001meeting thank you at this time I'm going to turn it over to for everyone welcome to December we have a an excellent agenda put forth in addition to our AI presentation and an update from our team special ed we also have our pnw student of Distinction award this evening so a lot of really great information for the community and for the board so um first of all just allow me to give a couple of Qui shout outs um this week we celebrated the power of diversity equity and inclusion in our schools for inclusive schools me um tomorrow morning at 3 a.m. the the ausing high school marching van will be heading out to Hawaii so I want to thank the chaperon the students I know there's such excitement around all of this I want everybody
002who helped contribute it I think they raised close to [Music] $85,000 so it takes a village this is a perfect example of that so we want to wish them well wish them well with a little bit of nipp with the weather tomorrow but we are excited to have our kids go and represent aing high school but also to represent the state of New York at this wonderful event um last night I want to thank U Miss Langley and her team at OS the uh ohos National Honor Society um to induction ceremony took place last night um ausing high school and Park School turned up her exciting date of Robotics and coding with our hour of code session so our youngest Scholars and our oldest Scholars learning together we had an excellent enrichment days right before
003the Thanksgiving break at Claremont and Roosevelt our aing High School varsity football coach um Larry McCrae has been named lead coach of the year so congratulations to the coach and my team and um their parents I want to thank um o Prime and the buildings and departments for making this year's annual turkey distribution a huge success we have to give a huge shout out to aing high school student Donovan Hernandez who had three paintings accepted at the frogs art show for the 28th Annual celebration of the Great Swamp and one piece one honorable mention if you have a moment to check it out his artwork is on display at the ausing high school Main Library and last I want to basically thank our uh o eec our early our aing early childhood PTA who helped
004organize the first annual Park cultural hot luck dinner our families came together for a night of connection laughter and Community Spirit just a couple of dates to for everyone to keep on their Radars next weekend it's amd's performance of SpongeBob the um SquarePants the musical it will take place at aing High School auditorium uh December 12th and 13th at 700 p.m. and please save the date for our Saturday and explore learn session on Saturday December 14th um it will be at the ausing public library for a cookie decorating party so a lot taking place so that's my update thank you um we'll move next to item 1.4 which is a special recognition putam n and Westchester bosies students of Distinction so I'll back so um this evening I want to welcome um first of all
005our pnw district superintendent Neil Bo to our meeting this evening Neil you do a great job in leadership with all the superintendents at our monthly CSA meeting so we're thrilled to have you here this evening um we also have Dan Ganon a former um member of the pride who is the now Career Academy principal Alisa Tobin Lisa fashion uh merchandising teacher Josh Thompson the BOS Communications team and of course our student of Distinction jissa Hicks and her family so without Much Ado take it away me Dr told her I'm a little too tall for this mic but I appreciate the kind words especially since we chair a board member in the count it's always nice to get pris in Board onf of the B's board we just really like to thank you and appreciate the
006time you give usting to recognize a very special person tonight so it's just that the collaboration with a is very special thought just beyond the student of Distinction but just all the partnership with your administrative teams and staff your special education programs as students to CTE we really value the partnership that so behind every successful student is a dedicated support system and we extend our appreciation to CTE Administration CTE staff and most importantly jissa and her family so jissa this is actually all about you you can have the biggest framework around you of support but ultimately you make all the decisions to put in the work and desire so similar to that just that your achievements reflect both the dedication and high standards that a holds as well as PMW bis and than you PMW
007BOS to be a part of your educational Journey you appreciate that and I'd like to invite our career C principal Dan to say a few words ask you to join Dan and thank you for that introduction good evening it's nice to be back in this building where I got my first training as an uh employee here at Social Studies but happy to be back here now for Te and principal um just a quick thing before I speak on behalf Miss to who couldn't be here tonight which is jalissa's fashion educator um I know a little bit of Jalissa from atiny and can tell you what I'm about to say tonight Rings true in aing she has a phenomenal reputation in aing um certainly I'm saying here on behalf of her work at the faction school
008and our fashion class with Miss coin is true for her experience in aing as well and I know her teachers every say the same so without further Ado I'd like to share a few words um from his to jissa Jalissa hi is an outstanding student according to her fashion design merch and teacher Lisa toin Miss toin said she is impressed which's Talent creativity and most importantly work ethic Jalissa is poised and accomplished according to miss toin she's an exceptional student with excellent grades resulting from her attentive work habits she works the shes perfection in everything she does even the simp tasks jissa is also an asset in the classroom helping both her teacher and her peers to anything they need always going that extra mile jissa display's great leadership skills when involv in group projects
009and is both admired and respected by her classmates she has Superior interpersonal skills and works equally well independently or in a group setting throughout the year jissa has been an active participant in class discussions and always offers great insight jissa is a motivated talented and dedicated young woman and for these reasons and more she's a perfect choice for student of Distinction um I'm just going to put my career and Tech principal hat on for a second and just kind of share some of our values and what we strive to have our students do one of the biggest things we hear from companies and our trade Partners is that they don't really worry too much about the skills the kids come in they can give them the skills they care about those other soft skills are
010they compassionate can they collaborate with with others can they learn are they accountable they responsible and I thinka really exhibits all of these I got to see her working in class I got to see her present for a fashion show coming up in the spring she exites all these things in war so she will be successful wherever she ends up going whether it be fashion or whatever um so it's a great honor tonight to be here and speak on her behalf and speak for her and more of an honor to present her with our student of Distinction SOA congratulations [Applause] toct the I don't want interr the meeting anymore [Music] Che hi I just wanted to say I'm really appreciative of being here tonight and to see all the smiles cuz I'm really happy my
011mom happy and everybody else happy so and to our wonderful principal of thank you so much for noticing me so yeah thank [Applause] you we're going to Pi one more pictures I don't know where we congratulations [Music] con [Applause] I'll be in touch congratulations TOA and thank you so much to our partners at for highlighting the great work that our aesome students are doing want pride and Jalissa of course but everybody else participate in that program as well Delight right um before we move on I'd like to take a motion to move up item 4.1 uh and now I'll take a motion to vote on item 41 uh 4.1 resolution to approve an employment agreement with the superintendent of schools any discussion all in favor I opposed exensions and so for those of you who
012may not uh recognize what just happened uh we just approved uh Miss Fox author uh to continue on as our superintendent of schools so board Mary I want to say um that it's been a pleasure to work with you for the past year and a half I think all of our families and staff and most importantly students have benefited from your your great experience um I appreciate your an ability to analyze whatever problems we encounter uh from the perspective of a season superintendent of course uh but also of a state regulator a teacher a student a parent or tax teer um we really appreciate the contributions you've made and we look forward to continuing our partnership with you so thank you so much Mary all right um next up we have audience recognition for agenda
013items only is there anybody in the audience who wishes to speak on agenda related items seeing none in person there any hands raised online no all right and I will SK this and we can close that up and move on to our uh work session so that's on to item 3.1 artificial intelligence AI update so we'll invite our up and I'll turn it over to Mary toce all right so I first of all I want to thank the board of education for their um thought about hey can we um have presentations on some different and unique things about ways and approaching um you know insights and information that a little different so I um one of the Hot Topics that appears in I know your Professional Publications it's an agenda at Nisa happens to be
014Ai and uh under Mike's leadership there have been a good deal of AI work and I know aliceon I've heard it too so and I've seen in person so what a better opportunity to come to a board meeting the second I said it to Mike he said absolutely so um without further Ado we're excited to hear about how generative AI is used in the classroom here in Aus great thank you so much for having me I'm so glad that you guys were excited about hearing about this um obviously it's something that if you listen to any news that this is a huge um topic out there right now and how it's being used in businesses and how it's being used in in colleges and it's it's it's ubiquitous we we're we're this is not going
015away and so one of the things we really wanted to do is we wanted to make sure that um we approach this very intelligent Lane and we we are this reminds me of back in the day when calculators first came out and you remember the the the fires that were happening about using calculators in the classroom and then the internet came about and how the internet was something that was going to be the downfall of Education um and yet now we use it every single day in our classrooms so I I I think that um down the road a bit we're going to see that AI is going to be the same thing that it's really is going to be something that's going to revolutionize the way that we approach education now luckily there's a
016lot of people than me that are doing that work to be able to really um keep it so that it's it's fresh for our students and if we're doing it the right way and for us we really wanted to do this very slowly we really wanted to take the smart approach doing this and there's districts around the area that have really launched into this right from the Echo and now they're pulling back and if you know anything about how education if it's out there it's almost impossible to try to take things back once they've started so when we first started this was actually only two years ago if you can believe it or not that chat gbt even came out to the public that within those two years we've seen so much generative AI from
017every single company and we've seen so much come in the educational Market that we have to be really careful about how we the type of products we're using and there's absolutely no way that we would be able to to use train and show people how to use that in the classroom effectively so we were really careful and we shut everything down so even as of right now all of our students are shut down for most AI through our filtering system and we're slowly releasing certain applications and certain products to our to our staff as we find out about it as we as we invest time into learning the product because a lot of stuff is that's out there is repetitive there's a lot of stuff that does the exact same thing as another and we
018can't know about them all so what we did was we looked at what was going to be the best for our teachers and then for the best for our students keeping in mind of course um at law 2D and making sure that we keep our student privacy and our student data at the the the front of everything that we do so that's kind of the approach that we're taking and um tonight we're going to kind of show you um some of the stuff that's taking place within the classrooms um Alison bacon I'm actually thrilled to be able to work with her because she's actually becoming a well-known name in the AI scope in education she's been um interviewed for multiable um Nationwide educational journals uh for AI and she just got done speaking to the
019Michigan um Society health and physical education uh conference that presented virtually to the conference for the Michigan Vis so many people were in attendance so we very proud to that she's carrying on the Austin and pride tradition all around our country using a so I'm very very thrilled to have her with me talking about we be been working on tonight thank you um what we have is partially prepared for the board but also some of the um presentation has been used in the training of our teachers so um as we go through um one of the things that we do when we begin sharing is um artificial intelligence does bring up a lot of feelings for a lot of people um some people immediately are super excited some people are very hesitant um and we
020want to at least acknowledge and honor those different feelings um a lot of times we don't recognize that we've had AI in our lives we've been using AI in our lives for years and years and years anytime you have said hello to the lady in your phone or the lady at your house and asked her to do something you are obviously interacting with artificial intelligence however really what we're talking about is the use of generative AI so this is one of those slides we use because again not everybody has the exact same feelings and that is a perfectly fair thing for anyone to feel how they want to um and then talking about artificial intelligence itself is really an umbrella and it is a study a computer science field of and that all these things
021fall under it but again the main thing that we're talking about is generative Ai and um what we're using so these are the approved accessible and supported generative AI platforms that we are using in US so for our for our adults we are using um again we opened it Up chat gbt for the use for our teachers again our teachers only um and Gemini which is Google's uh new AI tool um it comes embedded in a lot of the programs that we do but luckily um they also are very smart to allow for us through our admin console to be able to turn on and off Gemini services for different o and that's organizational unit so if we wanted to turn it on Just for 12th graders we would be able to um so again
022it gives us the flexibility to really introduce this in a nice slow manner um we have some other programs Magic School defit uh no GM a few that we'll highlight during the presentation today and then the approved Ed law to De approved meaning that we've ensured our students privacy and their you know their Safety and Security online um is uh canva which has been a program we've using for quite some time the presentation tonight is a canva presentation and canva has already begun embedding artificial intelligence within the program so we're going to see different areas and ways and we'll have an opportunity tonight to even show how quickly and wonderfully AI can really enhance classroom education um and then the main platform that we use for Teacher use and student use is brisk so brisk
023teaching um and it has been pushed out onto all of our teachers accounts they can choose to use it or not so those are the main forms that we have so we're just going to quickly kind of again this is the presentation that I've used with teachers um Talk briefly about generative Ai and the platforms show you a little bit about notebook LM which happens to be one of the most mindblowing incredible programs I've ever seen in my life um show you what Cana can do and then we'll talk briefly about brisk and what that is um so as Mike mentioned chat GPT and Gemini are the two platforms we use um chaty BT being our OG it's the one that everyone knows it's kind of the default program that people go to um and
024what many of the programs that we're going to use like brisk it actually uses Chad GPT as its source for its artificial intelligence and its generative capabilities um and it comes through that Gemini being the other Gemini is Google's generator platform they are two separate entities and work differently um and some have pros and cons um I love that Gemini automatically creates three different versions of what you're asking it to generate and I will also say it out loud in a very natural speaking way you can have it in multiple languages so it's a nice thing that if you know you have a brand new student coming in and you want to summarize what's happening in the room we can do that with generative Ai and have it speak in a very natural way in
025a multitude of languages what are the the other big uh Pro for Gemini rather than chat gbt so chat gbt is a standalone uh website or application so a teacher would need to copy paste or bring something over and that takes some time to be able to do that if you wanted to do something on the fly in the classroom that would take time with Gemini being built directly into the the um environment which we're using already so they could be in a document that they're using with students and using Gemini to be able to really tailor what they're they're doing to the students that are in front of them so if they if you have a student that is um just being challenged by the reading example they can go in then automatically change
026the reading level to match the students that are that class um one of the platforms that is using all of this is notebook LM notebook LM is a um platform created by Google um so it's still a Google experiment it can't be Ed loss UD covered because it's still considered an experiment meaning kind of like it's still in data um but what's really cool about it is it allows you control over the content that's going to then be generated um you can put up to 50 files Google Slides Google Docs PDFs YouTube videos with transcription copy and paste information or any audio file and up to 50 files can be put in and then you have the opportunity to interact with that text and interact in a way that you can ask you questions but
027you can also then um have it generate its own audio file so the video that's playing kind of shows how it works and you can create these notebooks um and one of the wonderful things that I was thinking about of how again a teacher use we can't use this with for students can't use it themselves yet but what an adult could do is load an entire unit in here um the slides the worksheets any stories or concepts that would be going and then a student could ask questions to it that audio file could then be created and downloaded and pushed out right now the audio file does only come in English but the ability to use that as a pre- te that you know we could get our students you know the ability to just
028kind of have a 20 minute synthesis of what you're going to be doing for the next month would really give them an ability to kind of wrap their heads around the idea so you can see it's a rather easy tool to use in this moment right now taking a link of Eden Po and adding it to the content it can make timelines it can make all sorts of stuff it really is at the moment one of my favorite AI tools it's really L and the thing that really sets it apart um and actually another company just came out with something very similar it actually creates a a podcast and it uses AI voices to people having a conversation about the ual Topic at hand so it could be up to a 15minute podcast regarding the
029topic of all of the things that you put into this notebook that they're pulling so it could synthesize all of the data all the information all of all of the topics everything that within those 50 um sources and really combine it to have a a conversation that can be altered again in terms of the the level so being able to provide a a student that's more of an auditory learner and this is something that they can just listen to on the bus ride home it's it's an amazing tool and then you can even pull it up and have conversations and ask questions and be able to work all with it so notebook LM is really an incredible tool um another tool like we mentioned is Cana this is our Cana presentation and you can see
030again in the little video that's going on above is Cana allows for oneclick translation um and the translation is done in a multitude of languages so in the little video here I'm translating in live in real time this presentation into Spanish so you have a click you can scroll down you can pick any of the multitude of languages that are offered and it will then ask you do you want it to remain in the original tone would you like to be more conversational more professional um and how would you like that translation to come out and in that one click it'll open up and you can open a new tab with the exact same presentation so an example we have um some of our Earth Science teachers are moving to you know a new you
031know content because the standards have changed they're using the asrt now instead of the esrt and as they recreating everything you know being able to encourage teachers to use canva so that we can support our enl colleagues we can support students because again we're often very well prepared for our Spanish speaking students but we may have students coming with other languages that we then can immediately create content that's accessible for them so that they can see what's going on and how to use that again in a day in a tool that we already have that's already part of the practice in aing and just how it's been enhanced with AI in in its program and again remember can Cana is one of those tools that is accessible to students so a student at the high
032school level who wants something translated they are able to do it themselves so any of that information that comes in they can bring it into canva and have it translated into their native language um so the next program we're going to talk about and the one we'll take a couple minutes to discuss is brisk brisk is fantastic um I am a big big fan of brisk um it is a little be in the bottom corner of a Google slide a Google doc a website a YouTube video and when you click it you can get these main four options um we can give feedback on student work we can inspect writing we can create something and we can change levels so in the change level you can go to a website and maybe we found something
033out that happened last night we need to discuss them in class today the material that we access is the level we can pull up the website click risk change level and bring it to any reading level we want in any language we want it will then generated in a Google doc with a link to the original content um and it will rewrite it in that and then once it's done we'll actually prompt you do you want this longer do you want it shorter would you like it to be enhanced in other ways do you want a quiz made off of it and all of this will be made within the Google Suite which is really fantastic scaffold notes so it automatically makes scaffold notes based upon follow um it will give feedback on student writing
034it can um create all sorts of different content so um in this little video here um it can create sub plans I know that I um have a daughter at home and more than once have woken up at 3:30 in the morning to find out that I can't come to school the next day and then you're scrambling of what can you do being able to come in and access something like brisk and create a sub plan in a moment and then again with everything that we're creating with artificial intelligence we keep in mind our Educators our teachers in the classroom are professionals they're always going to review everything they're always going to check it they're going to make sure that it's right for their students it's right for what we need to be going on
035but just with a few seconds of prompting a few sentences that they write it can create a really nice lesson plan have the activities that need to go on in class all provided for students with a quick of a button um and again these videos are kind of in real time as it types up and you can see the is just going to generate that quickly the teacher can then go in and make any adjustments that need to be made but it's one of those as you know Mike has mentioned in our meetings together it's that 8020 rule that you know 80% of this may be with AI but the 20% is going to be the art and the craft of the teacher that's going to come in and fine tuness for all the students
036to make sure it's what they need in the classroom it'll get me there and you really need to it's time to replace a teacher you need to be able to go through you need to be able to read that feedback you know the student better than anyone and you want to make sure that you're being able to give direct feedback to that student that they'll understand and only you can do that as a teacher uh another thing you can do in the creation is you can guide notes you can pick up a YouTube video and a lot of times we want to use videos in class we want to use the pr books that we have for the students but a lot of times it feels like you know they wind up being consumers and
037they're just there passively engaging with technology brisk is something we can find the video of what happened last night create guided notes and have the students engaging with what they're watching and all of this can be created very quickly so that we can stay current with what we're doing in the classroom at all times um and it really just gives you the ability to tally your content right now with what you're doing with students one of the one of the best things about risk I find is that again this is this is actually the the only AI tool that we actually pay for in the district um we got on this this this is one of those tools we really carefully thought about and um a lot of districts um started to jump on the
038B wi along with us um because it is embedded within Google itself it's it's a Chrome extension so again any of the those um that anything that we're doing within that that Chrome environment this automatically Works within that so again if you're working with um different levelings it will create it for you it will also help you push it out into Google classroom so that the students have automatically um they're automatically able to to um view that content that you just created for and uh prior to being a person in technology I was an English teacher for 20 years um and being very honest and being a teacher when you take home 120 essays and they're all the same thing um at a certain point you hit a wall and I know in my own
039practice there would be times that I would read things and I would Circle a paragraph and I would write a question mark um and un fortunately that was all as a teacher I was capable of giving feedback um using a tool like brisk which allows you to give feedback it will highlight a sentence it will comment and give ideas of how to strengthen a student's work and I know using a person as a teacher being able to um go in and read the students work see what they need to work on what the plan was for class and how we were going to use it and then being able to use that targeted feedback and pick which comments was I going to leave because it's from the comments and from the feedback that students are
040going to grow and what this does is it allows teachers the space to be able to provide that because I might be able to sit down with a kid and say it to them and then it kind of comes in and goes away and as words disappear but being able to have it written right on a student's document that they can go in and make those changes is really an incredible an invaluable piece of learning and it really comes from being able to use the this and this was our first step right our first step in in in always um a new tech piece of technology a new tool is to make the teachers comfortable using and understanding what the tool can do and how it can help them but then also thinking about how
041it can help the student and how it can help and how we can teach the students to use it properly and that's the step we're getting to now so we're going to talk about risk boost next so brisk boost is a program within brisk so it is covered in our OTV and it actually creates interactive chat box for students so what you're able to do is again right within whether we're doing it from a website a YouTube video a Google doc a Google slide deck whatever program like platform we're choosing we can then boost that assignment and you can boost it by creating a tutor by creating a character chat a real world math problem there's five different options that you have to choose from and then artificial intelligence will create the objectives and the
042role of the AI chat box but as again a professional educator we go in we modify we adjust those objectives to make sure that what we need the students to be doing and we make sure the role is matching what we want for the students um and it allows each student to have then their own personalized learning experience with the chat boot these are teacher created and teacher supervised um so in the next slide here you can kind of see that it can be created and the options that we have um and this has been a small pilot program that we've been doing here so little spots throughout the district um Mike and I actually had U the ability to actually go in and co- te with one of these in a newcomer class here
043at AMD uh and the students were able to interact and work on the verb um to be and you know I have she has and working on those kind of verb skills and language and writing back and forth with the chat B and what was really beautiful about it is um it can change languages much faster than many of us can and the kids were able to switch from one language to another with the chat bot each student has their own unique experience the teacher can see on a dashboard as they are engaging with a standard as they're completing a standard if for any reason anything that is not fabulous is happening um the program will flag any issues so you can see immediately if anything does come up and as professionals we've got in
044and practice the flagging program to make sure what it'll catch and that it will pick those things up you're task if the student is off task and isn't isn't interacting correctly with the the jackpot it is automatically flagged and the teacher can go over and help help s to and and it's really nice we were actually able to see the students really um flourish in what they're doing so we had the opportunity to use it again here at AMD and then in an American lit class at OS I was able to push in um and we worked on it and the students then gave their feedback and this was the type of feed they were providing and they were saying how it was you know for homework assistance and class participation um and talking to
045my colleague that you know invited us in and was willing to participate in this program when she was reading the comments and the conversations the students were having she felt that they were often more thoughtful than what she was hearing in class because the nerves uh especially of an enl student to speak up in class they're very cautious of what they say they don't want to be wrong in public and being able to have that conversation in a very safe place privately was a really wonderful experience for them and they really enjoyed it and she saw more elevated thinking with these chat boxs than often times they were willing to contribute in the classroom um and just a little throwout tool here if you're interested napkin AI which is what I use to make the
046infographic here is a super fun little tool so if anybody's interested um and we um are more than happy to answer any questions about what we're doing here in aing thank you so much um I'll open the floor up to my colleagues who have any questions if anybody wants to start then I'll move around very impressive presentation I have to say that um really well done I love the fact that this is I think it's if I look at everything you done everything you talked about and listen everything you talked about and your points are very well taken about like how Technologies evolved is kind of help us do the things that we can do today and our our kids in terms of what they can do I look at where the kids are today
047versus where we were at that point in time and there's so much more advanced thinking and advanced skills of what they can do so it kind of takes out some of the the if you will the monotony of things that allows you to kind of focus on things that are probably a little bit more needy in that sense so and what's also amazing too is that a lot of the kids the younger they are the more they're um adopting the technology and switching over to these type of Technology we actually finding it before we find it um which I think is really kind of cool in many respects and it's I'm really glad to hear about this adoption um quite a couple questions on this one one what would the vision be in terms of
048where I know you said you started an AMD what might be the vision that looking at this just you some perspective on this not asking you to tell me what the vision is now but perspective of how might this look for starting in what grade at what point um you know lots of great tools and great features to this um I mean AI isn't in everything that I do right but at the same time there's always that just like you guys said it I'll say a little differently it's the human Ai and then human again just kind of like check everything but what point do you see this um infiltrating more and more kind of training is required amongst our staff um and what are what would this look like if you looking at this
049over the next year or two that's a really great question um you know it's it's hard to say I mean this this AI Revolution is changing so quickly tools are rapidly coming on to the market um like you said our kids are changing in the way that they're using I mean I think there has would be an introduction to the topic and to what is out there very young I think we need to make sure that they they are at least having awareness of what it is and what it can do um I think it's important especially with teaching the values and the morals of how to use it appropriately I think that's actually more important than how to use the tool in general um because you know we want them to use it um
050in in a way that's going to help support their learning and not do the learning for them you know students students can go home and they can they can say write me a four page of paper on this um but they're not they're not learning anything sure and so we really want to make sure that at a very at a very early age that they're at least understanding how I should be using these tools yeah and and that comes with like I said in terms of the step-by-step process we need to make sure our staff is comfortable and knowledgeable enough to be able to help work with all our students and so that is kind of the thing that we want to concentrate on making sure our our teachers are comfortable and the teachers are
051knowledgeable so that then they have the the right um process in which to to to bring the subject up and and work with our students with it you raised a very good point around ethics and Ai and I think that's always that's always a challenge because there's so much this is such an unregulated space in terms of what's going on there and there's no it's like a wild west out there on the internet a lot technology there anything kind governing over's so some kind like self and that's why we and that's why we are we are shutting down everything that we can yeah um it doesn't mean that we're not going to use those tools but we want to make sure that the the companies that are coming up are going to sign our our
052contracts for uty we're going to make sure that they secure our student and our personal and our Privacy Information um those are Paramount and if they're not going to do those we're not going to be using those tools um and believe me there's there many tools out there that will do the exact same thing so we'll we'll find something if it's not that one it'll be another one that we'll take a look at um the one thing I think that is probably slowing us down it's not holding us back but it's slowing us down is the fact that um we're seeing a huge need in in the district and in buildings of teachers who want to use this but um it's Al not you know the dynamic dynamic duo of um you know the people
053that are supporting them with the professional development work in those things so um obviously if we had more coaches that would be able to help do that type of uh work with us um I think that would be help us um expediate and Elevate what we're doing at home some when you say that you mean like ambassadors that sorts and where you're kind of like within I mean that that's one way of looking at it I was also thinking of possibly you know we have Alison bacon here who is our K through 12 um I would love to be able to another person um to be able to help support let's say you know Alison has always been a secondary teacher and it works in that environment um listen she's wonderful in the elementaries but
054I would love to have another Al to be able to provide that primary level support access than around just two quick ones um two quick ones regarding um the translation services do we use any of this right now for our various translation needs or do we use other what goog trans I'm talking about we do a lot of Flyers we do a lot of materials because we have a lot of me and speakers so do we use any of this toward that or can we expand our use we absolutely do we are using it um there are a lot of spaces and again places and people who are having the opportunity sometimes I'm able to you know I went down to O Prime showed o Prime we can use this for our o Prime F
055flyers in the translation and going back and forth um I was able to meet with an administrator down a park school yesterday and had the opportunity to show her as well so as we're able to kind of bring that training out to the district and show people how to do it and where all this is going to come um we are using it more and more um but again some of it you know it's just a matter of of making people comfortable with the program and then being able to show them how to use it with you also I think speak with the communications yeah and I I was actually able to um come in this summer and work with um a lot of our office staff and and do an AI training there as
056well over the summer um and again when there's opportunities for faculty meetings um professional days within or periods within different schools and any opportunity I can kind of get to get in I get in as much as I can um but it's you know the ability to then just train people and show them how to use but as I you know we have that opportunity people are using them more and more and thank you and the next one is in might have touched upon this are we using any of these or other tools for when students submit papers and other things just to verify that they're not AI Yes actually one of the wonderful things about brisk is something that I love it has um an inspect writing feature um and we are a Google
057school we ask students to write in a Google doc and they will write and one of the things that brisk does is it takes the um document's history turns it into a movie that's played at 60 times speed and you can watch as the student writes every edit that's made every backspace everything that's done to alter that document and then it actually Flags any large copy pastes um so you can turn it into a movie you would then on top of it get to see how many minutes it took to create that document so it's one of those opportunities that we have to say you know you can see that the student spent an hour and a half last night worked until 11:32 p.m. on this essay and we can see that or you can
058also see you know this was created in 3 minutes um but it does flag that large copy paste which then just offers the conversation of well where did the original pelephone and again it's just an opportunity to then have that conversation to say you know if it came from somewhere else can you just tell me and then so is that teacher is that in widespread use throughout in in many spaces as teachers are using it and becoming more more comfortable with it um we have the ability to share in the spaces we can so um OS was able to make one of their professional period so people were able to come in and see it there um uh at during different faculty meetings um I offer a number of teacher Center courses um offered an
059artificial intelligence course last year um and then we're going to redo the first course with ai1 in January and then ai2 is going to be offered in the spring so as people are able to either attend the teach our courses or were able to get into faculty meetings or professional periods to share information and there is a plagiarism Checker in Google itself within Google Classroom um again it's it's a matter of can it keep up you know these tools are becoming so good so quickly um that those Checkers are are falling as you know behind and having trouble keeping up with that so really we're looking at like Alison said like watching a movie that shows how the students went about the writing process that says a lot more about the the pro the product
060than you know was it was a an AI Checker and again a lot of our AI Checkers are really just checking to make sure that the next word that is generated is going to be the next word we expect generated and unfortunately it'll wind up flagging very formulaic writing so for many of our students who are writing in a very formulaic way or they're learning the language even when it's not artificially generated often times will flag as AI generated just because of the structure of type of writing so the kind of AI tools that we see that are going to say you know I want you know an AI Checker um they're not very they don't have a lot of confidence within them because of the fact that they will flag often incorrectly thank you
061I'll continue around to this is a great presentation thank you it's really you know we're we're all at the Forefront of this thing together and so trying to do it in a meaningful way and useful way is really really important and um certainly excited by the possibilities that it brings you know I guess the question and I know as boards and others are kind of struggling around the region to figure out kind of what's appropriate use what's policy and all of that I think the approach with the students is fantastic in terms of you're releasing it kind of to them as appropriate you're doing with that law to be compant things so you know sort of the content that's there who owns it and the district's responsibility what are we doing or are we thinking
062about guidelines for the adults in terms of I'm teaching a class and you know I put all my I want to get a nice distribution chart of all my students performance and I put it to chat GPT you know I know businesses across the board are really grappling with this saying don't put our sales information in because there's provides confidential information and once you put something to the chat gbt Universe it's not yours anymore and the law around is still Mery so I guess as the as the we're on the speeding train at the end of the day you know we we probably should come up with a set of guidelines and what appropriate use is and that maybe would work its way into like an annual acknowledgement but just wondering like what's the conversations
063that you're hearing about this in the edge space like are people talking about making the containers for the adults just as propietary as we are for the students or is that not in the conversation it's certainly not as much in the conversation as it is with the students at the moment um but it's definitely great point it's definitely something that we need I think we really do think about um obviously we've done training for the past few years with edlaw 2D and PPI and making sure our student information is is safe um and making sure like we're not putting that stuff out onto the internet um and I'm hoping that's carrying over but obviously you know it's hard for us to be able to place that in place um but you know we've done a
064lot of educational Prat with our staff um you know through we have to do by law you know the yearly meetings and I go along with and um uh again I I think that if we had something in place like an actual policy I think have problem do something that would should do yeah and I think from everyone that I've spoken to sort of the board level everyone's kind of looking for the buildings and everyone to give us you don't want to Great policy without kind of practicing where it's at so we're kind of in this chicken and egg syndrome but I just think we got to really be careful like encouraging use is fantastic telling people that they shouldn't put a list of names and student performance out there I'm sure is an obvious
065thing for us we never do but I just I you don't want to encourage and tell people to use a tool and then gotcha when they done something they didn't realize that was an issue and I think that that's part of the things that we do when we're using it at first so again as we come in and we're doing these trainings and we're letting people know that generative AI is Stiller so we're not going to put anything in there that we wanted to learn I know whenever I work with people I'm like it's the same thing we're still held with Ed law 2D we're not putting names we're not putting anything personal information in it um and again I often remind people we're going to keep things B and then bring it back in
066even with things like brisk brisk is at law 2D approved and if they were to use that to create something like a letter of recommendation or something with a student name in it um part of the practice that I'm using when I train is we never use kids names in Thanksgiving generated it's just not good right um you know what I mean we keep things vague and then again we are the ones coming in tailoring it and fine tuning so in a general sense putting information but to never have anything that's going to have that specific information because even in something like a notebook LM which is why we we flagged it as being still an experiment and being in beta it's not at L approved if it is not at L approved kids names
067Don't Go Near it um and I think that that's something that we've worked really hard with with every Tech program we use of ensuring that our teachers are aware that they need to go we've got a running list of anything that can be used and if it is not a part of that list it is not to have student name student email or anything that has to do with our kids private information attached to great here and I think you know this is something where the regional consortiums that I know you participate in and I hear frequently about the the great work you're doing like this is where that probably needs to go but it really needs to percolate out because I think if you talk to 10 different people maybe four would understand and
068six would say oh I didn't realize and so I just think before the horse gets out of the barn with these kinds of things that you want to kind of really get Forward Thinking on so appreciate that and we look forward to hearing the future so thank you um this was a breath of fresh air after hearing about all the bad things they had can do I learned a lot I didn't know a lot of these programs existed and it's amazing how many safeguards the school has put in for that um I love that this is increasing equity for our students and um non native English speaking teachers as well um I found it helpful for myself if I'm asking a friend to translate flyer into Spanish for example I don't speak Spanish and I
069can ask chat GPT to generate it for me and then share it with my friend because like you said it's not 100% accurate it's so much easier for them to correct that instead of the entire thing um I wondering so K through 12 is a lot to support and I'm wondering how you are currently managing that best I can um there's a a lot going on right now we're we're in December so hour of code there's a lot of field trips going on and and buses and schedules and running around and um unfortunately I if you see me walking I'm probably uh walking staring at my phone and answering an email whenever I have the opportunity um I very much enjoy doing this so I I have the opportunity to do something that I love
070a lot um so that's really wonderful um however I do feel bad in the sense that for more for two different people today I said um we are going to schedule that in January um because unfortunately right now I'm I'm scheduled through uh the rest of this year and into next for being able to push in and and some of them are for AI things and and for other programs but it's um a lot yeah and we can still provide the support so we're not we're not leaving people hanging but for us the real learning and the real teaching is when we're in the classroom with the teacher and with the kids right and that's where we have difficult because we're only two people so it's going to be difficult for us to get in
071there to help model to help to help work with the teachers in the classroom themselves so Al can Alon can send over a video that she created to be able to help support teacher but it's not the same as being in the classroom with the kids and that's a lot of it is making a video recording myself doing it putting it on on the YouTube channel sending it out to our vallees and then you know being able to kind of push that out that way any of the teachers that subscribe notification when a new video comes out so they can see what's happening but it winds up being a little bit more in an asynchronous format than that really Personal Touch that is is really a a wonderful opportunity for all us uh not directly
072AI related but just talking about other programs and how you provide support do you currently give presentations to parents about new technology that their kids could be encountering that maybe parents don't want them to encounter and just like around students in general outside school whenever task to do so um Claremont often has an evening night that I've done um to talk about different platforms um I have done parent workshops um officer Valencia and I have put on an evening event to to share different things um I push in and talk to the kids and we do full assembly sometimes over at Claremont um so almost anytime I'm asked my answer is yes and if somebody wants me to do something I'm more than happy to show up and talk about whatever things you'd like me
073to talk about um I very much enjoy sharing it um and have been able to work in collaboration with opre um and uh different you know events with the aing public library and share in those spaces as well I'm sorry sorry we also use the da um the DA's office we've had the da and the assistant DA come out and and provide U you know parent uh presentations um to talk about safety and talk about social media and and um the pros and the cons of that and each appropri because that's going to be a huge topic coming up soon as well which is our you know how much is too much screen time how much is too much cell phones in our buildings should it should it be how do we monitor that how
074how do we make that happen so I know that that's a conversation that TR the board and the policy is going to be taking up soon I look forward to the attending this thank you so much this is great thank you Melissa yeah so thank you for a great presentation I agree with it's refreshing to have this perspective of it um just sidebar a 20-y old film ey robot I don't know if anyone saw that but those Graphics were reminding me of that try not to read I got spooky in that movie um good um so to that to to some of what you were saying earlier as well around some of the um just how AI was kind of welcomed if you will for like a little better words with some of the same
075trepidations that calculators were and um I went to a workshop uh the 23 24 and his b conference and the facilitator was talking just just about that this is when these conversations were really starting to heat up around Ai and they were kind of being retrospective about other times where we were anxious around technology and also mentioning um just like Google translate now everyone thought that will be the end of the you know integrity and kind learning new languages um so it it's refreshing just to you know see that you all are on the cuss of a lot of this unknown territory but we're you know kind of questioning forward as best best as we can I know um our policy committee had conversations around how this presentation was there nicely with Our intention to
076start exploring the new the sample policy 636 which does heavily reference a lot of what you're talking about especially um you know at law um 2D um and how do we navigate that right and how do we customize that inut that they've given us and a lot of the things that you're talking about tonight A L things they outlin in that policy so it's just refreshing to see that we have you know two people at the Forefront of this that are really educated on you know this unknown territory um couple of questions that I had was around um you kind of answered some of them and some of it is still unknown we're exploring it but I know just in general before AI kind of came into the framework we did have some offerings around
077the district around digital literacy specifically for students it's always wondering if there's any type of exploration of how we might start exploring digital literacy around AI for students because a lot of what we talked about tonight is how do we um do safeguards around l2v when it comes to the adults do that as well as educating that students with they engag in with this content um so I was wondering if there was any kind of discussion or exploration about how Yeah we actually have a a small um as we know like December right now we have the um hour of cod and we kind of celebrate all month long and have a whole bunch of different things going on um MIT has the day of AI in the spring and we've been able to consolidate
078all the things from MIT break it down grade by grade and last year none of this being um where students interact in a way with um generative AI but it has you know Google slide presentations for teachers to share at every grade level of what is artificial intelligence and again all age appropriate um and understanding the concept like being able to work with uh teachable machines and machine learning and understanding what AI is and um this is all Consolidated and created into one web page and then like a little announcement goes out and I've been able to share it uh throughout the district and I remember last year with our day of AI um there were a lot of kids really thinking that someday they were going to beat AI in tic taac toe um
079but the games are there and you know the opportunity to kind of interact with that uh Cornell's I don't know if anybody is as old as me wanting to listen to Birds With Merlin Bird ID um all of that kind of AI stuff that's on the web page um and it lets them interact in some of these very safe non-information taking AI platforms but then it also has all the slides and things created so if a teacher didn't want to have the opportunity to share I would love to see something like our hour of code and the celebration that we have in December um that have that kind of opportunity to do things with artificial intelligence as we see it grow and and and More in education to be able to have the opportunity for
080students in our classes to take you know a week or a day you know time out of our schedule that we can all really celebrate what we're doing with artificial intelligence so we have a little bit and I would love to see it brought up to something it definitely f into our um you know we looked over the past couple of years at our computer scence the new computer science state standards um and we we did a crosswalk with our stem teachers to to take a look at you know what has been covered and where they're the gaps and part of that was really um looking at that digital literacy component and making sure that that was filled in and we did a good job on it but I definitely see as that is an
081opportunity of where we can put AI even though that's not I mean again those those standards are written before a I hand to being in education and I think that's a really good spot where we can we can put a on into so that's where a conversation begin again we do that starting ining fish rates and when the state talks about those standards they don't have any interest in rewriting them with AI they just refer to the emerging Technologies so as we see artificial techn artificial intelligence coming through in those New York State digital fluency computer science standards the emerging technology is things like AI that we'll see thank you that really awesome um to that point is there anything I I appreciate when you were talking about how our focus is more on using
082the platforms that kind of focus on how a document is generated in the kind of fall other way where it's like what this Ai and then that you know that really doesn't keep up with um the human aspect of writing right so I'm glad that we are leaning towards the other side of utilizing tools that are B more um Equitable um around the digital um literacy do is there technology I don't know if we have it or it even exists about um I know you said there's technology that can flag for the teacher when kind of getting off top but is there anything that can flag when something is being compromised around like the the Ed does that even exist for us to start exploring use of that where I think sort of to the
083points we're making we don't want people to be in a compromising position and realiz when it's too late that that happen right but does it even exist or is there discussions around like as far as Educational Tools to be able to have those safeguards in place before things get out so there there are companies coming out that are trying to solve that um and I know that there's um a couple of districts that are tiptoeing around implementing something like that where it looks at everything that's created it looks like everything through everything that's being shared through Google and it looks like everything that's in that's on email and it flags for any type of student ID um or anything anything of that if it says IP on it it Flags it so that if it's
084going out of District it it has to to be approved um so or you can have a conversation it's not perfect which is why it's not something that is much widespread but there are companies that are looking to do that okay that's good uh lastly for me just around um sort of like digital literacy piece I think they're all the thing the obvious things that we want to make sure for student safety that they realize Al educating um students around sort of what we've been talking about where when you put stuff into that it belongs to the internet now right so discussing things like intellectual property and what that means um to relinquish that to the internet and and and students having sort of having that autonomy to decide what kind of content they put
085in there and just you know having those early kind of digital literacy around what that means to engage with the internet and their rights when it comes to that so but thank you is a great presentation and um you know I'm interested to see how we continue evolving and how our policies can help support the work as well we be happy to come back every another time to to to bring you know what's the the where are we going for thank you um I have a couple just questions and comments to thank you so much for showing up and I expect that we'll probably be inviting you to our policy committee meeting where we take a look at is been yeah um so you can give us your opinion because on the one hand it's
086like well we should have a policy on this this is a whole new thing but on the other hand it's such a the target is moving so quickly we have a a policy about plagiarism is that policy broad enough we have a policy about student privacy is that policy broaden up you know so where these intersect and overlap and What needs strengthening what are weak points um is something I expect that will be relying heavily on your expertise for um so I think you in advance that um I was glad that Melissa brought up kind of a mediacy media literacy excuse me element of this um and your response about potentially incorporating some of this into our instruction explicitly you know um there's a lot of right now it's very Buzzy right it's a very
087Buzzy topic so there's a lot of um professional development available to us as board members that I've been fortunate enough to take advantage of and as a teacher in that uh scope too and the quality of some of those um professional developments is is not consistent right like sometimes they just assume you've never encountered AI before and if I have to watch one more video of Morgan you know fake deep fake of Morgan Freeman I think I'm going to jump off a clip I know you know what video I'm talking about right I don't even have to say it right because it's part of like most of these is if I've never if I have no idea where to deep fake it because that's where I'm coming at it like I'm really trying to learn
088more and a lot of these professional developments only scratch the surfice right so I appreciate that um the way that we are approaching this is to show up to the classroom and show you how to do it because I think that's what I'm as a teacher myself like so thirsty for right is for somebody to come in and show me you know what H how this is actually going to affect me um and I think that's hard because you know so one of my questions is pedagogically um are we bolstering our teachers ability to design assessments that are AI proof and I'll put that in quotation marks right or what does that mean you know when to use it when not to use it and how teachers to help teachers outside of those like essay
089writing we're not all writing essays right like that's not something we're doing in all of our our classes they're not all written assignments so how do you AI proof your assessment so that you know what you're assessing is accurate as far as what you're looking for from your students um is there professional development in that is there a desire for professional development in that regard so that's my my question now I me I think there is a desire for that think that the term because it's tough because when somebody says you know he's an AI proof um we start looking at it in the conversation kind of in the field of AI is when we look at it and if you replace AI with my mom um is it chea you know AI helped me
090make my outline my mom helped me make my outline and at what point do we recognize that um for many of our students the support that they can get from AI might be support that they wouldn't be able to get anywhere else so I don't know that we necessarily are looking at a way of AI proing our old assignments we need to start looking at how we're creating content that we are working with AI that we are creating things that are going to give students the opportunity to engage with AI of looking at our assignments and there's you know different charts out there of you know AI not used and then AI is a partner and the creation of it and and working with our teachers and our students and recognizing that we you know
091are are in a brand new space right now and and to try to AI proof our old lessons isn't where we need to go where we need to go is looking at um a way to support our students in using it ethically and using it appropriately having our teachers feel confident in the sense of knowing that I'm I'm going to change things are are have to change um and being able to recognize that AI can be a partner in this and I think that that that's the direction that we need to go in the training um it's scary and and in that moment of the beginning of this presentation saying that the clarifying point it brings up a lot of feelings uh one of I watched a wonderful AI training and one of the comments
092that uh the person presenting was making is that this change and all this change comes loss and every teacher is losing things that we've known forever and we've held on to and what's made us great teachers and what we care so deeply about that we're going to have to let some of that go and and that loss is scary and there's a grieving process with it but in in understanding that we are going to have to move into this new world that we now live in that AI is going to be as Mike said earlier it's ubiquit it's in every program it's every time we engage in our phone it's the text you know prediction that's coming up it's you know ways telling me what way I'm driving home tonight because something's changed on my
093commun and I think that it's um honoring that change in our vallees and recognizing that that's going to be heavy and that's going to be big and it's going to be hor um but I don't know that we want to look to you know AI proof it I think we need to how we're going to move forward with a um thank you I just um I really appreciate this it's it's interesting to know you know when in all these professional developments you think we're producing students who will become adults who become productive members in our society want have jobs right and this is going to impact so many fields in every field and um that we need students to be able to write an effective chat GP promp even if they're not using chat gbt
094I appreciate that our student privacy is like Top Notch because that's my concern too with this and so I appreciate that that's T being taken very seriously you know when I was in school was you know how did you write an effective Boolean search and then later how do you write an effective Google search and now how do you write an effective chat GPT prompt and it's just a different way of interacting with a tool completely in it right now it's writing all of my grocery lists and doing all of my meal planning and I actually had check my third grade students math homework um because I just did not feel like doing that much subtraction and it was like At first jety was like I can't do that you got to do your own
095homework and I'm like listen I already did third grade just uh take another look and then it did do it um but like just I feel like I can't even wrap my mind around everything that is possible and if it's not possible will be possible so I just I don't want to say feel panicked I don't but I just feel like we're already it's happening so fast and bureaucracy moves so slow so we're never going to be ahead of it and we're already behind because we don't have any policy potentially or you know everybody really has to pick up the pace and we're going to do that so I appreciate the work that you're doing um and I feel like it was essential for us in order to make decisions going forward that will impact
096um everybody and help guide us in Vision set so um thank you I really appre staying out tonight to show us this creepy robots in your show you're welcome you're welcome for the robots thank you thank [Applause] you all right next up for we have another work session item um a presentation Equity special education program update so we'll invite our speakers up if we only had the AI presentation a couple weeks ago maybe the three of us wouldn't have been up here we could [Music] AI so good evening uh board presidents trustees superintendent families and colleagues tonight we are pleased to highlight our work in special education in this evening's presentation you will see how we are aligning our work from elementary through secondary to provide opportunities for students with different abilities this is our
097fourth year together it's hard to believe as a team um having a collaborative team is one of the most essential factors for Success when we begin we identified High leverage areas to focus on to build a foundation for this work our work is aligned with the distri Vision beliefs and values the pillars of the long range plan focus on teaching and learning data literacy ensuring equity for all students with different abilities and building our family and Community Partnerships this slide reflects the holistic view of the students we serve in the Asing School District I'm going to draw your attention to our enrollment data first as you can see I always present showing fouryear Trends so you could see that our enrollment for students that we serve with IEPs has slightly increased over the last four
098years but when you look at our classification rate I also want to draw your attention to the districtwide enrollment our districtwide enrollment has also increased slightly so when you look at our class specification rate you can see that we slightly went down in the 2425 school year but what has impacted that slight decrease is also the increase in our enrollment when you look at our overall csse cpsc and 504 for the students that we do serve uh we have approximately 1,5 students which shows a slight increase from last year of 9 962 and these numbers are based on bed's data so I also want to um make a notation that this number is constantly fluctuating um just because special education is constantly a moving Target so what do I mean by that one our enrollment
099as a district is always changing uh we hold CSC meetings throughout the entire school year that includes um initials and reils and we also have various needs that may arise throughout the school year which could potentially impact these numbers so special education is grounded in compliance and protocols it sounds very exciting um but really that's where our work is really grounded and creates a really our foundation because all of what we do is grounded regulations and that's the part 200 regulations um and we must follow the compliance based on part 200 our department enhancements included adding special education teachers psychologists social workers and related service providers to ensure that we meet the needs of all of our students our work focused on aligning our systems and instructional practices including programmatic changes throughout our schools so
100we actually when we first initiated this team uh we really created a 3 to 5 year plan and through that plan we really focused in on these three particular areas and then built upon each of these areas as we grew this school year we are working with our colleagues to align our thinking with our instructional practices and how they look in all of our special education classrooms so so in a lot of the presentations that you have heard throughout we up to this point in the school year have had a significant focus on data so what we do as a collective team we look at that data we look at it by building we look at it by student we um analyze it and we use all of that information to make our programmatic changes
101so there are three guided questions that we use to discuss our progress throughout the year these three questions really have not changed for us and the reason why they hav been changed is that they are our Focus so I will um share with you um what the three guided questions are to discuss our progress this is coupled with using multiple data points as I mentioned ear earlier such as the L the anal the nwba State assessments regions results and this allows us to monitor student progress and have in-depth discussions that impact special education programming placements and instruction in teaching and learning we have focused on instructional walks with our colleagues engaging in conversation around our instructional lenses to improve our practices so the three questions that I mentioned earlier I'm really focusing in on where
102we are right now now and um I would like to commend Maria who really led the way around our instructional practices and has really created a focus for our district and then has allowed us to really really begin engaging in high leverage conversation with our colleagues through our instructional walks and through those instructional walks we talk about the students that we are servicing and as a collective group has having us uh participate with our special education teachers with uh or going into special education classrooms with our colleagues that are servicing all different areas it's amazing dialogue and conversation that we're really able to grow upon the second area that I would like to really focus in on is our data collection we really really ensure and based our decisions um on the progress of our
103students with different abilities and identify growth areas to make instructional and programmatic changes this has led to the creation of various programs that align with student needs as I turn it over to Lindsay and Jessica they will talk to you about what are some of those programmatic changes that we have utilized data in order to impact our students unit and the last area that I would like to emphasize are workshops that allow parents to partner in supporting their children and families we know that without our parents we're not able um to move our work we need to provide our parents with the right resources because they are their children's first Advocates so with that being said I will turn it over to miss who is our director of Elementary special education thank you misso I'm
104honored to be with all of you tonight um I am thankful for the opportunity to share more specific information about elementary special education our programming and our awesome Elementary team first and foremost I want to acknowledge all of the staff who I get to work with on a daily basis they work with our students um their tireless commitment to their and their efforts are something that is to be commanded um to all of you honing in on your craft and your dedication to our students and families you are what makes our district so special learning with you and from you has increased my own skill set over the years that I've been here in aing and I'm thankful for your questions for your answers and most importantly for the advocacy that you provide always encouraging
105me and everyone around you to do the best for our students last year with um our board support and working as a team we spent many professional development sessions focused on IEP development we took a leap last year from compliance into writing high quality IEPs work that I'm so proud of each month that we were together our team focused on specific data to ensure we were making accurate projections to determine necessary programming to meet the needs of all students our projections happened three times last year first in November again in February and then in April and then we did an overall assessment at the end of the year in June to see if what we had projected is what we actually recommended when we had annual reviews we promoted equity and inclusion by developing programs
106for our students last year rather than fitting our students into existing programs this allowed us the opportunity for a 151 special class at grade 4 to feed into our 151 special class setting at grade 5 which ultimately led up to the departmental section at RF AMD in addition the needs of our families were discussed regularly and family engagement sessions were developed specifically to bring our families into the important conversations that we were having at the school level so in our conversations as a team we were able to monitor what we were talking about and then ensure that our families were given that information as well we really focus on Bridging the Gap between home in school last year that became a big Focus for us moving into this year here our elementary team has shifted
107Focus solely from IEP development to include progress monitoring of IEP goals to make this shift we add in an additional professional development day each month so I spend every other Wednesday in all four buildings I start in the morning at Brookside I move into park school I go over to Roosevelt and I end my day at Claremont every other Wednesday um this time has allowed our team to continue to grow to understand student data as it needs to adjust our instr ction so we're really focused on data and how that data shifts what we do on a day-to-day basis beginning in January we're going to expand beyond our meeting places so whether we're in a principal's office or an ap's office or in some sometimes we're in the hallway or when it's nice out we
108go outside wherever we can find space for our teams the cafeteria at Brookside is our home every other Wednesday um we're going to be moving out of those spaces starting in January and into classroom room where we're going to really um amplify the work that we're doing so we'll have one day of the month where we're working as a team in that meeting space and the next day where we're going into classrooms and we're looking at IEP practices and um instructional practices as they're related to the I um this is going to help us to further our progress monitoring see progress monitoring action and further our discussions to help us shift instruction and look specifically at goals the graph here shows um teacher self-efficacy related to progress monitoring at the start of the school year
109and then again at after the first quarter so the top is showing the beginning of the school year and the bottom is showing after the first quarter in November I'm so proud to highlight that we are well on our way of achieving our goal of having 75% of our elementary special education teachers increase their confidence in their ability to progress monitor using various tools you can see that through um right in here uh if you look at it more closely the green on the bottom indicates that somebody went from feeling confident to a lack of confidence we look at that as a highlight as well because that tells us that through our conversation something came up that someone thought they knew that maybe they didn't and now they've grown so I actually see that as
110a real Point rather than a negative um the rest of the the rest of what we're seeing the blue is really the very confident area so that's where we want everyone to be by the end of the school year but I think even if we're in that reddish orange color we're doing really well people are feeling good about progress monitoring and good if they a good inability to progress monitoring using various tools so through our progress monting our team regularly has specific data conversations for students who are considering more or less restrictive settings for these conversations have included data points that Miss Mauricio talked about that NWA The Ear The as well as standardized measures and progress specific progress towards specific IEP goals so looking very closely at individual students goals comparative data is a
111focus for our team this year to ensure similarity if need across our classrooms and also our programs when we look at the Continuum of service our goal is to ensure that we don't allow our decisions to proceed our data before we're making recommendations for big changes regarding student placement so not only do we acknowledge on initials that very often and our team is the first uh group of people to speak to a family about disability but we also acknowledge that even once a student has been identified with a disability it's our responsibility to make sure that we're following this restrictive environment um that we're adhering to that and that we're also thinking about the social emotional aspect of moving children less or more restrictive even if we're going less restrictive they're still a social emotional
112component to that that we want to acknowledge that said our team has successfully moved for students to less restrictive settings since we started the school year due R views targeted data talks so we're very proud of that I'm so happy to be able to announce that and I hope that I can increase that number by the end of the school year to streamline our efforts we've created a professional learning community that Fosters a level of collaboration where colleagues are able to be critical thinking partners for one another our time is used to share best practices and to problem solve as well as share resources and successes we' made the shift from having one leader to having all lead and being able to promote inclusion of all voices when we're coming together in our plc's when
113we think about equity and building programs specific to individual needs we've also worked together to creatively design programs that overlap each other so for example we have students who may need a self-contained setting for one period of their day but they can be in an integrated co- teing setting for the rest of their day when we're making those decisions we can't fully replicate secondary education or what secondary would look like at um but this level of thought and planning is complementing the program options for students once they enter middle school and high school and they end up with M Jan gry and the secondary team so we're doing the best we can with the time constraints that we have at elementary and the limitations that we have at elementary to make sure students are in
114the appropriate programs our families are at the core of all learning that we do together as a team as part Partners we acknowledge that while we have our students for 6 hours in the day the other 18 hours are spent a week from us it's crucial to our team to have family voice and engagement to support our decision making through our CSD meetings parent evenings mailings and phone calls we strive to provide multiple modalities for our families to join us in planning and preparation for students needs currently we're focused on opwdd and that process for families which can be daunting and also the extended school eligibility as well as the possibility of gathering families to reimplement or reinstitute a special education PTO so we're fingers crossed but we do have some families who are interested
115and we think that that's something that's really important that we want to support the work that we start at the elementary level is specific and it's tailored to prepare our families for the journey through secondary and I would now like to introduce our director for secondary special education Miss Jessica gr to share more about our secondary Department um so before I get started tonight I'd like to Echo my colleague sentiments and just thank you all for your time this evening um and thank the professionals that work so hard uh on the daily with our students um without your support and without their support we wouldn't be able to do the work that we do um so that being said tonight I'm going to talk to a little bit special education work that we're doing at
116uh here ATD and at Aang high school so our as Miss uh mauriceo shared with you we've been working together this is our fourth year and the past three years we've spent a lot of time working on our commitment to uh compliance enhancement and alignment of the work that we do uh the work that we do is is highly adaptive encompassing both discreet and Broad Trends as unit needs and data we look for patterns and data such as NWA eara region scores grads attendance um and really take the whole child approach to make sure that our interventions match our student needs um and this year we have continued to f focus on maintaining the program models that we have at both AMD and Ohs we continue to work on enhancing our IEP development and we
117have really spent some time targeting transition planning as a result of the indicator 13 review that we underwent last school year which helps us to understand our progress and performance in the area of transition planning uh and ensuring that our students are ready for or the world outside of aing school district so first I'd like to take a moment to um to talk about the fact that we have uh while we have maintained our program models we've really taken a deep dive into our regions data and our student needs uh here you'll see I'd like to highlight a few um points one being that over the last few years we know that Co had really hit our students hard but I'm happy to share that we for our students with disabilities their proficiency rates uh
118as they are performing on region exams have either matched or exceeded our pre-o rates additionally it's important to note I'd like to highlight that for our English 11th performance our students with disabilities are performing commensurate with their grade level peers their general education peers on their English region proficiency performance uh so this data is important to highlight to recognize where our successes are um additionally we use data to identify areas and opportunities for growth and we continue to see across regions performance scores except with English we see a 20% uh proficiency Gap in our students with disabilities compared to their general education peers so that being said that provides us an opportunity to uh to improve the work that we're doing so one of our goals for this year and one of our driving questions
119is what do our students need from us to maintain that progress to maintain that growth and to improve on that growth Trend so we have worked really hard to identify that our students need explicit targeted and intentional instruction in the areas of executive functions so executive functions being planning preparing organizing study habits turning things and on time self- advocacy skills uh we they need explicit and direct instruction in developing reading and writing skill sets and math and problem solving skill sets and additionally in social emotional learning conflict resolution and peer peer engagement uh these are all directly related to what ausing has as a goal for our portrait of a learner we as we said earlier tonight we are preparing our students to leave aing school district enter into the world of work be a
120productive member of society and as students are getting into middle school and high school that's a really main focus of the work that we're doing so we are currently in the process of realigning and enhancing special education supports at ausing high school to intentionally Target those areas to intentionally Target um executive functions to intentionally Target social emotional learning to intentionally Target reading and writing development and math development um and so for next school year we are hoping to add uh programming in the area of an executive functioning lab for students to develop those executive functioning skill sets uh English and math Learning Centers and additionally we're looking to add a therapeutic support program that would Encompass a social emotional learning lab for students so we know that all of the work that we do around
121programming is highly dependent on well-developed IEPs right our student new our student needs Drive the programming and supports that we offer so we continue to work to enrich our IEPs so that they tell the story of our students this year we've created a rubric based on the state guidance and collect some baseline data around our secondary IEPs so that way we are able to move Beyond compliance expanding on the work that m m has started at the elementary level we're developing professional development at the secondary level to ensure that we are that we are developing high quality IEPs so in addition to inclusive practice practices and individualized support Equity requires student voice and student engagement last year Miss ban shared with us that she started a process at Roosevelt School where all fifth graders came
122to and participated in their annual review csse meetings for this year all secondary students grade six and Beyond will be officially invited to and encouraged to attend their annual review csse meetings so that their voice voes can be heard in the in the process and in the performance we often say to students in csse meetings that they're the star of the show and all of the decisions that we're making impact them and at the secondary level it's very important that they have a voice in that planning and that they have a voice in that process so that way we are the IEP is meant to support the students goals so we want to ensure that they are involved in that process family engagement also continues to be a focus postsecondary transition planning is a way
123to ensure that families have a voice in the CSD process ideally transition planning starts in the middle school years right so at this stage our goal is to get everyone around the table and to start talking and start thinking about what happens after graduation right sixth grade it graduation may seem very far away but as a mother of three teenagers I can tell you they'll jump from 6 grade to 20 is like that right it comes up real fast so we want to get families and students really thinking starting to think about what happens next at the middle school level so here at AMD we have initiated a process this year uh as a result of our indicator 13 review and in conjunction and partnership with K Casey a transition specialist um uh we have
124initiated a process where all students at AMD will have an age appropriate career assessment at this level that age appropriate career assessment looks like a student interview a parent interview and teacher information about students strength and interests so that we can start to guide their work and their thinking around where they want to go next so this process will help us by starting this process more formally earlier um and younger this process will help us to identify student needs and will help us to connect families uh with both school and community-based resources so students can meet their goals next year we Contin we intend to continue to strengthen transition planning at aate High School this year our focus is on AMD ultimately all of the work that we do is to prepare students for GR
125uation and Beyond so we have seen incremental growth over the years in our graduation rates but and we know that with more time and the right supports our students are graduating we're proud of the work that we're doing and we are looking forward to where we're heading to support our students thank you did you have more we good you want some questions I'm sure some of us have questions thank you so much I'll open it up to the board anybody want does anybody have any questions they want to start yeah anybody on the other side of room I feel very alone over here by the way no no neighbors de it today promise um anybody over there go ahead Annie I just have one question I was wondering um does this whole include children in
126General Ed who have IEPs or disabilities and if so um since those teachers are General Ed teachers how do they progress monitor or do they progress monitor so I'll I'll start and then Lindsay can take um the work that she's doing be because um students in general education settings are in an integrated C- teing environment um so that class consists of the general education teacher as well as the special education teacher so um the progress monitoring is really done um by the special education teacher which Lindsay works very closely with um in order for that individual to progress monitor the students IEP goals but with that being said we do expect our general education teachers and they are responsible to um first of all every student's IP that is in their classroom um they also
127by regulation have to sign off on a chapter 408 acknowledging that they are aware of the students goals and all of the students needs and then in an integrated co- teing classroom our teachers are constantly planning together if you go into I if you go into especially an elementary building you can see the cohesiveness of an integrated teaching classroom um the special education teachers work along the side um with the general education teacher um and I think that we are constantly talking about how we can also improve our instructional practices but there is a time which is right now that I believe that our teachers are talking more about data than ever and that co- planning um is happening and through that conversation is the progress monitoring which um is occurring in a general education
128classroom with both of those Educators and I don't know if Lindsay would like to add yeah so all of that um and then we also have our students who are related service only children who are in a straight general education classroom that don't have a special education attached to their program those children have case managers so there are case managers who are responsible for the project Hing ofid goals and a case manager would be a related service provider in that case so it goes um there's sort of a top like the the top tier is if the student is receiving speech therapy for example the speech therapist is automatically the case manager if they're receiving speech and OT still the speech therapist if they're not receiving speech it becomes the occupational therapist they're not receiving
129OT it becomes the physical therapist so there's a whole scope of who is the IP monitor who's the person that's in charge the case manager that person's responsibility is to make sure that the students idaes are being reviewed by the general education teacher that the IP is being developed and that the progress monitoring is occurring on all IP goals um Kim and I work together with the related service providers they meet with kid more regularly through um for professional development and then they are part of my Google classro which has all of the information that's shared with special education teachers along with the fact that I meet with them regularly because I'm the person chairing most of the elementary CSC meetings so I'm with them very regularly and in the building very very regularly with
130them did that answer your question yes thank you and I just I just do want to touch on this topic as it relates to secondary as well um as this Manan shared at the secondary level every student does have a case manager um as you can imagine at the secondary level we have nine period a day students may have six or seven different teachers uh so the case manager is responsible for collecting that data and that evidence around those IEP goals so in the instance um you know general education teachers May provide a special education teacher with evidence work samples Etc to support a congress monitoring of those goals in those general education settings thank youa wants to next thank you for your presentation I don't know if it was intentional but I think it
131was a great book in to have that very techy Ai and then Mo to the Human Services component of education so they both a great presentation but I think they pair very nicely um just a couple of questions I have I I see all the work that you all are doing and how you're really being intentional about including student voice parent voice families and also analyzing your your data just being just very practical with what how you're approaching um I'm curious when I tried this sidebar I tried to access the link for the rubric and I could I don't know if any of you have access to allow or that's someone else um but around these samples that you extract around that um analysis I'm curious if you're able to explain like what a bit
132or touch on a bit like what is some of the process for Gathering representative sample when you extract those samples for this analysis yeah so um so for the samples uh we collected 10 IEPs so just you know again just a sample a couple of IEPs from am a few IEPs from OHS uh in terms of the rubric um I'll update that sharing like me make sure that everybody has access to it uh but essentially we're looking at based on the New York state New York State puts out a document around what is expected to be on an IEP and what pieces need to be filled out uh for the most part our IEPs are compliant right we have the information that needs to be there what we're really looking to do is how do
133we take the work that we're doing and expand on that at the secondary level especially when we're talking about six or seven different teachers and collecting and analyzing and encompassing all of that data um how do we bring that into the space of gain quality or high quality so um we're looking at you know each part of the rubric is scored and that helps us to identify where are we compliant and where are we high quality and how can we take those compliance areas and move them towards more high quality narratives uh we have a staying in special education where there's a need there's a goal where there's a goal there's a service right so that need uh should be identified through a narrative summary of what the student can or does do and what
134the student does not do that's how we identify needs needs should lead to goals there should be a direct correlation between the students needs and what the goals are on the IEP the students goals that help us to identify the service I think we do a really great job of having those discussions and having those narratives uh and it's just how do we enhance how that's recorded and documented on an IEP so that way as I said earlier the IEP should the story of the student it should serve as as a manual as a place to look for what the student needs from us in order to be successful so nobody's reinfecting the wheel thank you um I'm just curious around the graduation rates I'm curious your like feedback on potential impact of that obscure
135Moment In Time it was extended and then it was sunset in June of 24 how that might have skewed your approach to support the data when looking at or all the all the above so we actually we talking about that tonight um because that is also um and then I'll turn it to Jessica she'll have I'm sure some things to add um through our conversation that's always the concern of ours um especially so many students as we were going through Co and coming out of Co were eligible for exemptions um and that's what lies in US looking at additional data so when J spoke about looking at the regions um and seeing where our students are performing in comparison to their general education peers um it allows us to also see their growth so if
136we know that students are performing or closing that Gap in comparison to their peers um we we see that even outside of those exemptions as we move forward our students are growing so with that being said um if we're growing in that area we shouldn't have an area of concern in regards to the end of the exemptions um and then just you may want to add additional Y no that was perfectly well stated right when we're it's not just we yes do we look at the graduation rates and go my gosh how much does the do the exemp impact this but again if we take a step back to uh the region scores that we discussed earlier um in the presentation we see that students are Rec we're starting to see students recover right so
137those exceptions were in place to allow time for students to recover we're starting to see students recover um and we also know that the state is coming out with new graduation you know they've already made it public that they're looking at um decoupling region exams with uh graduation requirements uh we still don't know 100% what that's going to look like uh we know that exams are changing living environment for example has new standards and has a new exam this year so we always have you know conflicting data to I think in education there's always going to be something that's going to be a variable in the data that we have to account for so we have to be careful that we are looking at that discrete data but also taking that step back and looking
138at the whole um and recognizing that regardless of our you know regardless of those exemptions students with diff uh students with disabilities also have access to you know compensatory um you know compensatory scores on there and low Pass rates and taking advantage of all of the pathways that we can afford students to be able to achieve their goals and that's also we can't have this conversation without talking about transition planning as well because it's all connected right how students are performing connects to what their goal is where they want to be after graduation and how do we help students achieve those goals and how do we guide them towards the appropriate pathway towards graduation to achieve that goal thank you and I would also like to add our primary focus as a team and we
139have these in depth discussions we um we don't want to look at student Achi just by building because everything that we do as soon as a student enters our building at Park School we have to already think about the trajectory of what their students education is going to be like um as a Learner in the hosing school district and what does our programs offer to ensure that our students are succeeding and I think that we really have um buil solid foundation we know that there's more work that we would love to accomplish um and it's coming um but we also feel that we have laid a real solid foundation um of the trajectory of a student um in our district in special education I appreciate that that's another thing I forgot to mention I appreciate
140about work is that it seems to be very um intersectional right which is a good it's necessary for sustainability and accountability but also allowing for flexibility along the way as well so thank you for that thank you so much for this presentation I I know um you know you guys have done a lot of work and you know I imagine you guys have like a a future vision of what what you like to see goals um any thoughts on that I know I'm asking to reveal some things perhaps that you're in planning stages for but just any Top Line um thoughts for what things what you would Envision this looking like probably about two years so I can uh share um a little bit because we obviously I'm always thinking um which probably the team
141doesn't always love when they get an email very early in the morning or a text um but I would say that through our conversations um our Focus right now is really looking at a high quality written IEP and ensuring that our instructional practices are matching that so moving towards the 2526 school year you will hear me speak about um really building upon um our instructional practices and providing capacity so that um we are supporting our teachers at all of our buildings around special education practices in all of our buildings the second area focus is definitely transition um we're beginning that work right now we did go through indicator 13 um and sorry you have to bear with me I I don't know what some of these terms are so just tell me like a Layman
142so we had to do a self assessment okay around transition to summarize it in um pretty simplistic terms but through that work um we knew that our next step was transition but we also were able to identify our areas of need going through our self assessment um and right now we're looking at and obviously developing the transition assessments at AMD um but it's beond that work and we know that in order to really successfully do that um we would love to see um a transition coordinator to support us and our families because it is a long journey for our families um and the earlier that we can educate our families around receiving services and how they could plan for their children in the future um a transition specialist would be tremendous um in our future
143that would be like at the point of enrollment that that you you start to talk about that or well you can start op to well you start services and applying for various Services um at elementary school so right now we're building capacity with our social workers and our psychologists we have a speaker coming in um to really give an overview of what the process looks like at the same time simultaneously we're running a parent evening so so that parents can also have a knowledge around what services they can be eligible for um but we also know that it's very critical for somebody to really walk our families through this process and because of the number of students that we do have classified in our district it would be incredible to have an individual dedicated to
144that work yeah I I think that makes sense I the only thing I would just say there is it sounds like you're starting at the elementary but I don't think it's just limited to that so if somebody new comes into the district they're they're they're P into part of that almost as if they were starting even at that Elementary level okay absolutely so this essentially if I'm just paraphrasing and making sure I'm playing back my understanding is basically that your this transition is like hey we have this open available depending on what the need is for your child here's something we' got and then they they're kind of coordinating and linking with everybody in the district on here the services that can help support your child and what's available outside to them correct okay okay
145I think that sounds great um also just as you guys talked about the spaces and places that you need I think this itself you know we all thankful for the fact that we that we've got to thees like yeah just thank you really quickly so just in terms of how we sort of and there are a lot of variables here sir can acknowled that but how do we sort of rate ourselves is it like the the kpi or the key data point is it that graduation rate is that what you're looking at is it the difference between the test scores on the slide you showed between students who are in these programs and the general population what do you really what are you really looking at the data points year over year or quarter over
146quarter to sort of say okay we're progressing in the right direction as compared with ourselves and I guess potentially outside the district as well is that a valid comparison or again because there's so so many variables here that's not that's not valid here so we um so there's a couple things that we look at um one you always want to at student growth and progress so even when you look at the state assessment and you a student may score a level two on the state assessment but you want to look at that holistic number because a student may score a low to one year and then progress towards A3 but maybe have not met the proficient level three but this student has shown grow that's one of the areas you also want to look yet
147and we're talking about State assessments but also um the social emotional needs of our children um so we also look at attendance as just has spoken about and you have heard our principles talk about that as well and the attendance growth um in each of our buildings and some of the focuses that they are really honing in on for attendance because we need our students to be in school to also learn so when we see students that maybe fall in the ceg being chronic um that move into um severe um or I'm sorry in the opposite direction um then we see that they're slowly making growth um also through the region scores we want to make sure that the percentage of our students that are um passing the region um is growing um we also
148have identified an area of need um with our region scores um for students with disabilities um and for the nwba I know for um being part of some of Lindsay's meetings we are looking she's looking at that data with her team so for example when we're talking about where students are and where they potentially need to go they are looking at that nwaa data by the four titles so and that has been extremely helpful in making um some really high quality decisions but also how all the students are progressing with with in the program that they are receiving and then I'll turn it over to my team if they would like to add I think just to add on on a much more individual level we're also looking at progress towards I gos and what
149that looks like for each individual student and really celebrating that sometimes for some of our students when we look at grade level measures or standardized measures it's really hard to see their level of growth that we see every day when we walk into classrooms and we know students are growing so much so we look for those Pockets that we can share with our families or celebrate with our students that are more specific to them individually and to what their needs are and what their successes look like things like graduating from speech therapy for example and being able to celebrate that in a CSC meeting things like looking at NWA and saying wow the student in this selfcontained classroom outperformed students that were in an ICT classroom and maybe we need to look at that and
150understand that this self-contained teacher do that we can Elevate in the ICT classroom to help with that student at that's an ICT um how do we look at all of those incremental things or the student that made it through the day that it was really hard for them to get through their day and now they're getting through their day so we're looking at all of those small things too that are actually really big and often get forgotten um and then coupling that with the bigger easier things to look at like State data and standard assessments I mean I think the short answer to your question is yes right like looking we are looking at all of the data so we take that step back and we have that real big bird's eye view for the
151state targets we know that we have um performance indicator performance reviews that we have to do on the you know the inere 13 which is that transition assessment to see how well we're performing as a district for transition um going through those indicator performance reviews help us to identify where we're doing well and where we might need to uh perform better uh regions scores but as Miss McAn said we are really in the business of individualized Education plan right it's individualized for a reason we're looking at individual students individual student growth um and making sure that each student has what they need to meet their their overall goal which is which is what right what are we where are you going after graduation famili students are part of those discussions so it's all really interconnected
152so great presentation and I think a lot of what I was going to say is already been covered but I can't stress how appreciative and how grateful and for the work that you're doing on the quality of the individualized plans PR monitoring and the professional development like that cycle of alignment is just so important so really appreci that the board um in terms of at all levels especially at secondary level where things get even more complicated and really appreciate the Innovative approaches like engaging families at the middle school level like try to get them out of the elementar at that level and then the Middle School level having them you know talk about career assessments and where they want to go because you're right the time in high school fly by and so it's already
153gone before you you started so I just really appreciate that evation and the idea of the labs at the high school is great it's phenomenal you know I guess the question I have really is is like what is the you know if you're going to do like executive function is like so important and so critical across everyone right I mean and I know like Avid there was a target with Avid to try and bring in and do that try to expand it to general education but what does it look like or what do you think the lab looks like for special education executive function and does that translate all across the board great question so um last last year we brought in a curriculum so we are using an executive function curriculum it's called smarts
154curriculum uh which essentially has lessons to teach students to take notes teach students about their own learnings uh you know that metacognition students knowing how they learn understanding their own strengths and weaknesses um you know learning how to organize use planners you know if we took a walk around this table and everybody had to talk about how they organized themselves and keep up with deadlines we all have a different answer for how we do that so there's no one siiz fits all approach to developing those executive functions but rather you know a systematic cohesive approach that involves that includes the student um so that the student can understand more about themselves and trial and error Works what doesn't work because ultimately when students leave here there there is no special education right when students go
155to college while there are supports for you know our our our students who need supports students are going to college with accommodations and modifications and there's not necessarily a small class environment so how do we teach students to be able to enter that world and not have us do the work for them but that they know how manage that workload uh so we are utilizing a specific curriculum to be able to teach students how to organize themselves and I really can't wait to see how AI can help us well right as I'm sitting here I'm like all the things right because technology technology can be such a useful tool to help students manage their organization manage their workload set reminders and um you know especially for students that maybe are not pencil paper we talk
156so much about the things that get lost in backpacks or families tell us they left you know they left they did their own work how come it didn't make it to the teacher where did it go it's in the backpack uh but when we use technology and we look at other approaches and we get creative there's there's always a solution there so that executive function left would incorporate that curriculum um and work on building those skills for our students and earlier just are the connection piece at the elementary level we're working on the exposure to all of the different tools all of the different opportunities within the the classroom settings so just tier one General um observational things that are going on and tools that are being shown to students and then um looking at
157scaffolding modifications on IEP so starting with um essentially like high high level supports and then throughout Elementary starting to reduce those support through modifications program modifications that are on IEP so that when they get to the secondary level they're ready to start more independently um and really working on that that you're a baby and now you're not you're you're a bigger baby but you're working on something a little bit different now so um really fostering Independence as we grow through element we talk about K12 really being that space for exposure and teaching and learning and then third grade where we start to introduce more Independence and fourth and fifth even more independent up to grade six where um we expect even more and and you see that through through education as they continue on right
158thank you for your presentation um I want to just highlight something that I heard that I really liked um I think that having an i quality review like setting that as a goal is so integral because obvious very direct impact on the quality of the instruction that the students receive and we need to be able to identify those needs and then uh create a program for them that's going to be effective if we want to see this Improvement right like this is a very important step in the process um and to that end I think teaching is not a unique profession in this way but it is one of those professions where when you graduate from college and you're in on your day one you're expected to have your stuff together and be able to
159provide a certain quality of service at the same level as somebody who's been doing it for 10 15 years and uh the students are entitled to that right like they if they need Services they need Services regardless as to how much experience their teacher has in in this specific field and I feel like nobody works harder than these special education teachers the paperwork is insane um and so what I'm hearing is in your meetings that that you're able to feed off each other and all I'm hearing words like self assessment self- evaluation and then as a group doing those things it sounds supportive to me of those teachers and I I don't have anybody specific in mind when I'm saying this I'm just saying it kind of like Sy systemically what I'm I'm hearing I
160don't know these people personally or who's on our staff or what their experience levels are but that's the kind of thing that I feel like you need to have in place if you want to support people who haven't been doing it as long to be able to learn from each other I feel like that's the way we make the most progress and I'm hearing those systems in place in your description even though you can come out and say this is how we're doing it I'm hearing that that's there and that um setting goals like these uh is so helpful for consistency sake right because the quality of your child's IP should not depend on the years of experience of their special education teacher how many IP IEPs they written in the past right and so
161this ensures an there's an equity through line through I think is really important that I really wanted to highlight I really appreciate the work that you that you are all doing it's a lot um and like I said I don't I don't think anybody does more paperwork than our special education teachers there's a lot that goes along way and the other thing I wanted to highlight um you mentioned trying to get a special ed PTO off the ground it's so hard to get parental involvement especially when these our parents of kids who need a lot of extra attention and their parents who are driving their kids to appointments and more do maybe more doctor's appointments maybe more Physical Therapy appoints maybe more speech whatever um to find the time to do that but at the
162same time if you're parent going through that process it's so overwhelming and it feels so I don't know legal for lack of a better term like we have 60 days to do this and 30 and it's an overwhelming amount of information for somebody who hasn't done it before and just to have the resource have a parent who's done it to say like hey you know it's not the end of the world this is what you got to do when you do this then you do that oh you haven't heard you should email this person you know um to just have the kind of community support of each other if you could get that off the ground I would be S press but like I said I don't think it's going to be an easy lift
163because I think that I mean we're talking about parents who are already in a situation where they're they're having to spend a lot of time uh meeting their other kids' needs before they have to consider how they're going to contribute to a broader Community right but I appreciate that and I'd like that we're highlighting that our vision is there I think it's a really good thing thank you so much all right you cannot get off get off the hot seat we appreciate all the work that clearly went into [Applause] it all right um moving ahead to our consent agenda uh we've already taken care of it 4.1 so I'm looking at by uh anything excuse me does anybody have anything they wish to break out in item five all right I'll take a motion for
1645.1 through 5.3 5.1 resolution to resend the kheen charter Memorial Scholarship 5.2 resolution to accept funds from Special Olympics of New York 5.3 resolution regarding appointment of consultant smart sheet in district office uh any discussion I have I have something on 53 smart sheet sure U Alita just question on this so the the the request for the funds looks to be for the consultant are we um are we implementing smart sheet throughout the district and if so was that like kind of a long time I'm familiar with it's a good project management but I'm so um my department actually me is the only one that uses it um what we're trying to do we have small sheets so the consultant um is a group that is working to design a system for us to track
165capital projects and also um Brands there's a lot of steps um in both of those the management of both of those areas um and I I I I know what smart sheet is capable of but I don't have the the skill level to put it so basically customizing a system for us to track um um certain it's project management but it's also Market retention it's also um uh workflow um it's also setting deadlines our Consultants our Architects our uh construction managers they'll have an interface where they can put information into um the capital project system um so that's what that's for and we're using for we have two different quotes one for the F fund and federal and one for um the capital and um we're using those funds um to pay for it and
166the which are which you approving is a one time um design fee right okay so you're the only depart that will actually use Smart sheet across that's available to other um and if I if I like we use it for the policy committee but this is like different than just a spreadsheet this is like you said um project management record retention um alerts workflow um so we have a lot of capital projects and we have there's a lot of hands that go into um managing the capital projects and the paperwork um and and then with the federal grants things need to be I I just the workflow has to happen a little bit more swiftly and I think that there needs to be more uh a system in place that is not dependent on human
167error but it's established no I'm I'm fully supported of smart sheet I think that's great I'm just for for the one time up the 25,000 F to bre the consultant to customize it for use do you anticipate basically that being a one time because it's not you know it's not inexpensive to do the customization so if they set it up for what you needed for for your projects in capital do you anticipate kind of being a one time charge you want have to consulted again for another 25 to customize again no we they're setting up the system I've met with them several times um to go over what my expectation is um I think they get it um so we're also bringing them to train my team and any other staff member that wants to
168join us on Smart sheets um so no I don't think that there's going to be um any additional design requirements there may be some tweaking after we get familiar with the system but no I don't think there'll be any additional cost and you said there is an Enterprise license other outs department wants to use Poli any like I if I use SP sheet today like I invite the policy committee members and they have access to the information um so they don't like they don't have any they just go in based on their email address um we've used it in the pass it for other purposes but um might even ask like your team is the only team that really uses it but I there's so much you can do with it and um I think
169it's an opportunity to systematize things and it's not coming out of general fund it's coming out of those those fund with the million projects youve got going on let us know how it works out for you yeah I'm really really excited and the people that are involved are excited to yeah I think it's you don't white list of things so no I if it works I think it's going to be extraordinary thank you any further discussion all right I'll call a vote all in favor opposed exstension does anybody have anything they wish to break out from 6.1 through 6.11 all right I'll take a motion for 6.1 through 6 so 6.1 resolution regarding resending professional staff appointments 6.2 resolution regarding professional staff appointments 6.3 resolution regarding support staff appointments 6.4 resolution regarding F attendant appointments
1706.5 resolution regarding professional staff appointments before after school programs 6.6 resolution regarding cium substitute removals 6.7 resolution regarding cium substitute appointment 6.8 resolution regarding approval of school volunteers 6.9 resolution regarding Civil Service staff resignations 6.10 the resolution regarding Civil Service staff appointments 6.11 resolution regarding support staff request for a leap of asset any discussion all in favor opposed exension all right moving on to uh it 7 which is audience recognition I'm seeing no audience here in person so I'll give Folks at home an opportunity to raise their digital hand up they would like to speak okay all right so uh before we allow her to speak I'm going to read the public comment guidelines so that those are right uh we are about to begin the second public comment period of our meeting although state
171law does not require us to hold a public comment period we have chosen to do so because we believe it is crucial for us to hear from our residents District tax tax taxpayers student and school Personnel about their concerns and issues having said that please note that the board is here to listen the public comment period is not designated to be a discussion not design excuse me to be a discussion accordingly please do not expect the board to necessarily respond to your concerns and questions tonight we take your concerns and questions seriously and want to have sufficient time to process and research issues if need be we will however respond to your questions and concerns and VI your meeting or have the proper staff member get back to you at the appropriate time under state
172and federal privacy laws we are unable to entertain any comments or questions about school Personnel or individual student matters please know however that we take Personnel concerns very seriously on these matters we would ask that you go through the appropriate administrative channels we want our Schoolboard meetings to serve as an example to our students that members of our school board and members of our community can deal with controversial issues in a civil Manner and demonstrate mutual respect for one another in that Spirit we will insist that all speakers and members of the audience maintain Civility and respect for any Divergent views that others possess we ask speakers please address their comments to the board directly rather than the audience during the first comment period speakers May address only items pertaining tonight's meeting agenda and during
173the second comment period and address any school related topic I want to remind everyone that you may submit written comments to the board via our Boe at ausing ufsd dog email in lie of or in addition to speaking during the public comment period in the unlikely event the meeting becomes unruly the bo will recess the meeting and return once order has been restored each individual speaker is allotted up to 3 minutes the individual time limits will be enforced as many members of the public who wish to speak may be allowed to do so and to respect the other board business that is being conducted tonight before speaking please share your name and address and I'm just going to make sure my ti is below okay go ahead hi are you able to hear me yes
174perfect hi I'm Kristen arita I live on Crest Drive in brider um I just thank you so much for the presentation on special education something that's near and dear to my heart for sure um I just I wanted to first um say thank you for all of the increased Social Work presence I know that that was something that you you made reference to um it's absolutely felt um in terms of accessibility for me health professionals um and I'm really hopeful that when the grant runs out that we'll be able to keep maintaining social workers on staff in this capacity because I do think it's making a huge difference um for the the well-being of our students um I'm speaking particularly at the elementary school level but I do imagine that it's trickling up as well
175you know full District um the other thing I just wanted to highlight was the importance of preschool in terms of special education um I know I've said this before in front of the board but I just you know the cpsd world right now is really in a hard place with provider availability EI is in crisis right now in terms of um a new system is being put in place children going without services and I just really implore the board and the districts to continue to consider how we're supporting our preschoolers within the district um you know considering as St allows opening programs and really you know I really appreciate hearing you know K12 is when you're really establishing kind of those routines and structures for students to build up um but if you think about
176really starting that much stronger of a foundation at the preschool level you're already one step ahead when they get into Elementary School um so just something that I want to continue to highlight at any opportunity um when the board is talking about special education all right thank you is there anybody else online who wishes to speak all right so that will conclude our public comment period um and we'll move on to board report of dialogue um I'm not sure if any committees met because we have a holiday um did any committees meet yes no process of um solidifying some names to be honored this year um next steps are going through the process of just you know availability and just kind of building necessary information to proper a ceremony um and that's the stage we
177now do anybody have are there any other committee updates first before we move on to just general discussion with Thanksgiving feels like we just met doesn't it all right um we can open it up to anything else that we like to know I got a few things and I'll try to run through them quickly and I think I'll start with just a couple things I don't think necessar require much dialogue and more dialogue just sort of as a heads up so I think at the beginning of remind last year I mentioned possibly pitching the idea of a curriculum committee to form uh I have to do my homework on it I know Catherine had possibly mention that as well maybe I'm putting words into her head mouth not here but point is I'm going to
178try to pull some notes together and I bring it back to the table to to talk about um that particular committee I can speak to that a little bit because that was one of our I think board goals was to explore that so um to that end uh at the meeting that Mary and I had today with Catherine and Roger attended we discussed uh Mary putting together a presentation for us about about kind of our possibilities and which you know kind of floating which direction we'd like to kind of take that in so she's already on it and I think we scheduled it for February that particular committee oh not not a committee meeting a discussion about like kind of an exploration about what we would want forming that forming a yes okay yes like
179what that would look like if you know if we want to do it if we need it what what are the potential ways that that could you know unfold would it be the board would it be the board plus would it be the board Plus+ more you know how big do we want it or do you know just a general kind of education for us so that we can make a decision got it okay great um what else oh okay uh this is one I think I did circulate for this is more about housekeeping thing and how we classify these meetings our meetings uh We've noted them on the agenda as special but my understanding is a special meeting is one that you call kind of like in an emergency session something that can't be
180resolved before the next regular board meeting uh that's based of the research I have at Visa so I would propose and I don't know if we need a formal vote on this but just to going forward and when we have board meetings like this that are pre-scheduled they're either call board meetings regular work sessions but not special it's minor but it does send the signal that we're not doing meetings as an call between so um I don't know if we need to vote on that but that's that's the guidance on what should be and they're prech they're just good old regular board meting a want to run past Stephanie we talk about this in the past in terms of regular meetings and special meetings there are differences in the state and I think we had
181the same sort of sensibilities about it in the past I don't DET but I think also the number of meetings you have a month like if you commit to two regular meetings a month like then basically like in August there's some meeting mons where you didn't have that and so there was there was aspects of public comment whether you needed to have it or not like you have to have them in a regular meeting you don't necessarily have to have it in a special meeting so there was some around that I think it probably makes sense for us to give a little time with Stephanie to say here's the two different designations I know we did go through this in the past I don't know if it with Stephan coun we should before before I
182want to make decision on that I want to have a conversation with I I'm wondering if we need to literally have a conversation with her or if you would like me to email her and see see everybody just to say can you describe these differences to us or would you like her to come to like an exact session question I imagine I imagine have questions out so i' rather at least going to get a respon so I will put on my list to invite Stephanie to exective session sometime to receive the leg advice about that yeah and I can give you share I'm sure she's familiar with what is the her her wheelhouse so um if you would like to sh that with the rest of the bo you can um so that I think
183you did um but we can inv to speak to us that seems very reasonable um okay a couple other quick things um okay so the other thing I mentioned a few meetings back and I think there was consensus around this was to do some sort of research slash audit around the lunch and recess thing so you know Christina I know you ask me to sort of rearticulate so I'll try to be super clear about it I understand it may not rise to the level or at this time an agenda item I but I guess my sort of pitch to the board was we know lunch and recess we have a set block of time but in sort of hearing anecdotally from variet people that the lunch lines the way we have them right now the
184kids aren't getting 20 minutes to eat even though there is board policy say we want 20 minutes plus the recess time and that's we understand we're looking to the Ford around the bond and know youve posted like look you no contracts or contracts it might be tricky to adjust but I think there was consensus to try to at least do some research prior to we get buildings built and operations that we solve for this okay are there ideas we might be able to do today not necess literally today but sooner than building the buildings to move those lunch lines faster to get the kids out for that research time not saying take the 41 minutes make it 50 make it 60 you could have the discussion but to try to make it more efficient to
185get those lines moved and again I mention out you do pre-ordering so I guess that was just again I think there was consensus around this to do some research I don't know if it's ning an update I don't know if it's a more formal report uh by ideally by the end of the year and I know we're going into board uh budget season so I know we're going to get busy with that so I just wanted to repitch that I hope there's still consensus about it with the goal of trying to make possibly adjust things within contractual agreements and our so prior to buildings getting built that we can try to solve for it today because it is it is a concern because I know I from our son he says I don't get to
186that front of the line I don't have the 20 minutes I have five and that's that makes me sad I think the time's right like we're looking cafeteria space in some of the buildings like we want high speed highways time I mean I agree with experience some some sometimes kids had L time need sometimes they didn't sometimes they didn't get recess all around I understand logistical problems with administration too on this one but it's worth looking at especially if we're talking about how we're going to address the facilities like maybe Claremont needs four checkout lines I don't know six checkout lines maybe the architect will take a look at this maybe it's more of a flow thing but there's also Personnel behind all of that so it's worth taking a look at from my perspective
187I just want to make sure Barry's clear on the ask I my brain is going through one building the next building the next building the next building I I I can share the time breakdowns there's you would have contractual issues with teachers with Time It's Different in each building am did have four lunch periods but um they changed in order to get through but changed it back to three to give more time to get kids out of the hallways and in classroom so there was a tradeoff of things and we see that on one end as a positive um knowing that all sixth graders have Lun at one period as opposed to anyway but um or is it a question about do we add which I think is was the goal in the cafeteria Replacements
188which are being moving forward to increase the sery space of line to get kids through more efficiently so that will happen in this building it will get shorter because you won't have three grade levels you only have two so it becomes you can do four if you needed to when you won't be mixing gr so again any changes to about sorry any um changes about adding um surfies is really contractual um because uh W is not going to just add staff and labor um with less kids it just it's going to be something that the district is going to have so once I know what the app is I can figure out like course would be um to probably to the district so they the everything is set based on labor costs um and food
189costs and all of that when they tell us how much it once we sign the contract like we can't just go in and add stuff and and tell them that they have to increased their labor costs um even though the um number of meals being served is going while the number of meals being Serv is going to be reduced that's just not going to um go well um and it makes sense so once I have more information I can try to figure out how much a survery additional because this additional sta an additional St the distri is going to have to yeah so I just saw just list so here's what I'm looking at fact finding period starts there's two lines 41 minute period the kids sign out can we just start to research literally
190maybe with a timer okay 41 minutes how long does it take the kids get through what percentage get through and again I'm spit BL this is not my expertise but like percentage kids get through 5 minutes 10 minutes 15 minutes 20 minutes over then how many are sitting down how many do we observe to get time to I agree with you we're not necess at that point like to say okay what do we want to change I'm looking at the start the fat Frank things sport on it like today now can start to look at that to either a solve before the buildings get built for the kids who are going through it literally right now and when the buildings do get built to help with the Operation I always get tripped up on that's
191what I was proposing can we start doing the research right now with with a goal of a solving the buildings get built and then solving for when the buildings get built I hope that help I just want to add also that we spent um a significant amount of of funds to address uh needs so T for example on this building um they would be able to tell you that information like that because we hired more staff in order to get these lines moving so uh don notes that um any any opportunity for additional staff during um Munch we normally don't have an issue with because cund is typically healthy um but we've moved a million doll of um staff into C fund from a fund um so we if a principal has an Ask related
192to supervision we will assist with that we've done that and probably most of those and I think it was part of the discussion last year during the budget presentation that's a significant amount of additional money a million dollars to help for more efficient effective way of handling lunch and providing more supervision for recess when we're outside so we we did look at that in that sense Rob and we're addressing it with staff just adding a million dollars worth of additional staff to it staff is um it's a different a variety of Staff it's it's custodians um it's t primarily T um or or Tes um but yeah we shifted up a significant amount and when they have an ask the principes have an Ask um I usually say go for it so so can we
193get something time maybe budget season to see then you need St I guess whatever I'm not 50 slides but just some basic finding to confirm what we think before we know and then yeah maybe a couple of to try solve a reason Point time bud might again hypothetical maybe there's a way to do preo so people can put in somehow the for students so that line and then there funding ass needed with that what does that look like do that Contra that's we do that time timing towards budget and that gives us you know some information to act upon on this particular yeah I mean we don't want to make a lot of work for the administration right but but but it sounds like like let's just say you're taking 300 kids in a class
194period for Lun at this time how many are we serving lunch to all of them if it's 150 kids and there's two lines I would imagine you're talking like somewhere we got to get 20 seconds to get everybody a time it's that kind of high level you know in terms of that and you know so when we build the new middle school if we need six lines to get everybody through maybe that's something we consider in a layout kiosks in Corners things I know you've already done probably done a lot of what we're asking it's just not something I think that like in a simple way could be kind of put together what the flow is the cafeteria flow is in each of the buildings that this is the number of kids we can kind
195of handle in a 20 minute period because I think if the goal get eat for 20 minutes and then they go out for recess for 20 minutes is that the goal you know I don't know enough dets I know my kids tell me but you know who knows what that really is right so it would just be helpful get a little insight and then this is how we get across this building build High spe High we would do it way it's just before SP money like the high school we're do the same thing right we're trying to decentralize the cafeteria how many should we put in the center space the architect seem like be it's a work [Music] effort we are planning to have a kosk and um the church and um I don't remember
196I think it was at that Central originally that glass be there too but the church in addition to that that's the high school you know again the new seven and e8th grade building is another conversation this building is another conversation and then you've got you know Park it's different with each age group no matter what we do with deficiencies CU I went through this in another life Kindergarten kid will get through that line in a very different way than a fourth grader well sure right so I I will tell you there isn't a principle here that wouldn't want to increase more recess time and that is on their their wish list you'll see frine and a cafetaria moving things along I'm very impressed with with the STA they use to try to get things in
197and out Etc but all of those things particular I'll send you a typical schedule so you can see it but they all then impact you added 10 more minutes to each so it was an hour now am I taking away from from the specials am I taking away here how does that impact teacher instructional time what is the amount of time in the day that we have to set aside by regulation to cover Ela the major subjects in math I think we did an analysis I and there was barely 15 minutes left and if you think about Missle time for younger kids that's pretty much where that gets gobbled up that's the day so it is really really tight but I'll be happy to share that with it I I love the thought there's a
198technology approach towards it a grab and go feature that can help on that great I don't think it's real going to change the life of the I think the question is can we get kids through f more resources and you say listen if you added six people in the budget you did this then it's a conversation we can say well do we want more cafeteria step or do we want electives like you know like we get to that point it would be helpful reate you know my also support I think um we talk when we talk about this we acknowledge that it's a necessary component right the the school I think what weisi question that is not a lot of times Apples to Apples where it's just like I already add this many things and
199this comes out on the other end right there's that observational research piece of it right like talking about maryre what other factors that are going into some of the differences in the timing of just lining up or just getting you know um through the line just just as a matter of just functionality of the different development stages of each pool um so I think there's a lot of moving part to it which we're acknowledging but I think it's also to acknowledge that a lot of stuff isn't just easily solved the back um so I think we'll have to explore that as well and see what our capabilities are around that and I would certainly love that the state acknowledge recess as part of the instructional day that would be really helpful but they continually to
200insist that it's not great okay so does it sound like we do have a consens some sort of to get some high level feedback before budget season this doesn't have to be done like in your next week's update right like give it some time and we'll hopefully have that information before we have to make budget decision right that's the idea that we're cing around here right fac fac just a question for you if there was something com back have to get an amendment to the contract with with wison to say we need to get another survery where grab and go and then I don't know if they're they actually I've seen this in a school building in another District where I can't remember have been high school when it was middle school but there was
201actually like even a vending machine that was actually umer by the Food Service operator in which you know the there's some mechanism I think may have in a student badge kind I quit grabbing go type of thing so that didn't require Manpower and I don't know that's something that that's part I was thinking about that as guys were talking um I know we kind of looked into it years ago um but I canit that that's absolutely yeah because I know there there are like these like like cold sandwich types of things or yeah dere V see hot one you know hot sort of vending machines which that was actually quite um intriguing how that work but if there are things like that that doesn't require put inate I just we can't tweet the contract because
202it's an extension like the state we have to submit the extension to the every year and any little tweak they'll make us go back out and um do um a bid or an R Fe and with was the only one that wased last time did it okay and I I guess I'm just coming back and regardless of what I'm fix whatever the contractual aspect of it is um because I you know I I don't know what what it's technology what whatever it might be but you know I just reflecting on fact I know I saw this somewhere I hopefully wasn't imagining but I know they have it I think they had yeah yeah there were there was it is it's like within the Hudson Valley they had something maybe I think you're right it was
203and it was a test and that test seemed to be pretty successful from I understand um that I think it may have expanded further just so have options so at least somebody's hungry and they don't want to wait on that line go to the gra go my it has to managed theice comp they have to have a full meal to get reimbursed and me do that that's what they do yeah they they they do it but it's like almost like prepackaged thank you I got one thank you froming the bo about this being I remember when first talkity as apprciate the adist for is there anything we can solve for today and then to five years prior one last hopefully relatively quick thing it's just just understanding that maybe other board members would find this
204valuable as well um leave another one for you just a question so when we whether it's for Bond or other Capital that might have been approved in a budget when we say the budgeted Capital item is value X estimate and that's budgeted for again either in bond and or regular budget but the estimate comes back wide meaning the estimate is higher what do we then do do we then potentially do this what I guess we call Value engineering basically saying okay and I'm just just making it up I'm not say this back we're going to use the air conditioners with the plating of the air conditioner this material but because that came back higher we're now going to say no no no don't plate it with this material go with this other one to get
205it under or on that budget is that kind of what we do for all capital including the bond Andor do we ever change the scope same example well okay we thought the estimate for one air conditioner was going to be this cost but it came back two air conditioners was going to be this cost but it came back where now was higher and we now only can afford once now we're not going to do two conditioners we're going to do once the question is when estimates come back higher than what we budgeted do we a change the materials the composition and in this case specifically was referencing the road driveway look like we're going to change some of the materials if I write correctly do we do that do we then cut things out of
206the scope or does the contractor have to do do they have to eat the cost because they you know at higher can you help us understand that because especially looking forward on the fond if this starts to happen or things come back higher do we have to cut things out of what we said we're going to do do we change the materials do we change the number of things that we're doing do you help us this so we the district es especially with the bond we can't have anything higher than what the uh the voters approved so there's a multiple things that happen um since been here I've been working with Paul and we've been even with the 41.5 million Bond we had a tiny bit one over um but we wasn't over we weren't
207over so Paul does the estimating even before it goes out to bid so it doesn't go out to bid unless he feels comfortable with the number that should come back from the um people responding cont responding to the bid so the process that we did with it with the driveway is to make sure the configuration was met the budget that was within the budget even before we submitted to n so that whole process um was us to get to a point where the whole team felt comfortable submitting the documentation T ni set because now we know this is what we're going to do we have a sense of the cost and and we don't have to worry about and like even if we had to go back we don't want to go back to ni
208we want to get their approval knowing um how much it cost in this within budget so yes we did some value engineering um with um the driveway however um there's nothing missing from what we uh discussed or promised the taxpayers as you know there were certain options related to the driveway um and we can revisit those in the 25 26 budget cycle um there was more uh land work that we could have done um we're not doing pavement um and we can revisit that within the bond but we're doing a different type of uh surface um but there's nothing that again is was value engineered that is not some taken out and uh we prom to the taxpayers so we don't let it get to a bid um level until we feel comfortable with the
209estimate and and Paul is pretty good from my experience um doing these estimates the other thing that we do is um we can just reject all bids and go back and review them so some there sometimes like one vendor come in really high and one vendor come in really low so we question the ones that come in really low because maybe they don't understand all the um the concept of the whole project so there's also the process of reviewing the bids once they come in um the construction manager reviews it Jared is part of the conversation um and um The Architects so with the regular non Bond projects I don't think that we've ever come above um for have been over if anything we've been under and actually Mary knows this um I've been looking
210at the projects that we need to close out um so there's fun balance there and that's going to help us with the budget for 25 26 okay so just so it's a general question but you staying on this example because there might be other examples I guess that come back related to bom work so with the driveway you because you you Chang the material used in driveway understanding and again if this is wrong correctly but it was going to be I don't know and then you came back and came back oh it's going to cost too much we're going to use material some other material I know I personally would find it helpful and again don't want to create more work unless other board members you know agree with this if that is going to
211change the I don't know service life or impact the usage or something I would love and I know personally love to know that um in this case so like re-budget it for asold of the driveway now we're using a different material but now that means we're going to have to repay it in three years versus five I think that might be helpful to know or if there's absolutely no material I need material change to using a different material then I guess that's okay right but if it changes the composition if it changes the service life it changes the positioning I don't know again a construction expert that might be helpful or is that a common place to understand any changes or swaps yeah so we meet as a team okay so the Architects are on
212the line I'm on the line Mary's on the line um uh construction managers are on the line so uh what we do is make sure that what we're recommending is is is can we stand so I remember that specific conversation I was on the phone and of course I'm going to to Jared and the experts um and they felt that the option uh would be a stury and have a a a long life uh what else we also can do is do this Mar uh refers to as a um multer so with regard to B we can ask for a cost for in this example and if it comes budget then we can do the housle so um they're actually doing that for um the cafeteria at um no the um AMD here the um
213the gym um looking at how much it would cost to do the gym because that'll be the only space in this building that doesn't have any sa so I asked for a cuse for that and see if we can do it as alterate because this this project has already been approved um but I'm just trying to get a sense like can we just finish this building so that's what we can do when we go out to B but every since I've been here I we've never gone over budget um over the budget I think it's important Rob I think your question um that lead at ending with that point is essential that we can't expend more than what the taxpayers have give us so that the perfect question to point that when you're stuck in
214a situation sometimes before you go out I've done a ton of these before it's an alternate you could do it here's a perfect example of just coming up with it because it happened to me three times and we happen to be here you look at this floor this is a terazzo flooor so let's say for example you bid out flooring and you're in a situation where the price come this is very expensive but this will last forever but let's say you change and you make it looks like this but it's VCT vinyl vinyl tie you can get 20 years out of vinyl tie you know so so um you can install um a hbhc system for full air conditioning being a two-pipe system or four pipe system your two-pipe system could probably last forever but
215you're not going to get the flexibility you want in terms of heating and cooling at the same time so which you would lose his function so it's that type of engineering that takes place and at the end of the day if none of these meet the because Jared the whole team they they want a product that's going to withstand and work for for the purpose of that you rebid it again and see what happens right yeah no I get no that makes sense I guess when I had those as we go through the project if this is going it happens that's fine but exactly your example if we want to Tazo and we got the VCT and means in 10 years whatever 20 years we're going to have to someone's going to have to ask
216a future board like hey because we didn't get what we wanted when we did the bond we now have to come back and we do the FL to me that would be a good ongoing thing to know for future class because the estimates came in higher than expected I don't know if that's standard practice but especially the sitting board or the next sitting board certainly with certainly what the next 5 to 10 years are going to have to do things funing again because things just got more expensive that happens but I think you be helpful just to know yeah I I we I know I ask those questions because I don't want anything to be breaking down right or not working after we asked the taxpayers for money so I asked those questions related to
217hbac there was some tweaking um and I I asked I said is the system going to live you know the test of time right and I was told yes we all none of us want to be in a situation where we either fail to deliver or um or um right Supply the subar product the inherit to the point is value engineering is there another way to engineer this to get your same value out of I that's the thought behind it right and if it doesn't meet that test with all those people that have their credentials after they name know how to talk about this that then you just Reid it again right I'm glad you know the flooring that's that's that's I just looking at the floor and it came to my I know that
218just really CL point of this just on that that D you put in the note is that mean like just with the H in the AC are we still doing all the scope there or are we not doing as much as the H that was the other point I it's not reduction in scope it's just a it's a change in um the application so I'm not going to sit here and pretend that maybe Mary can do it but I I can't um my question was and I I asked Jared Jared and me are going to obviously make sure that we're getting the proper product but um I can give you more detailed information if you want but I was told um during that meeting that um what they're recommending to do is um not going
219to be uh something that we have to revisit in a short amount of time it's that that you know that's all I can say in Lay terms I'm not as as uh articulate about I think part of the way districts mitigated this is to have the construction manager the way we've had whole P's got an excellent reputation with doing this value engineering so there's where we come back and said you're not going to get the Mercedes of Windows you're going to get the Toyota of Windows and you're going to get the lifespan out of it so I think I'm glad we've invested him in in that type of function not all not all projects do sometimes you just have Architects and so then you know construction management piece really kind of drives between Mary and
220Alita and Paul you know we could still hit trying to dig out foundation for the middle school we could get rock that nobody knows about and then have be having a conversation some of this is inevitable but knock on you're you're in a good spot with the people you got your construction manager is your eyes and you they provide the foil to The Architects if you will you're right and and and you get your money's worth out of that position You' now all help me in very simple Lang help me understand just DC stuff that we that's already been improved we're not doing anything less AC building as this particular building has approved right you just might be using different materials or other things so clarify also I I asked for how much of it
221was to um uh air condition the G so if we want to do that I have a cost and that's part of the 25 26 budget because that's not something we promise to anyone and I double checked with Mary while she was on phone make sure and she's like no so I went back and checked all the documents that but that goes to show you she was in the middle of a big meeting I was in she comes in we check to double check but I I did AC an entire elementary school but I didn't AC the gym because it required only millions of rtu units it required a lot and if you could add it as an ad alternate just to see what it would be for information that's fine but you don't you
222want to AC your instructional gy can be CPR yeah he's just to give me Paul to give me price so I [Music] think compilation variables and following all the pieces moving around the chest board without compromising quality further proves of what a good investment that SM sheet that's another Point that's another Point [Music] yes well thanks for taking the time I thought I found that very helpful especially with no it's important I'm sure community members ask and I think we will um Alita and I were talking at a recent meeting too to have Paul and the group come back to give the board an update as to where we are that that would be really helpful they agree just one quick on that one when they come back they have they have closer towards Mechanicals
223that in a rendering that what what's being discussed so far or that's still always a it's still a waste it's still a waste that's uh that's four steps out okay so you got those conceptual plans the next stage is into design development and design development has the technical piece and the conceptual piece and then you know and then there's two other steps to that but I think in terms of timeline where we are what's taking place right now a real Mission critical issue is that literally we look at looking at every space everything that was carved out in Roosevelt writing an analysis for it and showing the state why we need the new building to the classroom it's identifying every resource room it's identifying every earth science lab it's going through the high school and
224finding I went through the room utilization charts how many are triple used throughout the day because we have to build the case for all this the devil is in those details and that has to be done well because that gives us the aid and the money so that's the the meetings that we're having at the moment it's part of the preliminary preliminary review you that when you have additions and definitely if you have a new building um so we have to look at the entire District um and identify every space especially Roosevelt the high school and the middle school um because they're going to tell us and then once we finish that process we're going to um invite uh fiscal advisor um to look at the the plans and make sure that the plans are
225aligned with their projection to make it flat so that's what we're doing and it's a lot of work um and we are all working as a team to make sure that we're all on the same page and doing smart team yeah soly I have to say Alita like you know we've been we talk about this all the time and it's super important I was actually a little about the whole thing I I asked the people involved I want you to beds Co every single classroom so we don't have a hiccup about how the state is going to approve that that way you avoid naming a room that the state will go I'm not going to give you aid for that because that's not part of an educational program so going back to all the beds
226Coates for every space and and nailing that is important that's much she is definitely going to get for everything and the grants Alita had a great suggestion too about the federal grants we get a lot of money from them you know and just being on top of that is super important making technology work for us yes any other board dialogue all right um we actually do not need to have an executive session tonight so I'm going to take a motion to strike that from the agenda okay any discussion all in favor I opposed extensions now I'll take a motion to adjourn the special meeting of December 4th any discussion all in favor I it's [Music]