001good evening and Welcome to our Pittsburgh Schools Board of Education meeting I'm I'm presently calling the meeting to order and would you please stand us stand with us for the Pledge of Allegiance I algi to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible for liberty and justice for thank you may I have a motion to approve the agenda move second all in favor none opposed thank you and um this evening we are pleased to have Lindsay Ali from our Park Road Elementary School present thank you thank you thank you all for having me here and for your flexibility with rescheduling so sorry for that inconvenience but it's my pleasure to be here tonight um and to share some of the great things
002we're doing at Park Road this school year with all of you I'm here tonight with Libby day and Julia ansam who are our reading specialists at Park Road because a little later in the presentation they're going to share with you some of the amazing work they're doing for some literacy intervention um but I just wanted to get started first with our over all Focus for this school year so um our Focus this year has really been on continuing our work towards the Strategic initiative but also a lot of our work that we started last year with our culture and really honing in this year on um determining Park Road's purpose and what we're all there uh for that common goal to work on I chose this picture purposefully um this is our yearbook cover for
003this school year it was created by our student council and our art teacher Mrs Kirkby and I chose it just because I really think it does summarize some of our the work that we've done with our purpose and our our culture uh specifically where it says one child one teacher one book one pen can change the world and we've talked about each role that we have in helping change our students world and our our Park Road Community world but how when we come together uh we're stronger we create a more beautiful picture uh and we're more productive when we're all working together towards that common goal so chose this to share with you and I'm proud of our students for working on that there's so much the school year to be grateful for so I
004want to start uh with just expressing great gratitude for our new playground we were so lucky to have um a donor provide some new playground equipment for our youngest Learners our kindergarteners and our first graders um and this was really great because they installed it right at the very beginning of the school year and so our students got to watch it all be teared down and put up and all this new fun exciting stuff and I think that just makes playing on it even more fun because they saw the workers and all the hard work that went into it we have more swings we have more slides it's just a really great new addition to that space where kindergarten in first grade is so we are so grateful um for that donation to the school
005we're also really thankful to our amazing PTSA who helped us get some more ukuleles for our music class Miss Jordan worked with the PTSA and their educational grant to get a few more ukuleles so that we had enough so that one classroom could share um one ukulele for two students so just have Partners um they are now learning how to play the ukulele I've been in many times to hear their music and observe and it's just so awesome they are so excited to be able to play some new instruments um and we're just really thankful to the PTSA for helping with that um and lastly we are so excited about our Capital project and our new entryway not only is it beautiful and really nice to walk into this fresh new space but it is
006definitely more secure we have the double entry so that we have time to really check our visitors in and know who's entering the building it's just been really great so we're so grateful for all of that those new things at our school this year um when it comes to talking about our work towards the Strategic initiative um I'll start with uh an example for engagement which was our fun run this school year it was not only um engagement but a lot of help with our school culture um because it was really a lot of fun we all had a chance to come together um we it was just amazing our PTSA helped us put this fund run on at the very beginning of the year in October um it was it was just such a
007great experience we raised some money for our school we spent time outside moving our bodies cheering each other on as a whole grade level and as a whole school um it was just a great way for engagement to really kick off a strong school year and that feeling of Park Road pride in community so that was a great experience for everyone another way we've been fostering engagement um and authenticity is with our character traits of the month you heard me talk about this last year we' have a character trade each month that the students are learning about and working on and um implementing we added to that this year student shout outs and the bulletin board up front so we still have our whole school assembly that we started last year at the end of
008each month each class chooses one student that represented that theme we're still doing that but then we added in some recognition all throughout the month with these student shoutouts um teachers faculty staff other students anybody can nominate someone as they're seeing students Implement that trait and they share a little bit about what they saw happening um and so and then we take some time Friday mornings to share these shoutouts um students come down and choose a Park Road prize which they're excited about for really implementing that that theme of the month so it's just helping us not only learn about the traits but really work hard to implement them every day um and to recognize when we're working hard on that along with uh the recognition at the end of the month with our whole
009school assemblies so that has been a nice addition to that work when we talk about rigor um and and the work that we're doing we continue our exploration and use of the amazing strategies in the hub teachers are really diving into that and enjoying the work um with some of those practices and strategies and using them more regularly we also continue work with hegerty and foundations for our early literacy skills and those programs have just been really amazing to watch in our K1 classroom students know the routines they love it they get excited about it and they're doing some really great work with understanding the the letters their sounds how they all work together um so we're still continuing all of that great great work and then new this year we have a couple grade
010levels that are piloting our new math program um with amplify and it has just been a really great experience the teachers and students alike are loving it it is very rigorous some of the conversations that students are having about math word problems and um math number sense and what they're seeing in a story problem has just been really amazing um to hear them think and talk about numbers and math and and those Concepts all the way uh we have first grade and fourth grade piloting it and I'm seeing similar conversations in first grade and fourth grade so it's just been a really great experience for us piloting this program um and we're we really are finding it to be rigorous and and a great asset to our work that we're doing at Park Road we
011really encourage all students to just be their true authentic selves uh we not only take time to recogn ize but also celebrate our differences and learn from each other and really get to know each other so we do things like star student where you get to share information about yourself for that whole week we do morning meetings where we all get to answer the same questions and talk about how we might have different answers or different opinions and that's okay we can learn from each other this is just one example of a fifth grade student who took it upon himself as students were kind of asking about Lunar New Year this year and wanting to know more information he offered to create a PowerPoint about some of his experiences and knowledge with Lunar New Year
012he shared it not only with other fifth graders but with his buddy kindergarten classroom and it was a really just neat for um not only for him to create that and share it all about uh the the Lunar New Year and his experiences but also for the students to be able to have some of their ANS their questions answered from a peer um which was just a really great way for us to kind of learn from each other as a school in general we really focus on getting to know our students well uh their needs and their strengths we focus on um growth and celebrating growth for each individual and understanding that that can really look different for every child um and then as a staff we work really hard on ensuring that we see
013that growth for each student no matter where they are so whether that means enrichment or intervention um and so that brings me to Julia and um Libby being here with us today because we are really proud of the work that we've been doing specifically with our literacy intervention and I'm going to have them um share with you some of the work that they've been doing for students in this in the building hello and thank you for having us here this evening I'm Julia anel this is my colleague Libby day and we are reading teachers at parkroad elementary and we're really excited to tell you a little bit about our roles there so we have the benefit of working with 75 students at Park Road in grades K through five and we identify students who need
014support um based on a few different factors so we utilize the districtwide universal screening measures to determine which students are flagged as in need of support and we think about this as identifying the students who have a fever if you're thinking of it in terms of a doctor and it is our job as the reading specialist to dig deeper to determine or diagnose the cause of the fever and then design the interventions and get to work fixing the fever so we look very very carefully at data we use different data points at each grade level and we rely on National Norms to help us identify which students need a little bit more of a careful look so we have spent the past four years working to really identify those best assessment resources to help us
015figure out exactly what students need and then provide That explicit instruction through skill-based grouping once we identify that Gap we work with the classroom teachers to form small groups within our small groups we provide that systematic explicit instruction to meet the needs of our Learners it was a bit of a shift for us to step back and look more closely at those foundational literacy skills especially beyond the primary grades like in third fourth fifth grade but it's been really exciting to see the results um and the student growth we both received the incredible opportunity to be trained through Bose's letters within the past few years this 8-day training immensely helped us to clarify and streamline our process for identifying students and providing that support it also really helped us to facilitate the instructional shift toward
016science of reading within the classrooms sorry within our small groups our skill-based groups we monitor progress bi-weekly and then adjust our interventions accordingly as students Master those skills we really work within the groups to help transfer those skills to reading and writing at their actual grade level so our intervention team includes math reading instructional Challenge and we meet through our success meetings with the classroom teachers our school counselor and Lindsay to discuss the student progress toward the goals and adjust our plans accordingly we've loved adding Renee to our team this year and we meet with a full intervention team four to five times a year to look at our data and then create new groups so we're proud of our successes you know individually and as a building that we have seen through the implementation
017of all of these processes so here we looking at the um progress made by all first grade students at Park Road based on the universal screenings given in September and January and you can see that the students with the highest level of need went from up in the red from 29% in September to 20 2% and our overall tier one students that is students meeting The Benchmark went from 62% in the fall to 74% in the winter in our most recent screening which was just in January so this shows us that our instruction it's working and that we would hope to see this trend continue through the spring um we also take a look at the student growth um percentile which is over here and we're always aiming to be about 50% which is to
018be closing the Gap and you can see that all of our tiers our students are indeed working to close the gap taking a look at an individual student's process through this the whole RTI process this graph shows where a student began in first grade the yellow is the students score and the Orange is the expected score or The Benchmark score this student was identified as being extremely below grade level in kindergarten and as you can see this reading learning to read is an incredibly nonlinear path and it's Unique to each child so it's important for us to take into consideration all of the data but as well as the student and the individual so you can see that in first grade the student was really struggling and through second grade they began to close the
019gap in third grade in the spring they actually exceeded the Benchmark but through conversation with their teacher we realized that even though that they were able to perform some of these skills in an assessment it wasn't yet carrying over to their classroom so we continued to see this student in a reading support group over the summer they experienced a little bit of a summer slide which we saw in the fall data but then again just now in the winter the student exceeded the Benchmark and through conversations with our at our success meetings and with the classroom teacher we determined the student was now meeting benchmarks in the classroom um and able to keep up with all classroom work so we were able to AB actually dismiss him from Reading support which while we celebrate it
020the student actually had a few tears and um asked if he could still come from time to time and he came today to show to share with us the book that he was currently reading um which was really a joy to see um so Julie and I just really appreciate the opportunity to share a little bit about what we do at Park Road because we just absolutely love our jobs so much we love being part of the Park Road Community and being able to work with such fabulous teachers and students and Lindsay on a daily basis so we're using some of that work to also um tie in as as she already mentioned as Libby mentioned the math lab pieces um and again new this year we're really thankful to Heather and Denise soel and
021and Melanie um who utili for utilizing a new math um Intervention Program we are very very lucky this year to have that being implemented by a part-time teacher Renee as she mentioned um and again we're just seeing some really great work we're using the same kind of systems for identification and we're creating small groups right now in grades two through five sometimes we're able to get some more into first grade um but seeing similar progress on some of that um just closing that Gap with some foundational math skills and we're really enjoying the Intervention Program that we're using for that as well and and thankful for Renee to be there so um lastly some of our most important work this year has really been on continuing our school culture um we've been doing exercises from
022Daniel coil's book with the culture code and it's been a great experience for staff to kind of dig through what are our strengths what are some barriers we have what are we proud of at parkroad you'll see on the board some of the quotes directly from staff as we did these activities that I think really do show what our common purpose is um some that stand out just that parkroad is student centered Cooperative collaborative and inclusive a place where respectful Learners grow and flourish we are going to continue throughout this school year doing some more of those practices and really kind of honing in on what is our Touchstone our touch point that we're going to always go back to as a Park Road Community for uh what we're doing each and every day as
023our purpose um so we're excited to to work on continue to work on that and to use some more of those exercises um and then just looking ahead for next school year we are um really looking forward to incorporating some of the habits of mind into the work we're doing with engagement and with our social emotional learning we have our seal committee doing a book study um right now currently on this the habits of mind and working on how what does it look like to incorporate some of that into our community themes or our um monthly themes and our community building and engagement work for next school year so we're excited about that we still love as a whole staff digging into the Hub and sharing experiences and strategies that we're using from the Hub
024in our classrooms um and we really learn best from each other so we're having time to talk with each other about what that looks like in our classrooms and then lastly we have great work already with our interventions and we're really looking forward to some of the work with um Heather and the ilc on incorporating more of the multi-tiered systems of support um to expand some of that intervention to really look at students holistically and support some of their learning and executive functioning skills as well so it's been a great year the first year was great and second one's been even better so thank you all for having me here today I have time for questions if you have any and I appreciate your time I just wanted to say thank you that was an
025excellent report I really appreciate all the detail you provided and I especially love hearing the story about the student and their experience with reading so thank you for sharing that as well absolutely J great thank you for coming than thanks of may I entertain a motion thank you for approval of that special meeting with that all in favor that motion carries thank you with two extensions and finally for the February 4 2025 meeting uh we have one exstension and may I entertain a motion for that second okay all in favor okay none opposed one exstension thank you so much next we'll move to our Board of Education reports from our Monro County School Board Association we will have a a brief um speech from Sarah fuo thanks Robin I just want to share some highlights
026from the legislative breakfast that we had um earlier in the month so at our last meeting we had just had the breakfast and I hadn't time to go through all the notes but I've completed all of that we had a lot of great information from our table conversations and just some of the highlights the universal meals proposal that is in the governor's budget our state legislature feels that that is very likely to go through this year so we're looking forward to seeing that all the way through and then we will look at what that means for our own District here um Foundation Aid the formula revisions that they um from the Rockefeller Institute study it's kind of the lwh hanging fruit as that's what they're calling it right now that um they have put forth
027as far as changes so hoping that there are more revisions to come over time with that and um one of our students we had five students again present at breakfast and one of them chose to focus on mental health and I just wanted to share it was a very impactful uh speech that she gave she said you can't schedule needs for a certain time or day they need full-time access to services and that was just a very powerful message that she was able to share and something that's sticking with me as we look to you know I'm hearing from Elizabeth tonight and Shaina um just the supports that are needed there so I'm hoping that we can continue to work to to provide services to our students who need them um and then the other
028item that came out of that breakfast was the increased support for delaying the mandate to transition to zero missions buses at this time last year there were a few of our members of the state legislature who felt that the transition could succeed in the timeline outlined but that has changed so now all of our local delegation is in support of delaying the Mandate um and then just last week we met with a representative from Congressman meli's office and uh they shared with us that there's a letter that was just sent to governor hok on behalf of Congress that is asking her to reconsider the mandate's timeline and allow for a more gradual transition um so uh as we go to Albany next week we are gearing our conversations there towards this um in particular um
029related to Transportation so although all the signs indicate that the Mandate will have a delay the timeline will be delayed we don't have any concrete information on that yet so we're really looking to have that before um making any decisions or plans moving forward um we currently have 10 meetings scheduled within a three-hour period next Monday so we have a lot of ground to cover in a short amount of time um still waiting to confirm two meetings but um hopeful that will work out but either way we have a lot of work ahead of us next Monday so that's all thank you thank you Sarah Rob can I just comment on on part of that uh so it's interesting with the electric buses this year we had um worked with the district planning team um
030and even the board of education at at different points sharing that uh more than likely we would put two electric buses up uh in a a proposition uh during the budget vote this year uh and given the bipartisan nature of um what seems to be happening right now um that uh this may be kicked down um several years as far as uh a potential mandate uh we're going to just need to discuss a little bit further the uh reality of um um if we do put any electric buses up this year or do we wait um the the concern again is has always been the cost in the infrastructure and given that um and part of our reason of doing that this year was to put our toes in the water a little bit and
031get a sense of what the infrastructure and the buses would um feel like for us um o only out of concern that this was going to happen in a shorter time frame but if it's going to be a longer time frame I think we just need to discuss uh in another Workshop uh whether or not we want to continue with those two buses or if we want to move that to the following school year thank you thank you so next we'll move to um dates to remember on March 6 there a board visit tour at Caulkins Road Middle School and by a show of hands may I see who may will be able to attend thank you we look forward to that visit and our next regularly scheduled meeting will be March 11 and we're
032moving on to our financial report from Mr vby all right very good thank you uh first for your consideration is the quarterly extra classroom activities report uh you can see in the report um dispersement uh activity uh in the in the first uh quarter of the Year always excited to see that activity because I know there's lots of fun activities and good things happening for kids uh especially uh you know at our high schools um but nothing significant to report from that report Thank You by a show of hands may I have oh I'm sorry first may I have a motion for the quarterly extra classroom activities report second quarter okay so it's been moved in second are there questions hearing none all in favor on oppos thank you Mr BBY all right next for
033your consideration uh is the uh State Environmental Quality review act resolution for the energy performance contract um again uh no significant um uh impact uh from an environmental standpoint the work is is uh most mostly the replacement uh of Lights to LED standards uh and upgrades um there is the inclusion of a potential solar project uh be a rooftop project at men and Center Elementary but additional engineering studies need to be done on that uh and then the sealing of some building envelope work and some heat pumps and building envelope is just a fancy way to say insulation so I looked back and we started talking about this in November uh of 23 and uh it's really been a long time going and it's a good time to take advantage of a project uh in
034coordination with some of the other um you know some of the other construction work that we have so it's also a great time I think in terms of you know perhaps some of the future fiscal challenges that I outlined previously to look at Energy savings and there's significant Energy savings here and as you know uh the company um the the Energy Services Company has to guarantee those savings over an 18-year period uh which is why that allows the Board of Education to take action so the first step is to uh vote on uh the Seeker resolution and then separately in uh in the next resolution uh would be the actual approval of the contract itself thank you so with both of these Mo after we get the motion in the second it will be a
035call vote so you'll hear your name and and um move from there so may I first have a motion for the energy performance contract secret resolution so thank you are there questions okay hearing none um Dave Burke yes Jeffrey casy yes thank you Emily K yes Sarah Palo yes Renee Sanchez kazakos yes Robin Scott yes so that motion carries all in favor thank you non opposed so the next is a motion to approve the energy performance contract thank you any questions hearing none all no David Burke yes thank you Jeffrey Casey yes Emily K yes Sarah palcio yes Renee Sanchez C and Robin Scott that motion carried I I miss my name the first time yes for both thank you so much Kim my apologies okay all set that motion carries we appreciate you all
036right and the final item that I have and I can't forget it two meetings in a row just for discussion only is we do provide a copy uh based on uh policy 5411 the Professional Services policy procurement we provided a copy of every contract uh that we have with the doll amount in the district for your review again my apologies for not mentioning that was on the last agenda and I just want to make sure that if there was any discussion or questions we're happy to uh you know to uh answer any questions the board may have thank you so much Mr besby next we will have our human resources report from Mr Clark thank you and good evening first for your consideration we have um the professional staff report we have one administrator appointment
037who you've already met uh one certificated staff appointment one SRP appointment from part-time to full-time two teacher fellow appointments one teacher resignation and we have spring coaching salaries for you as well thank you may I have a motion to accept the professional staff report thank you are there questions hearing none all in favor none oppos that motion carries thank you very much next for your consideration is the support staff report we have one clerical appointment one custodial appointment two custodial resignations and one food service resignation thank you may have a motion to accept the support staff report thank you are there questions hearing none all in favor n oppose that motion carries thank you thank you and finally for your consideration is the approval of a new position with the title coordinator of special programs
038and services um with a theme as we continue to receive retirements and resignations we evaluate the needs of Staffing um with a recent uh resignation that will be coming up at the end of the school year uh we see an opportunity to better support our special education department um you've previously approved the occupational therapists and physical therapists um this position would help support that role as well as many other roles including um serving as the principal of the summer school program um the position would come at a uh we're anticipating between a 10 and $15,000 um cost savings moving and transitioning to this uh position which would be paid through federal funds um the job description and the justification are in the board packet and happy to answer any questions you might have thank you
039may I have a motion to accept the the position of coord coordinator of special education programs and services thank you any questions okay hearing none all in favor okay that motion carries thank you thank you next we will have a special education report Miss Woods the committee recommendation are on the consent agenda this evening thank you and now we will hear from our superintendent Mr Pau we will need thank you we will need an executive session this evening uh to discuss to discuss uh proposed litigation and um Additionally the employment of a particular person thank you um may I have a motion to accept the call for executive session second okay all in favor un opposed thank you next for your consideration is a field trip approval to Orlando Florida for Southerland High School softball
040okay may I have a motion to accept the field trip approval to Orlando Florida Southern High School southp okay any questions okay then all in favor that motion carries thank you I I would just add is there any southernland High School softball players out here okay if this does if you do not win then I think you need to reimburse uh next we have the field trip approval to Houston Texas in the event that our robotics team advances to the world championship in April of 2025 okay may I have a motion to accept the field trip approval to Houston pending advancement to the world championship all in favor thank you that carries last I'd like to propose a holay for the Southerland High School girls softball in the event they do win with a day
041off for everyone can I get a second uh we do have on the consent agenda policy approval 5671 information security program if there's any questions at this point I would just conclude by saying it's been a um uh a great two days back I hope everyone had a a great vacation hope all of our students are doing great and smiling and ready for a long march this is where we really have to grind it out right best behavior do well and grind it out out uh we do have a 60th Urban Suburban um ceremony uh that is on March 20th uh that is being held at the memorial art gallery from 5:30 to 8ish um I'm going to ask our school Foundation to uh purchase a table of 10 uh for uh that event I
042I'll send uh an email to the board uh tomorrow to see who might be available so again that's March 20th 5:30 to 8 um if you can see if uh if that works for you that'd be great and if not uh that's okay so if we have um four or five or six or seven whatever is left over I will then go next to our central office team uh and then I've also worked with Felicia at the urban Suburban um uh Department to see if there's any students that might need uh funding or parents that want to go that uh they can't afford it so um I'll send you an email tomorrow and um we'll go from there uh with that that concludes my report thank you Mike next I may I have a motion
043for the consent agenda second thank you all in favor none oppose that motion carries so is there business and we do have new business and we will hear from Mike fby thank you so much um yes we uh I got a call uh last week where we uh we had about a hundred pages of an addendum that was issued for our Capital project bids so those bids were scheduled to be opened uh on Thursday uh and I felt that it was prudent after I I checked with Mr Peril felt that it was prudent that we Shi shift that bid date back to March 5th um we our next meeting is on the 11th we won't have enough time between the 5th and the 11th to fully vet those potential uh contracts to award those so
044there's um a request for consideration of a special board meeting uh just to approve the bids um sometime uh the 17th 18th or 19th of March that would be the best um time frame uh because it would keep us on our intended start date schedule um but we don't want to delay it until the 8th so we would just need a very brief meeting uh on one of those days so just wanted to check in and and um you know have any feedback in terms of that and and that special board meeting can be any time so we'll have Deb send something out uh to see what would work best but it could be anything as early as 7:30 8:00 a.m. uh we can do something at 4 p.m. we do something at noon so
045again this is something that um we would need to to send out and see what what works best for for the group thank you very much and there is no public comment this evening so may I have a motion for adjournment all in favor that motion carries thank you job