Ossining Board of Education Special Meeting of May 14, 2024

001I'd like to call this uh Board of Education special meeting to order uh let's I'll start with pledge let's say pledge I Ali to the flag of the United States America and to the rep for it stands one nation under God indivisible with and justice for all all right the first item on our agenda is 2.1 the superintendent's update so I'm going to turn it over to miss foxter all right good evening everybody um and welcome uh first of all I do have to uh give an apology to the board of education and just do this in front of our team I know the board I know the community has heard this uh we want to make sure the board gets all their presentations Friday night before however but we also we're looking at a

002um a timeline and a time frame and uh the presentations on Friday uh were were so pack full of information they were an hour long each so uh we had to do major editing and the data that was for those will be part of the Fall I know Nicole wasn't here here in the fall but the goal of tonight's updates was just to give you highlights on some important progress that we made in terms of our goals so there was a lot of editing and changing and timing associated with us so I do apologize to the board for not getting that I think you all received Jeremy's update that that on the U Jeremy and Latoya is on low enroll classes at the high school which is more of a traditional report these approaches are

003my Initiative for this year and um I want to be mindful of how the board likes to receive the information but um they there was a lot of data Nicole and Latoya but it it would have been an hour each and uh the year wasn't over yet so we want to make sure the board gets it incomplete we use those data points for our evidence and efficacy meetings Okay so before we jump into our uh long range plan update it's meant to be just an update I just want to give a couple of shoutouts and remind everybody that next Tuesday May 21st from 7 to 9 pm in the oh OS gym is the annual budget vote and Board of Education Election we ask everyone to please exercise their right to vote and to um

004come uh to your polling places U and vote um congratulations to ausing high school teacher Ron White head and his students on their student film being selected in this year's Chocolate City International short film festival in Wisconsin I think I'd like to go in person to uh to see that um we had an amazing production of just sing with over 100 of our Claremont students uh thank you to Miss D Gman for all of your hard work and to frine and the staff just precious um we had um an OS student um perform at Pedro's Open Mic it's an all High School Musical in Westchester County uh hosted by Harrison and she sang a song from our production of Sister Act um our Park School kindergarten kiddos had a wonderful time attending uh a viewing

005of Charlotte's Web at the T Town Music Hall and I want to thank all of our students who performed in the Roosevelt spring concert and everyone who attended our AMD transition meeting this Saturday please make sure you've marked your calendars May 18th from 9:30 to 11: is our final Saturday in explore learn session we've had a lot of interest in this so please please please drop by and I I want everyone to just here's a quick save the date for early next September the oening matters 5K um and walk run is on Saturday September 7th so that is my brief update for today all right um the next item on our agenda is 2.2 Equity longrange Plan update so I'm going to turn it over to our lovely Secondary School administrators um to share with

006us their lovely work okay start all right as um the Board of Education in ausing has adopted a long range strategic plan um this year we uh reinstituted the plan with two changes a very detailed data report in the fall which analyzes data from the previous year uh with current data from other sources and then puts together goals and initiatives and um strengths that we want to work on towards those things part of our commitment to the community to the Board of Education was that in the spring we would give a brief update on our work to that point again in the fall as part of our Outreach and data reporting to you there will be a deeper comp comparison during the fall um about end of year testing data and full attendance etc etc

007so tonight is then to just for uh an update on things right all right again our long range uh strategic plan is based upon our portrait of a learner um It Centers all of our work and it is our road map to success it falls onto our pillars other pillars are critical and essential to our work they're part of our daily conversations they're part of our uh um e and e work they're part of our data literacy they are relevant learning and student Choice multiple literacies culture of care and we added the fourth one uh family and Community engagement these are all supported through our the work of our professional learning communities okay and I look upon this year I would be remiss if I didn't highlight uh particularly since we have Team AMD and

008team OS in the house that this was a very a year filled with Incredible changes um and they happened very quickly um there's a new superintendent around and everyone has been very uh kind supportive and on board about the the work we need to do together um OS has a new Administration principal Langley we have some new assistant principls um at AMD we have a new principal um Nicole who came and went and had her beautiful baby and then came back and we have new uh assistant principles all three who are with us tonight uh this is their first year their first year so if you take a look at um the team here tonight there's a lot of newness here and I I don't want to be uh leave that out I needed a

009special highlight as we talk about the work that we're doing this year okay in the full we outlined our commitment to the Board of Education in the community about our work for 2324 uh and we would tell you that there would be uh a focus of our work along our Focus areas aligned to the pillars and all the evidence we were collecting on it tonight we're going to give you a report as to where we are here in May on the year an update on the work so far highlight successes highlight areas we're still working on and talk about the evidence we're working on as part of our review process right so priority areas again that we're identified for us in the fall we want to build trust with student staff families through clear and

010consistent communication revisit and revise all safety procedures more intentional use of the building emergency response teams or bird some people call them uh CT um School emergency respon teams Bert believe it or not is the state term uh development of staff and student uh expectation guides you've heard some of that work around our code of conduct and continue to enhance the multi-tiered systems of students support and leverage our teams to support students okay so I will turn it over to team AMD for the next step and I we don't have a I will click cck um so thank you so much Mary for everything you've shared and I do want to acknowledge that we are having an incredible year and so I do want to extend my sincere gratitude um you did hire me seven

011months pregnant to be the principal of AMD and that fulfilled a lifelong dream for me and so I am incredibly grateful for the support you've given me my family to Mary for your leadership and to our entire leadership team and then of course this incred to be talking into it hope um and to this incredible team here as well Mr shvet could not be with us tonight due to a family commitment um so I did want to acknowledge that but we are incredibly proud to present on the work that we've done as Mary shared in the previous slide that this year was really about our building cohesion and I wanted to make sure we highlighted that because as we get to the end you'll see where we're heading as we move forward into the 2425

012academic here these were just some photos that we think summarize and capture AMD and who we are and what we're about we were meeting with the directors today and really thinking about the cohesion that exists across departments so you'll see the students in our project Adventure Course Mary and I had the opportunity to see the students um when they were doing that the partnership that we have there with Athletics nuris will talk about math and the work that we've done in the department we have um off to the right is one of my my favorite days every month where our students from our uh self-contained classes run a coffee shop at our school and I cheer every time um and then the next slide just is a um overview of some of the ways that

013our staff showed appreciation to their colleagues and our students were showing appreciation to their teachers during teacher appreciation week and the thing I love is that when you walk into this building you see those four letters love in the lobby and this student also represented it with candy as a gift to a teacher so this is who we are and what we're about as we build towards relationships Safety Systems and structures so as we move forward this slide captures the broad overview of our data literacy goals that we had entering the 2324 Academic Year um so this is just a reminder of what was presented in the fall but moving forward we wanted to talk about what the highlights were from this work so first we've been utilizing a summary of the data from all

014of our assessments attendance that are prepared by Tim Scolton and an dealy on a monthly basis we leverage those reports in our mtss work and the team here along with Mr Char are the leaders of uh their respective uh grade level teams and the mtss process we conducted a data cycle Overview at the winter faculty meeting with our entire staff using our instructional coach Zach joner to drive that work and then in different departments we followed up with data analysis our collaboration with Kathy Conley was instrumental in our work this year she helped us to identify priority areas um to support our our staff ourselves as leaders and we turn key so thank you for supporting our individual work time with her we turn key the strategies that she um had recommended to us and

015you'll see that highlighted in later aspects of the presentation but one of the things that we are most proud of is that we did hit and exceed the 95% mandated testing Benchmark to ensure compliance with federal law so that was a big shift um and that really in basic terms means a significant decrease in our refusals of the New York State tests which does matter as we think about our um status in within the state and Nicole if I can answer that I I I was um along with aing one of the champions of you know the opt out the whole data piece I can go through pages of what we demanded from Pearson I think Frank probably has a whole binder on all of this somewhere along with Lisa um the state when commissioner

016Rosa took over did comply with almost all of our uh requests and what we wanted to do and what I did like was the data analysis systems that you know it it shifted our thinking in terms of we have all of our children spending two full days sitting taking these assessments and um if we're getting meaningful information I don't want to over test kids why don't we just use this stuff that they have to take in a more meaningful and productive way so the emphasis people place on the outcomes of that is something very different we are certainly not one of those people who look at Niche or all those ranking ratings but clearly if there's important information we get and now the backup systems the analysis the item analysis reports on every single question

017does provide meaningful information to us and to be able to gather that and use that in a helpful way um is important and to have it as and then when you're doing data analysis if you have a a significant Gap in in the numbers of things trying to figure it out it can lead to a place where you're questioning about that piece so C Kathy a bunch of us were sitting there going you know at this point the kids are sitting taking that um uh it's a it's an opportunity we won't use it in ways that was different but the state complied with a lot of things that we asked them to do about the analysis piece so we did do that shift over I know and ausing along with imp Pleasantville I had almost

018every board member opt out I understood that however that's just an educational shift about how we want our kids to look at the information and our Educators and I be we'd be more than happy to share with the board now the new new reports that you get from it the new inferencing the new information that just provides more information on particularly curriculum and alignment and and how that that works and helps let's say towards regions preparation or other things and so I think building on what Mary shared what we're thinking about now for the future is how do we leverage data to support all content areas particularly social studies what is the uh ways in which that data and information um gathered from New York state test and our other assessments transfer over to the

019content areas and a focus on developing a structure for data analysis and integration through the systems and structures that we're continuing to build here at AMD right and again again social stud is such an important topic if you all think back when you if you went to school here in New York you took uh US history in grades seven and eight and then you went to high school and you didn't get American history again till 11th grade you know in some places they're saying why don't we just make 9th grade US history because you've had a background for that um some people in many places take a look at Earth Science um and move it to let's say an elective in senior year and make the the regions in eighth grade the living environment regions

020and pieces of the earth science um regions actually have concepts of trigonometry in them um and if you take a look at the um science curriculum and grades seven and 8 they particularly seven it aligns more with the living environment so a lot of places look at you know how do you put your kids in a place to be successful um many are shifting to having the living environment in eighth grade or offering it in 9th grade as opposed to earth science so these are just some big picture questions we're asking amongst ourselves working with Chris deadia to see if see if it it matters see if it works I you know and and want kids in the best position possible to succeed so um to ask those Brave and Bold questions is really a

021really good thing and team has been okay with us exploring those I anyway it's just part of the conversations that we having right I'm now going to turn it over to Roa to start us on the next pH this is just uh the overview of a small group instructional goal here the highlights in the next slide we've leveraged the support of our small group instruction and Mr Hawk is going to actually share more about that oh hello everybody all right so I want to share with you the progress and all of the highlights we made over our approach to small group instruction particularly through our implementation of the multi-tiered system of sport so the mtss process our adoption of the mtss process has been pivotal in addressing the diverse needs of our students by identifying

022and targeting specific areas of growth we've been able to provide individualized tier 2 and tier three instruction and plans ensuring that each student receives the support that they require to succeed I'm also proud to announce the unwavering support of our curriculum coordinators in this endeavor their expertise expertise and guidance have been invaluable in shaping our instructional strategies and refining our approach to student intervention now looking ahead our next steps are focused on enhancing the structure within our professional Learning Time by creating DED dedicated opportunities both within and outside the school day to review and respond to the data that we have we aim to further Empower our Educators with the tools and insights needed to drive student achievement forward now the strides we made in small group instruction are a testament to our Collective commitment

023to meeting the needs of the everyday Learner in our school Community together we'll continue to provide and pursue excellence and ensure that every student has the opportunity to thrive now to Miss Pagan to speak about our math highlights so just said to highlight that a little bit if you think about if you approach looking at data and information with this mindset as opposed to I'm looking at something and aha that's the answer the heavy lifting of all problem solving is an inquiry it's asking great questions and having access to multiple strands of data and just asking those bigger questions is where you really do make really great change so good evening I'm happy to share some updates from our recent Endeavors in our math department firstly our family math night was a huge success fostering

024strong connections between families and students and Educators while promoting a culture of mathematical exploration and fun secondly I'm pleased to announce the revision of our sixth grade curriculum ensuring alignment with best practices and standards to provide our students with robust mathematical Foundation here at AMD in addition our eighth grade program will undergo a transformative shift to offer two distinct courses math 8 and algebra catering to the diverse needs and Readiness levels of our students we have selected to drop our math 8 honors course and instead ensure an enriched program in our general math furthermore we are expanding enrollment opportunities to algebra with four sections planned for the upcoming Academic Year empowering more students to engage with Advanced mathematical Concepts lastly our collaboration with Heidi Bramley our math specialist continues to yield remarkable results together we

025are aligning curriculum analyzing data to drive instruction developing assessments and providing job embedded coaching to ensure excellence in teaching and learning these initiatives reflect our unwavering commitment to fostering mathematical proficiency and equipping our students and our teachers with the skills they need to excel in an everchanging world so if the board remembers one of the big in basket questions started with the extended period for algebra at ohos right that was implemented Based on nwea data um and again it was a strong recommendation but it has Staffing it has ninth graders limitation on terms of what's going to happen with my ability to select electives how do I make sure that that instruction there is enriching all Learners that it's for kids that are ready for the next tier of understanding it's not just a repeat

026of what you did in 40 minutes right um but that question is only half of it analyzing what's going on at the high school a question which they all have heard me say throughout the entire year what's happening with math at AMD because you want to make sure that we're not in that position you have to strengthen it here so a typical way of progress towards that is that you take you start in sixth grade you make sure that that has deep enriching topics make sure they're aligned to what's a pre-algebra sequence of study for all children um in seventh grade if a child is able able to take on grade level seven and on grade level math 8 they can take a 7A accelerated course to make sure they get all the math content

027and then just can take algebra in eighth grade and if you follow that align and you're looking at all the data there's no reason to add another section which we saw in the data let's add more opportunities for algebra in eighth grade for our students so there was a huge shift and thought and understanding about what's going on in the Middle School to help with math in ninth grade at the high school so that was a a significant lift that we promised the board and the community would look into this year and we've approached it with a great deal of fidelity and there's also backup conversations about what's going on in science as well which um you will hear particularly in fifth grade when the um Elementary report so again major um Chang is all

028focused on data student performance and helping putting our kids in the best position all kids to succeed literacy sure me um I'm happy to highlight the strides we've made in our commitment to Student Success Through collaborative efforts and strategic planning our collaboration with Miss Turner and the art coaches has proven instrumental in refining our instructional practices fostering an environment of continuous growth our implementation of spring Ela and math test prep sessions with families has not only strengthened homeschool Partnerships but also empowered our students with the tools they need to excel academically our dedication to monthly unit planning and preparation ensures that every lesson is purposeful engaging and aligned with our students needs and standards and lastly our commitment to datadriven instruction allows us to monitor student progress closely and make necessary adjustments to our teaching

029methods one example of this is when we review the conferencing schedules of our students whose performance is in the emergency levels you can see on the data charts on this slide we've seen a significant uh I'm sorry decrease in our emergency levels so together these initiatives reflect our unwavering dedication to providing every student with the opportunity to thrive and now I'm going to ask Miss Turner to speak about the data on the charts just had a little clarification here although people call it test prep this isn't test prep in the sense of there absolutely not we don't do that you don't buy books you don't do that it's inappropriate and it's wrong this is about H about how we go about assessing particularly since there was a lot of the Colombia you know Columbia University's

030readers and Writers Workshop which had a different way of asking questions off our kids than what Arc asks and then what the state does to reduce stress on kids we wanted to make sure that there was an alignment and understanding understanding of what you're being asked and how to across multiple platforms right a real Focus just to expand on what Mary said on question stems the way questions are being asked um and tools to help with analysis that Mak us a child a critical reader um of any type of question and they all align with Arc yes absolutely and going back to the data one of the things that we work on as we move through our implementation process this is on the board is two years worth of data so we monitor our proficiency

031and if we look at 7th to 8th grade you'll see that this year it maintains a 47% we have proficiency at 47% it begins at one level of rigor at the beginning of the year and what we want to maintain is ensure that as the rigor increases across the year that we maintain proficiency or increase proficiency and why we focus on the emergency levels is our students are maintaining proficiency but we are also closing gaps by decreasing the emergency level so those are why we look at those two data points across the implementation process and we'll continue to do that and again Jessica there is a lot of growth within the I I hate using the word rigor but that's the tasks get harder within that level the tasks and the literacy skills especially from

0327th to eth grade so we we need to be mindful that eighth grade is preparing us to launch into high school so the rigorous tasks that students are asked to do in the arc unit around argument writing um essay writing theme development those highlevel literacy tasks are extremely rigorous and so while we are still working at closing the gaps and improving proficiency we want to make sure that as the rigor increases our students are not falling behind and so that is an important data point to pay attention to right all right um so this is an overview of some of our Equity work as it pertains to um nourishing a culturally responsive and sustaining environment but also the programs uh and supports that we're offering to students so speaking about the highlight wait did I

033get to that oh next slide I was like I'm on the next slide okay thank you thank you so we want to actually talk about our modified sports program for just a second because we've actually copied something that OS is doing so we have a new Athletics initiative that we're aimed at enhancing the academic performance of our student athletes so inspired by OS we've tailored the program to meet the academic needs of AMD students on a much smaller basis um we're closely monitoring their academic progress and we're able to provide targeted support to those who need the most under the new system any student who is failing one class is placed on a watch list and any student who is failing two or more classes they have to attend a specific stars club dedicated to

034providing extra help by focusing on their specific academic needs we aim to empower these students to overcome their challenges and Achieve academic success now within a twoe period we actually witnessed a 50% reduction in the number of athletes failing classes um this significant Improvement is a testament to the effectiveness of the targeted support system and the dedicated nature of our students so that is something that really does align throughout small group instruction responsiveness to data and we're really seeing it um and we can truly call our students scholar athletes and we're proud of that collaboration another thing that we've really uh thought about was more consistent meetings with our building Equity team so we have our building Equity team of our Equity fellows meeting every other week and then we have a broader team of

035teachers who are interested in ensuring that the lens of equity is at the heart of our work and they meet every other week so there is some form of that what I call the steady drum beat of equity every week at AMD we're using that to examine our programming think about our curriculum and we want to continue that moving forward we've also connected with different families within our community being responsive to family needs particularly um um many of our Jewish families in response to some of the hate symbols that we saw at school we started with some meetings with those families then we had black families reaching out to us to connect about their children's experiences we've continued those meetings and are now going to be merging um these families together and we welcome folks

036to join us in this work but really thinking about um being responsive to the needs of our community and engaging in that consistent dialogue um so that we can continue to work towards our next steps which are maintaining Equity at the core of our instructional and data analysis practices continuing our partnership with OS we believe that the um the scholar athlete program and Alignment to District policy was just one start but thinking about the noticias program broadcasting programs how can we Elevate our student voice uh in this process and then also continuing to celebrate the Excellence of all of our student communities both within our classrooms in our curriculum and in our programming so there's a lot of work to continue to be done but we want to build it into the ethos and fabric

037of the work that we do every day next slide um which also is connected to our family engagement and Community Partnerships you can go on to the next slide um just some highlights very recently we talked about we had um in response to you know just in transparency we had a pretty public event most people got a phone call from me um about an incident earlier uh in the year and then we collaborated with Dr uh Lopez to bring programming to our families around Substance Abuse Prevention so we held a panel recently we also have a hidden in plane site program coming next week to support our families we just added a six to th grade transition meeting that we collaborated on so um Miss Bon as the current seventh grade AP collaborated with this

038backx our current sixth grade AP to talk about the challenges that we're seeing and really be forthcoming it's the transition within the transition and getting families to understand what's happening for their children as they are in adolescence puberty everything that's occurring um one of the most proud things I've been engaging with a lot of families as they're preparing for the transition from fifth to sixth grade and one parent said I cannot wait for my child to come to AMD and I feel like we could almost like drop the mic right there but it is a huge Testament to the incredible work and belief um in our school so as we move forward we're thinking about leveraging student leadership putting them at the core of our programming more active in uh parent involvement in our school

039programs and just another example we've done a lot of lunch groups this year to support our students um that have been instrumental with our current staff but Dr Lopez is going to be working with us to bring in the wjcs and youth Wellness programming so we'll continue to expand those offerings um so with that n just I just want to thank um again thank Dr Lopez I also want to thank um student assistant um Services Ellen Morehouse from the county um we've had a lot of partnership in the work this year Dr dealy has added more meetings to this and involved so thank you Dr dealy and again it we would just want to continue to increase that and um The Campaign against Edibles and access to kids is something we need to be out

040front and center above and communicating that often right um so just in as we conclude and transition into next year we talked about at the beginning how the 2324 school year was all about building cohesion and now we've been very upfront and transparent that our goals for 2425 are around instructional cohesion so when we think about relationships how can we develop structures to support relationships with students um through the way that we're actually entering the school year and the team building that we can provide and offer from a safety perspective we're going to continue to revise our Bert not C because we changed the name um procedures and leverage our team to support proactively not solely reactively um we're seeking additional support during lunch and recess in the hallways just from a safety perspective um

041we believe that's that is a tough trans transition time and Mary's been really supportive and thinking how we can uh strategically staff that when we think about systems uh Jared has been instrumental in working with Joe variano and our Avid site team we will be implementing um two Avid core strategies for collaboration and organization that professional learning will actually begin with a session on organization this spring we're leveraging one of the afternoons of the Regents in the morning but all staff on campus in the afternoon so folks can begin planning for next year with their organizational structures in mind that uh feedback came from our efficacy and evidence review as Mary shared and then when we think about structures continuing to refine the mtss process we've been doing a lot of work with Jessica Turner

042with branching Minds every team has been trained we have our bright spots across uh the building and we're going to continue to refine that thinking also about ways we can be very uh transparent uh with teachers around those procedures thinking about how we organize our professional periods you heard Equity is really important so continuing One Professional period per month on mtss and another specific specifically on leveraging data through an equity lens and that focus on lunch groups that will really help ensure that wraparound support for students so we are excited for what the future holds here at AMD and in the fall we will have all the data from the year in these areas attendance behavioral data um performance data and various assessments to give specificity and granularity to that for the board thank you

043so much for this excellently prepared presentation I want to open it up to uh my colleagues on the board for any questions or comments go ahead I just want to say thank you very much um you'll bring that energy into the uh into the room so good for you you know and very well done and very well coordinated I have just a little bit more a question can you go to the chart that has the um line I just want to make sure I understand it in the simplest way possible can you just step me through like if I look at just the fifth to sixth grade which is the top right chart there yep um so you know it's a little bit blurry but maybe it's just me or I'm not sure but if

044it's going from left to right that's your time Horizon that's there and it's that's taken at a point in time probably around October I think um and and it looks like it goes over a period of almost a year and a half is that right so it's starts from our first month of implementation when we first administered the eara and had data last October through current May okay St so you'll see proficiency kind of goes you know up and down yeah and then students grow and then you'll see a dip in that June data um which is just because the Benchmark changed and it was first year of implementation and then you see students come in and then it starts increasing again you'll see that kind of happen also in the February date you'll see

045it change because the rigor shifts so as the rigor shifts and that Benchmark changes for our students they have to learn an increase and then you'll see them recover very quickly okay and the proficiency just for me and perhaps for the community as well what does it mean that the Benchmark changes what does that mean exactly so the rigor in the reading level increases at certain points across the year so if you take it in simplest terms from a k read simple to describe a k reader who's like just learning their letters and then starts to understand story that's a different increase in rigor I can identify like maybe site words and and then I can understand like the cat is drinking water in the wow like those two different levels of riger that happens

046across all grades and Jess can I add also if it's okay so another thing that tends to happen is in the lower elementary grade so when you're going through the process with the elementary school I feel like I have this interesting seat because I was in elementary and now I'm here in secondary there's actually more levels at a lower grade level so a child would make multiple levels of progress so for example I'm not going to get all the numbers correctly but you might be in at one blue and two blue at a lower elementary grade whereas all of fifth grade is orange and there's a ton of skills packed into that orange level but then as soon as you hit May 31st or like let's say June 1st of fifth grade you're expected to

047be at purple but if you've only mastered let's say 90% of the orange skills you still live at Orange but grade level is purple you're almost there but that's what accounts for some of those dips because the band itself is also much longer than it is at those lower levels gotcha so that that that's very clear so it's you're it's really much more of progress that is expected of you at this point in time looking over that period of time and because we built one on top of the other for each perod period you get to that point where it's like okay now you're supposed to be here but you know something needs to change because you know clearly you're not there yet so and that's why it picks back up again because it's kind

048of like a correction of sorts so that's what that's am I reading that correctly yes and those skills will build over time so you might then come in once you've gained those skills you can then come maybe you've made a significant amount of progress you can then jump to that level so it is based on the individual learner and with the Data Tracking System we're actually able to see like a 5.9 would be towards the end of fifth grade that you have those skills and then you master those skills to head to the purple you can be at like a 6.2 so that's how that works as you're building those skills it's not just within the system we can see a more granular perspective what you're seeing here is just that here we pulled the

049middle school butt in the weekend updates that you received you saw the entire District so you could see at the lower grades there was much more increase as the year went across where the upper grades to Nicole's point it stays more stagnant because we're not pulling the points so a student who starts in seventh grade starts at a one bronze that's proficient at the beginning of the year and proficient across the year to the end of the year when they would become when they would drop to not proficient is if they didn't master all the skills expected in second in seventh grade and then the Benchmark jumps to two bronze which is 8th grade so in the lower in the higher grades you don't see as much of that fluctuation happening in proficiency that's why

050in these charts we added the emergency because if you're clo if you're decreasing emergency more students are going into that at risk and proficiency so we're closing the gaps so to see an 18 like I can't see it from here but there is a I think it's the 7th to 8th grade which is 32% to 18% that's a huge decrease in the students who were in that emergency level who really were uh functioning in foundational skill literacy skills and moving up into those higher level comprehension more metacognitive skills that we see in seventh and e8th grade would that be an inverse relationship that in in many ways because it's not completely inverse is there something are there students that are kind of not quite being picked up in there if they're moving up well the

051data that's missing is the at risk so we just showed proficiency and emergency level in between are the students that are at risk and there's multiple levels that are included in that area so you could be at risk think about it like a state assessment where you're level one two or three you could be a high level two almost at that level three to proficiency or you could be a low level two right above an emergency level so our at risk students are still growing it's just at a a different rate so in the lower grades you see a a lot faster closing of the gaps because there's less new learning that needs to happen or unfinish learning all right than in the higher grades that is very clear thank you that is all the

052question questions I have at this point thank you so much thank you for the presentation um really appreciate all the details and efforts that you've all been going to you know one of the things before we got sort of the push of foundation Aid and and you know we knew there was areas and students we couldn't reach and so part of these systems and part of the funds that were received to that were meant to intentionally have more regular check-ins across the board for all students so I was wondering if you could just give me like if I'm a typical student at AMD how often are is my performance either academic or engagement being looked at by a group of adults throughout the course of the year is it weekly is it monthly is it

053quarterly like I'm just trying to get a sense of what that looks like for all students across the board so I'm gonna actually ask Miss Bon to jump in first and then we could kind of supplement my team but the the kind of seventh grade mtss model is what is replicated across uh grade levels I think so that's an excellent question and one of the things that we have explored this year is how we can be strategic in our mtss meetings so for example just to give an example of the seventh grade um my seventh grade mtss team is a psychologist we have our guidance counselor social worker um we have myself and then in and that check moment happens in the beginning of the week and it happens in the end of the week

054in the middle of the week we pull in a group of teachers and every week is a separate group of teachers based on the team so I meet with 7A one week first week of the month 7B the second week of the month 7 C I meet with on the third week of the month and that's the entire seventh grade and then the flex week I use for any students that are at risk or that we need an emergency mtss during that week in the beginning of the week we stopped and we check are there any students that have issues that we have to deal with are they students that are in crisis and then we continually look at branching Minds special thanks to Jessica who's provided a lot of professional development because branching Minds

055is a tool that is live data it integrates Infinite Campus attendance seal grades just a picture in five minutes allows me to rank my students based on the criteria that I would like to focus on whether it's attendance we have attendance check-ins I would say we look at data on a daily basis so even though I have close to 350 um 7th graders we are looking at a specific criteria and in that specific criteria we're looking at who's tier three who's tier two who's tier one tier one I might need to make some small shifts in the grade I could do that in an assembly I can do that in a professional development or specific department meeting if it's math or science but if I'm looking at tier two then I need to make shifts

056in my life lunch groups seventh grade has six lunch groups we have lunch groups for our enl newcomers our African-American students we have our first year projected students to be the first girls to graduate from college that's our goal but these are our tier 2 supports we also have an attendance group that shifts based on the data in branching Minds on Infinite Campus and then finally we have our tier three our tier three we check on them every single day seventh grade has 22 tier three plans and they're specific to branching Minds The Target area that is needed so I have some students in those 23 22 plans that are attendance some are seal some are academic some are behavior and based on that the check-in has a specific individual that's tied to that criteria

057so if it's attendance it's Amanda Perez if it's social emotional it's Ray Godwin if I notice that is an an academic I might pull in a Maris to work with teachers based on strategy iies but yes we talk about our students all the time and one initiative that has been significant in our relationships is that they're assistant principles we are at lunch every single day with our grades I see my kids every single day and we're active in the building we each have a floor and an area and we see our kids all the time and that's why mtss has been such a significant impact in our building because it's consistent it has structures and we follow up every single week just to add one tiny last thing we have our building wide mtss reviews

058so we touch base with Jessica and the team and then we stop and check what are we doing well what do we need supports on and the support is given when we asked about um we need more training on the specific interventions we use intervention Central we use check in and check out can you show us how to do more specific tier three plans then we got the professional developing we started working on building those plans and the relationship that we've had in the district as given us the tools necessary to check on our kids every single day great thank you for the details with that very very thorough I guess how does the student athlete or the scholar athlete program tie into that and how does that extend beyond athletes so got grab that

059one all right so um what I found out that os does is they have a a star club that if a student's failing they miss 20% of the season and they have to go to academic help every single day so we created a star club with Kelly Amarante unfortunately we can't do it every single day yet we're working on that so every Monday and Tuesday students would go for academic support however the we gave each kid a like 10th period class as an athlete so that their grades could automatically be linked to Kelly and all of a sudden she's able to just pull the data like whatever she needs and then and she has passes that she like goes to each of the kids checks in with them what's the know hey you're on the

060watch list for this week you have to get your grade up in math you have to grade up in social studies or whatever the course is and then she has to have the tougher and I've had to have the tougher conversations as well with the students who are failing two three classes and they just have to work in that star program and an extra help she's pulling them on Wednesdays and Thursdays during the day um in order to help raise their grades to get off that list and be able to participate in that Athletics again and I think that one of the things that we've been really trying to think about is I say this often to the team we do have to go slow to go fast so that was something that we've launched

061within the past three months so it's really just a model for what we could do in the future to build out that structure we started with athletes because we were able to find we had investment it's like an idea whose time has come we knew knew where they were going to go to the high school we wanted to provide that structure and support but now what could it look like for other after school programs how could we integrate that more intentionally into the mtss process um we knew that there was sometimes with our Adolescence in particular it's like what is their currency what's the carrot and for many of our athletes that was inherently there they want to play so now what is the currency for our other students and that really ties to how

062are we creating experiences that students want to be a part of that then there's an incentive to also follow through because I think that's what's inherent there so we have to continue to look at the best practices to drive it Forward into other domains we haven't gotten there yet but we're open to those ideas for what that could look like okay now I appreciate the details and understanding where it's at I mean you know from my seat you know I'm pushing us to really look across you know the board because you know for my entire time of the board our proficiency rates have matched our engagements rates and those are usually close to your athletic and Club participation rates which are about a third of the students so the the elephant in the room is

063what's happening with the two-thirds of the students that aren't getting this level of attention and we may not have the same carrots for right so I just really encourage us to look at that and make sure and figure out ways that we can attempt to do similar things across the board so that we're getting an equital and ties into all of our Equity practices at the end of the day so I appreciate the details appreciate you know where we're at where we're looking to go and uh just keep up with the great work so thank you thank you Frank and we appreciate the kind of charge I think that's a really good thing for us to think about because that is the question of how are we reaching more um so we're going to take

064that seriously and think about what would that look like in our plans for 24 25 thank you thank you any other questions um just going off of what Frank was talking about one of the common concerns I hear in this district is oh it's so big like as long as you're really involved your kid won't slip through the sure understand sorry um as long as you're really involved and put in the time and effort your kid won't slip through the cracks do you think branching Minds helps it helps you not let kids slip through the cracks I think it does but I think it's more than branching minds and I think one thing that Miss Pagan shared in Miss faction I were working through a student situation the other day there's the element of the

065data but nothing also transcends the human presence within the space and so I'm in the cafeteria I think I catch something but miss back was like 14 steps ahead of me she was already on it and we were collaborating together um I don't know if you want to share any like as just as I talked to all of the aps they know their they we're hanging under the table numbers right like they know their tables they know the kids at the tables they know the social dynamics and I think that's what creates that small environment my job is very different than it was at Roosevelt it is much bigger it's much more of a coordination but this team right here are the individuals who are on the ground level and when I tell you they

066can tell you I guarantee you who sits at Table Six in Lunch Period that's where the difference is so it's that franching Minds can support us because then we can get into a okay if there's a social concern is there also an attendance concern is there also an academic concern but they know the humans and I think that's the beauty of the te there's so much we can look at in branch and minds and be able to you know talk about but just like Dr NOA said I can tell you table n is my problem table I've got to make sure I check in right at the beginning of laun at the end just to see how they're doing make sure they're okay another one is table 36 that's like you just know and we're

067here every single lunch per we're walking the hallway my office is no longer on the first floor but it's on the third floor outside the girl b or in Mr maa's office we're just in the building there a presence you know um have our own spots and we're just visible very visible and very present and we just know who our kids are we know we need that extra check in as a matter of fact um all the counsel outside their door there's a list um today I had uh Miss wal had eight kids signed up they all needed to speak to her because of an incident and they needed to get to her before Mr Mao and I was like she's like I can't see big kids right now let me pick on the one

068I know from r well who can really come to me and tell me that story she goes do you have a minute Miss AC I said absolutely any minute on the where are you somewhere on the third so again just being present getting to know who your kids are hopefully that answer your question it did so you feel like you have a good connection with the kids and there's not as much of this concern that there's been in the past of this district is so big my kids's going to get lost not and and I also think the key is what we're doing to create the smaller communities within the community and I think as we think about any of the you know challenges some of our students face what is it that we can

069do to create a structure that then supports them is it a lunch group we have to continue to refine is it a star Club we've got our ausing Wilderness uh Club in collaboration with Mr dadia um who's our director of stem so is it is big and I think are we perfect no we're humans but I would hope that any parent who's feeling like their child might not be connected reaches out to myself and their grade level assistant principal so we can know because I think that's the other piece is we try and then something happens that draws us to light on a child's need and we really are here to collaborate and communicate and to break down those barriers to Middle School feeling like this scary place it's a middle school you know I

070sometimes how many times Don do I pick up the phone a week I'm like calling you as a middle school principal Middle School is an incredibly an Annie we've had you know this conversation as as parents it's an incredibly special time in a child's life there and that's really what we tried to hone at the sixth to sth grade transition there is going to be conflict I can't change that a healthy level of conflict is really important for a child's growth and development at this stage but we never it's those outliers that we're looking for the parent who feels like their child is getting lost we need to know the parent who feels like there is a repeated bullying or aggression taking place but those recess scuffles those challenges they're experiencing I do think we

071can normalize that and that's what we're trying to do there's going to be conflict and how do we support our kiddos through it um and that comes from also knowing the conflict because I know this team knows it's like the conflict before the they always say assistant princi no problems before you have them and this team knows the The Good the Bad and the challenges but I like I said I would encourage anyone and if you know of families who are experiencing concerns haven't please reach out to us because that's what we're here for okay thank you um I know you've done this twice already and I apologize can you one more time walk me through the change in the math curriculum I know that math 8 is honors is dropping so can you just

072do the trajectory one more from like sixth grade to it can be quick it doesn't have to be in depth so in sixth grade we have our grade six curriculum we also have stem and we have bath challenge and that's offered to all sixth grade students in seventh grade we have our grade seven and then we have our seven accelerated which is a program that is standard-based but they're going to get the majority of the seventh grade curriculum and a portion of the eighth grade curriculum and also have an independent study so that they're able to have access access if the students meet the criteria to grade8 algebra that's one pathway um but if you also start with stem math challenge grade six an additional pathway is then to go to grade seven General and

073grade eight General that pathway still gives and this is what we've been working on this year by eliminating the eight honors but instead focusing on from sixth grade really aligning the curriculum looking at the trends looking at the data and also working with teachers we provided Department time to align the curriculum create create common assessments and really focus on what trends we noticed then in grade seven we focused on enrichment what are the enrichment task that we're providing I met with all the seventh grade teachers in collaboration with our coordinator and also Christa Mia which is our director of stem and then in eighth grade which is what we're continuously working on with a group of teachers and also with the math Council it is grade 8 and it is a general program but how

074can we build the enrichment in the class how can it be robust in grade 8 math what are the Project based tasks that we can offer to our students and what are the real based problems and solutions that they can create engineering or using engineering and mathemat mathematical practices within the classro so although it seems that we are dropping eight honors our Focus now is to create rigor in in the classroom in the general a program which still gives parents a pathway towards algebra in 9th grade and in our math um night that's one thing that we went specific into detail showing them the entire pathway both Pathways right I I if I can answer to that for a moment if you think about what's your goal your goal is to make sure that all

075children have an engaging challenging and successful experience with algebra how do you get there because the data here before shows that that wasn't happening you must make sure in grade six that all children are exposed to a detailed deep and enriching curriculum the same thing in the on grade level seven if a child is developmentally ready and sometimes the brain in middle school it's a matter of months it could be if they're ready and they feel they want to have a successful attempt there is an accelerated course it's basically two years into one however the on grade level seventh grade math course if taught with Fidelity and with those tiers of instruction for enrichment is done that way it sets you up for a successful experience in eighth grade and then a successful experience in

076algebra in ninth grade there is no downside to having a success ful experience either in eth or nth grade some kids are more ready than others but in eighth grade here the concept of exposing algebra now to more kids who we feel based on the data happen to be ready is a good step in that direction I never understood in Middle School level what an honors class was like what is that it's either accelerated or it's the regions class and to get kids there to do do that you need to start in sixth grade obv obviously you need to start earlier but there is clear research on work you can do in sixth grade in order to prepare that now a child who has a successful experience in algebra in e8th grade or in ninth

077grade guess what they do they take more math they take more math at the high school which is what we want them to do so again getting that algebra experience right is essential to our work this year essential and for all kids all kids and I and to that piece about all kids that's one of the other um really Keys here is it's not just 678 or 67a algebra there are multiple opportunities and we've worked with Miss Pagan with Miss Ferraro our curriculum coordinator to ensure access opportunity and if a child is ready even sometimes that is mid year we've seen a number of students who are ready come October we are ensuring that enrollment in the higher level course particularly at the seventh grade level because we want them to have that access and

078opportunity but like Mary said it really is about readiness and there's no like magic date like you're ready by September 1st you might really show that 7th is too is at an easier level and you're ready for that double curriculum so okay and last question um the wjcs and the youth Wellness programming at lunch what does that look like do they give presentations are they available for students to come and talk I'm just kind of curious how you do lunch programming so that's a going to be a new partnership for us next year under um with Dr Lopez we are going to actually be holding a in order to plan for 2425 we're holding a team Retreat and we're going to invite Dr Lopez to come in and talk to us about what um that

079partnership will look like we're hoping that it's much more of a therapeutic setting not just the presentation because we can present to sixth seventh and eighth graders all we want but it's the lived experience so we're hoping those are more social groups to provide that support um and also have some topics though that are responsive to student needs so one of the things that's coming up is we are doing a what I like to call like the Dipa toe experience we are working with the wjcs to to do um some seventh and eighth grade groups around healthy boundaries and relationships so that'll be kind of like the touch Point How does it go what does that look like and then what would we want to replicate in the future okay I know I said that

080was my last question I'm GNA ask my trustees if it's okay if I take one more and if it's not I'll move on go ahead okay um I'm not a math teacher so I'm just going to ask this um how so sometimes like geometry is it's harder for a student to grasp than algebra but then they like fly in algebra so how do you handle that kind of situation there is I will say while they're thinking about that there is a lot of research out there that a student who does well in biology will do well in Geometry it's true if you take a look at trigonometry though it's more aligned to earth science if you will some kids balance that just well but if you think about in Geometry being able to see to

081see the analytical step towards solving proofs it it tends to have more of a for lack of a better term and I don't mean this into the the creative side of your brain kicks in a little bit more right um whereas um algebra falls on a lot more analytical uh thinking and Boolean operatives and variables so that's why it's really important that the science curriculum aligns along with that as well and having some uh numeracy facts at your fingertips very quickly because that's a math skill that we need to get right in K through five in order to get ready for this next stage so so again um and the state has been waffling on their study of geometry some some there was a huge period there where they did it as an integrated it

082was all mixed in together then they went back to the traditional model of teaching it separately but again making sure that key Concepts in science and key Concepts in earlier levels math set kids up better for success in both if I could just add um one thing that branching Minds does give us is RIT scores based on the domain and so you can actually look at how are the students performing and what is their algebra ready score what is their geometry score um in the math department at AMD we have data checks so I sit with teachers and we actually look at the NWA what are the actual domains that students are struggling in and based on our real data then make plans um I can't say we've seen a lot of struggling in Geometry

083but I that was just an example but I no no but one thing I do think that has shifted is we've done a lot of enl strategies and lot of SC training in the math department with a lot of realia and we've brought in a lot of concrete models of geometry for example there was a teacher that BR in the students were all making cones and spheres and creating a lot of real objects allow students to have a lot of strength in that domain so by having data checks by having moments where we look at where the domains where's your class struggling in and being specific to those domains and what supports can we get um one other initiative that we utilize this year is formative formative assessments they're online assessments but they give you

084such amazing data so I can sit with my math teacher all of his assessments are there in the computer I can stop and check on any specific student we can look at okay in this assessment this domain they struggled in this standard they struggled in now let's open all of their assessments was it vocabulary was it the structure of the question was it that they don't understand the real object and we're going specific and very granular to that so I think database instruction eliminates that because we're looking at who is the child because every child is different every class is different and specifically I think we're doing pretty good in Geometry I love the fact that I want to thank the board of education for their support of a lot of the data analytical tools

085that we're using there essential to what we're doing but it's also going back to what Nicole mentioned in the beginning in the team it's like what are the systems in place to look at those in an informed way in even things and that's why even going back to the state test they will tell you what's an indicator of a pregeometry tour and that can tell you where it can align better in your curriculum and you can take a look at the state let's say science curriculum to help you do that so all of this is not please it's not data driven it's just data informed in a very precise and analytical way to help support all kids and how we go about what we need to do okay thank you and I didn't mean to

086pick on Geometry we love geometry love yeah thanks so I just just wanted to just get a little bit CL clarification of the math um so sixth is is same math for every it's the same General curriculum then you get to seventh there's a general curriculum and the 7A the 7A how do you determine is there you know screening test a teacher says oh you know you look like you need want to be challenged well like how do you get into the 7A and are there enough seats in 7A that for every child who quote unquote qualifies for can get into it let me give you from a Global Perspective the subtle difference is that in six grade and the work that took place this year and is to make sure that you're addressing all

087those higher level thinking skills as well that's that's it needs to be an enriched curriculum and I will make sure you get in your packet a real from it's actually from seventh grade what is considered proficient from one teacher versus another in terms of a task just so you can see what we mean by an enriched task because that's an important clarification here so you got to make sure that the curriculum is is rigorous these tools that they're using will identify areas of where kids feel that they are ready for that from my perspective in terms of numbers of P of sections if we have all kids ready for all 7A then all kids get all 7A there is no like there no there should not be and I have been adamant you could ask

088sometimes I'm like well this is the answer I gave I am adamant that students who are ready families who are communicating with us as I the one thing is we do want to ensure Readiness but if a child maybe like GPA was slightly off but their nwaa score is meeting the target for Readiness then we're ensuring we one of the things we do add is an independent assessment that the students do because that those skills demonstrate their Readiness if they we don't want to put a kid who's struggling into that space it's not healthy for them but if we I think this year we're almost up to six maybe seven sections of math 7A which is an expansion base and just to for clarity what we do look at is about I say we're a

08914 section per grade general core sections so if you're talking six to seven that's about 50% of our students enrolled in an accelerated course so then also to think about eighth grade we had gone from two sections of algebra three years ago to that were enrolled at a with a high number of students our Max Capacity is around 28 to three sections with low enrollment around 167 to this year three sections with uh upwards of 22 to 25 and next year we're hoping for four sections at the 18 to 24 level so we're continuing that enrollment over time okay so so you clarified so if everyone was in hypothetically qualified for 7A you get them they would get that spe the eth I'm not fully following so eighth is also General plus there's four sections

090of algebra next year so there's eight General and then algebra so same question four sections if if is that based on how you're seeing the day to come back that you think you're going to fill the four but if you needed six could you go to six we' make six you make sense yeah okay so right now we're looking at four we are actually I think the deadline for the assignment if I'm not mistaken is Friday May 17th because that's where we went through the initial data and then the students did their Readiness assignments so by Friday we do want to make the initial determination and it could be give or take if a student qualifies someone moves in and qualifies for the course is ready um then we would add that student but it

091at least give us a sense of are we at four do we need five same with sixth grade are seventh grade are we at six do we need seven um but that space we are we do have the teachers with the certification to teach the course so we don't have any we don't have any barriers to that okay so just just to so sum it all up the students that need more help there's support for them students who are doing fun in general we have enough for them and the students that need more enrichment challenging there no one will be blocked out of any of these three buckets you just are able to adjust based based on that and that's great and so the last piece of this I think you know speaking on behalf

092of myself but I assume the board as well you know believes that you know we trust your judgment on this uh on this if if this these changes in the Middle School quote unquote work what will you start to see that you'll start to see in the high school and other performance data like oh look this is why we changed it this is what's working and then if for some reason it's not matching to what you're expecting you can make adjustments right but again I believe the board speak on behalf of the board but you know you're the expert we're not and um but there's ability to check to make sure this is this you've got it and if if it's something that's a little off from what you would expect you can make those

093adjustments I I think the caveat I will add to this is just based on pure experience and working with a um an expert over three years on the study of math acceleration out of NYU at the time um you know in in the Middle School level you can get pretty motivated kids and motivated parents and uh additional extra help and all of that can be appropriate many levels but at some point if you push a child in a middle school faster than they're ready to do it faster than they're ready to do it we're all parents you know the difference and understand what that means what can happen is when they are in in high school particularly probably around sophomore year into Junior and yeah no they're not listening to mom or dad and they're

094not listening and they basically turn around and say I'm not doing C I'm not doing like I'm like I got pushed too far what we want our all kids to leave high school with four years of a wonderful experience in math and and are are they kids that need to be ab and BC Cal maybe maybe not are there kids that need statistics maybe we want kids to have four years of great math so we have to be careful when we're opening up all of this that this is really what is in the best interest of kids and the only way to do that is to look at multiple indicator points and to have conversations with parents and then also believe it or not because we've had to do it involve guidance counselors who might

095be giving a different message to the kids might be giving a different message to the guidance counselor than to the parent and then I we certainly do not want children once they hit the high school level not to continue their experience or to be turned off with a engagement with math great uh and I just have one quick follow on slide 14 back to the literacy uh chart I don't know that's is for you not I guess general question I've got on this one is is this kind of where you would expected I know it's hard to have a crystal ball but based on what whether are we in year two of Arc right does it look these charts generally look like based on what you would expect and Arc expect for a year two

096implementation and then sort of as a followup as you go forward to year three and year four do you try to S like benchmarks to see like okay so in this Cort we were steady or we went up 1% and proficient for year three we're going to try to get 2% increase or three do you try to Benchmark any of that so that's kind of like a two-part related question yeah so to the first part which is easy The Benchmark we have a benchmark every year so this year's goal was to have all of our Stu they're achieve they're aspirational so we want all of our students to achieve at least 70% proficiency and we can see in our lower grades we're hitting that Mark and on our upper grades we're moving towards that which

097totally makes sense when you shift in to a new implementation right our new instruction is based on science research and the the five pillars in the National reading panel and so we see our early Learners um achieving at those higher percents and as those students move up we're monitoring to make sure the instruction maintains and their proficiency continues to grow and our students in our intermediate grades they didn't have that same instruction so we are working really really hard to help them recover more than one year's worth of learning right so that lab period that we talk about in the middle school where they do the toolkit lessons and Roa can speak to it if you can chime in if you want but um that is where we're helping our students and meeting and looking

098at the structures of the Standalone and the pushin reading models that you have asked about in previous meetings we've talked about it and in updates we've provided you with data to support that that is really uh working to help our students recover more than one year right in a traditional period a 42 minute period a 43 minute period whatever you have in a structure in a secondary setting it would be nearly impossible to help a student recover more than one year's worth of growth because you simply would not have the time or the structure to help students um uh get grade level standards which are required by the state and then also dig into the work where they they have unfinished learning so I'm starting to use the new term unfinished learning because it's not

099a gap in their learning our students were home during covid our students were learning online there are Central literacy skills that that some students may have not been able to acquire through that platform and need a different modality for their learning environment in order to be SU successful so what's not shown here and we could give you an example in an update is that uh to Nicole's Point she was talking about the points one year's worth of growth is um demonstrated in our school pay system which you've seen before as a one and the students start the year as a zero so they might start as a 5.0 for fifth grade beginning fifth grade and as they move across the year they gain points so they'll be a 5.2 a 5.4 A 5.6 and as

100they grow across the year we want them to end up as a 6.0 or having that one year so what's brilliant is Nicole Rhoda and I were looking at some of our individual students and seeing that they have a 1.5 like they are growing more than one year because we've put the systems inst structures and resources and professional development in place is that we still have a long way to go we're still in the recovery process but signs are good indicators are good it's the end of the second year the early levels where the development of those discret skills happen to be easier it's it's really excellent and also please also remember because we just came off the conversation with math here in New York or even the United States our instruction of math is

101through literacy math has its own language in and of itself and in different nations throughout this world it's taught a little differently using the math itself but the entry into math here is through language and having a research based um Arc implementation helps with all subject areas yeah right the focus on vocabulary and to Mary's point I just wanted to bring up we say it's year two but when we look at the our students really have only been engaging in this C curriculum right uh for a little over a year and we're seeing huge improvements in performance and then you'll map or have been mapping these test results because right this is the arc test results with the nwaa and the just completed about to be completed New York state test yes right so you'll

102have a full picture ideally in the fall say okay this says this and you'll see whether all this stuff aligns or this is higher where there's problems are gaps so um okay it's a teaser for our report in the fall YK all right um most of the questions I had were asked by my colleagues so we heard some good questions at the board table tonight I appreciate the discussion um and I just want to share some specific things that I really like to hear especially about math um is that in this shift we're not um strictly tracking students because we know that flower you know a flower blooms in every season um and that there's a path for students to be able to if they do happen to bloom mid year um get to where

103they need to be so that there are not doors closing on them in Middle School um so that was really nice to hear and I also just wanted to comment on the overall theme of structure that's like um you know on Sesame Street I feel like that would be like the word of the day in this presentation would be structure and um I feel like it's so necessary and it helps uh our families feel supported it helps our teachers feel supported and students might not recognize that they need it right but like um you know we want our students to feel both held and free and so part of feeling held is that um safety and that predictability that that structure provides and that um intentionality in building relationships because that doesn't happen organically if

104you're just going through the day with hundreds of students um so I really appreciate that intentionality um and and reaching those relationships through the structure that you have in place in order to reach out to those students so I thank you so much for that um the entire presentation I the theme I think is spot on with what our students need and what our community needs and what we feel like AMD needs so that we can be a school that's a place where our parents are saying I'm so excited to send my kids to AMD um so I want to thank you for that and then uh get you out of the hot seat I think you've done your time and we can shift over to our high school presentation I'm sorry Melissa I didn't

105really Melissa did you have a question I had been I'm so sorry I apologize I Melissa I'm so sorry I thought I was making eye contact with you and I guess we were on different planes I apologize please go ahead thank you so much so I'll be brief um because I don't want to I know you were ready to leave um but I appreciate the you know attention to detail you all have given with your presentation this evening um I uh just have I guess one overarching question right um as we're wrapping up the year and everyone's giving us the rundown of how far they've come and all the efforts that they put into place I'm thinking back to how our original presentations were set up with the umbrella if I'm not mistaken and uh

106how social emotional learning was a key component of that and I'm just wondering where we sit now uh especially in you know although I know a lot of the efforts that you shared have social emotional components to it with you making those human connections but going back to the comment that Mary made around um we're not data driven but we're data informed I know uh one of the tools as she pointed out um that we have given the district is to evaluate the social emotional components right and I'm curious as to how uh because I haven't I don't really I can't see where it's explicit other than you sharing your organic efforts to make those human connections which is awesome I you know not to but I'm wondering like how do how does that feed

107your efforts to kind of get over those hurdles that you've acknowledged tonight whether it be how do you expand the um athletic scholar kind of interventions into the broader um classroom more student experience I'm just wondering how the data that we um or particularly um Dr Lopez and her efforts help you get over those hurdles when you're trying to broaden your approach academically um School connected wise whatever that is to try to figure out those blind spots if they will I know you mentioned you're doing considered efforts to get feedback to AR from parents families making for sure you have diverse opinions and your approach but I'm wondering how um the considered efforts around data that we're building withal components are helping to get you over those hurdles so can I add one thing because

108we did talk about this in the fall we ended up doing the F your five initiative and so what we actually were able to find was exactly what Sue was mentioning in the Falls we were able to connect a lot of the social workers and guidance counselors with a few kids when we asked them to find five adults that they trust we had kids that picked nobody we had kids that picked one person and so we were able to then reach and find those kids using data through that lens where like you had students and this was one of our conversations we had whenever we would have a kid going through a small crisis all right who are the five adults you trust and we were able to literally pull up the spreadsheet and like

109see like hey you said you trusted uh your math teacher you said you trusted your English teacher and then we had a few students that even though they might have been sixth graders they were trusting teachers in the eighth grade and like so it was very interesting to see again through data like with SE like we had connections that we didn't think we had in order to reach all of our students and then I think the other piece is the Panorama data and I will say I think we these are the things I think about as I'm driving home we do need to do more with the Panorama data it's an element of branching mind so it does come in as we're thinking about the whole child through the mtss process but what we one

110of the areas of focus for next year is I would like to us as a team to go through the Panorama data and identify what are the three to four indicators that we actually want to track the most closely and really think about helping Al also our students understand the nuances of what that question means so that we can really then Implement action plans to support that because I think with the Panorama data we do get so so much when you're looking it at it globally as a school the IND for the individual students it will flag if there's an individual seal need but I think more broadly in transparency we can do a better job as a team of thinking what is the indicator that we want to focus on and how can we

111tie that to some of our programming so I think in addition to thinking about expanding our programs Franks Point how are we going to use a specific indicator of the SE um Panorama data maybe around belongingness is just one of the examples that comes to mind so that we can use that to drive our conversation I think we took some steps this year but that's part of the deepening that needs to be done next year thank you I appreciate that Canon response that's what I'm just looking for is to how are we utilizing what we're learning or um where we're identifying the gaps are and are we you actually putting to use the um considered efforts around Gathering actual data when it comes to SEO and I would say we're doing it at the individual

112level right now but we can do a better job of leveraging it at a global level to drive more of the tier one work because we've been responsive based on the student needs but I think if we can connect that data more to our tier one interventions in school culture Community connectedness um building a responsive environment then when we're sitting here next year we can report back on the way that was leveraged Wonder always like to be transparent I appreciate that honest thank you you're welcome thank you for the question and I'm sorry againa I really thought Donald I did not they totally unintentional I thought that so it is so fine okay I just feel bad okay I'm sorry everyone all right let's now we can officially let you off the hook and you

113guys can uh go and maybe uh support our high school colleagues who have more to share thank you all so much than so as our high uh Team uh ohos is uh getting ready I just do have to give them a shout out uh it's a unique period of time May to be a high school former teacher former High School administrator administrator uh the nlat is taking place AP exams are taking place in a building that has no space uh it kids are thinking about uh events and the year activities they're thinking about prom they're thinking about graduation College all of the above and the level of attention that is given by this team I'm just so totally impressed and thrilled with it um there are some challenges they can't control the structure of that

114building the more I speak and I'm in that building the more I'm like we needed those classrooms yesterday uh but again I want to thank this team here for everything they do each and every day I I do speak with ly I think now on a daily basis don't we speak like every day and I love it you know I love it okay so ausing high school so good evening everyone um I just wanted to also start out with thanking the Board of Education Mary the cabinet um and everyone for their ongoing support I'd also also like to give a thank you to Dr NOA for all of our early morning early morning phone call calls as we really talk about aligning the work that's happening at AMD and what some of the focus will

115be over at OS so I really can't believe that it's already may it feels like just yesterday we were presenting our fall goals to the board and this has been an exciting year with filled with outstanding achievements by our students and faculty I hope that you can give me a few minutes because we've been here a while but I really want to take an opportunity to share some of the highlights and to brag about our students achiev achievements so just taking a look at Cultural Arts and I know that some must have been shared with the the board on an ongo ongoing basis but looking at the fact that several of our student films have been accepted into National and international film festivals that we have two gold key four silver keys and five honorable

116mentions at the Scholastic art awards that our students artworks have been accepted in numerous art shows a few to name are the New York State School boards asso iation art show the Katona Museum of Art the radiating Tranquility exhibit and the Blick summer fall creative art contest OS news and Os noticias which is new this year are participating in the broadcast awards for senior high school students and the winners are going to be announced on May 21st we're also looking forward to learning if any of our students are nominated for the Metro awards for their outstanding performance in The Amazing Sister Act if you have not seen it you've missed a great production in athletics we have many of our students and teams that have gone off to sectionals and semi-finalists our ausing wrestling team

117was League champions We had 11 players that made it to sectionals six plac in sectionals seven all League wrestlers and also one of the things that I L that there was a movie called Squeeze that was filmed at our high school that was um that starred some of our athletes and also some of our coaches our golf team is completing for League Championship and our girls lacrosse team also made sectionals when we talk about our engineering and robotics team our the robotics team hosted the kickoff for the 2024 first robotics season where several Regional High School robotics teams were represented um including several alumni presenters that came we won the quality award for designed work at the first robotics in the Hudson Valley Regional Tournament our engineering robotics team competed in Houston for the first

118robotics world championship and two OS seniors Luke zeilman and Shaya Venus attended the pic County Technical Institute to participate in the second round of critical design reviews by NASA our science research at West aing School Asing science research had six first place five second place seven third place and seven four and seven fourth place winners two of our students were at the top of the fair and will compete in Rochester at the genius Olympiad this spring five OS students were named regeneron semi-finalist the most in Westchester County and Thomas Kong as we all know took the second place at STS the most prestigious science competition in the country and I would say the first and the third were private school he was the only one that attended a public school our business team earned nine

119medals at the state Deca competition one earned a second place win and one earned fourth place in state which qualified to us to compete at the international level this is just a small snapshot and the list goes on a heartfelt gratitude goes out to the Educators mentors and advisers for their Relentless dedication and unwavering support of our students their contributions have been essential to our success and we are deeply thankful for their commitment so as this has been my first year in this role I have embraced all that comes with being what we call Captain at the helm of this ship reflecting on this current year with my team I recently used the analogy of the ship and I reminded them that a large ship appears to Glide effortly effortly across the sea but we

120know that it takes many moving parts to keep it afloat and on course it is in the same way that OS has many integral components working together to move forward our Focus this year has been to review and understand our systems build on what was before identify necessary changes and begin making minor shifts as you know ships don't turn overnight yet we understand The Importance of Being intentional and consistent in order to stay on the right course our goal has been to prepare 20 first 211 Century Global thinkers who value diversity and are invested in building a better Community for future Generations that starts with building relationships with our students elevating their voices and creating a safe and inclusive learning environment for all what we have learned along the way is also that there will

121be rough Seas our enrollment has continued to grow over the years despite a decline in projected enrollments our classes are over utilized causing teachers to be placed in two to three different classrooms throughout the day we don't have a large enough designated common area for students and our Halls are overcrowded which at times creates a feeling of unease in the building despite these challenges we continue to look ahead in anticipation of the proposed Redevelopment plans and a potential Bond I am thrilled to share this space this evening with an amazing team Miss Mingo who is responsible for English reading and support staff Mr shikha whose focus is on science engineering and business claraa Reay Reyes who focus is math social studies and special education Miss Kos who focuses on enl and World language in addition

122to Mr Duos our director of counseling every principal should be proud of their leadership team and I am no exception my team is hardworking dedicated focused on students who and they have led alongside me each step of the way they are brilliant in their respective fields and our students faculty and families are truly blessed to have the b os tonight they will share with you our accomplishments and our next steps as it relates to our building goals and the district lawn range plan on data literacy small group instruction equity and family and Community Partnership now I will turn it over to miss mangle who will talk about our focus on data literacy thank you Miss Langley good evening everyone so we are continuing our work in examining multiple various data points including assessment data attendance

123data academic data Behavior data as well as Panorama data um and it's really you know we continue to remain dedicated to discussing and not just analyzing these data points but also discussing them um in house meetings designated professional periods for teachers and department and faculty meetings really to discuss appropriate interventions and programming so some highlights that we'd like to share with you include AIS data and using this AIS data to continue to use quarter data to implement scheduling of academic tutoring we have also established a newly aligned Ela curriculum with the help of Miss Jessica Turner to really discuss a scope and sequence for grades 9 through 11 really to ensure continuity um and also create and develop common assessments across the grade levels we've also established the science lab tracker to help ensure the

124satisfactory completion of the 1200 lab hours for students in our science courses this will ultimately long-term right help students ensure that they qualify for the Regents exam in June right I I and we need to really just underscore that because that's such an important thing you're doing this year you can't sit for your Regents exams until you've completed those hours it's impossible in June for you to get those hours you need a tracker on this um so um it was one of the important shifts that the high school made uh this year and I I've had to live that myself in different places so um it's a really important step in the right direction hudos to Mr Shas um we've also seen tremendous improvements with our students who have been satisfactorily attending their classes uh

125we are continuing using our MTS house model to help decrease the number of students labeled either chronically absent or at risk in addition we've established an attendance peer mentor program with the help of Miss Francis and Dr de to really help support and provide that support to our freshman students um and really what it is it's providing a junior Mentor with a freshman student to really help just enforce and create those positive attendance habits early on in their High School journey in addition we've established quarterly house meetings to really come together as house teams to meet with our students and discuss not just schoolwide expectations but also corresponding data that we've seen throughout the throughout the quarters thus far in addition we've increased uh staff presence in the hallways in which teachers have been monitoring

126the hallways during nonin non-instructional periods and ultimately we've seen a a presence this year of just a reduction in physical altercations that that we' observed in the that we I should say haven't observed in in our building just in regards to some next steps at our last superintendent's conference day our o staff was trained in Crisis Prevention Institute Training and our hope is to really continue this this work in smaller groups in the coming months and and next year in addition we continue to find ways to formalize building-wide expectations and creating systems for students to share for us to share student data at house meetings um we are our teachers are not present in house meetings so we are continuing to to to think creatively with with Miss Turner ways in which we can include

127them in our in in the loop of communication as well as share consistent updates with them in addition I know Miss Reyes will be speaking about this briefly later on in the presentation we will we are outl outlining a new model for our Algebra 1 for newcomer lse so I will pass it on now to Mr shaasia who will now speak on group instruction good evening um throughout um our building we see um uh small group instruction models uh happening depending on the discipline they happen a little bit differently but they all have the same uh goal um at heart which is to involve as many kids as many of our students in the learning process and allowing them to discover a little more about how they learn and how to interact with one another

128how to learn learn from one another uh so at ausing high uh excuse me ausing high school's approach to small group instruction is an Ever evolving process uh it's this reflects our commitment to instructional Excellence uh as our distinguished Educators continue to gain deeper insights into our students learning Journeys our methodology for small group instruction is being refined and enhanced as well so our administrative team diligently Works to expand and collect uh excuse me expand our capacity uh including sharing exemplary practices with individual teachers and those conversations are collaborative to develop small group instruction models that are tailored to the unique needs of each classroom uh thereby supporting our students learning more effectively throughout the Academic Year we have dedicated professional periods to the profession development of our staff including in the area of data

129informed instruction our discipline curri coordinators Have Been instrumental in leveraging nwea English and Mathematics data transforming this information into strategic insights that guide the formation of small learning groups as we reflect on the progress made this year we are proud to share some of our key highlights and the next steps under consideration for future implementation so here on the next slide we do see um some of the um the things we're seeing in small groups uh small groups are being created using reading data um although not yet schoolwide uh small group instructions seems to be more consistent in the building it's especially very consistent in science if you walked in our building you see most of our science classrooms already uh in those small group um you know stations so to speak but we're also

130seeing it um you know I I I've personally seeing it in math classrooms as well which is uh which is great uh we know that logical thinking can happen sometimes when you're engag when students are engaging with each other so we're seeing that quite a bit uh peer review of written responses and social studies uh and there's an increase uh student to student discussion and engagement in these small groups that we're seeing throughout our building uh some of our next steps is to increase professional learning uh to support and enhance teaching and learning strategy in science and algebra uh provide uh provide designated periods for educators to exchange best practices Foster a collaborative environment for professional development and peer-to-peer uh learning uh so sort of like a PLC model but trying to figure out how

131we could do it in our building um based on what's out our disposal I'm going to pass it on to this race all right good evening everyone uh so I'm going to speak to the math department at OHS I just want to give a shout out to the math department because it has been a challenging year um they have been very hard at work um and I just want to highlight their dedication um our teachers have really been working hard addressing the needs postco um especially this year where our Algebra 1 teachers um do have a slightly shorter time frame given that the Regents is June 4th so they do lose about 13 instructional days this year before the Regents um so they are working really hard have already started uh have been started algebra

132regions prep uh back in April um and so I'll be speaking to the work that they've been doing this school year um I'll speak to the first four bullet points on the left and Miss Meyer will speak to the remaining bullet points on the right with regards to collaboration and focusing on scaffolding and differentiation uh this work began in the summer um reviewing uh the curriculum uh alignment um identifying resources that teachers would benefit from using including Delta math emath um exploring iearn Excel uh to scaffold the learning for our students um and this continues throughout the school year in our department meetings um we have also collaborated with uh consultant Heidi Bramley um along with our director of stem Mr dadia and this work will continue into next year uh additionally uh the math

133department uh specifically in Algebra 1 and we're expanding this into geometry and Algebra 2 um implementing common assessments so this is actually the second year that our teachers in the algebra 1 sections be it jened um you know uh departmental or the Spanish speaker sections um they have implemented the common quarterly assessments so every single class takes the same quarterly assessment at the end of that quarter the teachers then review the data to discuss in department meetings and they identify where students are demonstrating areas of strength um they identify areas of struggle and this is key to inform what topics that they need to spiral in for the remaining units in that school year additionally in reviewing the data for the current year um in addition to obviously using region exams the uh quarterly assessments

134um additional uh data um includes looking at the midterm uh so Quarter Two uh assessment um on average uh Mr deadia did a comparison with last year's uh 22 23 so this year 23 24 and Algebra 1 did see an increase by 5 percentage points um on the midterm additionally in reviewing the map growth data from nwaa our students in n9th grade on the algebra 1 assessment um we did see compared um to from the winter to the fall uh assessment uh we saw a 4% decrease in students testing in the lowest quintile and we also saw an 3% increase in students testing in the two highest quintiles so that means we're seeing positive growth of our ninth graders um in Algebra 1 additionally um we have some extended time for all students um and

135this allows for teachers to explore different strategies within the algebra 1 model um so every other day as you know they have the uh 80 minute block to uh engage in small group instruction to really engage in that differentiation where students need need more support whether they need to be enriched um and so student uh teachers excuse me are using a variety of groupings uh depending on the need at the given time teachers who have taught Algebra 1 in years past um have mentioned in discussions with district and building Administration that they do see a higher level of Engagement amongst the students this year additionally um as Miss Mingo did mention um in the uh data slide we are looking at restructuring our Algebra 1 model for our newcomer English language Learners uh so those

136are the students new to the country were our first experience in high school here in the states um and sometimes depending on what their background is they may need to move at a slower pace and may benefit from a 2-year Algebra 1 sequence um I'm going to turn it over now to miss Meyer regarding the district thank you and good evening uh if you notice on the right hand side uh Miss Langley mentioned about many moving Parts uh when we're steering the ship and as we move those parts these parts that you see on the right hand side lead to specific intentionality in our buildings you heard from our AMD colleagues today you're hearing it from our high school colleagues um the intentionality comes from also um a districtwide uh prek-12 districtwide math Council as

137you can see see in the first bullet that was developed this year uh under the leadership of Mr deadia with the support of Heidi bronley our math uh coach uh and this opportunity leaves to leads to really having a vertical conversation regarding curriculum and how progressions instructional progressions and curriculum and and learning um Builds on each other from grade to grade um all the as far as common assessments that were developed the uh vertical alignment of curriculum is being viewed through the lens of our math teacher leaders at the elementary from prek through five our coordinators are at the secondary level at the middle school and at the high school and that vertical view those vertical conversations are very powerful as we look at the data and see the trends of the learning Trends um

138that our children are demonstrating based on math concepts and math strands that lead to then the decisions that we're making at the middle school and creating those paths for our children to be better prepared for those high level courses such as algebra at the eth grade increasing that opportunity as well as being better prepared for the high school when they enter uh their Journey their last four years um and have more access to four years of really impactful math instruction um we will talk a little bit more about the elementary but I we just wanted to paint the picture that behind the scenes and the structure that's being created in order for this work to be possible with intentionality that our amazing leaders are leading in our building thank you thank you Miss Meyer um

139so we're going to move to the uh seal of spefic Readiness for and the Seal of B literacy um and uh move to some additional highlights so with regards to the Seal of Civic Readiness last year was our first year implementing the seal we had 85 graduates receive it uh which was amazing um given that it was brand new and so this year uh right now we have 32 students who are currently uh confirmed eligible they're done they meet everything right there's six points you have to get it's divided among two tables there's a variety different ways to obtain the seal um and in large part those 32 students with our help of the senior Capstone internship program that helps them qualify an additional 69 students will be confirmed eligible upon completion of a Civics

140project in their apus government and politics class so I'm working with Mr ogrady who teaches those uh four sections and he is uh they had their AP exam last week so now they can you know breathe a little bit and and so now they're moving forward into this project he's pulled the guidance from the state he's implementing this project um so this will bring our number up to 101 students because I don't see any student not completing with success um which will be an increase from last year's number so I'm going to turn it over now to miss gidos to discuss the Seal of biliteracy okay good evening everyone for the Seal of biliteracy 37 students are currently confirmed eligible to receive the Seal of biliteracy with an additional five students to be confirmed upon

141receiving the results of the Apple exam in total we may have 42 recipients which is an increase from last year in which 25 graduates received the seal we can go on to the next slide uh reflecting on these uh Equity initiatives at os I'll now illuminate our current and ongoing achievements and outline our forthcoming objectives for our highlights we have the Puerto Rican Hispanic youth leadership Institute which is PR uh it encourages the development of leadership skills and acquiring in-depth knowledge at of the leg State Legislative process at the end of The Institute a few of our OHS students participated in a three-day Institute in Albany where a mock assembly session was conducted in the New York State Assembly chamber student and Community PSA videos were created to serve as powerful tools to raise awareness

142and promote social justice in our communities these videos were crafted to convey important messages about respect affirmation and inclusion for all we held our Equity Summit where ohos students interacted with students from Peak Skill and Sleepy Hollow presented their projects and participated in a student Equity panel along with continuing our work with OS news we started OS noticias this year and it has been a platform for our multilingual Learners to share important information and has led to many other students joining and forming a community we have held Community circles with students and staff for new Educators for students focusing on gratitude and joy for staff surrounding student belonging and student identity we have also had the following presentations for our students as you can see on the screen overall these presentations have played a vital

143role in shaping students understanding of the effects of History promoting empathy and tolerance and inspiring them to become active agents of positive change in their communities and Beyond now for our next steps along with continuing our work with our highlights we would like to have the world of difference peer training program and we will build upon this program that students have participated in at AMD moving forward we will be having talkbacks and expanding our student Equity committee to hold space to highlight student voice and to process students's experiences at OS now we will go over our family and Community Partnerships with Miss Langley than you so just taking a look at understanding how crucial it is for us to ensure that all stakeholders are involved in students lives knowing that when families are engage when

144they are connected that students do better also looking at our Community Partnerships and how we can highlight some of those Partnerships I wanted to just highlight the fact that this year we've continued to have our grade level parent meetings um this year as far as our incoming um for our incoming ninth graders one of the things that we did different is that we asked some of our Community Partners to just provide the different Services as far as what they can provide but also looking at can support famili So this year we we um invited procto alante um OPAC in addition to Open Door the oening library just to make sure that they were also involved in the conversations um we continue to have different parent meetings such as our financial financial aid night our 12th

145grade parent night having bothies come in and also work with our families um the work that has begun with um um feeding Westchester has continued through our door Dash program where we provide over 180 bags of food each week to our community um as far as strengthening our communication with our families we created an organizational directory so that parents know who to who to call in case of so when do you contact the social worker when do you contact um one of the psychologists or an AP or the principal how you really get in contact with those that are part of the team we've done amazing work with the Comm the communities that care um where they provided substance use and prevention information by surveying our students and we were able to share that information

146along with strategies to our faculty we continue to work with Andress that provides clinical support for our students wjcs who they work within our building to provide information to our pregnant and parenting teens in addition to working with student services where they are able to provide substance use prevention and intervention um last week we also had our prom popup shop which provided so many different gowns and nail polish shoes everything that students needed in order to be prepared for the upcoming prom and we just want to continue a lot of that work that have started um some of our next steps knowing that we would like to have more um parent University sessions we're already thinking about how the data that we receive from the communities that care how we can share that with families

147so they know what to look for and how to have their convers those conversations with students around substance use um and again we just want to continue the presence of the parent organizations that are working with our school inviting them into the different events so that families can also make that connection and we can also build that report with our community and now I'm going to pass it over to Mr Duos who's going to talk a little bit about what is coming ahead with our ptech and New Year Gear Up good evening everyone sorry the mic is a little short so I'm G to scoot over batting ninth Jeremy Duos so it's wonderful to be here with you all I get excited to talk about our programs but it's it's a really special time of

148the year for our students and their families right like this is what it comes down to and I will talk about that later in my presentation about like like graduation College postsecondary plans um speaking with our students and their excitement but to start off I just I just was thought of a word right thriving our students have thrived through covid they Thrive through difficult rigorous coursework they Thrive through a pandemic right they Thrive through the college application process that took a complete left turn when the federal government decided to change the whole FAL process right so Thrive I just want to like Bank on that word Thrive so with that said we have these two amazing programs that were introduced to our district this year um I'm going to start with our uh first organization

149NY gear up so gearup has provided us an opportunity for Early Access and education to students and when I thought about this seed it's something that I discussed when I first got here was like how do we plant the seed at the youngest age possible this is the first step this is eighth grade right so when we think about college and postsecondary act it's about exploration gearup does that for our students we literally took every single eighth grade onto a college campus right that's important for my children they'll experience that they're experiencing seeing their cousin being accepted to colleges they're experiencing seeing on social media their cousin attending colleges for some of our students that's not an everyday thing so this year was huge for those families and I I want to just thank our

150coordinator Wendy the middle school all the APS and everybody that pitched into this program because these are life-changing experiences for our students now nonetheless when we visit these labs and we go to the nursing and we're working with the mannequins and our students are pretending to make out with those mannequins right we get to redirect their behaviors right and we get them to you know it it teaches them and prepares them for those College visits in high school and that's the important thing about Gear Up Now what I'm excited about the high school experience is the introduction of our summer program I will say our high school counselors are ready for this right they've been experienced they've worked with the college process that is why they are high school counselors the postsecondary process is their

151baby right through the use of navian through the use of other tools such as onet the New York lab labor sites they're prepared to now take on this opportunity work with students specifically in the nth grade right and see what the future holds for those students right so through gear up we'll have our Partnerships with our colleges both private state and city right our partnership with the the the New York state government our partnership with organizations across the state that are going to help with work-based learning opportunities as well as access to college so that's what I'm excited for um for the summer program in addition to that it's just exposure like our students are going to be exposed to stories of themselves through the her story program they're going to be exposed to different

152stem opportunities right and all this is important because when we talk about the next steps in college and post-secondary Readiness it's about knowing your plan I had a very interesting conversation with a young man today and automatically at eth grade checked off Plumbing right I was like but what else right there's entrepreneurship in plumbing there's all these opportunities and these are the things we want to investigate with our students and that leads me to the ptech program which is our amazing program ran by our um Dr Roman who's been doing a phenomenal job the applications are open for that I myself recommended a student that I had the privilege on going on a college trip with um and I think the student will be perfect in the program but the ptech program again it's it's

153highlighting the areas uh and I'm just going to highlight our cyber security uh visit and every platform every career that they're looking into if you look on on it there's a bright outlook for those careers right they're basically saying the the federal government is saying within the next 10 years these are the organizations that are hired health information cyber security computer information sciences and paramedics those are the things that we will need in the coming years PCH is addressing those areas while also getting our students a high school diploma and Associates Degree in six years right so the first step of that has been the application process we've again explored I've had students run up to me hey Mr Duos can you recommend me can you talk to my teachers because they're excited for this

154opportunity right so again that's taking place now the application does close m plenty of so if you want to encourage families to discuss this with their students there's plenty of information on our websites we've held a parent night um last week I believe so that's pertinent to let folks know that that application does close on May 20th because we do have to then get into the process of making a decision of who those 25 students will be because what comes with that is scheduling programming summer programming for those specific students okay so I wish we could potentially push that deadline back um we'll see what happens with the application process but for the most part there's a lot of moving pieces that come with that process if I can add two to that just keep

155in mind uh the ptech grant one of we're one of only five in New York state to have received this it's a phenomenal opportunity and S is looking closely at the research and data behind that because they're looking about it in terms of a graduation requirement and New York year up one of 11 in New York state and I just want to add to Mr Duco uh when it comes to really presenting this at an earlier age um we've already started meeting with our sixth grade and seventh grade student here at AMD uh to already start discussing this process with them and really instilling that little seed so Dr Roman has been attending lunches you know having focus groups lunch lunch chats so again we truly want to expose our students to all the endless

156opportunities that's offered to them postgraduation right so now with that said we now have our students are graduating and it's interesting right because as social media does social media gets information before my school counselors does so often times like I'll pass a student in a hallway and I they'll tell me my friend is going to this college I was like cool tell your friend to go see their school counselor so with that said our Instagram which is ran by our amazing Caitlyn badara so I thank Caitlyn like heavily for this because it's actually giving us information right because our students always go to Instagram to post and to share news prior to coming to their school counselors um because in our site we have 81 students that have confirmed right in acceptance to college Instagram

157is showing us 121 students that are going to a college right so we're going to work with meta on that so Caitlyn has found a fun and engaging way to highlight students and their achievements which is amazing and she's using baby photos to kind of engage students and then showcase kind of the college they're going to so again 121 students were highlighted on the oening seniors 2024 I believe it's called I have yep aing senior 2024 if you have a time check it out it's a beautifully done site and the one thing that I appreciate about this site I'm always about equity and access Caitlyn ran a poll and she ran this poll to kind of suggest what's a great way to kind of highlight and capture these moments for our students and it included

158the senior class so it wasn't just something like hey I'm going to do this it was incorporated of all students and that's one thing I love in addition to that tomorrow our students will be celebrating their college acceptances now I will say FASA has thrown a curve ball not all of our students have decided on a final place in some cases some colleges are allowing which is crazy to think July for a final decision right so there are some colleges that are being as flexible as July because they still haven't received Federal data in regards to students fastfast so with that said we do have students that have kind of expressed to their counselor that they're going to delay the process and this is something new just with this year but we do anticipate to

159have our school profile prior to students leing College CU with that said through navian I have to send the transcripts so we are asking our students to try to their best find a find a final home before they leave here um and with that said it's a Bittersweet time because our seniors are now having fun right they're enjoying the the fruit of their labors from K through 12 for most of them and we're trying to have fun with them so it's a Bittersweet moment but we're also do encourage them to still reach out to their school counselor because we are also talking about the matriculation process with them as well what it takes to get get into that next step and what that looks like okay um lastly we did kind of do things differently

160this year when you discuss and look at how programming happens last year I looked at how how our students were programed and to be quite Frank when we did one to one sessions 12% of our students were being seen and that's unacceptable right when you're talking about course selections and who gets into what program this year our school counselors pushed into every single PE class and met with every single student in the set they did have additional sessions with students right but this ensured all eight counselors were at each event pushing in they separated the gym into 9th 10th 11th grade and they each took components and answered questions about master schedule course selection what course should I take every want I get to AP Cal things of that nature so it was a truly

161successful event because again it exposed students that would have never come to our office because I be transparent in the past it was a pass that was sent to the student we all know how that works when you send a pass for a student right I think there's less than 60% chance that they'll come our counselors met the students where they're at which is in gym and in their classroom so I was very proud of them for that and that was something that they took the initiative on and it didn't matter that their student was sitting in the front row they all attended to that student so it was a beautiful thing and again there were the meetings held to discuss more in depth what a Sunni chm means what a APG means things of

162that nature but to explore all the options with the the the the uh students was important to our team so I will pass on and thank you all for your time oh we're going straight into I don't think no I think we'll take a pause on that and just and just to reiterate to the team I mean Equity access awareness communication uh these were real goals being very strategic about that algebra course trying to enhance communication and um you know we would be remiss we're we're still seeing a good number of chronically absent kids how do we flag that what systems do we use I love the tracker for the lab to me you need that exam to graduate you can't sit for the exam if you haven't completed those hours that was an essential

163catch and essential tool to implement so broad Strokes you know Latoya used the phrase It's a ship it's an aircraft carrier it's got 1,650 something kids in a building that just had additions added onto with Warren of rooms and areas which so many different options and choices and levels so it's a it's a hugely comprehensive building um but you know on my recent visit to OS I got to see the world of the art students the world of the stem students music music kids all over the place with instruments and happy and excited and helping each other and just uh in all kinds of spaces and making do with tough spaces so so um but again it a comprehensive high school with such diversity of population too also has areas that we all need together

164as a community to address and I certainly do love the togetherness of this year there's a lot of within the team and then across team conversations in a very explicit manner to know we're all in this together to help lift our kids and help them across that finish line all right I'll open it up to questions from the board Roger go ahead so I just want to start off by saying you know you guys do a lot it's you do amazing stuff I had a chance to interact with all of you and thank you for coming down to the Robotics and came down there and just really got into it and I really appreciate that and I appreciate all of you guys for all of what you do I mean 1600 plus students but really

165amazing work this year I really really Love The Interchange between AMD and and high school this is this is a bridge we've needed for a long time and the way you guys are putting this together honestly that is awesome really awesome so really great work there um I I have a couple of questions just on um seal by literacy um seal of um Civic Readiness and then a and a separate question that was not addressed on the slides so on sorry and then one more more to add in there is pte um seal of Civic Readiness is there is there like a um a benefit that's conveyed to the students that in terms of hey if you um that's for either one of them if there's you know this is an opportunity if you were

166enrolling in this these are the kinds of benefit that you are able to um obtain um post getting the seal and um does it is there some sort of a draw that could be used to pull in more because we invest so much in the way of of um kids who are both um literate in both English and Spanish and um I actually in my head I don't know why but I thought that the number was going to be significantly Higher by literacy but I know there are certain requirements to that but I I imagine that there's enough to all of this that could probably make this much more robust if you were envisioning this in the future so if you had to draw it your own way and saying you know how might this

167look um in the future what might that look like for you based upon the benefits that you guys all know of from both these seals so with regards to the Seal of Civic Readiness um there are multiple ways to obtain the necessary points uh for our students um you know part of that is the you know the five required Social Studies classes that any student needs to graduate in New York state um that counts as a point completing those five right um taking the global regions passing with a 65 between a 65 and 84 you get one point if you pass with an 85 or above that's a point and a half same thing for us history um and then there's additional points you get a half point if you take an AP or a

168Sunni class within social studies um and so our students that's table one then there's table two table one are students really that's built in a lot of our students fulfill that just attending school um table two is where it gets a little bit more complicated and I know we've been trying to use different platforms different uh pieces of software to capture the information because it's then Ventures into what students do outside of the classroom right um so in thinking about that um this year's cohort I believe is the last cohort that is receiving a point from the middle school so in eighth grade and this cohort that was Co so they did complete a middle school Capstone project in eth grade that does count as one point for the table two portion um so thinking

169of structures for the coming years because I to my knowledge that Capstone does not exist anymore um in eth grade so thinking of ways to integrate with in the required courses that all students have to take regardless um so I would like to work work with our curriculum coordinator with our social studies department on making sure that we're building things in over the years so that way all students can have this added recognition on their um diploma because there really isn't a reason that shouldn't be there I think it's great I I I'm I just imagine that this is just such a great thing for so many students that you know beyond just the 32 or 37 but and I I imagine that this opens up doors for lots of the kids that um that

170come through our school so that's great um question graduation me begin to change and Evol that this will be something else that students know that they can add to their diploma as they're deciding on different Pathways that they're going to look towards for graduation so we're really looking forward to that um coming down so that we continue to share that with our students I I think that's fabulous um thank you and then the on the pte side is there a limit to the number of students that can enroll in PTEC and what is that limit and how do how where are we maybe you said it and I missed it how many students have enrolled so far prior to your May 20th deadline don't have anybody yet but it is a 25 25 we have

171applic not necessarily rolled yet but 25 students we do get because this is a partnership with so they also get 25 students right so it's 25 students they go through the six year program and again it kind of like re-ups every eighth grade um year so with that said we do have applications I don't have access to the Dr Ran form I should I'll get that from her but Maria do you have as of last week we had 10 that had applied so they'll go through the application process May 20th is line and then we have a committee that we're putting together to review the applications and but we can go up to 25 is the max so is there some more Outreach that needs to be had to um bring that number up to

172that again or Nicole's like coming off the bench over there I don't know want a subar in come on Brunson we had [Music] Mel stach specific students apply who might not recogniz individual conne yeah and Doc and Dr Roman has also gone into classrooms or Avid classrooms so it's been very personalized um yes that is great that's why I love this interchange between I think this is awesome and also we're in the middle of recording a PSA great that's great I will ask you my last question and then I will let others um ask their questions make comments um one of the things I know we talked about quite some time ago um just as a board um with perhaps you know your predecessors and other folks that were here at the time and I

173don't know um if there's some thought around this in terms of looking at um trades um and looking at those opportunities that the that students could take advantage of and I know it's hard to do in the middle school because of the fact that it's you know Middle School there's you know some challenges in trying to get kids to a program but in within high school if there I know there was at some point probably some a couple of parents there they were inquiring about it and I know that they got help from you guys to to help um with answer the questions for their kids um around getting into more of that trades related program is that something that we're going to more actively you know um bring out for the the kids and

174explore and then the other piece of this and I guess maybe it's a question for for all of you maybe Mary as well this is also a pathway we'll look at by way of graduation as well perhaps down the road in the future Blue Ribbon it would be something there is already a CS credential that can support a students work towards uh diploma requirements okay um so there is that I will say there has been an exploration we do have work that I've put in contact Nell's with the Bose coordinators right to explore and have those folks come in and speak to e8th grade students about the potentials of working in a trade um the bosis we are constantly communicating at the high school with the bosis team they've come and presented in previous years

175we would have them in the 10th grade presentation we did kind of like a side presentation on their own this year and I think that was extremely impactful we had a really good turnout um because again when they were a part of this there was just so much happening in the 10th grade Paran night and then they had their power point we just we just saw families like check out and this is important information right so and then it was because it was specific I think we got a really good turnout this year um which supported kind of like our students inquiries and questions towards what a trade is and what buies offers and the six areas that bis has for students to engage in and also requirements like there are certain trades that require

176certain things for you to do right and it's just informing our students that there are jobs out there um but in order to get those job jobs here are the requirements here are the certifications here are the health mandates things of that nature so it's just informing our students that because they like I want to do that but then they don't meet some of the requirements so yeah that's that's something we've explored and again introducing it to our eighth grade students as potential careers I think not only making sure that we have their presentations to the families but also giving our students an opportunity that are interested in participating in both to actually going and um doing an orientation at B seeing some of the different programs that we offer so they get to walk

177in have conversations with some of the Educators there have conversations with the students and really see if they see themselves on the both campus in order to see if it's something that they would like to um be involved in so just to touch on just one more thing we did have a trip in February for close to a 100 students that they actually went to the campus so Bose's like closes down and they invite students to come on we had about a 100 students go they provided us two buses and every counselor went to answer questions about the fashion program the culinary arts program the nursing program all of those things so that was again we are trying to explore and expand those options so that students they don't just look at High School curriculum

178like this is for me it's like okay there are other things for so let's look into that that's great I is there some point in the future that we might be able to take a look at what that enrollments look like over the past couple of years absolutely yeah because it's not so I'm glad bosy is they're just changing their application process it was for a counselor it was tedious it was a lot and then the system was so outdated that it would sometimes crash right so as it was collecting student data would crash and you would have to redo the application so they've just re like rone it and so far the councils in our department are are happy with thank you so much I can't begin to tell you how much I appreciate

179all of you for everything you've done inclusive of AMD team as well so thank you other trustees so I think there are many universities that struggle to provide type of comprehensive opportunities that our students get in austing and and I know that through my work throughout the county and the state and that this is a very unique opportunity and I give you all a lot of credit for the work that you do to make this happen because it's not easy but it it makes a difference and Miss Langley as you opened up with your whole list of crowds at the end of the day it's just the the different hooks we need for different kids there's so many opportunities at ausing that you just don't get down the street and so it's just really Testament

180to all your efforts at the end of the day and the efforts to try to maintain the resources around to to make these programs happen um I have to give a shout out to Peak Skill for the work they did with the lead on the ptech grant you know it was the only one it was the one in the state and it wasn't a big five district and that was a tremendous lift that ausing was able to you know go along with at the end of the day but I have to give credit to Dr Mauricio for the work that he did um in Peak Skill to make that happen and those 25 seats I don't I agree with you Roger those 25 seats are key we have to do this well we have to

181basically show it as a good example because the state's looking at us but then the next thing is we'll be sitting here three years from now losing funding if we don't advocate for expansion of the program it's similar to like prek prek wasn't everywhere in the state prek was in places like a we had to Advocate when we were losing it to keep it this will be a great program we do it well we're going to have to fight for additional funding to do that and so that's just a key component here um and the gear up again the gear up we're one of 11 in the state that's a huge opportunity we have to take advantage of that I know on top of everything that we're doing these are hard lifts but they're really

182important lifts and I just I give you credit for the work that you're doing there um I just also want to point out too just with the Seal of biliteracy and you know in our Equity experiences like we saw from students that come through the brosies program through the Action Network when they come to places like ausing the opportunities that they have here that they don't have elsewhere and seal of by literacy we have a great opportunity you can travel less than a block and be able to speak languages in our shops in our stores that are different and that's an opportunity in this community that my kids have benefited from and that I would encourage more to in that number getting up there whatever we can do to to increase those opportunities are great

183because they do prepare our kids for the world outside and I know that from my oldest and you know my kids in college and the experiences they have here just how meaningful that is so I know it's late but I also want to give you the credit and know that the work you're doing really makes a huge difference even in the midst of all the stuff that goes through the day-to-day uh differences and so my whole goal here is how do we expand those opportunities right at the end of the day and the one thing that I'll throw at is a thought is food for thought one thing we've looked at as a board for many years and the outcome of the math curriculum is is can we get kids through trig and pre-cal because

184that the the statistics on that is so tremendous in predicting your college and life uh outcomes at the end of the day for success and so while you may never take another math class outside of aing if you're able to get through trig here your Chance is going through the rest and I know that's a a lofty goal in some sense but it's a goal that we got to make progress on because the vocational jobs that we have they're going away with things like artificial intelligence and the thing that you really get through trig is abstract thinking and that's the thing that really students develop so my one ask of you all tonight as you're looking at all the things that you're doing is is thinking about how do we watch those trig numbers how

185do we increase how do we build it the sixth grade to get the kids through there because that's going to be a tremendous uh need in the future and it's going to have a big impact on their outcomes so again thank you keep the ship still moving and and just really appreciate all the work tonight so thank you I just want to say just as you talked about how we continue to keep connected I want to say that as they move through from AMD to OHS that that's truly what our goal and our focus is with all of the opportunities that we have at the high school just making sure that families are aware that students are aware so that um incoming ninth grade orientation was really important for us to really be able to

186showcase for all of our ninth graders what we have here at the high school because we know that with all of those opportunities there are still so many students that are not involved in some of the things some of the great things that are happening at ausing high school so us really being able to chart who are those students that are not engaged in in and active in certain whether or not it's groups um Cultural Arts Athletics to see how we can pull them in and just really making sure that we keep a tab on that so that everyone is involved and engaged in the learning at OHS other trustees go ahead Melissa I got you um so great presentation a lot of detail again uh a lot of hard work um I first want

187to acknowledge um Jeremy some of the comments that you were making and just acknowledge that the evolution of the language that's being used around um supporting all I guess forms of postgraduation Pathways right and using different or expanding our language Beyond just the use of college the word college right and recognizing how a landscape is changing as far as opportunities for students um it definitely points out the intentionality behind the work that everyone is doing um and what the true goal is as far as Equity is concerned when it comes specifically to high school students um one thing I'll point at as well is that I like which has evolved is not only the language around it but historically there have been um people who with uh experiences I guess it would say that saying

188a different alternative or even mentioning in an alternative to college was kind of seen as like a like a you kind of just dumping an alternative option on someone as opposed to exerting an effort to really help them thrive in your in your words right and so I think that um the efforts around alternative Pathways after graduation have become robust in in the fact that we are kind of moving with um the times if you will as opposed to using alternative Pathways as a way to kind of not really invest um as vigorously in all students um so I have a couple of questions one is to that section and one is kind of for the rest of the group but to that point I'm wondering when we're expanding our options are any of them

189around sort of like the climate conscious Pathways of jobs I know um there's been a lot of kind of shifts um even I think the the government announced about a month or so ago about like climate core jobs and all those options I'm wondering are those specific Pathways being explored at the high school level um I know there's probably some intersectionality with the ptech Grant and some of those what's coming out of that but I'm wondering are those discussions kind of happening um as far as you know students possibly wanting to explore clate climate conscious type of jobs job opportunities that are just now starting to emerge yeah correct so again those those are happening right and with those jobs um there are specific requirements that we have to ensure our students are meeting right

190so there is this opportunity through through bosies to connect and explore that right but we have to have our students understand that again there are jobs out there and I just have to be honest but some of those jobs require like background checks and things of that nature so our students need to understand like okay you have to comply with that right you will get this job 100% both is ready to hire you like they have Partnerships every day we have students come in right but it's just getting our students to understand like in the real world World there are these compliant areas that we have to comply with in order to get those opportunities right so there are those opportunities that exist so the government did announce that right but the government still is

191doing like drug tests and things of that nature right so when folks hear that you get one student applying to those opportunities it is our job to help our students understand that this is an opportunity and that's what our office is currently working on is like exploring like okay what's more important here cuz there is an underground lines position that the government is hiring for like literally and they're providing trucks to folks to work and bis had one student register from all of the institutions that work alongside them so they're even questioning that course next year because again some of the parameters that are happening but it's having these honest conversations with students and being like listen like these are the requirements these are the parameters they're not going to change but this is an

192amazing opportunity right so let's discuss that and in addition to that it's again like our staff educating ourselves on what those jobs are because this is all new to them in a sense like they know like the traditional like the barbering and the um um the HVAC and those things right but the ones that the the government is posting like those are new jobs these are jobs that probably haven't been explored before with students so it's educating ourselves before we educate our students so I just had to be very transpar because I remember Bosey Steven Lowry coming to me and saying like there's this opportunity to give folks trucks they get the cdl they get 60,000 plus a year they get benefits and they got one student from not only like aing but from schools

193across the county to apply to this I made it's it's underlines program instead of high lines so it was just an interesting thing to hear is like okay so how do we inform our students of these opportunities you know so that's one thing that like stuck with me when we met with um B's coordinator okay thank you that's a very insightful perspective to share and I appreciate transparency personally always so that helps you know us really Advance forward when we have those transparent conversations so thank you um another question or just comic SLC question I have it's kind of a reverse of what I asked the uh AMD team right and this is not like to compare apples to oranges but rather acknowledge the efforts that are are being built around this kind of joint

194partnership around transition so my question would be um because because you know it was said when you all were first sitting down how different um High School is and and and what that looks like this time of year particularly and how there's a lot of different moving Parts whether it be with the seniors who are graduating the freshmen who are entering and then there's that middle group right that um are kind of there still kind of navigating uh the landscape so I'm wondering in Reverse like there's there's a lot of data heavy meetings conversations and Explorations happening um um and I'm wondering how that transfers to a more um data informed process uh similar to what uh AMD was uh you know discussing around those human connections and how that these processes that are in

195place because you know it's high school right so a lot of stuff is thata driven right you you know you're looking at graduation rate you're looking at test scores you're you're really deep diving really deep into the daa data at that um at those grade levels so I understand that but I'm wondering how like the verse the reverse might happen in the high school setting I know that there was the implementation of the house teams and that's a component but I'm wondering how it may be or curious how it may be evolving to be a more kind of like a human connection type of piece which I know is could be challenging given that students are moving towards more Independence in those grade levels right and it's not so much hands on and you know

196sitting around like the lunchroom and and navigating those Landscapes it looks a bit different but I'm just curious as to how again um some of these components that we're compiling around data whether it Beal or just the outcomes in general are uh are fueling uh shifts in shifts in culture to kind of build those human connections a bit more with those students so I think that the start is really looking at the mtss model the house model and each of our assistant principles getting to the getting an opportunity to know who those students are working with the counselors working with the social workers to really identify the students that maybe might be at risk or those that are doing very well those are that are thriving at the high school but when I talk about

197the fact of looking at the numbers to see students that are connected in different organizations group athletic teams that for us is Another Touch Point meaning when you're looking at the adults yes they spend a lot of times in their classrooms but a lot of that information also comes from them interacting with their coaches some of the different um like mentors that they're working with some through some of the different clubs so for us it's really trying to figure out where are they connected how do they belong to our school Community how are they showing up in our school community and then what's the data from that so A lot of times we're having conversations with our like we have some brand new um clinicians in our building that are now running Community groups they're

198looking at what are some of the groups that they can create in order to bring students in in order to support them as much as possible and that's the other thing that we've been talking about kind of moving away from just having individual one-on-one conversations and creating more Community groups groups amongst our clinicians so that we can touch more students to truly find out how they're doing but it's looking at that our Panorama data it's looking at just students that are maybe not doing well in courses or have been referred from our Educators and seeing what else we need to provide them with so there are so many different touch points that we're trying to use the data from to say what other supports do we need to put into our schools and whether or

199not what we have in place is currently working thank you for that um that's about all I had thank you all for your um your work you've been doing thank you great work other teses well I just want to say um first that I appreciate the Highlight that space is an issue um and I know I'm sure it's an issue of you know I'm telling you it's an issue you know better than anybody right so I think it's important that we continue to communicate that to the community because it does have lasing impacts on how effective you can be and I see so much passion here at the table um and our students deserve that and um so I'm glad that you're here to to share your passion with them because they Thrive off of

200that and it's hard to do that and and when space is limited so I appreciate you making do um and highlighting that and also um highlighting absenteeism as an issue that we're that we're working on I know that when I read um uh articles and things from outside our our school district that it's not exclusive to us that you know it's Statewide it's National that there are a lot of places struggling with absenteeism and um you know the reasons may vary from place to place and maybe we don't have the all the answers for why you know every kid's different right so to see that that's highlighted that's something that we're focusing on um and that it's actually moving in the right direction for for us right now is a is a good thing so

201I just wanted to highlight that highlight your work thank you so much for hanging in here with us um uh and and then we can hopefully give as much time as it deserves to discuss your next presentation we really have a we have a packed night so I'm gonna I'm gonna share my appreciation for you again I am so glad I did not forward the page PowerPoints that both teams have worked on so all right guess beated good night thank you all right all right so another presentation that we're doing is that we're going to present this evening myself along with Mr Duos on our current scheduling process and I think he spoke a little bit about that already but also looking at um two new course proposals that we have in addition to the

202analysis of low enrollment at the high school if you ever gotten an opportunity to look at our program of studies um you'll notice that there's a wider range of courses there that really are tailored to meet um the diverse needs of our students um and it really is able to take into consideration just some of their preferences some of the things that they um their passion products in in addition to um really looking at the demands of a rapidly involving world and some of the things that we need to provide our students to really be in line um with you know other students in the county so we're going to talk off today we're going to just I'm going to ask Mr Duos to just talk a little bit about the scheduling process so in

203as to similar years our course um fair was held on February 7th where we exposed our students to all courses right um higher level as well of elective courses so we invited them to our gymnasium at OS and they got to speak to students that had taken the course they got to speak to instructors of the course they got to see kind of the curriculum projects that were ever worked on some of our folks did an amazing bo uh job of putting together like project boards um the course guide was then released on February 16th 16 to the community and then the course selection process started February 27th and just ended on April 26th um again so counselor began to meet at with students at each grade level the best thing we did this year

204was pushing into those gym classes to ensure that every student was aware of what those courses were um even the dialogue between friends counselors were there to kind of like debunk some myths and debunk some things and say maybe you should not take the same class as your friends so that was important to have um and then in addition to that again this the school counselors met with students to go over their transcripts because then there's the want and then there's the need right so when you're working towards a high school diploma for some of our students they do have flexibility in their schedules in the coming years to take other elective courses or other AP courses Sunni courses whereas other students aren't at that point yet and they still need to meet graduation requirements

205so with that said that's when the counselors come in and meet with the students because they will have lofty goals of taking some of the five elective courses that they saw at the course fair but then honing in and saying you still need part in government you still need a finance but here are some creative ways to take those courses through AP government or to a Sunni Finance incoming nth grade yeah I touch B about so incoming nth grade night like um Latoya expressed we kind of like included Community Based organizations we um we had folks come in um and what I'll talk about that is is this year what was different was our eighth grade counselor pushed into every every single English class and did and there's a link there to the transition to

206high school link which included a video of what students can expect right it kind of showed biographies of the school counselors and in addition to that I truly asked my school counselors this year to be present at AMD so all of the school counselors partnered with her during those pushin workshops they introduced themselves um they gave kind of background on what the high school process will look like what it looks to obtain a high school diploma in New York state and then in addition to that um throughout the weeks of well March 19th through the 21st is when we had our big event in previous years what would happen is is it almost felt rushed in a sense because you would do a big grandiose presentation and then towards the end of the event students

207would course um course request their electives we pre-loaded that or pre like we did that initially with those eighth grade presentations so anything that they were going to get it was in a smaller group setting because again the assemblies are typically 50 to 70 students we call them down by last name so it's a smaller group you get anywhere from again 16 to 28 students in those classrooms they're able to receive the information ask questions of the school counselor kind of discuss the electives that they want to take and then on the 19th through the 21st then work towards selecting those courses um we reviewed the process to help the students select the courses uh again students are words told like prior to that event like you're going to select three courses this is what

208these courses are you're not going to get all three again especially as a nth grader there are the required courses um and we did the same exact thing one thing I noticed we didn't necessarily do this without out of District families or families coming from St Augustines or private schools or moving to the district from another city so miss Langley and I this year held that night on April 24th for families to introduce them welcome them to OS when their student does join us but then also have the same exact experience as our families and our students did at the at AMD I think for this one we've kind of addressed just how we have communicated um the scheduling changes so we can jump to um our new course proposals um so usually this presentation

209is done earlier in the year and I know we pushed it back this year but then I also want to be honest usually every year we have conversations with our students to see whether or not there are new courses that we want to propose for the upcoming year and for this year we really took some time to review our existing courses and to look at the numbers that we had there and to really see if there were new new electives that we wanted to offer or we wanted to start looking at things that were offered on Alternate years um just based on low enrollment and understanding the number of students that are coming into the high school now really wanting to make sure that our core courses were really that we had enough staff that

210were going to cover our core courses and looking at our elective courses to say how we can go deeper and have more depth rather than just offering offering more new more new um so you're going to see that there were some changes even around our fashion courses um and media production where instead of it's a halfe course um and they can take it within one year Media One For example is a halfe course where they can try another elective and then media 2 is a full year course where they'll learn more about OS news and just some of the more intricacies as far as media production so instead of adding new courses we started looking at what we have and how we can go a little bit deeper for our students so that they can

211grow more in those courses so for this year we really um added fashion two and it's going to go along with fashion one but for fashion two it's going to be a f year course again very similar to saying how do we take them a little bit deeper and instead of it being a halfe course it now will be offered at a f year course so fashion one um will be the prerequisite to it and it's going to be offered to um I believe it's going to be offered from 10th to 12th grade it's a one credit in art um so far we already have 41 requests and this is good because now we have fashion one we have fashion two and then we have I'm thinking the business credit is fashion marketing okay so

212really uh a great job of really introducing our students to the world of fashion and if they then want to turn it into something where they're doing um just as far as an entrepreneur they also have fashion marketing that they can learn more about and grow in that field also the other course that we're introducing is Sunni American Sign Language Sunni ASL and it goes right along with what you shared earlier just around giving students an opportunity to obtain the Seal of biliteracy in past years because of the fact that we didn't have a Sunni level ASL course they would have to sit for um one of the exam they would have to sit for an exam in order to really obtain it and that was very challenging for our students we realized because they

213were taking it with instructors that they didn't know um and there was a cost to it so there were some barriers as to why they were actually able to complete the sequence and go on to the Seal of biliteracy so now us being able to work with Sunni newes to offer this as a Sunni level course has really been important to strengthening the ASL program and so that's another that we would like to add to our foreign language Department low enrolled courses so now it's important to really look at that currently any course that has less than 20 students as far as our board policy they are considered low enrolled and now that our enrollment has ended for our students meaning them their course requests has ended we've begun looking at what are those low

214enroll courses um one of the things that I'm not going to speak to tonight is just our enl Support classes or our special education re reading in AIS because they are historically low but those numbers are truly based on the amount of minutes that need to be provided to our students um so I'll jump to the low enrolled right now these are some recently added classes within the last one to two years and the numbers that we have right now so for example I spoke a little bit about fashion marketing it's the second year that we've offered um fashion marketing and right now it has 17 students that have requested it Genius bar which has done amazing exposing our students to pretty much a student help desk giving them an opportunity to really be able

215to support the school Community right now is at 13 students intro to Java this was its first year and it has 12 students that have requested it for next year it's highlighted in red because really the educator that really I would say wanted to create the course and was really invested in bringing it to us has been out on maternity leave and she will be out on maternity leave next year so that's one of those courses we are considering potentially not offering this year but bringing it back when that educator is back and then Latin America and its people and when we talk about low enroll courses um Jeremy and I have had this conversation I don't want it to I don't want it to come off as if maybe students are not interest interested

216in the course what we're understanding even for Latin American and it's people that that course has a lot of our El's that are in the course and because of the amount of classes they need to take due to support hours and different things like that they're not always able to take some of the elective courses so although that is a dynamic class that where many of our students enjoy right now it has six students that have registered for it next year and just to add on these are again a majority of those students also participate in our bosies program right so it's hard because they do morning or afternoon session and it's really hard to schedule or predict okay where can we place this course where it gets enrollment when these students are already kind

217of signing up for both's next year some of our low- enroll courses that may increase um are the computer science principles right now we have 17 AP Computer Science again though those numbers are very low there's a possibility that they can increase our film making course we've heard so much about how great our students in that film making are doing as far as the different um films that they've been able to submit to different film festivals so again just one of the you know classes that might be low and roll but we think that it's very instrumental for the students that are involved in that course the intro to Ed Prep Academy is a course that we have at the high school that really introduced we know a lot about the teacher shortage really right

218now we have a course where some of our students are able to participate in education prep so if they're interested in becoming an educator they can start out in that program and so we're looking to really push that a lot more for our students to make sure that they're aware that you know that's going to help them on the path to education first robotics is another course that we know is going to continue to grow because it becomes a feeder into the engineering program uh gender ID gender ideology was offerred this year and it had about nine students and now it's at five so those are that's another course that we would have to consider whether or not it's offered on Alternate years photo four is combined with photo photo 3 and you'll see that

219in our cultural arts classes that some of them even though they're low enrolled they're combined with other so 4 to3 like I said it being combined with 4 to four they're combined with other sections in order to increase the numbers media production to because of the fact that we made some changes and now offers offering it as a full year course we just want to make sure that we go back and help our students to know that that's actually the OS news where they're doing that production on a regular basis because we know so many students have wanted to participate so that one we think it just has more to do with how it was marketed to make sure students know that that is the course where they'll continue to learn um so for these

220low enroll courses again this is what I was speaking to that they may be low enroll but they're going to be combined with another course so they're not separate classes so our ASL course because of the fact that we're now adding the Sunni level we have to consider whether or not we're going to combine either ASL one and two or ASL 2 and three in order to make sure that we um have enough courses or enough of the um sections in order for that to happen our college level Italian four and five they will be merged into one course graphic design two and graphic design one they're going to be merged into two courses and so when you see that even though the number is 20 for low enrolled when you merge design two with

221design one it meets the criteria the same thing for jewelry one and two being combined painting one and two and AP Studio Art one and two so we'll also see the kind of same sequence happen with our Cultural Arts um uh programs as well and again it doesn't take away from what our student as you can tell by our award-winning programs like our students are still getting their Cultural Arts as well as their love for the music or the arts program but there is combinations that do take place for example like Theater Arts 2 and Sunni inro to theater so the two students and the six students will combine to create a section um chorus and Sunni chorus one and two um piano 2 and Sunni piano one Wind Ensemble and Sunni instrument Sunni instrumental

222Ensemble and Sunni instrumental will combine chamber orchestra and Sunni Orchestra and Sunni instrumental will combine and drawing and Sunni beginning drawing will combine and the reason why we do that is because in previous years we do Independent Learning we find its best when students are actually physically in the classroom working with those instructors so the combination has actually been helpful and again has produced some success when um our students go out and perform the same can be said again staying with cultural arts with our music program so these are the low enrolled um courses so we have gim me the mic um nine so that will probably combine with our intro to musical theater intro to musical theater again that has nine so those will create one section for those courses um music in our

223lives has 17 Jazz Ensemble currently has 17 Wind Ensemble has um none at at the moment and Sunni music theory one I think that was an r and seven I can check real Qui quick but we'll move on to the next slide um and just now looking at our core subjects just as far as English AP English right now has 18 that's actually up from past year so it's something that we definitely are going to continue with Sunni Ed prep right now has eight students but that's also a class that the teacher has to be tsaw certified so again that's something that I think that we are in the talks to see whether or not we can continue with that advancement from the Ed prep program to now Sunni Ed prep um science interactive ecology

224has 12 in social studies you'll see some that's already highlighted in red where we have to consider whether or not we'll be able to offer those electives this year and then World Language all of these will be offered it's just whether or not they're going to be combined with another level in that World Language so just a quick update Wind Ensemble currently has 14 uh students as a course request questions from the board uh Rob go ahead yeah so then it's more of a point of procedure so I guess according to policy 4420 not to get wonky at this late hour it looks like that anything that's less than 20 uh needs to get approval by superintendent and then over to the board so our are we being asked is this the presentation from the

225high school and say hey here's what's low but we want to run all of these can you approve them is that essentially what's being asked here of I guess super and then if you've signed off in a Mary then I guess I mean in in spirit it's a little unusual it's a fiscal type thing but again I'm so used to looking at low androll courses and that was my con can you combine them with like art1 R2 can you combine there can you do what you can do do and then the tiny little caveat that we need to be mindful of this is that if this class is a Capstone class for a child that they need to get into college with that's why I I think that Nuance of the superintendent approving it is

226important because that's a question not everyone would understand or realize you'd have to turn to the staff so it's my understanding you all tell me that this annual report is meant as a fulfillment of that board policy so you're all aware of what we're looking at the work we're doing yeah and the policy says that the classes that are below 20 to your point Mary the preference the priority comes to terminal courses and like AP or anything that you get college credit and then anything that's kind of new you get three years at it you could crack at it three years and then if it's still low then it may not make it beyond that so if if if the know so I guess if the ask is you have some AP courses up there

227I guess the Sunni those are college credit too so so hopefully as according to this those stay as a priority and is obviously and then the ones that you're nurturing the new ones the three years and under and then priority three would be everything else right right it's very much like when we were in college you would alternate every you're not going to be offered this year because the budget has a certain level of Staff that's approved in terms of FTE and how what they they teach so you look at some of these if they're not you're absolutely right we're going to look to offer this next year or every other year once every three years you're right okay so nothing we're not going to knock out any APS or sunis right no and then

228which I guess which of these were the that other priority which is the new ones the three years and under which were those that are low enrolled here so the three years right now are the fashion marketing Genius Bar intro to Java and Latin America and its people okay so those will also stay they get another year at it and then you re evaluate after year three I guess according to policy right that's so yeah I mean maybe the the conversation needs to continue on on these right now with kids right and the little Nuance about high school kids is that over the summer they could realize that hey I signed up for a course and Rob was supposed to be with me but Rob took another class and I don't want to take this

229class now cuz Rob's not there so I'm going to drop it how many how many of we've all done that too I don't want I don't want calculous first period I you know like so that little Nuance adds to what happens here at the high school level and so you know not asking for this at three hours in but like I I personally still being sort of just not even finishing year one on the board I love to understand a little bit more how do you come up with all these ideas is a combination of student choice you map against the state not for now but it might be good to have some some of make sure something we'll make sure the board gets that in their packet so they can see it some of

230I want to sign up so you can add me to one know but I just don't know like how do you come up with like The Genius Bar idea and I'm not again not not at this late out we don't need to go into detail but I think person person one the quick answer for that one is surveys the quick answer for that is surveys that over the years we have surveyed our students to see what are some of the courses that they would like to take and so a lot of that has been through surveys with our students so so the spirit of what I always said the high school schedule should be driven by students student requests and student needs and how do you solicit them right and there that we do run

231into scheduling issues just based on the building itself trying to figure out that whether they're low enroll because you don't have a physical other place to move it to that's why that 80% ratio of empty rooms at a building is your optimal rate of matching student needs versus requests versus your facility to be able to run that class so last thing just procedurally again so we're talking about this now you just said there'll be more discussion and then what we come back to the board and say okay board here's my recommendation what do you think and then the board votes on it is that kind of the procedure not not from my understanding no that's not how it happened this is it this is it usually a red light Oren you're opposed class on this

232I just want to make sure so if there's a course that we're not going to run just based on the fact that we need a staff member for a core class we can make that decision also at the high school yes yes yes of course you can yes yeah see that's the other little Nuance too like you know like hello I do need another section of Global Studies and I've got this little class here with only six and despite the fact that it's your third year of running it no sorry because the requirements will out everything else right go ahead um thank you so much this is so much work and your jobs seem really hard and thank you for taking care of our kids and really just putting so much effort into it um

233I just wanted to say that I love that there's different ways that students can get seals of biliteracy that was really great to see and question question is how do combined classes work like if you have Italian four and five aren't the kids who are supposed to be in five learning the stuff that they already learned in four like I'm just kind of curious how that works with combining some of those no that's a great question so in the conversations that we've had with the Educators in each of those rooms it's really differentiated for the students based on their levels so understanding who's in level four versus five the materials that they receive will be different um um the goals for their learning for that day will be different so it's really thinking about small

234group instructions within those classes and the materials being differentiated to support their learning based on the levels thank you making eyes I'm making eyes go ahead all right just a couple of quick questions um I I had a similar um uh kind of curiosity around the sale of by literacy looking at the low enrollment for um a was it was it low enrollment under that category right for ASL yeah yeah um and I'm wondering you probably don't have the answer but like how many of the students that usually graduate with the sil by literacy are doing that under ASL um and if we're you know if students even know that that's really an option because I think maybe if you hear that you think uh you're thinking of you know other world Lang languages and

235not necessarily ASL as being one of those components so I'm just curious um or is it's just a lack of kind of just you know just not really enthus much enthusiasm around as ASL which I think is unfortunate but I was just curious to see like what what trends are we noticing with that kind of low enrollment happening around that yeah so for the Sun for for the ASL the students are aware that they can go for the Seal of biliteracy for it but what they know is that they also have to take a a proficiency exam so for everyone else once they've completed the course then they would automatically um qualify for the Seal of biliteracy but for those in ASL they have to take a proficiency exam and that's where the challenge came

236um again I think it's it's over $100 that the district pays for each student that wants to take the exam but I think that that exam is also virtual um it's with someone they don't know so there were other barriers they are aware of it but there wasn't a high success ESS rate um when we went that route so that's why we look to see whether or not when we're offering now at the Sunni level then it's open to more of our students and they don't have to then sit for that proficiency exam okay so does that mean are we talking about like that Global seal of it's the Seal of biliteracy yeah that Global that like that extra step to get like the global seal I think right or something like that right so

237um does that mean um that extra step you're saying like there's a way to kind of not have to navigate that or a different way to navigate that it's want to make sure I'm understanding what as far as you said something around not having to take that extra correct so the proficiency test is becoming the barrier right now for for some of our students and a way around that is similar to like the Seal of Civic Readiness like a college course can add as a point okay so this that course can be put so that's why we're seeing some success in our other languages is because they have kind of like on Top of the World Language exam they have those college level courses okay thank you um another thing I was wondering too when

238you're talking about um like deepening kind of the offerings and when it came to Fashion two I was wondering is there any or just the fashion one or two is there currently any intersections around um like I know prestigious ladies are power does a fashion show every year is there like an intersection where they're like they're using the garments that have been made like I'm just wondering like I'm just thinking about how we always try to come up with innovative ways for students to interact and have more connectedness and I thought that'd be a really I'm not proposing anything I'm just wondering I was wondering if that was already an intersection that existed and I think that's a really kind of a creative way um as an example not a proposal for um you know

239students to become more intertwined and engaged I think that for this year because of the fact that fashion one fashion two was just a semester course that's why we realized that they needed more time to learn how to create designs used different textiles sewing machines different things like that so now it being a full year course is where we're hoping we'll see some more of that design that'll come out that we'll be able to live hopefully on a stage I'll be honest when I went to the prestigious ladies of power fashion show I was hoping that we would see some original designs I saw more of the students in the fashion program downstairs helping students get dressed but not necessarily that their designs came to fruition on the stage but that's definitely a goal that

240we would love to see seems like it's budding the relationship is budding so yeah great thank you anyone else I want to thank you again I'll thank you every time you come up here and tell us what I know you guys do so much um we appreciate it so much we um this inventory kind of uh temperature taking of where we're at is really important to do and thank you for bringing it to life for us because sometimes what you see on the page just requires a little bit um a little bit more context so thank you for providing that for us tonight thank you for sticking it out a good night building op up superintendent shut down the zoom link When I close that proposal so thank should we wait for public comment you

241get that going I'm assuming there's a long line as per usual okay bang I know okay um the next item on our agenda is audience recognition um seeing none in person here um I guess we'll log in again we're open okay okay there's no one on Zoom thank you okay so we'll move on to our consent agenda um I'll take a motion for 4.1 and 4.2 so move second 4.1 resolution to approve a stipulation of agreement with employee number 0424 4.2 resolution to approve consultants for the 2023 2024 school year any discussion all in favor I opposed extensions all right um I'll take a motion for 5.1 through 5.3 some second all right uh resolution 5.1 resolution regarding agreement with Nassau Bose's musical instruments resolution 5.2 resolution regarding uh decrease in the employee benefit AC

242crude liability Reserve fund 5.3 resolution regarding interfund transfers any discussion all in favor I opposed extensions I'll take a motion for 6.1 through 6.10 sove um okay uh 6.1 resolution regarding professional staff resignations 6.2 resolution regarding administrative staff appointments 6.3 resolution regarding professional staff appointments 6.4 resolution regarding Civil Service staff staff appointments 6.5 resolution regarding support staff appointments 6.6 resolution regarding bus attendant appointments 6.7 resolution regarding support staff appointments before after school programs uh 6.8 resolution regarding support staff requests for a leave of absence 6.9 resolution regarding perum substitute appointments 6.10 resolution regarding AP APR annual perform professional performance review accountability any discussion all in favor I opposed extensions okay uh moving on to uh section seven board policies um before we vote I um just want to remind everyone kind of as a member

243of the policy committee where these came from um as we as a board were gathering and putting together our board handbook uh there were recommended changes to some of the language in the policies that were cited in the handbook the are those relevant policies and in the policy committee we put that those changes in language into the policies noted here in 7.1 and 7.2 um I think we can take them together unless there's something else does anybody want to have any any discussion about these before we move ahead I think uh in keeping with kind of form I think possibly breaking them out to give people a chance to kind of dialogue it on each one because I think think okay for further context to that they did come out of the policy committee but

244the origin I guess you say what came out of discussions among the board having to do with the uh construction of the board manual that we're currently undergoing so maybe um given that there's been different levels of kind of um involvement along the way up to this point perhaps given that opportunity all right so then I'll take a motion for 7.1 so moov second okay uh 7.1 resolution to adopt policy number 2700 board staff Communications as a first reading any discussion all in favor I opposed extensions I'll take a motion for 7.2 still moved second resolution 7. uh2 resolution to adopt policy number 0310 evaluation of School Board operational procedures as a first reading any discussion all in favor I opposed exstension all right we have another audience recognition still seeing nobody in the audience

245here I anybody online okay so we will move on to board reports and dialogue does anybody have any updates for the board quickly it's late but I guess just to piggy back on where we just left off um just kind of further in the conversation around our development of the board handbook and that you know these two policies we felt were um we just we met recently the policy committee for context of where I'm starting at um and just to kind of um take out what automatically we knew needed to kind of just be passed as a policy the rest will still be um viewed among the board you all should have um that version of things that we just kind of went through and highlighted to see do we want to change the language

246in the policy or do we want to change the language in the board manual um some stuff was very just kind of um tomato tomato type of stuff where um just maybe want to update some things around language use how we use our language but um for the most part I think we're making um some pretty significant ground in terms of the construction of the board manual and it's just a matter of um some formalities at this point so we did I think you sent out an email about um the board taking a look at that so that we can see as a policy committee are there some things that we need to go back and look at now as policy because we might want to change the policy that we're referencing in the handbook

247or do we just need to update the language in the handbook to better match the policy so there's some it was kind of a lengthy list of policies impacted I I don't remember off the top of my head like six or seven policies impacted so do we want to and I think as a policy committee we were kind of discussing like well we need kind of direction from the board which which way do you want us to move um unilaterally on all of these and change all these policies pick some and choose some or change the handbook or some combination of those two things so um and maybe this is something that we were really not prepared to have a discussion about at length to give it the time it deserves at 10:55 p.m. we

248might want to say let's discuss this again in two weeks which we can do I'm open to that as well um we don't have another I think we have another board meeting before we have another policy committee meeting yes yes we do so um if people do need more time we can push it off one more meeting but if people have thoughts that are already formed I would love to hear them I know we've got a lot of we have lot of meetings so far but you know I mean does the board feel like it would be helpful to have a separate meeting just to review the handbook not necessarily you know that we can talk through as a board before we go through and start to start making any decisions what's the general consensus

249I mean from my perspective I'd rather have a review done if there's questions raised they get raised to the policy committee and then there's really a need to we talk about them as a resolution if there's stuff that needs to be done publicly I mean I don't know that I would I I wouldn't vote for a separate meeting this time of year just for that I think and I I kind of feel like that's where we're at we did go through and we did and we did compare it to policies and I that's what the email really was yeah you know a reference to the discrepancies that exist and so now we're looking for a direction to go um we can break them up into small pieces and discuss them one or two at a

250time that might be more adjustable at the board table we're just trying to find the most efficient way so that it's not not like someone didn't look at it and then someone had some comments want to try to get the full board to to chime in on it it's like a large group of policies and some of them the language is simply changing words from he slash she to superintendent right so some of them are very minor language changes a couple of them do have changes where a sentence or two was changed in the meaning was changed not sub stantially but it was changed so um there a little bit more of a phrase change right adding par paragraph or a couple of sentences so I I brought it up just to your point not

251necessarily for us to deliberate tonight but to put it on everyone's radar that we did as a policy committee go through that exercise of highlighting those areas and also Christine um uh you did some of the pre-work around um just commenting what exactly is different right what it looks like in policy so there doesn't have to be too much cross referencing done on the part of the rest of the board so um I think we collectively came to the hope that the board would kind of just do a review of that document and maybe perhaps at the next meeting set aside sometime to to give us as a policy committee our you know our our charge forward of what we would need to do um as far as it relates to actual policy within the

252handbook specifically I I I'll um just Echo what she said but I will say so that specifically just calling out as you look at the actual document itself there are comment comments inserted in there that clarify why some of the changes may have been inserted in there so just make sure you go to open up the comments take a look at that because it might help answer the questions as to what what was this change for what reason that were comments that we sat together and yeah and basically at The Retreat you know comments were made on the Google Doc and suggestions were made and approved we like those suggestions let's change change the language and then when the policy committee went through it was like okay well that change is actually reflects you know

253we're referring to a policy number here and these words exist beneath that policy number but that doesn't match the policy in the book so what direction do you you know where do we want to go from here so to most the point I think let's have the full board look at that and then let's come back right at the next meeting is that fair to everybody that sounds good to me because we've already had like two meetings going over it yeah all right um let me think is do you have something I just I have a question about something sure so um I guess Kim hi uh this might be for you via Andor Mary so I apologize because usually when read the weekend updates I'll send like some question clarifying in advance and I

254didn't do that here and I don't think what I'm about to ask is exec session stuff if it is stop me but Kim in your weekend update you talked about some of the work around ironically one of the policies our res residency rific policy puts up comments there about budgeting for it so I'm trying to get clarification uh for the board here does that mean we got to stop on everything that you're doing because we don't have budget to proceed with some of the work you're doing and to your point you brought it up and talked about like got to talk about the funding of this when and how do we do that to to ensure that the work you're doing get gets to continue so Mary I I would assume that I can answer

255a portion of this question um I think that as a board we should review the policy at our upcoming meeting potentially in June um our first meeting and at that time once we review the Poli once again make a decision as um as a board if you would like to continue um with the residency reverifying that um it it is a huge Endeavor um and a costly one so we are to continue after that discussion to move forward with the reverifying we do have some contractual which can be an executive session conversation um points that would need to be discussed right I guess and I I think again if it's exact tell me but I guess my clarify can things keep going that you are working on is your budget currently to close out any

256of these other things you're working on there are there are two layers to it the first layer I've already authorized the second layer is a contractual situation that will involve funding that I would need to share that with the board and yeah but that part one as you just said you've authorized that in theory it's got It's got cash for the other part we got to talk about and then go from there thank you to that point I think um just kind of reviewing and I uh appreciate that being brought up because we did have that to review annually and I think one of the rationale for that is to make sure that we are utilizing that expense wisely um especially we wanted another year if I if I remember to see if um so

257that we had like some comparable data cuz I think the the consensus was that that one year wasn't enough to evaluate that to see if our existing efforts on that we that are already in place around this um are sufficient compared to this um special project if you will around residency and I think um an added layer of the need to review that every year is is also very crucial in a year where we are tightening our strings and in the year where we're preparing to tighten our Pur strings I definitely would like to review um the outcomes of that to see if our existing efforts are sufficient enough um and if that's another opportunity for us to um budget if you will for lack of a better word without having to actually impact um

258you know further down the line other other initiatives so I think it is I think it is a good time to review that and see um especially in these very tough times just a little quick clarification Mary just reading 50 51501 that's the policy we're talking about it does say annually the board will review the process associated with the reverifying standpoint what is the procedure to decide whether to review this holistically because again the policy seems to say we review the process associated with it um so I guess the process being fifth grade nth grade what are we collecting what like that feels more processed than the actual policy itself but I guess the board can decide to okay let's review this like just like any policy correct absolutely absolutely absolutely and the process is

259all about that policy and I I think that in this in the spirit of when it was established it was established as a let's try it and see right um and I think at the time the T we were given well let's give it like a couple years and see because it will take some time to really see if it's worth it or not or what really happened so it's definitely time to uh re-evaluate as we should every year anyway um just a couple points we have a Communications committee meets tomorrow we have our inaugural meeting of our Boe governance committee later this week um our budget vot is of course on Tuesday so please come out and vote um and then today I got to sit in on part of the meeting where we

260were being monitored by New York state to see if we were in compliance with our s fund spending and so I really just want to take a moment to thank every staff person here sitting at this table who has been grilled all day by the state and then came here to sit here until 11: p.m. so I appreciate you thank you so much I know that that was not easy today and then it could the day just will not end for you so I appreciate that um I need to you say you mentioned the facilities committee I know it's late oh yes I just have that on my calendar so facilities meeting this week okay excellent so we'll have lots of updates next time y um anything else all right I will take a motion

261to move into executive session for the purpose of discussing the medical financial credit or employment history of a particular person or a corporation or matters leading to the appointment or employment promotion discipline suspension dis dismissal or removal of a particular person or Corporation so mov second I have one item be very fast okay do we need a vote or oh yeah sorry thanks for thanks thank you for keeping me honest here any discussion all in favor I oppose extensions