional lenses that we follow um and work with our coordinators and our directors to support. We've had tremendous uh support in working with Kathy Connley who is a consultant that comes to us through the Lyric to help us analyze data that then teachers can utilize in planning their instruction. We've also provided curriculum development time for teachers to enhance their lessons specifically in line with academic discourse and feedback. Um Kathy did a full staff presentation in connection to our NWA data in the fall and in the winter so that we could ensure that we were meeting student needs through small groupoup instruction. our APS facilitated incredible um co-planning co-eing planning sessions with our all of our co-teers so that we

027could ensure that they were actually partners in the work of supporting our students and um thanks to uh the office of curriculum and instruction and uh our Nancy de la Cruz Aoyo our ENL teachers participated in co-eing professional learning with Andrea Hanikfbeld which really is an excellent model of lesson study protocols that we're looking towards in the future. As we look ahead, we're going to be thinking about continued development of our schedule to support our co-teers. As we shared that alignment of our core instructional classes through the work with Michael Reddig will make elevating our co-eing instructional practices possible as well as in our work and partnership um with our office of student support services and the professional learning that we're gaining in that domain. Um, we are also looking to maintain co-eing partnerships. That

028comes through strong scheduling and building that beautiful marriage between our teachers, both our ENL teachers and our special educators. Um, and we will continue uh our APS developed an incredible resource uh a co-eing website that we'll be continuing to implement and we believe that all of these systems and structures um will continue to support teaching and learning. and I'm going to turn it over to um Miss Pagan to talk a little bit more about data informed instruction. Good evening everyone. I'll begin by sharing some key highlights from our data informed instruction. The work this year has been a focus with our team on using realtime data not just to track progress but to actively shape instruction whether through small groupoup lessons, one-to-one conferencing or targeted interventions. This responsive approach has allowed us to address student

029needs in the moment and keep learning and moving forward. With that foundation in place, I'll now turn it over to Mr. Hawk, who will highlight how our equity work has supported and strengthened these efforts. Thank you, Miss Pagan. Building on that, our focus on equity has remained central to everything that we do. We've we've worked to ensure that every student, regardless of background, language, or learning needs, has access to the resources and opportunities that they deserve and require. Some of this year's highlights include strengthening services for our ENL and special education students and deepening our work in culturally responsive teaching to ensure that all students see themselves reflected in their learning. I'll pass over now to Miss Bash to share how we've connected these priorities with our families and our community. Thank you, Mr. Ha.

030Good evening. As we know, strong family and community partnerships are essential for student success. This year we focused on deepening those connections through workshops, consistent communication, and events that bring families into the life at AMD. These efforts have strengthened trust and collaboration, ensuring that our families feel welcomed, informed, and valued as key partners in their child's education. And at this time, I'm going to turn it back to Dr. Nova, who's going to speak about belonging, and she is also going to offer some closing closing remarks for the evening. So um at in our fall presentation um we had put forth the u and set the goal that um at the end of the year on the panorama survey that 40% of students would respond favorably to the measure of school belonging. How connected do you

031feel to adults at your school? Also if you notice our shirts um they say we belong to one another which was a main theme of the year. Um and the question has changed slightly in the iteration of last year's question to this year's. We are happy to report that um 53% of students responded favorably to the question, how much support do adults at your school give you? And I think that is an incredible testament to the work that the team has done um to ensure that students belong because belonging is the core of that academic success. We um the staff survey will be administered on Monday. So, we'll be able to follow up with that. And I wanted to offer two uh just remarks that I think summarize a bit of where we've been and

032where we're going. So, we are in the process of surveying everyone in our community beyond Panorama, um teachers, bus drivers, our lunch, uh our cafeteria staff, and we're posing two questions. What makes AMD great right now? And what could make AMD better? and a teacher said, "AMD is great right now because of the systems in place that are consistent and give a sense of structure and expectations. This has evolved and improved over the past year or so, and it has really changed a lot of the culture and atmosphere. Having a consistent welcome every morning from Jared at the front playing music and Marilus at the front saying hello and Roa in the cafeteria greeting our students." um starts the day on the right foot. Transparency from the top down, setting and holding students to expectations

033and minimizing the allowance of excuses, setting the bar higher and higher. And a parent said shared, "Administration has been wonderful. As the parent of a current eighth grader, I was concerned when my child was in sixth grade. However, the changes last year, my child's seventh grade year, and this year have been wonderful. I understand administration is busy and has their hands full, and I appreciate the attention they give to matters of concern. I also appreciate they are a presence in the school building. The teacher connections my child has made benefited her so much. It even saddens me that we are leaving these teachers. Could not be happier. And I don't know that I could be any happier um than with that feedback and the incredible work this team has done as it relates to teaching

034and learning, our entire plan. Um, and the bar is going to continue to raise here at AMD and we are excited to share the data that concludes this year and also set a really strong foundation for a culture of academic excellence in the year ahead. Thank you. Nicole, if I can ask you just on the same theme about particularly since we're sitting in the cafeteria, a big emphasis you you know remember last year we had a lot of conversations about how to restructure the period. What should it look like? I know you work with Miss Zuber, Miss McCoy on certain areas here in terms of the cafeteria. I know Miss McCoy had a consultant come in and was present here for a number of while. So just give an update on how the culture here

035is in the cafeteria, kids for recess, etc. Um, one of the things that has been absolutely incredible with the support obviously of the board um and the budget process is we do keep one assistant principal in all of our lunch periods as well as we have increased adult supervision. Um, we have I think it's upwards of six monitors at any given time and at least three security guards. So we have an awesome student to adult ratio in the space which helps to create a much smoother operation. Um in addition one of the uh changes we made this year was our lunch periods actually go four five and then we pause and have lunch 7th which allows for the cafeteria staff to reset the cafeteria. We work closely with Ena um and Jacine who's absolutely incredible

036um as the head of the cafeteria. What we are seeing in a study is that our students are getting outside for 20 minutes at a time. Um especially at the sixth grade level, our eighth graders tend to attend extra help earlier, so they have less time um to go outside because they're actually using their time in the beginning. Um but some of the things that we've done, we did explore the possibility of what if we brought all of the students out or half out and half in. And what we realized was that would actually extend our service times. Um, so right now, and Alita, please correct me if I'm wrong on any of the data, but when we're looking um at the average length of recess times, we're looking at um the 21 minute mark

037at the sixth grade level, 21 and a half minutes at the seventh grade level, and 16 and a half minutes at the uh eighth grade level. But again, that is by choice. And the average amount of time that students at sixth grade have to eat is 15.1 uh minutes, seventh grade 16 and a half minutes and eighth grade 20 uh approximately 20 minutes uh depending on when you arrive in the cafeteria. Um when the consultant came, uh she was blown away by the systems and structures that we had in place and the cafeteria. She said it was the best um cafeteria that she'd been in in a middle school and she was trying to find a problem with our service. Um so I thought that was great. Our kids were kind and welcoming. Um and

038we are actually exceeding the times allotted to students by almost 8 to 10 minutes. I think industry average at the elementary level is about eight minutes of um time to eat and we are exceeding that significantly at the sixth grade level. So we're very proud um of the work that we've done of the supervision in the cafeteria space. We also have a device free space um which ensures that students are eating their lunch and then we're able to transition um so that students have the maximum amount of play time. So um and when I made my visit to AMD last week, we spent a huge chunk of time and I spent a lot of time just by happen stance of the building tour. We ended up here during sixth grade lunch. I was caught looking

039at the clock, looking at kids, talking with kids and and again um I when I sat down with Miss McCoy, what I had observed anecdotally measured out to the STO study that she had performed. So, we would um it was a great it was a great day. The food looked great. The kids were enjoying themselves and couldn't wait to get outside. But I would welcome any board member to come and for a visit to take a look at it. And uh Alita and I'd be happy to take you on a tour. Great. And one thing I forgot to share, one of the ways the deli line is actually um our most popular kind of area. And again, working alongside the team and Ena, there is now an O pride express wrap. And I promise I

040didn't eat it yesterday because we were coming to the day. Um, but I ate it yesterday and it was delicious. It is turkey uh turkey and ham because it's what the kids like with mozzarella, lettuce, and mayo. So, I strongly recommend the grab-and-go freshlymade oat pride express wrap because it allows us to serve an express deli line. So, so I and again we want to thank Miss McCoy for her suggestions working with the consultant. So, by having an express deli item, it helps speed the line through and it's what the kids want to eat. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions from the board table for middle school staff? All right. I just have one of the slides mentioned techfree 20. Can you just uh it's a we're we're experimenting with the idea. Um so from

041a teaching and learning perspective so the tech free 20 we've been talking um so students arrive every day at 7:49 is when the first bell rings and then the announcements are about 8:04 8:05 first period officially begins at like 8089. So the idea of techfree 20 is for students to arrive at 7:49 and not touch a device. um but their device their other devices are off and away but not to touch their Chromebooks until 8:08 809 when first period actually begins. And what the spirit of that is, we want to um perhaps like bring together a group of teachers to develop conversational prompts, having students read, engaging in discussion. Um to step away from the Chromebooks because I think our kids have become very attached to I am going to sit down. I'm going to

042open this and I'm going to play a game or I'm going to do something. And we really want to pull back. That was some of the feedback we also heard from parents. They're looking for us to pull back from technology to use it instructionally in a more meaningful way, but from 7:49 to 8:09, that's not a meaningful instructional time. It's their play and we we'd like to change that and we can look to other structures in the future. Um, and see how that goes, but we're we're hoping tech free 20 no devices until 809. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Frank, do I see you have a question? Appreciate all the details in the presentation. Um could you talk a little bit more specifically about the AVID efforts and what we can expect to see? I

043know it looks like you made great progress this year and curious what we'll see next year and just give us a couple minute a minute on the AVID program. Jared, do you want to start a bit with AVID and then I can jump in with some of the future plans? Start. I think uh Dr. No and I went to the training. So I think this was the first year we ever had like administrators trained in the idea and I think the biggest goal for us was to turn AVID into a schoolwide structure. Uh we started last spring focusing on organization out of the wicker strategies and this year we've been working on collaboration working with teachers working on like collaborative strategies and again selfishly since I was trained like we did sixth grade like I

044had social studies teachers work a lot with presenting different AVID strategies because we can have it more than just in an AVID section then we could start to see it like spread to other aspects of the academic day. So we have ELA teachers who were starting to focus on like Cornell note-taking and other note-taking strategies having one pagers and having a lot of different aid strategies that we use on a daily basis for other core classes. And as we start to think about next year, the focus is going to be on the W and R. So the writing and reading strategies that AVID uses, and we've talked about it, AVID is just doing the right things for the right reason. So, if we're talking about that, we're talking about like just good reading and writing

045practices that teachers are already doing, but now we're going to be trying to highlight these label things like that way we can have more of a impact through AVID. And so, we'll be continuing. So, we call it, we can't call it the AVID elective because that's more of like a high school and an everyday. So in sixth grade we call it the AVID experience where they have the course every other day opposite STEM and the same in seventh grade but it's opposite their ELA lab and those follow the curriculum of the weeks at a glance developed through um the I almost said ARC through the AVID um you know uh or through our partnership with AVID. ETH grade is slightly different and we're very excited. We are going to be um actually the piloting we're

046in partnership with uh Judy Barbara who's our consultant through AVID. We are going to be piloting an everyday AVID elective for up to 28 students. And that would actually be called the AVID elective and will support the transition to the high school. But what we will be doing is we will be we're currently looking to recruit students from the math seven accelerated class because the dream for AVID is to couple the strategies with high academic expectations. And so the students in the math 7 accelerated class are those students who are going to be most likely slotted for algebra. But some of them might need that little boost. Maybe they're on the cusp of that readiness. But by enrolling in the AVID elective, an everyday course taught by an AVID trained teacher. The idea is that

047we're going to enhance the strategies and the academics. So, we're excited that will be a um just a launch for next year, a pilot, and then hopefully to grow that to middle schools across the region. So, when we come back in the fall, we'll have some preliminary data and can follow up throughout the year. And then the eighth graders will continue the AVID experience as one of their elective choices um among computer science, STEM, AVID, um digital photography at the eighth grade level. Um and this year we are making an explicit our Jared and I will be going again to um AVID 2 leadership 2 um for the AVID training for leaders but then we are taking our world language coordinator a math teacher and an ELA teacher and they are going to attend the

048specific uh curricular paths so that they come back to their departments and as Jared said implement the strategies directly in the departments. We're excited about the work to come. Great. I mean, I think all the work around executive function and middle school, it just sets you a table for an important, you know, for high school along the way. So, I'm glad to hear that it's progressing along and and it's growing it and we're learning in the process as we go. It's always great. Thank you. Thank you. I want to thank Maria for her help and support for the office of curriculum instruction, taking the leadership on this Any other questions or comments from the board? Just a quick question. Um, thank you for the presentation and all of that. Um, you know, the work that

049you're doing. I'm just curious around the um the surveys that you do and the sense especially around belonging. Um, you know, I'm glad to see that there's progression in the right direction there. I'm curious how do you capture kind of you know the percentage that you're still trying to you know reach how do you qu how do you capture I guess an understanding of what where the gaps still lie and kind of increasing those numbers and what is like an overall consensus of the group of students who don't feel that sense of belonging and like how do you measure that or respond to that? I don't know what the question structures look like outside of asking, you know, do you feel that sense of belonging? So, this was actually the data that we shared today

050was we really just got the data because the survey just closed. So, that's why it's at the at a very like 4,000 foot level. So I think Melissa to your question we're going to be diving in further and looking at who was not within that group and then identifying some of uh through on our equity slide some of the partnerships. So what we'll then be looking at is when we think about the solidarity project that really targeted a specific group of our newcomer ENL students. So then we'll when we look at the data, how did they score and if it was higher. So we do have to dive further in. But what we'll be doing is once we dive into that data, then we'll be finding how can we leverage our community partnerships and our

051work um to then enhance the student sense of belonging. The students don't put their names on the survey. So it's hard to say it's this student. Um but I think it comes to continuing to dive deeper and deeper and continue to do um the work. It's why we also put out the our own survey and Panorama affords us the opportunity to ask more targeted questions. We have not utilized that tool just yet, but we can actually take the belonging breakdown and then do a separate survey that targets more specifically within a class so we can capture that. So, we'll continue to dive in with Dr. Lopez and by the time we meet in the fall, we'll have a report more disagregated by group and what our plans are to address those needs. Sorry, Roger, it's

052hard for me to see you. Um, thanks. So, just I like that this um crossgrade level and cross building programming. Are there things that you've already ideated in terms of what that could look like for AVID or just Oh, in general? Yeah. Oh yes. Um well, do you want to talk about anything? We had just had this conversation with Quincy. So one of the um our work with Growth Wellness, we were talking about Was I Were you in that conversation or was Quincy outside? Okay, I'll start. Jump in. Um so Growth Wellness is one of our community partnerships and um that is through our solidarity project. Um our H3 uh Rising Phoenix, all of those projects are through our partnership with Growth Wellness. So, right now, this year, the partnership has been specifically targeted at

053the middle school. But what we're looking to do is to think about the way those SEAL supports can then go across grade levels. So, if there's a similar project occurring, how can we then start to bring those groups together? Other domains are right now we've got our NJHS students going to Claremont to do some presentations and read books. Those were things that we've done in the past. So how can we continue those partnerships and expand them because one of the things that we're seeing part of the what contributes to the students sense of belonging is their ability to engage in a program tailored to their needs and interests. So, a lot of our collaboration will come from that as well as as we lean towards the high school um and our work with Abid. I

054was going to ask your partner in crime next to you. Do you mention her like what's going on there? We talk all the time. So, she wants to admit it all the time. Yeah. This is this is good to see the question. Is it going to be with the level of frequency that's going to be there? Is it going to be like it's going to be more experimenting the first year. I think more a little bit more experimenting this year. We really did bring a lot of student experiences. So now we have to think about the systems and structures, transportation. We do have a pen pal project that we do at the high school. Um but sometimes it's scheduling. Jen can tell you we're like looking there's like one day on the calendar that now

055works. We have our anti-bullying group from our eighth grade also going to Roosevelt. So we want to continue to expand those opportunities um and also as they support them that student academic excellence. Good. Thank you. Anything else? Just thank you very much. Thank you all for your support. Um, all right. I think then we're ready to hear from the high school. Thank you. And I just want to say that working alongside our AMD, the AMD team has also been very helpful. I know that Nicole and I get an opportunity to speak a lot of the times and you're really laying a lot of the groundwork that's going to support the work that's happening at the high school. So, thank you very much for your partnership. Um, good evening. Um, it is truly been an incredible

056year at the high school and I am so very thankful first of all to work alongside a dedicated team of administrators and together we have worked together to create meaningful systems um strengthen instructional practice and focus building on relationships with our students, staff and faculty. All right. So tonight we will focus primarily on our goals that we shared with you in the fall. Um but I just want to say that although it's limited to the goals that we started out with each month we get an opportunity to share with the board are updates from the high school. I love working alongside Miss Aaliyah Jordan preparing those updates because I think that truly gives you a better sense of just what's happening at the high school, our accomplishments and the amazing work from our educators. So

057tonight we're going to revisit um the two goals that we set and we're going to highlight my team will highlight the accomplishments and then I'll jump in and share some of the next steps. So just a reminder, our first goal was over the next three years 60 76% of our students will demonstrate proficiency in the New York State ELA regions through targeted instruction strategies across the disciplines. One of the things that we wanted to make sure that we did looking at that three-year um projection is designing um the profile of a student based on the 2024 ELA regions to begin thinking about what we need to do, what are the trends that we're looking for as we kind of work with our nth grade cohort towards the ELA regions. The second goal was by the

058end of the academic year, increasing the percentage of students with satisfactory attendance by 8% compared to the prior year as measured by our attendance records. So, while we don't have all of our data yet, we do want to be able to speak to just some of the amazing work that has gone into our goals and laying the groundwork for this year looking into next year. So, with that, I am going to allow Miss Ferrero, I'm going to ask Miss Fer Ferrero to jump into goal one and a little bit about our highlights. So, I'm excited to highlight all of the work we've done related to our first goal. Um, we started the year off with piloting a monthly PLC cycle. And during this time, we worked with all of the teachers on staff in small

059groups. The first PLC cycle really focused on student expectations so that everyone had a baseline of what was expected of students and staff both behaviorally and academically. We then transitioned to targeted support for all learners, specifically our multilingual learners. because of our increase in multilingual learner population in the building. We really modeled and gave um feedback on strategies using visual aids um some electronic um resources and bolstered instruction based on that. We then finished that multilingual learner PLC cycle with teachers actually presenting what they were able to use within their classrooms, things that worked. They shared best practices and then they were able to have conversations about things they might want to do differently the next time they use certain tools. We then went into a PLC that was a big data dive where used

060the rises protocol. Again we um modeled for them how to use the rises protocol using our behavior data and our attendance data. And then we transitioned the next cycle where uh teachers worked in small groups to their regions data which then informed their instruction going forward. Um in addition to this, the administrative team and our curriculum coordinators were able to attend several cycles with um our professional learning community uh with Mzano and we focused on our model of instruction and really created an aligned vision of what great instruction looks like at OS. This continued with our department professional development time being aligned not just within one department but across all departments. Um this year we made sure that our agendas were very similar. Each department were was given time to look at regions data and

061then also work collaboratively to create aligned um assessments. Additionally, similar to AMD, our ENL and ELA teachers attended the Andria Honingsfield training where they not only spent time planning with one another but they were able to experience some intervisitation and again look at best practices that can be aligned across the building. This then transitioned into our learning walks that we conducted not just within the building but with our district counterparts. And we use these learning walks to help us form goals current for this current year but also for the coming school year. Uh lastly, we have created a very intentional regions review plan. We started earlier this year. We're ensuring that each course has a minimum of two days of regent review per week. We organized the schedule very specifically so that students are less

062likely to experience scheduling conflicts. We want everyone to go to every review session that's possible for them. Uh and we wanted to ensure that each uh review session is aligned to specific standards so that we are really preparing our students to find success. So, just as far as next steps, um I can't say enough about the work that we've done around PLC's this year, being very intentional, making sure that we have two professional periods a month where our teachers are working collaboratively with each other across disciplines in learning some of the strategies that we're speaking about. So we will make sure that we continue with that in addition to when we are building the SCR the schedule being very intentional about building in that calming planning time not only for departments but also for those

063teachers that are co-teers making sure that they have the time to work together to really be able to collaborate analyze student work and really align instructional practices. Um, as far as I just want to mention this because we're in the middle of regent um, prep right now. Really making sure that we had the time for our students. This is again going back to the data looking at those students that we feel may have passed the class but are still trying to pass the regions. Making sure that um, our region's prep is really aligned to the standards of the regions. really making sure that in our announcements and a lot of the messaging out to students, we let them know that this is an opportunity for them to be successful and really embedding that into the

064day-to-day work. Um, we will continue working on our AVID strategies by using Wicker in our upcoming PLC's to continue to deepen instructional practice. I want to thank um Miss Meyers for really the work around Marzano and allowing them to come in to work with our curriculum coordinators because through that work we're able to really begin looking at common language around instruction and we want to continue some of that work next year meeting with our teachers. Um I met with our directors just this week and asking them to help us to define models of instruction. what are some of the things that when you walk into a classroom you must see, you should see, and you should never see. And then we want to kind of continue that language with our educators going into next year.

065And then this year also being very intentional and about our summer enrichment program. Again, thinking about who are those students that haven't failed but are on the cusp and need that support as we go into next year to help to build their literacy skills and some of their learning is what we're being really intentional about as far as our next steps. Um and with that I'm going to pass it to Mr. Shikapasha to talk a little bit about our goal two for teaching and learning. Good evening. Um as goal to states uh you know our focus here is is on attendance and increasing that attendance uh by 8% this year. So uh some of the things some of the uh strategies that we have implemented are highlighted up here. uh house assemblies, uh OJS wellness

066day, whole sweeps, attendance letters, um cafeteria assignment, training of security, training of with the security team, um and then uh our know your rights card. So, I'm going to talk a little bit about each one of these uh strategies that we've used in the building. So our um assemblies our house assemblies as you know OHS is split up the students are uh split up into four houses one two three and four and uh those houses have an opportunity to meet with their students and so that those students get to know who their support uh teams are the adults uh on the house teams who are there to support them. Um so we start with the house assemblies at the beginning of the year and we try to do these uh every quarter. Um and these

067have been instrumental in setting clear uh expectations for our students uh as far as attendance is concerned. Um they have emphasized the importance of regular attendance and with how this impacts or directly correlates with academic success and by educating our students with these expectations uh we are fostering uh a student culture of accountability and commitment to their own education want them to own their education. Um, as far as the house team meetings and conferences go, these are opportunities that we have where we can actually meet with uh students who are at risk or who are chronically absent and and hopefully get some plans together uh with the house teams that uh can help those students uh you know overcome some of the um absenteeism that they're facing or overcome some of the obstacles or at

068least try to address and mitigate some of the issues that are preventing them uh from from going into class on a regular basis. So these can be done either we do these either by groups uh in groups student groups or individually uh house teams would would partner up with each other and meet our students. Um oh wellness day um this initiative adopts a holistic approach to student well-being uh integrating social emotional learning into the school environment. On wellness day, teachers engage with students in activities that prioritize mental health and emotional support. Uh this dedicated time allows for meaningful interactions that focus solely on the students wellbeing well-being, fostering a supportive and nurtured atmosphere. We feel like that's a huge part of a student's learning journey, academic journey is how they feel in the in in

069the building uh in terms of being seen uh and being heard. Um, as an administrative team, we've also adopted whole sweeps and this allows us to uh walk around um hallways and um the idea here is to help usher students to their designated uh areas or designated classes. Uh if students are off and they remain in the building, we don't want them walking around. We want them in a designated area in either the cafeteria or the library or if they're going to be off campus. We we want students um to make a decision where they're going to be uh when when they don't have class, when they have free periods. Uh so we conduct whole sweeps and uh this has helped um minimize uh you know students being late to class and uh it's helped

070us get students um into class so they're not missing uh instructional time. Um, another uh focus in attendance is that we have um we we send attendance letters home uh for students who are either at risk or who are chronically absent. And the idea behind this is to make sure that uh the families know and the students also are aware. Um you know, we're unsure if every student actually looks at their own attendance, but by getting a letter um you know, students are able to see, you know, uh if their attendance is if they're falling behind based on the attendance. But also the idea here is to partner with families, right, to help our students um you know um get to class uh regularly if they're not doing so already. Um we have also um

071strategically placed security personnel inside the cafeteria. Uh and the idea behind this is that uh this was uh you know the cafeteria and the library have been hotspots where students who are not going to class would end up. So I I think when we're looking at this uh you know uh the administrative team uh came up with a plan um you know to uh place security personnel in there um so that uh you know we're ushering kids back to class right when they're when they're not supposed to be in the cafeteria and we do that in the library as well. Uh a huge part of that uh a huge part of that security uh team again staying on that is Miss uh Miss Mingo has worked really hard with uh training our security team uh

072so that um you know we can focus on positive student engagement um and by building this rapport and fostering supportive relationship security staff can encourage students uh to attend class more regularly and uh this approach emphasizes the role of security personnel as allies uh in the student's journey academic journey. Uh and finally uh know your rights and red cards. Uh this initiative uh aims to empower students by educating them about their rights to enriching to an enriching and welcoming education. The distribution of red cards serves as a tangible reminder that every student has a right to quality education and should feel valued and included in the school community. Pass it on, Miss Lang. So for some next steps, um we are going to continue to refine our attendance protocols. Um one of the things that

073we constantly are trying to do is make sure that the protocols that we set into place, as challenging it may be, is to make sure that it's in line with what's going on in the world around us. And so some of our bestlaid plans, sometimes based on things that happen, similar to electing a new president, really has an impact on our school population. We're really trying to make sure we're establishing routines and systems and structures that would really still be able to support students despite everything that's happening in the world around us. So, continuing to refine our attendance protocols is one of the goals that we have. We will continue to send out our attendance, our quarterly attendance letters. We note that even once we did that, there were so many families that reached out

074still to correct attendance. It is so very interesting the resources that we have as far as ROOC calls as far as infinite campus and how they can update families, how much families still don't get the message and we have to reach out. It's that personal connection. So, I'm very thankful for the work that happens through our house system where they're able to make those personal conversations with families to really find out what are the barriers to attendance. So, that will continue. And then you seeing how we can leverage technology. We've shared with families what we realize is that we're making phone calls and sometimes it's not getting through. Um and then we've met with families or we've called them from our cell phones and we realize that kids have blocked our number on their cell

075their parents' cell phones. So thinking through how we can use technology now um to get around that is going to be very important because um we know that sometimes just by making that robocall or reaching out there's a barrier there just based on whether or not our numbers have been blocked. Um and then moving forward is just making sure that we're building in incentives around recognizing positive attendance. The theme for next year is present today, prepare tomorrow. And we really want to make sure we start with that um going into the summertime so that we are continuing to foster a community of attendance. Um and with that, I'm going to pass to Miss Mingo, who's going to share some highlights on our data informed instruction. Thank you, Miss Langley. Good evening. In efforts to support

076our goal of increasing student proficiency on the ELA regions, our PLC's, as previously previously mentioned, have really help support our educators engage in learning collaboration and professional devel development throughout the year. These PLC's have really allowed our educators to explore strategies alongside with educators across other departments. And in addition to what Miss Ferraro and Miss Langley have already shared, we continue to center our learning around this data. So for example, specifically during the months of October through January, our educators engaged in multilingual learner PLC's and began this work by looking specifically at English language proficiency levels for multilingual learners at OS. In March, for example, our educators took a deep dive into the OS regions data and specifically honed into their department regions data, noting areas of strength and growth using our rises protocol. In

077addition to our PLC's, our English, ENL, and math departments during department meeting time have taken a closer, more in-depth look into NWA data. And lastly, we have also created an region student profile, which I will speak more to in our upcoming slides. And this data has really allowed our team to monitor student progress toward meeting with success on the ELA regions. Specifically, um this this profile is allowing us to hone in on on our nth grade cohort and really monitor their progress toward meeting with success. So, as far as our next steps in that area, we'll continue to take a look at the data that we have, our midterm benchmark, regions data, um, our PSAT scores, and really start to look at how we can update our curriculum maps based on that learning. So when

078we're able to take a look at the data, look at it within the department, what are some of the things some of the gaps that we see in students learning and how they can use that data to go back to really address or kind of modify the curriculum maps based on the learning that needs to take place. So just making sure we're targeted and responsive to our students learning. Thank you. Um specifically moving on over to our second goal centered around attendance. We have continued with this datadriven approach in all of the action steps that we've taken. So through our continued PLC cycle, which really is anywhere spanning from a four to seven week cycle, give or take, our educators took a deeper look into attendance data, specifically looking at year-to-date referral data and noting

079trends of absenteeism, but specifically these trends and how they connect to our building and classroom spaces. Additionally, through our MTSS house team model, we continue to review and analyze attendance data, identifying potential group cause and possible avenues of support for our students. We have also assigned to help further support our communication with families and ensure that it is ongoing. We have further we have additionally assigned additional translating support to assist with parent teacher communication throughout our school day. And lastly, using our detailed attendance data, we have mailed home letters to at risk and chronically absent students to further maintain this consistent communication. As far as some next steps as far as data for attendance, I think a lot of it for us is really taking a look at the technology that we have and making

080sure that we clean up some of the information. So, making sure that when we um unload our new clerical staff because there's new clerical staff that are starting that we are making sure that our attendances are coded correctly. So, if a student calls out that it's coded correctly in the system so that the data that we're receiving is clear and up to date. The other thing is making sure we're improving our communication with our teachers and house teams and parents so that everyone is on the same page as far as the work that is taking place. Um, and then we you heard a little bit of it from our team at over at AMD, but resuming our grading and attendance task force making sure that we have additional voices from our colleagues that are participating

081and looking at what we need to do in order to really make sure that we have the best attendance protocol going into next year. So, I continue to mention our ELA student profile and I'm sure many of you are wondering, well, what is ELA student profile? So, really in efforts to explore ways we can achieve our literacy goal here at the high school, we have developed this ELA student profile to help our efforts to monitor student progress throughout the course of their grades 9 through 11. So the purpose of the student profile is to really help us gain insight into who is successfully passing and meeting with success on our English regions. The English regions is a cumulative exam grades 9 through 11. So it really allows us to give us more of an aimed

082review of student course completion in those grade levels. So from grades nine, their completion in grades 10 and then their completion in again in grade 11. So So this is the initial profile that we had initially started with and um we're looking more closely at our June 2024 regions data in which 70% of our students successfully pass our ELA regions. Right? When looking at this a bit more in depth, we tracked we monitor student progress in grade nine, grade 10, and grade 11. And what we noticed was that 97% of students who passed the regions were successful in their courses grades 9 through 11. So it was it was giving us data that we anticipated in a lot of ways. So we took a step back and took a bit more of a deeper look

083into this to really say well where are the students who perhaps may not be meeting with success on this exam and how can we provide continued supports for these students and when can we provide continued supports for these students. So we took a deeper look into our passing data for the exam where I had mentioned previously 70% of our students passed the exam and then started to look deeper into the categories and subsets of students who were either chronically absent who perhaps have accommodations with an IEP or 504 and perhaps who are multilingual learners. And it yielded data that in a lot of ways um still was giving us what we anticipated, right? That, you know, students who were not chronically absent were meeting with success, right? And we continue to look for ways that

084we continue that we can support students who perhaps were still struggling. So, our final slide was our failure breakdown where 30% of our students did not did not meet with success on the exam. Right? Taking a deeper into chronically absent students with IEPs and 504s and our multilingual learners. So really using this data, it's how we're continuing to explore ways that we can provide supports throughout the school year whether it's during school through support periods or AIS classes through afterchool sessions. Um, I know we have a lot of tutoring opportunities, after school hours, and where we're continuing to uh provide these supports during our summer program, our summer enrichment opportunities as well. Good evening. So to address our literacy goal underneath the umbrella of equity uh we have taken strategic steps to build instructional capacity

085and provide targeted academic support. For example, we added new courses sears such as topics of English, algebra 1A and ENL film and lit to engage students in languagerich content. Furthermore, professional development sessions have been expanded to include more teachers, equipping them with effective strategies and to support learners in all content areas. In collaboration with the district, we offered highne highinterest sessions for faculty and staff to align instruction with our students needs. Additionally, we are celebrating the achievement of 57 students who are eligible for the seal of biteracy this year, reflecting our ongoing commitment to linguistic and academic excellence. Students also have access to academic support through New York gear up tutoring and mentoring after school regions review sessions as mentioned before and online tutoring resources such as Einstein tutoring and one world algebra tutoring ensuring

086multiple pathways to success. So, I just want to kind of call attention to when we talked about the student profile and who's not meeting with success and you see some of the highlights that we have here and the fact that we're going to continue that going into next year, but the creation of a topics of English course that really is focusing on those students that might need to need support in building their proficiency in English and making sure that they're assigned to a class during the day, not waiting for it to be after school, but making sure that it's built into their schedule as what we're talking about algebra 1A which is a shortened algebra. It's the first six um the first six lessons in the curriculum in order to make sure that they are

087prepared for algebra when they go into the 1.5 and the ENL film and lit. So being very intentional about the courses that are being created in order to build language for our students. So we are going to continue with those courses to support our English language learners to build their profess proficiency. Um we've been working very closely with New York Gear Up. We're very thankful to have New York Gear Up as a part of our building and so continuing our work to make sure that they fund some of the opportunities that we're looking to build because that's the support that we need. So making sure whether or not it is afterchool mentoring, whether or not it's after school um tutoring opportunities. Now going into the summer, they've been supporting with summer opportunities in addition to

088college tours, meeting with universities. so many different ways where we can engage our students. So, we'll continue with that work. Um, you'll hear when um Mr. Ducos comes up that we have a new course that's starting next year, which is the Spanish home language course. So, also support literacy in their home language. So, there are many different ways we're trying to really build our students skills throughout the year. We will also be providing the multi- literacy the multi-ingual literacy screener um for accurate placement in math and English for our students to make sure that they're placed in the correct courses when they enter into the high school. So again really thinking about how we're equitable but using that data to inform the work that we're doing. Now to address our attendance goal under the umbrella

089of equity, we have implemented a range of initiatives aimed at fostering a supportive and informed school environment. As mentioned by Mr. Shikawashia, the New York Rights Assembly and distribution of red cards empowered students with critical knowledge to navigate challenges that may impact them. In addition, as mentioned before, we created a grading and attendance task force where we discuss grading practices and attendance protocols. Moreover, our student our counseling department has done a remarkable job of coordinating student ambassadors who act essentially as college orientation leaders in that they support our new students through OS tours, getting their student IDs, walking through their schedule, and addressing general questions that they may have about life at OHS. Lastly, we had a professional learning community on restorative practices which was titled Beyond the Surface led by Marisol Keedo Roueta which

090spoke to how we show up for each other and for our students and how we build a high trust community for all. So far as next steps, we're going to continue as we shared our work with our grading and attendance task force. A goal for me for next year is also to create a principal advisory council. So when we talk a little bit about how we elevate student voice and how we know what's happening in the building, that is a focus for next year, a principal advisory council. Um and the last thing is just to continue some of our work around talkbacks, um which is establishing open dialogue with our students around critical issues, um to make sure that we're problem solving with our students and faculty. So in the area of family and community

091partnership, some of the highlights is that we, you know, throughout the year we have different grade level meetings for each of our parent groups. So 9th, 10th, and 11th, and 12th grade. We were very intentional this year in making sure that we shared our literacy goals in addition to different resources that families can use at these family nights um highlighting the work that we've done with New York Gear Up and AVID. I would say so far I think that our students have been on over 10 college and university tours through AVID and the work with New York Gear Up and the messaging that we send out to families on a regular basis just around our goal. So we will continue a lot of that work and and and continue um building our partnerships with parent

092and community organizations. Next Saturday I believe it is we are working with Dr. daily and we are going to be participating in the Saturday explore and learn around the NWA um data and reports because we realized that at the high school level that was one of the key things that was missing is that families didn't understand how to read that report and how that data connected to the day-to-day work. So that is something that we're going to be providing working alongside Dr. Dailyy to address goal number two. We've been able, as we shared, to really look at some of the statistics with our families around chronic absenteeism. So, at our grade level parent meetings, we've shared some of that data in addition to strategies on how they support their children um in preparing for school

093every day, how attendance is important. So, we will continue that work in addition to sending out our letters and working with some of our community- based organizations. The other thing that we're looking at is how we can make sure we send the message also around report cards, making sure that parents are looking at attendance at that point in time and again how to maneuver Infinite Campus. So, as we move towards the end of this year and begin to closely analyze our final assessment data, we believe that we've been intentional in laying the groundwork. At the same time, we know that meaningful progress requires ongoing reflection and a time adjustment. We look forward to working collaboratively with our directors that have been so very helpful, our faculty, and make some thoughtful refinements to support our continued

094growth. And that's it for our presentation. Thank you. Questions from the board? Go ahead, Roger. Thanks so much for that presentation. I um it's good to see both buildings come together, honestly. feels like it's a continuous story. So, thanks for that. Um, you know, it gets pretty bad when you can't read your own damn handwriting. So, um, so question on this. I think there is some conversations around attendance. There's a couple of things that come to mind. The first is the, you know, I know there are kids who also they they're out on they go out for v like presentations or competitions and what have you. Is that factored into the chronic attend absenteeism? The other question is, you know, for like things like if somebody's going to be out for, you know, AP exam

095or other types of exams that come in, is that counted as part of that, especially if they're kind of like excused for the day? Um, and then when you dig into the actual attendance data, I know it's a multi-art question here. Do you were there things that you found particularly the ones that are kind of like I think it was the numbers you had like was like 59% there was like a big number that was there and like what some of those causal factors are that might be driving those numbers. So the first question around if it's a school trip, those are generally marked as edu or a field trip. So it lets us know that they were on whether or not it's a college tour or might have been science research or something of

096that effect. So it's either a field trip or it's an edu that it should be marked. That's the same thing for AP exams. If they are sitting for an exam and therefore they're not going to be there for the rest of the day, it should go in as an edu. What we find is sometimes it's not updated right away. And so we have to make sure that we're consistently that we put some systems into place to make sure that that's updated right away so that the system is reporting correct attendance. And I think that's the dilemma that we have whether or not you know if a student comes in late and they were originally marked absent making sure that we're updating that attendance right away because I think as soon as a student goes home

097and they say I was there they didn't mark it correctly then families think that maybe our information is not correct. So, it's really making sure we're providing accurate information each and every time. So, that's the first one. Um, as far as some of the reasons why students are not showing up, it sounds like that was the question you had. The barriers to Yeah, like any any deep dives into what we've done a lot of deep dives. We've met with students to have them fill out the barriers to attendance survey to really begin to let us know what's happening, why they're not showing up, and what are some of the things that we need. And it's really multifaceted whether or not some of it is some of it is chronic um chronic absences meaning that that's

098just who they've been historically throughout their time in um the Austining school system. Some of it might be due to mental health reason reasons. Some of it might be through to family stressors. There are so many different reasons. Some of it is just lack of engagement. So, there are many reasons why they're not showing up and it's really our responsibility through our house team meetings and working with them one-on-one to see if we can mitigate some of those reasons. I appreciate that. Um the and I'll ask like um two short questions I guess on the seal by literacy piece of it. I think there was a numbers like 59 students that are getting the seal of by literacy. I think there's a larger population that are actually that have that potential literacy that's so much

099greater than that. I don't know how much that number is, but I think that number could probably be twice maybe close to three times that. I don't know. Um, but is there something that we can do to really drive that up? I think that seal of literacy, it's like a point of distinguishment for these kids, particularly if they put it on an application for either a college, technical school, whatever it might be that they decide to do. But it I think it's just such a great credential to have. Um, and you know, I I often wonder why we particularly given our our school district and the the demographic um population we have, why that can't be much higher. And again, it's not to say that you're, you know, that there's not enough being done right

100now. I mean, I think there's a lot because what what's now is now, but what I'd like to see going forward in the future a lot more in terms of pulling in maybe I don't know if it's you start at the middle school and you say, "Hey, let's introduce you into this and let's help plan a career path for you or something to that level, right? It's going to open up some doors that I think can be a pretty amazing." So, that's just a comment and you can if you want to comment on it, feel free. And then a question I just have is I want to see I want to understand how long the Gear Up program goes for because I think that's just such a great program. So, I certainly hope to see

101that continue. Awesome. So I can address both. Um so for the seal of biiteracy I do think that the programs are slightly different when it comes to K to8 and then moving on to the high school. Right? So K to8 the structure is more toward lends itself to a dual language type program whereas when they get into the high school it's more of an ENL program and then they're able to take language as like an elective essentially. Right. So, with the addition of our Spanish home language arts course, I do think that that will allow a lot of our students um who are multilingual learners to continue that seal of literacy. I also think that in having our students have continued support in Spanish and being able to have that online tutoring and get support

102in Spanish that will also help them maintain and receive that CLA literacy. Um, just to kind of address that, how do you get how do you get more kids into it? That's the question. How do you how do you make that instead of 59 like 200? How do you get there? Well, I don't have the exact answer for that. Um, but you know, I I do think we can get there and it has gone up. Uh, last year I believe it was 43 and this year it's 57, which is a pretty it's a significant jump, right? It's not 200, but we'll get there. You can do it. Um, and I do think there's there are some moves that we are making that will set us up to get there. 200. Let's do it. 200. 200.

103Let's do it. Let's do it. Um, and then in terms of the uh gear up, so gear up is cohort-based. So, it follows our class of 2028. So, it would run out once our class of 2028 graduates. Just add one thing on the seal of pity talking about the partnerships. we are looking to um bring that Spanish home language arts course down to the middle school level. So the more that we continue to do bless you um the more that we continue to do at the middle school level to set students up for success particularly as Jen had said with our English uh ENL students and making that transition to high school serving our ENL students. It's our ENL students who are taking um our Spanish for the native speakers currently in seventh grade. That

104course will go to seventh uh will also grow to eighth grade. So we are looking in that collaboration to continue building that. Sure. Um I don't know if you'll you probably can give me a little bit of insight to this but probably not um data, which is fine. Um but I have been curious. I know that um we do have students who are seasonal attendees of school for lack of a a better term, right? Whose parents are working up here during certain seasons of the year and then working down south during certain seasons of the year and go back and forth. And I've never really had any kind of understanding of what those numbers are, what percentages they are, how they factor into, you know, if you're going to school elsewhere where there's no regents

105out of state for half the year and then you're coming back and you're expected to take a region's exam and the curriculum is entirely different. Well, like it's totally no surprise that you're not going to pass the region's exam and it's no surprise that you're going to have some issues with attendance. And I would imagine that that would be very very challenging um if I was a student. So I guess I'm curious in understanding that dynamic a little bit better. What what percentages are we talking about? How do they factor into the overall regions um passing rate um our graduation rate and then what are the specific services and supports that we have in place um for those students and those families? You know, I'm interested in learning everything from, you know, are we counseling

106families of this is how, you know, this pattern can impact regions, can impact graduation, everything from that to okay, we understand you making this decision. Are parents even telling us that they're making the decision or is it just all of a sudden we have students who are not occupying their chairs in classrooms anymore? You know, I I've heard just anecdotally that that we've got all all ends of that spectrum. So, I guess I'm just, you know, are we giving homework packets out? Like, are we anticipating, okay, you're you're going to be gone from December, you're probably coming back in March, let's meet with guidance so that you can understand what our curriculum is if you are returning in March and what the expectation is going to be from you and whether or not you know

107you want to rise to that occasion, however difficult it may be. I'm just I'm really fascinated by it and I'm interested and curious to learn more about how we're supporting those students in particular. So, I just want to say that first of all, great question. Um, I don't have the data today as far as what, you know, what percentage that is, but we definitely have those conversations with families all the time. There are times that we'll get letters that say they are going to be away for two to three weeks, and there's always a reason behind why that's going to happen. And so with a recent conversation that I had with a family, you know, I talked about the impact that that's going to have on the students instruction and that they wouldn't be prepared

108more than likely for their final exams and whether or not there's going to be someone who's providing um some type of academic support during this trip that they're going to take. And sometimes they have support, sometimes they don't. And yes, teachers more than likely are willing to provide packets or they'll tell us students have access to Google um their way. So, they're always trying to let us know that maybe they'll be able to catch up. I think the most important thing for this year though is that New York State has also done something different by offering major life events exemptions from region. So, students that may have had to one of the families I spoke about recently, spoke to recently, they're leaving back to Africa because grandpa passed away and the family's going to be

109there for the next three weeks and they won't be in school. that's going to constitute as a major life event where they would then be exempt from the regions because of it. So I think New York State has also realized that this is a very big issue. Um and there are so many other things that are at play that they're now starting to relax some of the standards or setting some exemptions into place. And I'm thankful because it lets us know that it's not just us. It's not just using but there this is an issue you know throughout New York State and they're also responding in different ways also. But as far as having the conversation and how we're preparing them for leaving. Yes, we do that all the time. U Mr. Ducos and I

110have a lot of conversations when students leave the state and they go somewhere that is not that doesn't require the regent and they come back. Are they waved? Are they not? What do we need to do? So, it's a constant conversation to make sure they're on track. Absolutely. It changes a lot of different things and we're we're aware of it and we try our best to work through each and every situation. I think I know just as you know trustees out in the community, we do get asked a lot, you know, what about the graduation rate? What about the regent pass rate? What about the state exam pass rate? You know, and we could debate all day long whether or not any of these exams or metrics matter in the long run, right? reality is

111there are metrics by which many people judge school districts, right? So I think sometimes understanding the stories better um from our perspective helps us engage in those conversations with the community better. Um so yeah, any any sort of general framework or info you can provide would be helpful. I think also just building on what Latoya shared, I think that's where the house system and structure. They spoke about it at the high school, but it really is that critical element and also it is knowing the story of our families because while you know I think bringing up a very specific um population of like a migrant farmworker population or a migrant population, what we're actually seeing is more of um a student enrolling or a family enrolling than unenrolling for a period of a year or

112so and then coming back. So, you know, Jared just brought on a student who I have the sibling at Roosevelt. I think as I look around, you know, the history that we have at the table provides that connectivity to families and I could say call, you know, we had another student just register and I said, "Call Anelise Valerio in the seventh grade because I knew Anelise was the um the clinician at Claremont." So we are because we do have the house system, the um clinical structures that we have in place, we're able to then provide the interventions to the families and have those one-on-one meetings. But I think it's certainly data. You know, we could speak to Mary and Kim um through the office of, you know, student services to see what is some of

113our enrollment data looking like. I I would admit I'm seeing a lot of reenrollments now. Um but it's the it's the middle school level. It doesn't have much of an impact in region. And I I also wonder, you know, does that impact things like sealed by literacy? I'm sure it does, right? I'm sure it must impact that. Um, and then, you know, just for me personally, I would appreciate a better understanding of what happens if you do have a transfer student from out of state who comes in junior year, sophomore year. I have personally I have no idea how that would work with regent and a regent diploma. So, I would appreciate that guy over there. wrote a letter. Yeah, but we've learned that when I'm going to tell you what you learned. You taught

114me when they come in that question. Jeremy, you're probably so sick of me emailing you my questions. Not at all. Like, I actually love it because again, it educates and informs our district to what work we need to do for our families and students, right? So to your question regarding junior transfers, we get that and oftentimes like New NY has policy and law that supports junior transfers and specifically out of state, they're exempt from certain regions and courses, right? So if I transfer in junior year, I'm exempt from the global regions. If I change in my senior year, I'm exempt from global and science, right? So that provides them an opportunity to focus on specific assessments. Um, and even with that said, there are ways that we can speak to to meet lab requirements and

115things of that nature of former schools to say, "Hey, we know you may not have met the,200 minutes, but do you think that dur during the course of time did this student encompass that?" And schools oftentimes support that with their labs in Florida, Delaware. We get schools from uh students from all over. So, there are NICE policies and laws that do support transfer students, even our international students. And I was just going to ask that. I will say this, our international students um if they come in with records, they kind of get a really good head start on credits and working towards specific assessments here. The one barrier, right, that oftentimes and I think our team spoke well about it is the English regions, right? They still are required to pass the English regions. It

116is the only reasons they don't get accommodations on. Now, is that from a board level? Is that an area of advocacy that might be something from a board level that be helpful to you? I mean, I think our team here is doing a tremendous job in creating the structures at each of their buildings to really support students proficiency in that area because again, yes. Right. And I think the state also with the blue ribbon commission is noticing this which is why they're sunsetting the regions. They're not getting rid of them. They're sunsetting. Right. So, with that said, now we have to think differently and okay, what are the opportunities um that present themselves for our specifically our ML students that are impacted by the ELA regions, right? because I'm talking about remarkable students. When we

117talk about the MLS assessment that we're giving to all students, it's because there are students that are sitting in an algebra class that have showed, I would say, mastery in math where they should be in calculus, right? And we want to put those students in. So, which is why the MLS is being administered when they come in their intake now. Um, but to that point, there are ways for us to again advocate, which I think Blue Room will do that. Um, develop courses like home language arts to develop proficiency in English in their home language because studies show that that that will then transfer into the English language, right? And then just time like we have data that shows like five six years these students end up graduating with the diploma. The ones that we

118struggle with in our department are the students that come underredited and overaged. So 18 19 years old and unfortunately they're unable to get any documentation from their home country. Right. Well, so Mary, I guess if you are seeing an looking at all of this holistically, an area where the board specifically could do some advocacy, I would be interested in your recommendations. Great question. Happy to work on that. Yeah, Jeremy will be talking tomorrow. I was over there like I want to jump in, but I felt like Brunson and Josh Hart like the last coach put me in. Yeah. Across the table. Does the board have any questions? We could go in a circle if Melissa and then we'll start. Sure. So, thank you for your presentation as well and all the hard work that you

119are doing to support our students. My question is kind of a continuum um from the AMD level around how we're um and and I commend the partnership that continues to grow between Miss Langley and and Dr. Novver. Um I'm wondering how it's kind of a two-prong question. What we're identifying at the middle school level of the sense of belonging, right? I can imagine that those students that are in that percentile of not feeling that connection would potentially increase when they get to a much more independently based and broader environment. And so I'm wondering what the connection between the two schools when it comes to that data and how we can um kind of thread that needle a bit closer, what that looks like, if that's emerging, if that's something you guys gave thought to. Um

120and then I have a second part, but I don't want to condense it. I'll allow for feedback on that. So I I feel like that some of that definitely goes into or comes into the high school and I feel like that's why we've tried to be very intentional even with our summer programming um with our freshman academy to really introduce them into the high school and help them to know some of the expectations and make those connections from day one. This year we started out with having a um an abbreviated day for our freshmen when they came in. actually not abbreviate. This year we did freshman for the first time in the building by themselves um and took an opportunity for them to meet with their house teams to really be able to establish that

121rapport with the building and really begin to see themselves in the high school. During our eighth grade presentation, we were very intentional around mentioning all of the different opportunities that the high school has to offer, whether or not it's clubs, whether or not it's athletics, um our theater department. So really thinking through how how student belonging comes to be and how they can see themselves as individuals in the high school and that's some of the work that we've been trying to do to really help develop that sense of belonging. So really looking at how they are they transition into the high school and then making sure that every single student is really connected to something within that high school. I think where we need what we need to do next is really survey our students

122to find out are there students that still are not connected by way of whether or not it's a mentor, whether or not it's a club, some type of, you know, some type of organization that's going to allow them to continue to foster those connections within our building. Thank you. So, oh, sorry. Go ahead. Um so one thing that we uh discussed about our sense of belonging is that it is usually tied to data. So students that belong perform well academically. Um and with our most recent partnership, it was based also on data. in our um beginning of the year where we had our conference with Kathy Connelly and we really took some time to look at our June instructional report and also our NWA, we were able to identify subgroups that were not performing well.

123Those specific subgroups were the actual subgroups specifically our entering and our emerging ENL students that we then tied with community-based organizations to identify what are the causes that are underlying that are not allowing you to perform well. One of the partnerships that we had this year was with growth wellness which provided lunch groups. Within those lunch groups, we identified based on um our first sessions, what were their actual causes as to why they were not performing academically, why they were not connecting with others, and then we created a curriculum based on that that tied to their scope and sequence. And it was a full integration of working with Nancy Aoyo, working with myself, working with Quincy, working with the teacher that was present there and then creating the scope and sequence. Then we took the

124lunch group and also two sessions of their ELA. So we were able to pull out that. Our most recent assessment although we can't exactly speak on um the scores was our nicest slat speaking that was just conducted and we based on observations had our highest scores of growth were that specific group of entering and emerging students that worked with growth wellness. The majority of them we will see the data come out but outperform even our third level of language acquisition love of language language acquisition proficiency. So what we are seeing is that by identifying the data then digging into the causal factors and then providing additional supports. That's another reason why we have the rising phoenix program. The Rising Phoenix program was our group that was a departmental class that scored the lowest in both

125ELA and math. Their Rising Phoenix is actually the theme that they um selected because they want to rise from the ashes. But we've already noticed in their NWA scores a significant increase because we're targeting what are the social emotional issues, what are your attendance issues, what's going on with your family. growth wellness doesn't just work with lunch groups and in session but they also pull in the families and tying into our house structure because one thing that you've noticed from AMD and also OS we have house structures and our clinicians are tied to our houses and that structure alone provides an alignment that students know I can go to my house and my house is going to connect to whatever resource that I need and if they need a community-based organization such as growth wellness

126or neighbors link from OHS students know they'll receive those services and that's what allowing us to track the information through data and then provide the additional supports to boost the belonging and as you can see in our front showcase we are highlighting those students this year and when we did the ribbon cutting it was purposeful to show them your voice matters and that's why the theme is solidarity and allowing students that were not seen now to advocate for the entire building. Thank you for that. And I did uh at the U equity Saturday explore and learn academy, I did chat up the uh the I forgot her name, the one and doing the solidarity project. So I was very impressed to see some of the intention and the connections that are being made through that

127and um the intentionality about it and the kind of really the aspects that went into that project. Um my second question is a good segue because it was around data. Now just really appreciating you know what things like having a US Department of Education brings is being able to look at the scope geographically around the country when it comes to chronic absenteeism. And so there were three distinct categories that were kind of explored where ethnicity students with learning different differences in accommodations and um uh English English language learners. So I'm wondering if you know I'm pretty sure we don't have it at our fingertips now or maybe we do at some point could get a breakdown. I appreciate the profile that was breaking broken down for ELA profile but I'm wondering just through the general

128population what those numbers look like for us um as a district. Um because those are the three categories where chronic absenteeism there are some distinct categories that are trending very high in those three subgroups. So I'm wondering if that's something we've ever analyzed is something we can analyze because I'm curious to see what that looks like and how we kind of approach um as we continue to modify our approach to chronic absenteeism what it looks like through that lens. So you want to speak to the work of the Okay. So um I know that that's the work some of the work that Dr. daily does with our attendance committee. I know that when we're looking at data, a lot of the times when we're looking at our failures or we're looking at students that are

129successful, we get an MTS report. Um, shout out to Tim Scolton and the work that he does behind the scenes and running and providing a lot of the different data, but we're always looking at our past and our failures um based on their demographics. So, whether or not there are multilingual learners, whether or not they have they're classified, but then also looking attendance to see how it plays into how it factors into their scores. So, it's something that we do just when we're looking at it by way of our MTSS system, but then a lot of that work and data is also done by Dr. Dilly and Mr. Scott at the district level. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Annie um I was so glad you shared that story about um but I'll what I like it

130answered my question because I was thinking about how I have a friend who is very brilliant. English is not her first language. Um she has an MBA but when we read a book for book club there's just so many random words that she doesn't know. She needs like she has to look them all up and how that could be such a common issue with kids like they can know so much and be so intelligent but then this is a barrier. Um so it sounds like you guys you knew that and are taking care of it. So, thank you. Um, and then I don't know if this is a tonight conversation, but I am wondering if since we've had ARC for three years now, when the grades are when the kids are getting to like middle

131school age, are you seeing a shift in their like reading proficiency and all that? So, we're still um waiting kind of on the end of data. We are seeing a shift in their proficiency which is actually allowing us to at the eighth grade level um pull back one section of the reading lab because what we've seen is that our students at that level are reaching grade level and then don't need those small group instruction as um that small group instruction as often. But over the next and I'm sorry during this presentation I appear to lost my voice. Um but we'll have data prepared by the spring to report back on um the literacy data. But what we're also looking at is not only the ARC data in isolation um but also how that contributes to

132the NWBA scores and we couldn't present that tonight because that final administration um is not for the next two weeks. Um but we'll report back on each of those pieces and um Miss Maria Hel Maria and I were talking right before about some of the shifts that we are looking now that our teachers fully understand the scope of the ARC uh curriculum and ARC framework how we can then deepen in those areas that um where we specifically identify the standards that they need strengthening. Now we know the curriculum, we know the implementation. So now we're going to deepen so that culture of academics um gets more into targeting specific students needs u from a broader scope on depth of text complexity. Um so we're excited what's to come for next year as we refine. Thank

133you. That's all for me. Frank, thank you for your presentations tonight. As my colleagues said, they were really excellent. Um a couple kind of come to mind. I just want to give you a lot of credit for the efforts that you put into observing, to analyze, and to basically the intentionality that follows up with it. Like I can't emphasize how important enough that really is and the impact it has. And I'll say a few things about some of the things you said, but I also have a great example just two weeks ago really your work. Um, and really like quarterly house meetings like this the house system is not new to the district, right? But implementing it with fidelity and seeing you know, students get reap the benefits of it. Really, really important. Student agency

134in their own education like so important, right? Just and and um and the importance of community as part of that whole effort um for for them. Just those themes of what you're doing and how you're analyzing and you're adjusting resources and putting situ kids making situations for kids really really important. And I think the event that I'll I'll bring it to is two weeks ago we had a Saturday explore and learn and we had an equity day. And just like there's a great wall of you here tonight, there was a great wall that dwarfed you of students over here at 9:30 in the morning from Austin High School. And it's 9:30 in the morning and I'm racing to get here with my third grader and and and here I was just impressed they were here.

135But I have to tell you, when you went down and you talked to the students and you heard them, they echoed so much of what was said here tonight in their own experiences and it's just so impressive to be, you know, blown away. I just think of how I was in high school and I was nothing like they were. And it wasn't like one or two students. It was like a wall of students of all different kinds of areas, all different backgrounds. And so, you should just feel really great that that's the impact you're having. I'm sure there's times and moments where it's not that in high school because I know it's not like that in my house with things that we go through. But like it was just a really really impressive day and

136it it just echoed the themes of tonight. And um I I will say like the the power of putting out data and putting out where your successes are and where your challenges are. the panorama surveys in the panorama surveys we had been doing for a while and you know co came and things shifted but we always saw kind of what you were telling us anecdotally is like third of the kids were engaged a third were proficient and you could see that across the board now that we see 53% engaged like at different times different programs have nudged those numbers up but it's been hard to sort of maintain but the power of hearing that from the students really is really I I just would encourage you like be bold with your surveys see what get

137because it will also be another thing that in your toolkit to inform the practice and I think from the board seat what we've always what what a lot of my colleagues across the years have tried to do is figure out how do we get the kids that aren't engaged and because we know they're that success is going to follow they're going to meet their success right so um just a really powerful tool there and um there's probably more I wanted to say those are those are my notes oh I will say just last with students play out in front probably about 14 years ago we went down to Union City New Jersey There was an article in the Times and the board went down with a with a with a bunch of educators from the

138district. And Union City was there was a miracle in Union City. They had a population that you didn't expect to see a lot of success with and they were seeing it. And when you walked into their buildings, you saw life-sized cutouts of photos of kids and all different things showing their work. And you could see when we talked to them, the impact of them being valued as you're entering their building was so huge. And it just raised the level of engagement across the board. And it was always something like how do we do Union City in Austin and how do we do this? But like that's like what you have out front at AMD is a piece of that whole story, right? And um it's just I have to say Saturday I heard from more

139kids probably in all my time in the district talking this way you're talking tonight. So anecdotally keep up the work. I'm sure the numbers are going to get the numbers. They're going to reflect the success that you're having. And just know that like in the midst of it all you're making a big difference in our students lives. So, thank you for the efforts. Thank you for a great presentation. All right. Um, thank you so much. I do have just a couple little things I want to help make sure our community is fully understanding your presentation because this isn't just for us, right? We want our community to understand what we're doing and how we're really um kicking the tires of what we're working on. Now, a lot of our goals or your goals are um

140you know, based on data that hasn't rolled in yet for the end of the year, right? We can't know if we're meeting them. I'm curious uh though regarding attendance, we should have a general idea if we're on track or not because that's going to evolve as the year goes on. So, are we like way off the mark? Are we still too close to call? Is it like what's the forecast, I should say, for our attendance goal right now? again not having it fully in that you know we've taken a look at it to just see where we are and I feel that there definitely is some room for improvement and what we've started to look at is at what points were there drops and significant drops and I think the district has done some of

141that work also um there was a lot of that came out u after the recent election and students that you know had a lot of difficulties showing up for school and so We've been trying to look at the that data and have those conversations with students and with families to find out why there has been a decline in attendance. So that's when I say that a lot of what's happening in the world around us and the impact that has an impact in our school system. So we talk about the fact that our high school is a microcosm of the world around us and so when there are challenges within that system, it impacts our school environment. So right now I would say that there is some work that needs to be done and we're really

142trying looking at the data to help us to tell the story about when that happened and what it ties to. Thank you. And I've already heard so much about what you're what actions you're taking, right, to to uh continue that work. Um, I want to take a moment to remind our community because I see a lot of um, edges speak acronyms and I know it's hard to balance everything that you're doing in here and to package it up in a concise way so that the uh, everybody understands it and we end up not always catching how much of that we we do. So, I just want to remind our community that we do have a glossery on our website. Um, if you go to the board page and it's when you click on the schedule

143for board meetings, it's commonly used acronyms in education and that will help kind of decode some of that for you up here if you're seeing it. But in the meantime, um I would I was noticing was absent from there if um I know what this is, but I want to make sure everybody at home does too. Can um anybody at the table would be able to define a PLC for the folks at home because that came up quite a bit and I want to make sure our community understands that. and then also talk um and this showed up in the middle school presentation, the Marzano model of instruction so that our folks at home can wrap their heads around that. Um so PLC is a professional learning community. We can add that to the glossery.

144Yes. Um and that's really just the space in which our our teachers engage in their and our educators engage in a professional learning uh professional development cycle process. And Marzano is a an educator. He wrote a book called The Art and Science of Teaching. And so it's really just looking at the models of instruction through the art and science of teaching. So very similar, I would say probably to Danielson, but it's the Marzano way. And that's the method that he's come up with. Great. Thank you so much. Um the rest of my colleagues asked all of the more substantive questions that I had. Um and I want to echo the appreciation shared tonight. Um, I appreciate you taking the time. Um, I know that this is just a a small reflection of the work that

145you do every day and that so much is hands-on and that it's always a continuing work in progress. And one of the amazing things about working in education is it's never quite the same. It's always evolving and every student presents their own challenge. I I I'm so glad that uh we are in a district where you all recognize that each individual student comes with their own story and their own um strengths, weaknesses, visions, dreams, and really each one of them comes to us as a whole person ready to learn. So, thank you so much. Um you've already given us so much time. Um but I think then we're ready to move on to our next item. I don't know if you want to stay sitting in case there's a public comment question that you want

146to answer, but um I would say class dismissed. Can you say class dismissed? Most of the class until until we get um we have we have uh Jeremy up here. Unless you want your you want the moral support of your middle school colleagues. They got they got they got a long day tomorrow. We've had testing. I will say add to a little bit add to Frank's comments too that um you know every every Wednesday we have a principal's huddle and the camaraderie that you see here very much permeates all of that and we have um you know Kim is part of that um um Maria Don um so again I I really do appreciate the working together thinking together and not being afraid to talk about the tough questions not defensive around things and let's

147work together team the board etc. So it is much appreciated. Thank you. All right, Jeremy, you want to move over to yours? Jeremy felt far. Now I feel close. I'm good. Okay. Good evening everyone. Good evening. Um distinguished members of the board, Superintendent Fox Alter, uh our amazing um assistant soups, my colleagues at the high school and middle school who just left um Hello, I'm here to present on our low- enrolled courses as well as our um proposed courses, our course proposals for the 2526 school year. So, just kind of an agenda. An agenda is what the overview of the presentation is the scheduling process kind of what happened, how were folks informed, how were students informed, uh the new course proposals for this year, the low enrolled courses, right? and some strategic plan that

148we have as a school to support these courses uh as well as any questions and comments at the end. So first we'll kind of look into the scheduling process itself. So scheduling technically t like kicks off for our juniors I would say in January. So we start with our junior conferences in January. So they kind of get exposure being that they are now the next group up for the college application process. Right? So they kind of get that first onset of exposure to the course guide to the courses that are going to be kind of proposed as well as their course selection process and meeting with school counselors. However, our course fair is kind of the initial kickoff. It's a celebration of new courses that we're going to offer as well as existing elective courses,

149AP courses, student courses at the high school and that took place this year on February 5th in our gymnasium for our 9th through 11 grade students. Then we have the release of the course guide on February 16th. followed by our course selection process which is kicked off on February 14th and then ends on April 25th. So again, counselors began their meeting specifically with juniors in January, but then held I would what I would say small group sessions with each grade level student and essentially if a student had more questions or families had more questions, they were advised to reach out to their student school counselor to set up an appointment to meet onetoone. So with that said, the most important thing that we transitioned to because we have excited students. So essentially they want to

150know what courses they can take but first we go over diploma requirements. It's important that they on the I would say the front portion of their mind they're thinking about how am I going to earn my diploma through these courses and then we talk about the courses that they'd like to take. So for our incoming ninth grade, again, things that we kind of kept the same this year, I would say, is we had our incoming and I would say the schedule kind of um helped out a lot, right? So with the incoming grade nine parent night on March 26, it kind of culminated Mr. Gordinho's push into his courses and his classes. He he pushed into English classes this year to talk about the transition to OS. Uh what that presentation stated was essentially the

151courses they'll take as freshmen, right? So for our first year students, there's not many courses they can select, right? They have to come into geometry advanced or algebra. They're going to take biology. They're going to take English 9. So there's not much much selection there. So the purpose of this is to truly I would say to acclimate them to the high school, right? We introduce them to familiar faces. He talks about the school counselors that they could potentially have. He talks about the administration and he shows this amazing video that literally walks through the hallways in the campus of OHS for the students. So that kind of prepares them for our family night in which we present to our OS families um again kind of the pathways of success at the high school, diploma requirements,

152assessments, and then the course selection process for their student. And then we bring our OS counselors along with Mr. Godinho this year here in this very room periods one and two. We sat with every single eighth grade student and went through the course selection process with them, right? So, if they had any questions, there were high school high school counselors there to ask. Our interns actually helped as well. And we tried to limit it this year to about 35 to 40 students. Um, typically in past years, depending on last name, you can have a session with 60 students on it. So, we kind of like wanted to make sure that it was small, intimate, and group size so that there was individual attention for students if they had any questions. How do we communicate this

153information out to families? So, we use our O blast, which is I would say it's been um hugely successful this year. We're seeing consistent and sorry Latoya, we're seeing a 63% open rate compared to Latoya's 60% open rate. So, but with that said, so that's one way we've communicated with families, right? Um our counselors again intentionally having small group. I'm talking about like using counseling uh therapeutic services. you're talking about five to eight students in a small group session to discuss the uh course selection process and then again via appointments for our students if they had additional questions in regards to their course selections. They were handed colorful course selection sheets um specific to grade levels to identify the courses that they can take for their uh next school year. The course guide was sent

154via Oblast to students and is also found on our home uh school counseling website. And again, we talked about our course guide day in and day out at each of our uh family nights. And now to the fun portion, which is our new courses. So, I'm I'm somewhat excited of these new courses simply because with blue ribbon coming, right, we have to strategically think of exposure to every avenue, every possibility, every pathway for our students. And I can see that our teachers are also thinking about that as well. And you'll see that in the courses. So our first course is print making. Now again with our success in fashion, with our success in ceramics, the printmaking class is going to explore multiple ways to utilize print. Um and this will be a half semester court

155in the spring. So it will complement drawing, it will complement our fall semester courses for students to explore printmaking as an art credit. So again, there are some very long words here. I miss I wish uh Miss Buchelle was here to explain them. Um because there are three forms of printmaking. There's monor printing, relief printing, silk screen printing techniques, and then there was another one where I was like, I will leave that to Miss Buchelle to explain. Our next fullear course is math and careers. We're taking a step away from intro to college math, right? We do have a number of Sunni and AP level courses at the high school. We want to kind of be more specific for our students, their needs, and their desires. This course will focus on specific uh career traits.

156You're talking about HVAC. You're talking about everything from mechanical engineering to fitness. It's going to encompass everything that a career can talk uh or take into and then expose the math in those careers. So, this was set up by our math team because again, it's how are we preparing our students, right, for post-secary, whether they go to college, whether they go to the workforce, whether they go to trade school, whether they go to the military. So this math course is a fourth year math course that will expose our students to those multiple disciplinary areas and careers. So again it's meant for 11 12th graders. Right now we've seen about most of those 66 requests 65 of those requests are 12th grade students. AP pre-calculus is not essentially new. Um the teachers in that course and

157the Toya, please correct me if I'm wrong, felt that they were kind of already teaching some of the curriculum of AP precal, but they were like, why don't we just call it AP pre-cal if we're doing it right? It was a pre-calc course that was setting our students up for Cal A B and BC. Um so they're saying essentially if we're already doing it, let's just add the AP label to it. So it is a new proposed course. However, it's essentially has the same curriculum in scope and sequence. And then lastly, I just want to make sure. So, Python is an interesting course as well for our students. So, we have seen a growth in our computer science interest from our students, right? And there is somewhat of a gap when our students are taking

158the um computer science course on the onset to AP computer science. This will fill that voiding gap as a computer science system. Right. Also, colleges are very intrigued when they see students in the computer science field having exposure to Python, right? So, it kind of gives our students kind of a leg up and a head start with the Python. If even if they don't take AP computer science, as long as they have taken introduction to Python, it's a really good segue into that post-secary um I would say university level computer science course, just having exposure to it. So, again, this would be a fullear math credit. Um, right now we have 14 total requests. However, we do anticipate that to grow and I'll talk about that in a couple of slides. And then lastly, well,

159no, not lastly, I should say, because lastly is our home language arts course, but our fashion three course, we've seen a not even I would say we've seen kind of increase in enrollment in our fashion course, but we've also seen a lot of our students applying to fashion institutes, SCAD, and more fashion colleges. Um, I just helped a student complete their application for LIM College, which is a college in New York City, and they're known for their fashion, marketing, and merchandising courses. Right? So, this is just an add-on to that for students that want to explore fashion at a deeper level, right? Get and if you ever come to the high school and you pass through the basement, it's one of my favorite spaces to give on tours, but you can see, I would say,

160um, the transition of that space, right? So, from the onset, it was a digital room. They did yearbook there. Now you have mannequins, you have fabrics, you have actual pieces in that room, right? So it's a beautiful thing to see, but then our students kind of get stuck because there's no advanced course. This will be that advanced course for our students to begin their portfolio process for those fashion institute schools. And lastly, our Spanish home language arts program. Again, both uh AMD and I would say OHS had discussed what they've been doing for our students, our specifically our Spanish um speaking students that come with I would say low levels of English proficiency. So, this course is specific to that student to develop their home language arts proficiency, right? Because research shows once they kind

161of grasp that and attain that knowledge, then they can learn a second language, right? And they can work towards that second language proficiency. But there's that gap for our students currently where we're kind of putting them in because we don't have it right now. We're putting them into a scythe course which is helping but this would be more strategic in teaching them literacy levels in their home language. Right? So for specific students that are coming in from their newcomers um they're coming to the country um by way of international schools and if on the MLS they distinguish a score of sixth grade or lower. Right? So, we're being intentional with these students of who they are to support them in hopes that this will help them succeed on those assessments, exams, or courses, right, that

162don't have those accommodations um offered. And now on to our low enrollment courses. So, again, low enrollment based off of board policy, our courses under 20 students. Luckily, this year we didn't see as much. And just as a reminder for our special education, our ENL courses, those courses are like again, they're low enroll intentionally based off of laws and supports and part 54 and part 200 for those areas. So those won't be represented on this list uh this evening. So again, our recently added low enrolling because again um having done the master schedule, I can already anticipate that in making some shifts for some students, printmaking may go up as well as introduction to Python, right? Because there may be some conflict and a student may be intrigued to take one of these two courses.

163So yes, they're under 20, but for printmaking, for example, there are 54 eighth grade students already interested in the course, but they have it as like their third selection because they have they don't know what it is yet. Lowenrolled, but may increase again, AP computer science, film making, um, intro to ed prep, first robotics, again, printmaking, fashion, marketing, and our SAT, ACT courses. Um I anticipate that right now some of the required courses on students programs if there are conflicts between electives this may open or afford opportunity for some of these courses to um for students to take next year. So again, these low-enrolled courses, some of our Sunni courses, specifically in the arts, so they may be low-enrolled, but oftentimes these are combined courses. And yes, differentiation does of instruction does take place in

164these courses, but it's done intentionally. Oftent times, um the the the courses that they are combined with are already advanced courses, but it is for our for our students to be exposed and to earn credit at the college level. So now I'm going to break it down basically by department. So for our music, our lawn roll courses currently are give me the microphone, intro to musical theater. Those are two combined courses. So technically there's 13 students in that uh course. Music in our lives and Sunni music theory 1 and two. For our English uh department, as it stands right now, the only courses that are low enrolled are SAT, ACT. Again, I foresee that number to go up. um as well as our Sunni ed prep course for science first robotics and for our world

165languages. Currently we have Sunni intermediate Spanish 2 at six requests, Italian one at 13 requests, Italian 3 at 11 requests, American Sign Language 3 at 16, and Sunni um American Sign Language at seven requests. And again, compared to last year, there's really not that many low- enroll courses, thankfully. Um but that is again most of these low enroll uh courses are subject to change depending on June and July. We'll see some course request changes from some of our students. I'll get uh some emails from some students that may have visited Rome and want to take on Italian. So those things do tend to happen with our students. So with low-enrolled courses or they attended this a major uh uh amazing um engineering uh competition andor or summer program and then they come back and they're

166like I was told by this instructor there that I should take Python, AP to computer science or first robotics. So those things do tend to happen with our summer exposure students. So again uh low enrolled but on a good trajectory at the moment. So thank you all. Thank you. Yes. Sorry. Um, let's open it up for questions from the board. Does anybody want to start? We've started at this side of the table. Any any questions over there? Okay, over here. Um, thanks Jeremy. Appreciate this. Um, quick question. So, where you had um low enrollment recently added, that print making one, just for clarification, is the same as that print making that you had, correct? Yeah. Um I I'm just also wondering too it's is not I mean I know there's a a lot of selection

167of classes. what are we doing to promote some of these classes that are low enrolled and really kind of get it I mean I know we have like a we have a course guide um but I'm just wondering is there any way to get more of you know the promotion awareness and I'm sure there's something like that you do but right um I don't know just just a thought so one thing we do throughout is course fair our counselors and I will say in addition to the things that our students are exposed to our counseling team also sit through council commission meetings. We invite um each proposed course to come in to discuss with the counselor kind of the ins and out of the course, right? What are the expectations of the students? What are

168the students expected to learn? What are the fun things that I can share with my students when I'm sitting in these sessions with them, right? Because counselors know their students and then they can then encourage their students to look into that course. And I will say this, oftentimes when teachers are putting forth a proposed course, um they already have kind of like a wait list for that course, right? They have students that are interested in taking it. But for the low-enrolled courses, again, for the ones that exist currently, um the numbers aren't as low as in previous years, I can say that, right? But with that said, oftentimes student word of mouth is the best representation of what courses to take next. When we're looking at our course fair and students are behind the tables,

169I encourage any folks from the community to come in on that day, the students sell the courses. Whether it's our theater students actually doing theatrical arts in the gymnasium, right? They're performing or la this year what we did is we set up the back of the gymnasium um for our arts department and they did poster boards, they had screens, you had noticias just running reruns of OS news. All is that all that is done in media production courses which was a low- enrolled course last year not so much this year. So through those promotions and through student word and advocacy that's where we see the low enroll courses go from having been low enrolled to actually having um gain enrollment and we see again a bright future. Thank you. And there was a American sign

170language class that you also had on there. I guess it didn't show up on the screen. Is that still the case? the Sunni ASL class. So yes, with um discussion with because that current instructor is in two buildings. Okay. So there's a want needed desire to have it and again that will also help with our seal of literacy. Yeah. Right. Because right now because that course doesn't necessarily end in college enrollment and that the sequence of that our students are losing points or they're not gaining the one point. So that's a way to additionally get students to seal up biiteracy in ASL. Great. Correct. So we just have to come together as a team to see what are the options because um amazing instructor but that's a lot you know six sections and two buildings.

171So we're we're discussing that now. Great. Thank you. Yeah. But that would get get us to the 200. Roger. Love it. 200. I love it. Next every time you see me I'll just keep saying 200. get 200. Um, um, so I I'm so impressed with our course catalog. Like, we really offer so much stuff. And when you actually like crack it open, it's like, man, I I would take that class. I want to take that class. Um, I love math and careers is such a concrete answer to like when will I ever use this correct for every kid. Um I I guess I just you know my kids are young. I have not gone through this process and I see a lot of outreach to students as far as you know um you know the

172the the course fair and then those beginning slides that talked about how you like built that schedule and goal set. Um, I was wondering if you could talk about to what degree parents are involved in that conversation. Like do you sit down with every family and say, you know, what are with the uh, you know, incoming nth grader and say, you know, what do you see for your post-graduation goals and roadmap at that time as far as, you know, to what degree are parents involved, to what degree are students driving um, that discussion? So, it is kind of like a a holistic approach, a village approach, but we do share that the easiest person to communicate with initially is the student because they're in the building. They come periods 1 through nine. Um, but we

173do advise families to again with those scheduled appointments, counselors walk through the scheduling process. And then again the family nights that is our encapsulated time within those two hours to really provide and answer any questions the family has pertaining to um course selection and diploma requirements. So with those nights we've been intentional to try to have them um throughout the year specific even with our seniors we have it in our juniors more earlier on because they have FASA they have you know the C. So, we're being more strategic in where we're placing those nights of the impact of questions that we'll get from the community. I think also just adding your St. Augustine night. Yes. And also what we've done is we've outreached to St. Augustine families cuz you know we do have a a

174handful of families that come through um St. Augustine's and being strategic and you know meeting with those families and having conversations so that they don't feel left out of the course selection process. Great. Thank you so much and thank you for your time. As a time grows later, I'm looking at our agenda. We were ambitious. One question about the math course. Sure. So the just anecdotally, um I have a very hard time understanding what my husband does for a living, but I know he makes a nice living and it involves a lot of math. and nobody ever came into his high school and said this is like a career pathway that you could potentially go into if you really love math. Um, and I'm constantly telling him because you they they have a lot of

175initiatives which are very admirable around DEI and everything else and you know they are constantly saying well where are we going to you know what are our numbers looking like are they reflective of of the numbers in the communities where our businesses are located and the answer is always no um and then you know they're bringing I sometimes have a bird's he's going to kill me for saying all this out loud but I we share offices in our house. So sometimes I overhear some of this and I've said to him a few times, what are you doing to actually go into the community and educate students at a high school level about these career paths? Correct. How how would they have any idea of that this exists that this is what it looks like in

176you know what your dayto-day would look like? this is how you go and you get your degree in order to go into this line of work and then this is how you network and you know it seems to be a lot of interns and who you know and you know definitely an archaic model still correct and I hope that with a class like that that we can start showing kids some of these corporate controllerships um p you know fortune 500 public accounting there are so many amazing career paths that are totally math focused that I definitely I got out of um I got out of undergrad. I mean I got out of my high school in Fairfax County, Virginia. I got out of Duke University and I got out of two lane law school not

177knowing that any of them existed. So I you know I feel like we can open some doors here. Correct. So hopefully I'd like to see that. Just one thing around that there was um also you know your Sunni personal finance that's still pretty booked like all four periods I think that you have that correct you know um any thoughts around and I know there's two teachers in in in the class like I think there's close to 40 kids in each of the sections which there I think it's it seems like that's a potential waiting list class is there something else that kind of could be before I think you can only take that senior Is there something that can be taken like that? Is it would this be that class before you get to a

178pursuing personal finance or is there something else you guys might be thinking about potentially soon because personal finance is just so specific, right? Um and again it's a really sought-aout course for our students. Um so it's hard because I don't know if this course technically fits before that course, right? because it's they talk about careers, they talk about budgeting, management, you know, you know, really doing it's there's math that's in there, but I'm just wondering to the extent that where they can Yeah, it Well, yeah, there there's because that's only senior year. I think you can take that, but if there's something that was set up that you maybe take something a little earlier that would be like that precursor to that. And I wasn't sure if that that's what this class was or is

179there some variation of this could be thought of in the future? No, of course. And actually, like I was think like Diana used this term earlier. My wheels were spinning as you were saying that, right? Like could this be the precursor to that course being being that it's so sought out. But my my my thought is this is actually going to be a pretty sought out course as well for those students that potentially don't have the opportunity to take senior personal finance their senior year. So which is why we already have 65 seniors, right? So that's already like two, what is that? Almost three sections. Yeah. Um for a new course. And to your point, the one thing this fulfills is colleges, right? They're archaic as well. So they're looking at the calculus. Yep. However,

180a class like this is exposing students to so much more. It gives the college admissions counselor are like, "Wow, like the student is really looking into or post-secary opportunities. I could take multiple pathways with this. I could use this on a college application or I can go to trade school with it." So, you have speakers, right? Come in. Yep. Yeah. That's great. I want to echo my appreciation for the math um course because like if you're even if you're a student who really enjoys math and you know you want to do something with math, you don't necessarily know what that is. Most of the time it's like you can be an accountant or you can be a math teacher and there's a lot more than that and then you know you learn that you could

181be an actuary and then maybe you do an internship and realize you really don't want to be an actuary and you can do something else. I think sometimes too we we have this uh stereotype of what a student who likes math um looks like, acts like, what kind of career they might like to have. And at least from what I've seen, the people who have a passion for math and have an ability to explain that to others and make changes within businesses are some of the most successful people that seem to do very well. And I think it might be helpful for some students to realize that that's an that's an option. They don't have to fit. They don't have to act a certain way. They don't have to be a certain way. They can

182be whoever they want to be. That there is a place for them. Correct. In that all different kinds of industries. Oh, Maria, go ahead. Um, so we're very fortunate to partner with Gear Up as well through the Department of Labor. They're one of our partners and we bring in our virtual reality where it brings different careers where the children experience different careers uh through virtual reality. So that's another avenue that children see themselves in different areas and different careers. Oh, like they have a a like a headset. Correct. Yeah, we did it at this year's college and career fair and We couldn't get enough students into the VR headset like circle we call virtual internship soon enough. Right. There you go. And with PEC uh we actually purchased so we have we'll have our own

183virtual headsets here. So those in my office. Very cool. All right. Um thank you so much and thank you for staying so late this evening. Early day tomorrow. So, thank you all and especially during this very busy season, May I feel like is hitting everybody like a freight train. It just keeps Thank you all moving so fast. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right, moving along to our um audience recognition for agenda items only. This first uh public comment is not to exceed 10 minutes. I see we have no one here in person. And do we have anyone online who wishes to speak? All right. In that case, I will not go through the motions of reading our public comment guidelines and we can continue with our consent agenda. Um, does anybody have anything

184they wish to break out from 4.1, 4.2 or 4.3? All right. Hold on. All right. I'll take a motion for 4.1 through 4.3. So move second. Uh 4.1 resolution to appoint additional an additional consultant for the 2024 2025 school year. 4.2 resolution to adopt the findings of fact and penalty regarding a section 75 proceeding. 4.3 resolution to elect members to the Westchester Putham School Boards Association WPSA board of directors and nominating committee and to approve the 2025 2026 budget. Uh any discussion? All in favor? I opposed abstensions. All right. Does anybody have anything they wish to break out in consent agenda um and five consent agenda business office matters? Okay. Seeing none, I'll take a motion for 5.1 through 5.10. So moved. Second. All right. 5.1. Resolution to accept grant uh from the Austining Engineering

185Fund Care of Westchester Community Foundation OHS Robotics Club. 5.2 Resolution to accept a gift card from Realize the Dream Community Service Austining School District. 5.3 Resolution regarding award of bid 2025 2026 elevator maintenance and service. 5.3 Resolution regarding award of bid 2025 2026 Districtwide andover controls service and monitoring agreement. 5.5 Resolution regarding award of bid 2025 2026 dumpster service. 5.6 Resolution regarding certiary refund payment 1516 James Street LLC lot 21. 5.7 Resolution regarding certiary refund payment 1516 James Street LLC lot 22. 5.8 8 resolution regarding certiary refund payment uh Monte Kala Corporation and 5.9 resolution regarding adoption of the 2025 2026 school lunch fund budget 5.10 resolution regarding interfund transfers uh any discussion all in favor I opposed abstensions and thank you to our organizations who have contributed um donations All right, looking at six

186consent agenda personnel matters. Does anybody have anything they wish to break out? All right, seeing none, I'll take a motion for 6.1 through 6.15. So moved. Second. All right. 6.1 Resolution regarding administrative staff resignations. 6.2 Resolution regarding professional staff resignations. 6.3 Resolution regarding civil service staff resignations. 6.4 Resolution regarding support staff resignations. 6.5 Resolution regarding professional staff appointments. 6.6 Resolution regarding civil service staff appointments. 6.7 Resolution regarding professional staff appointments before after school programs. 6.8 Resolution regarding civil service staff appointments before after school programs. 6.9 Resolution regarding support staff appointments before after school programs. 6.10 Resolution regarding professional staff appointments summer programs. 6.11 resolution regarding civil service staff appointments, summer school programs. 6.12 Resolution regarding support staff appointments, summer school programs. 6.13 Resolution regarding civil staff request for leave of absence. 6.14 Resolution regarding PDM

187substitute appointments. 6.15 Resolution regarding approval of school volunteers. Um, any discussion? Um, it's not something to hold up a vote, but at some point, could we just get a clarification? There's some of the summer hourly salaries, and I'm just looking for clarification as to like the different amounts at some point. The hourly amounts. Okay. Um, any further discussion? All in favor? I opposed abstensions. Um it's written as a consent agenda for board policies. Uh do we want to take these out and discuss them separately? Does anybody have anything they wish to separate or can we take it as a consent agenda? All right. Oh, I'm looking at the paper copy. I think there's I think there's pages missing. We're on seven. It just goes from 7.1 to 10. I'll find it online. Do you want

188me to wait for you? No, it's okay. Okay. Um, I'll take a motion for 7.1 through 7.3. So moved. Second. Uh, 7.1 Resolution to approve policy regulation 5150-R, school admissions policy regulation as a first reading. 7.2 2, resolution to approve policy number 5314, corporal punish complaints, as a first reading. 7.3 Resolution to adopt policy number 8210.1, use of surveillance cameras on school property as a first reading. Any discussion? No. Okay. Um, all in favor? I opposed abstensions. All right. we come upon our next audience recognition for topics uh generally related to school. Um again there's nobody here in person. Is there anybody online who wishes to speak? Okay. On to board reports and dialogue. Does anybody have a board? Um we've had some committees meet. We're meeting uh tomorrow as a committee for for um

189policy. So yes, have any updates on my meeting? Oh. So, are you are you guys um are you going to be discussing do you think the curriculum review policy? Um I think Mary had some time to work on it. We're that's the plan for tomorrow. Mar and I had a whole bunch of meetings and edits, but yes, tomorrow. Okay. And then I think there were just some slight cross referencing updates for the board handbook and I just don't recall if that was in the policy committee or someplace else. Um we're done with it in the policy committee. It just needs to be put on the agenda. Oh, okay. Right. Yeah. So, um I'll put that on my to-do as a reminder here. Um, let's see. I have a committee update. The communications committee met. It

190was just Rob and I who happens to be able to make it to that meeting. So, let me give you the quick rundown. This was on May 1st. Um, Nicole uh has met with the uh architects and we'll be doing a facilities update communication. Um, she's working on that. Um, which I'm sure we'll hear about next week. Uh, Miss Lynn is right now working on brand guidelines related to the mascot. Um, so, uh, I don't know if that's finished yet. It sounded like it would be finished soon. Be ready in time for OS day. Great question. Uh, let me just run down my notes here. Um, all uses must be approved by the superintendent's office was part of it. Um, at the time she hoped it would be done next week, which would mean around

191now as far as brand guidelines go. Um, she's going to show us a different couple different font styles uh that we can choose from. Um, and we did discuss and we brought up at that meeting uh that the font um would be for letterhead and business cards, not just with the logo and that we brought up uh Roger's concerns as he's brought to the board table about um copyright or um intellectual property rights as far as the um spons are concerned. So that has been uh relayed. Um but something that came up was do we want to have this? So the the question has come up as do we want to be asing pride or do we want to be aing lions linked to this question um do we want to have sub mascots for

192our schools we can um ask Miss Lynn to decide uh to design related mascots so that we have like a middle school mascot and an elementary school mascot um that are become a family and this is relevant because um and I hate to speak for Rob here um it was hard for him to see us adopting pride as our um kind of moniker if we're only one lion, but if we have mascots that are different lions, that's a little bit more tangible for him. However, um that costs money. My question to Nicole at at the point that we were at in the committee was how much time and how much money would something like that take? Um, obviously the heavy lift is getting that first mascot um off the ground, right? And designing that so

193that it's um something she can draw from when it's time to um make school specific mascots is that's something that we decide we want to do. So, uh we decided uh Rob and I that we needed to bring this to the board and decided to kind of catch which way the wind was blowing. Um, if we want to wait, for example, until September, maybe we can have, if we decide we want to do this, uh, maybe we can have mascots ready for all the schools to roll out with at once. Uh, maybe it's a ton of money and we say we can't afford this right now. Um, let's just roll out with our our high school mascot and kind of table the discussion of of having school specific mascots. Um, so I'm curious what the

194board thinks, uh, you know, just to kind of so that I can bring that back and and Frank can bring that back to the communications committee next time. Um, knowing that we have, you know, in within the committee, we had some questions that I think would determine my choice about what I would do, which is how much money and how long would that take. Pride is pride is like more than one lion. That that is for sure. Pride is a group of lions. So I mean it it would be strange to have one lion and calling that a pride, right? So I'm kind of the mindset if we're a lion, just use the lions. I actually like the lion aspect of the you know it's the lion you kind of growing. It's like if you

195were like a lion cub growing through those years type of a thing there was something like that. That's just my opinion for what it's worth. But I think that that I don't know what the proposal for cost would be because I can't say anything about too much money until I know exactly what that cost it looks like if it's like you know what what the ask would be on that. So and it probably find the same style guides um and and and similar fonts I would imagine because you want to keep consistency. I mean, from a communication perspective and the look and feel perspective, you don't want to have that being too wildly off. But the actual lion itself, if it's like one that kind of grows with you in terms of its age and

196and size, that's one thing, but I don't think it'll be unless there are multiple lions. Pride wouldn't make sense. Um, and perhaps it would behoove us to refamiliarize ourselves uh with the survey that went out where we asked people about this specifically, right? like I it's been a while since we sent that out, so I wouldn't expect that everybody would have all those stats memorized. And I can forward it to you. I have it up. Um, hang on. But I do recall that the concept of pride was popular to me. The pride is like like Roger, you're a lion. I'm a lion. Catherine's a lion. Frank's a lion. Together we're a pride. That's also how I took it. Um, yeah. I mean, that seems very just the lion. My takeaway was we were always going

197to have an image of a lion. And when you have a lot of lions together, it's a pride. And so I don't I I it never occurred to me that we would be replacing the word pride with lions. And then the survey, the concept of pr I'm looking at the survey. I'll I'll send you the link, but it says the concept of pride still resonates. more than a although more than a third of students over 50% uh agree or strongly agree that um they want to keep using o pride and I mean I guess my thought process was the whole notion of a lion was born from the concept of pride so I really feel like if we are now going back and we're thinking of getting rid of pride side. That has to be

198a community decision. Um, but like the survey results to me, you know, do you think the school district should keep O pride as part of the new brand? Yes, 57%. I mean, that's pretty that's pretty clear. Um, vast majority wanted a new mascot. Um, people do want a mascot that grows up, but I guess my understanding when I was last on the committee and then when this was presented to us was that this is our starting point. We're planning to unveil this at OS day. Like this is the symbol that we've selected. It can go on with the brand guidelines. It can go on some sweatshirts that roll out in September. It can go on a few things. And then we're going to take our time to get the grows up portion right rather than

199rushed because I think our graphic designer was very clear that it that cannot be done by the OS day this May. Right. So I guess my I the last I left this conversation when we were last at the board table discussing this. I had presumed that we were gonna have that one that was selected come out end of May. We're still gonna be that symbol pride. A lot of people are in an offing so we are obviously a pride together. And then if people are also shouting go Lions, go Lions. I that was that's sort of like where I mentally had settled. So um I'll let I'll I'll withhold my comment here. Um, I want to hear from other people at the table first. I'm I mean, you know, I want a baby lion. I

200am curious how much it costs and I agree. I don't want it to be rushed. Um, like I said, I don't feel very strongly about needing a whole family of Lion mascots to feel like a pride. I do feel like this student body and everyone is the pride. Uh, but yeah, I want to know how much it costs. Yeah, I mean I'm going to agree with the survey on this one and say if we wanted to pivot off of that that's now we're talking about another engagement of a year to really kind of go through. That's my my sense on like not necessarily a board decision I think in that aspect um for that. I I think we heard enough from the community that they want logos going through and I would say we should

201get a cost estimate and I think that's probably something that I would generally support. I can't imagine it would be a huge cost. But I I wouldn't I wouldn't wait essentially on that. I think we've heard people want this and so we should, you know, move forward with that. But I I think some of this will organically happen over time. I think, you know, listen, the story of the Pride, the students that picked Pride back in the day did it from Friday Night Lights who with the team with the Lions and it was a pride and we're like, we're pride lions and so this is kind of a natural evolution at the end of the day. Like what was nice at one point when we had kind of the double arches in it, you know,

202that's like Pride Rock. You have your whole thing. Like there's a whole story here behind it. So I would say I'm for staying with the moniker. I'm for with the logo and I'm for putting money towards putting plans together for the elementarymentaries and seeing what that cost would be and trying to work. I can't imagine that would be too much. So that's where I went. Okay. Melissa, do you have any feelings you want to share? You know, I think it makes sense to one go with the consensus of the survey around the pride. I think it fits into the concept. Um I think it's seamless, right? The line, the pride, regardless of how you look at it visually, I think conceptually it's all there. Um, so I'm glad we are having robust dialogue about it

203because this will be, you know, our our uh representation of our district for hopefully many years to come. So, I'm glad that the community and the board feels, you know, so passionate about it that we want to get it right. Um, so to kind of encapsulate this, the way Rob has put a a fine point on the discussion is so there we're on the scoreboard and it says and underneath it it says I'm hearing from the board pride with the lion on there with Yeah. Yes. Yeah. That's what that's what sounds like a race. Okay. I mean, I I think if this is how we're going forward and we change that O right there with the lion moniker that was selected, I don't see the need at this juncture to do anything different. If the

204community tries that out for a year or two and then they strongly come back to the board and petition and say, "Look, you we got the mascot now, but we really don't like our slogan anymore." Well, okay. like we can we can talk about selecting a new slogan but to me this was never let's choose a new slogan. The question was asked right and and the community answered it 60% still liked it. So if the data was like wildly in a different way then I think one step at a time we've we've got the picture that's really important. it can go on the sweatshirts, keep it with the pride and everything as as we have it. And there's a strong desire after we work with it to do something differently that it's I the feeling

205to me is it's so much easier to change a slogan down the line than it is the doing the mascot choice. So like the hurdle we have done it. I mean, I'll I'll chime in to echo that like we were the maroons, then we were the Indians, then they were the they were then they were basically the Riverhawks, and then they were not the Oh, and then they were the pride and all of this is this will change 20, 30 years from now. It may be something entirely different at the end of the day. Who knows what this is? But I I think there was a lot of effort, intentionality put here. I think we heard from the community, they like the pride theme and it came from the students. It's a continuation of that.

206It's an evolution of this. I think people wanted the mascot. There's a mascot to go with it. And, you know, I think they wanted it the younger grades. So, let's at least start that process. Also, just going to keep saying this out loud because I think it's important. The logo is multiple lions. It's multiple visages in the logo. It's designed to represent more than one. So, it's not just one lion. Right. Right. All right. So, when we go back, I will speak to Nicole. I will make sure she knows she can tell Miss Lynn, you don't have to mock anything up with the word lion. We have decided we would like the word pride. Um, and that we are open to uh hearing what our next steps are for uh younger versions, we'll call them,

207you know what I mean? Okay. But we're still rolling and that we that face out with Pride on like OS day, right? I will check with Nicole because Nicole was I think hesitant last time. Um I spoke with her. Hesitant about what? Uh based on the conversation Rob and I were having about these next steps and when we decided we just need to talk to the board. Oh, I really feel strongly that this needs to happen now, like as soon as to now. I mean, the last time the board spoke, we weren't sure about releasing it without brand guidelines in firmly in place. No, I think we gave No, we gave a green light to move forward with that. We we that's what we ended with. Okay. If we don't do this at by the

208end of this school year, people are going to mock up their own stuff. The threats have already been made. I think people are tired of waiting. It doesn't have to be perfect. With the growing up through the years, there's time to do that. No, that'll be That'll come later. That'll come later. They want that symbol and they want it let's let's get the let's get the she's got homework to do between now and May 23rd for sure. And the brand guidelines need to be there with just I mean it's it doesn't have to be a lot but it has to say you need to get authorization from the district in order to use and we agreed upon that. We know we know that um that's already been established in the committee so we're good there.

209Um, I don't know if the board needs the level of detail really deep deeper than that as far as like what you know the color. I don't know even know anything about like hex colors and like you know that kind you know like they don't we don't need that level of uh detail in order to move forward. Um ju do we trademark this at some point in the future? I'm just curious. I I brought that up to her. I I don't know where it got left off but I did discuss all of these things but Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. cuz then that's kind of like our It's our asset, right? It's a unique piece of art. It is. It's unique and like it's a wonderful design. Correct. Yep. Okay. Um I did have unfortunately given

210the hour uh one or two really quick things if there's no other committee updates. Just the dirt team met and basically there's some the state has three requirements. There'll be changes to language coming. So we'll have to eventually approve the new for the safety plan some changes that are basically regulation driven. So okay that's it. Um there is a library stakeholder meeting related directly to the bond project happening on May 28th I think is what I wrote down. Um from 9:45 or 7:45 a.m. to 1000 p.m. or 10:00 a.m. Sorry, 10 p.m. Can you imagine? Um uh looking at my own uh clock here. Um the library the liaison to the uh library that committee right now is me, Annie, and Catherine. I can go. I'm happy to go. I know that there were other

211trustees who may have been more curious about the bond work and may choose to go instead. Um if you'd like to go, let me know and I won't go if necessary. Um, but I doubt we'll have a group of three there anyways on a Wednesday morning. I think it is. I plan on going. Okay. I mean, I I will at this juncture plan to go barring, you know, global finals this weekend before that. So, um, but if and I'll I'll reach out to Rob and make sure he knows that. Um, he can go instead of me if he chooses to if he'd like to. Um, I Sorry, get repeat the dates if you already said it. Sorry. I think I wrote down May 28th. That's what I that's what they said the meeting when they

212present it. Okay. And if somebody else feels like they strongly want to go, just let me know. I'll we'll get an update from everyone on the board. I'll be on alternate um for if if somebody decides not to go. Okay. Um also I have a conflict with the May 21st LHCoss dinner. Um I can't go. Katherine, it's May 21st. You're the vice president. Do you want to go? Uh, I have a work gala that Okay. Have to go to. I have a very important fifth grade band concert to attend. Um, you should go to that. Um, if nobody knows at this time if they'll be able to go, I'll send an email out to the board and let you check your calendars and hopefully we can send somebody. What time is that scheduled for? You

213know what? I did not write down the time. It's in the evening. Yeah. Where is it? It's in Mayac. A big place. Yeah. Is that I'll send out an email. Is that the one we went to last year? That's the one, right? Um that's our kids are going to get an award for that. I hope this year. Last year they didn't get anything. Um they get to participate in a scholarship. Yeah. Yeah. It's a unique unique crowd. Yeah. I'm happy to go any but I just volunteer. Melissa was volunteering too perhaps. So were you did I Yeah, I just want to confirm like timing and all that stuff that I could but I I'd be if schedule permitting I'd be willing to go. Okay. Um the other thing Oh, please respond to Illy if you

214haven't already. in our last update, uh, the summer retreat, uh, I think the date was August 20th. Um, so if you haven't responded to Illy to let her know of your availability, please do so. Um, you may also be hearing from me about we setting up dates for us to take our self-evaluation and also set up a um exact session for our superintendent evaluation. So, keep an eye out on your email for that. I have to talk to Illy about it first. Um, anything else? Yes. I just have a couple of things really quickly. I know it's getting late, but I'll stream through these as quickly as possible. So, first I just wanted to personally um acknowledge I think we lost someone a couple of weeks ago, Miss Jesse Faj Fajesi um who was a

215literacy facilitator for First Steps for over two decades. Um it's you know I just in speaking with people in the community it was very um you know they're very passionate and grieving the loss of her. Um her memorial services also, you know, had students there that were set to graduate this year that she supported from, you know, when they were little tots and they were very emotional as well about um her loss and the fact that, you know, she had anticipated attending some of their graduations this year. Um so just want to acknowledge um you know an appreciation for just the impact that she apparently or had that we knew. Uh I think we did a um we did um in 2022 we had them come and we just uh gave them some kudos for

216the work they were doing in first steps and it was evident um with the students who are now emerging onto their next pathways of graduation of the impact that she made and I think that's um when we're talking about connectedness and all these other aspects um it was that and some other things that I and conversations that I had that I'm recognizing how impactful, you know, some people like her are. So, I just want to acknowledge that publicly and um an appreciation for the work she did and appreciation for the loss that the community feels around her passing. Um I also mentioned earlier that I attended the equity Saturday explore and learn um session that happened a couple of weeks ago and I already talked about the solidarity project and how I was very impressed

217with that. I was particularly impressed uh when I chatted up I believe her name was Quincy around her concepts of that project and particularly around the importance of a third space. So again going back to that theme of belonging um and just some of the intentionality between you know our schools and some of the people we have coming in to work with us on projects like this. So I was just very impressed about acknowledging that again going back to how we structure a sense of belonging among our students. Um I also got to chat with some of the NBK um students, you know, the elementary age ones, the high school age ones, and I was literally on the verge of tears of joy just listening to them. um listening to how impactful programs like MBK

218were to the trajectory of their lives. And I'm glad we're able to start bringing that to the elementary level now. So, you know, students don't have to wait until they get to high school to try to have that again that sense of belonging. Um there were students who for the first time are coming out of their shell being engaging with this program. there are students have who have opened up their pathways to or understanding of just what is possible for them in their future through engaging with um the MBK program and so um I was just very happy to engage with them and discuss that with them as well. Um prestigious ladies of power had their annual fashion show. I attended that as well. Um and again at the end the upper classmen some who

219are graduating uh we're very grateful to uh Dr. uh McFarland and the space that she creates there uh for them and how that space really changed their perspective of theirelves and their futures. Students shared at the end what they plan to do some of the upper classmen what they plan to do after graduating and they were all different pathways. Some were going into, we talked tonight about fashion. People are looking at like really business around fashion and how they can pursue that at another level. People even talked about I'm going to WCC because I haven't really figured out exactly what I want to do, but I know I want to continue learning and I want to continue engaging in th those opportunities. So it was really again they were you know there were tears of

220joy coming from them and they were just so very grateful for again that third space. Um, and so I just want to I just want to show appreciation for um all of the people in our school community that create those third spaces because over the past couple of weeks, my conversations with both the adults, the students, the community at large, uh we can't underestimate when we talk about that sense of belonging and how we capture that, how those third spaces are really creating that. Um, I will say also that I'm interested in how we can continue to support MBK by giving them designated space as well, especially at the high school where I know space is already an issue, but giving them those opportunities. I think I heard earlier about um when the high school

221was presenting just generally speaking about making sure kids have somewhere to go and in between classes. But I think um programs like MBK them having a designated space like some of the other um uh just kind of collaborative students have to engage with each other on an intentional basis or consistent basis I think would benefit them even more. Um, and I'd be interested to see how we can support them in that. Um, I think that's all I had in general. I just very, you know, very enlightening to see how some of the people in our school community are thinking outside the box to really bring students into themselves. and just speaking with students and seeing how they're they literally can't believe the the the pathways their life uh is taking now because they had the

222ability to engage in those third spaces um and and feel seen. So, thank you. Thank you. And I agree. Um I know Frank and I were also at the explore and learn and got the opportunity to hear directly from students about all the work that they've been doing and um all the value that these equity related groups and activities um inclusive of MBK of course but much beyond that um also was uh it was just a really lovely celebration of all of that work um and very uh student centered and student led which It was very nice to see also. Um, so yes, I'd very much like to echo your sentiments, Melissa. Um, anything else? All right, then. Uh, I'll take a motion to enter into executive session for the purposes of discussing collective negotiations

223pursuant to article 14 of the civil service law. uh and the medical, financial, credit or employment history of a particular person or corporation or matters leading to the appointment, employment, promotion, discipline, suspension, dismissal or removal of a particular person or corporation. So moved. Second. Uh any discussion? All in favor? I opposed of sensions.